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Alan (and Jessica) O'Toole

In 2008 Alan was joined onstage by daughter Jessica, herself a songwriter, with instant success in FOOM 2008 co-winning the Live Section. In their own words ....

Alan and Jessica O'Toole

I was born and raised in working class Birmingham, UK, a hugely industrial town located in the midlands (home of some of the best musicians ever,) such as ELO, Wizard (Roy Woods' spin off after leaving ELO), Dexy's Midnight Runners, The Moody Blues, Joan Armatrading, UB40, Musical Youth, Duran Duran, Jasper Carrot and lots more.

My Dad was from Belfast, Northern Ireland and a big band leader whilst in the army (he played the trumpet and his second instrument was the cornet). My Brummy (a native of Birmingham) Grandad (Mother's side) was a dab hand on the piano or "old Joanna" as he used to call it and regularly entertained the patrons of the local pubs.

My Mom brought back my first guitar from a holiday in Spain, when I was about 10 years old, but I didn't learn how to play until I was about 18 -ish. Once I learned how to play a few chords, I practised and picked up a lot more by playing from books on Beatles, Rolling Stones and Eagles songs.

I wrote a few songs but I could never tell anyone because 1980's working class Birmingham was not the kind of place to go over to the pub and tell your mates that you have just written a love song, I would never be able to leave the house again for fear of ridicule and taunting (of which I was probably the worst of all). It was the culture to have a laugh at someone else's expense, but it was brilliant, we lived in poor conditions, yet had a scream all the time on a social level.

In the course of my work, Building site manager, I was offered an opportunity, and so I travelled to Johannesburg, South Africa, in early 1995 and as much as it was a great experience for me, I decided that it wasn't where I wanted to settle and raise the family. I moved to Australia in 1996 with my wife Gail and 2 children Ryan and Jessica (Jess was 4 years old at the time).

I bumped into Nigel Kennedy (Violin legend from Birmingham) in the crowd at the 1996 League cup final at Wembley Stadium in London. Our team Aston Villa were playing Leeds Utd and we won 3-0. He was so down to earth and keeps his $30,000 Strata Varian violin wrapped up in a Villa scarf.

In pursuit of my sporting passion, football (The real football) or in this case, over 35's football on a Sunday morning, I met another "George Best (Irish football legend) wanna be" Jim Patterson from the Celtic band "The Borderers"; we both played for a team called "Rovers". Jim and I discovered that we had lots in common and got together for a jamming session where we played the songs that I had previously written. It rekindled my enthusiasm to write more songs, loosely based upon my own experiences, but mainly in the same theme of all the songs I loved to listen to growing up in an Irish community in Birmingham. The songs began to mount up in number and I heard about SCALA from reading the Rip it up magazine. I went along to check out the format and venue, had a chat with Robert Childs and joined that evening.

The first gig was in 2004 and Jim and I played under the name of "The Imports" we were called the Imports as Jim was from Scotland and I was from England, the band increased to a Canadian bass player and a Scottish drummer. The band has upsized and downsized since then (or imported and exported) and these days it comprises myself and the next Australian Idol (that's just a proud Dad's opinion) my daughter Jessica or "Our Jessie" as we call her.

Jess is now 16 years old and is in year 11 at high school, she is in the school choir and writes her own songs on the piano (she wrote her first song at the age of 10 an upbeat song called "The greatest day") as well as having input with my song writing. I run everything past Jess and she always gives me an honest opinion or a creative suggestion, resulting in a dual composition with which we are both happy.

Jess and I have performed twice at the Joiners Arms Hotel as part of the SCALA showcase, and entered collaboration, All my love is all in the recent first heat of the annual FOOM contest, making it through to the finals and having it judged one of four winners.

We share a wide range of musical influences, ranging from old style country (both of us) to the latest hip hop (just Jess). I am heavily influenced by "Frank Sinatra" and Jess likes the artist "Pink" so if we are asked to nail it down to one particular artist you would get the answer "Pink Sinatra"!

Jess's main influences include Christina Aguilera, Celine Dion, Whitney Houston and Martina McBride (country singer) whilst mine Include the aforementioned Frank Sinatra, The Beatles and Jeff Lynn (ELO). The main shared influence for us both would have to be Robbie Williams. His stage presence and songs appeal to us both. Our selected track by Robbie Williams is "Angels" from the album "Life thru a lens".

Copyright © Alan O'Toole 2008

Extracted from SCALA News # 115 (July/August/September 2008)