Trifecta
Biography Trifecta
Nick Beggs
The British bassist, Stick player and songwriter has a footprint that’s stamped across a wide range of genres including progressive rock, pop, Celtic, funk, and soul. Collectively, his own band and project releases have sold more than four million copies. He’s the prime architect of Kajagoogoo, a synth-pop band that catapulted to success in 1983 with the global smash “Too Shy” and periodically reemerges for recordings and performances.
After Kajagoogoo’s heyday, Beggs embarked on a career that found him working with some of the biggest names in rock and pop, including Belinda Carlisle, John Paul Jones, Howard Jones, Gary Numan, Maddy Prior, Cliff Richard, Midge Ure, Seal, and Tina Turner, just to name a few. In the progressive rock universe, he’s performed with Steve Hackett, Steve Howe, and Rick Wakeman on numerous tours and recordings. Beggs has also served as a primary band member and contributor to the progressive acts Iona, Lifesigns and Fish on Friday.
Currently, his focus is working with Steven Wilson, the progressive rock artist enjoying significant acclaim and commercial success with Hand. Cannot. Erase., his latest release. Beggs features prominently on all of Wilson’s last three studio albums and associated tours.
As a solo artist, Beggs has explored the solo Stick instrumental space across two albums: Stick Insect and The Maverick Helmsman. A recent compilation, The Darkness in Men’s Hearts, brings together the best of the two recordings, along with unreleased material. The discs showcase Beggs’ deft touch on the Stick, shifting from the kinetic to the ambient as he explores the wide-ranging melodic and rhythmic possibilities of the instrument.
Beggs is unique in that he also had a brief career as an A&R man for Phonogram Records in the early ‘90s. He experienced the cutthroat, numbers-driven world of major labels in a way few artists ever have. It helped further his pragmatic streak, one which finds him balancing aesthetics and audience appeal in order to propel his output as far as it can go. In addition, he’s a celebrated illustrator, best known for Dangerous Potatoes: 13 Stories About Evil Vegetables, a series of quirky children’s stories.
On stage, Beggs is known for his animated, commanding and occasionally show-stealing presence. Those tendencies also translate into his social media posts, often featuring incendiary and hilarious photos and content. When you’re in Beggs’ orbit, there’s never a dull moment.
Your main focus at the moment is the Steven Wilson band. What drew you to establishing a long-term working relationship with him?
I’ve waited 20 years for an artist like Steven to come along. I used to think about someone like him from an A&R head space. My thought was “We need a great visionary like Peter Gabriel to come along, who says “I have all these colors on my palette that I want to splash across my work.” He’s an artist that draws from the same influences as me. He’s an answer to my desires. I hold him in very high esteem. He knows what he’s doing to a terrifying level of accuracy. I’ve never met anyone like him.
Adam Holzman
started playing with Steven Wilson on his first solo tour in the fall of 2011, promoting Steven’s 2nd solo album, “Grace For Drowning.” Since joining the Steven Wilson live band, Adam has played keys on all of Steven Wilson’s solo albums and concert tours to date. These include the critically acclaimed ‘The Raven That Refused To Sing (and other stories)’ in 2013, ‘Hand Cannot Erase’ in 2015 and 2017’s chart topping ‘To The Bone’.
Adam is simply one of the most innovative musicians alive. He is a perennial poll-winner in the Fusion category for Pulse! magazine’s year-end Top Ten listings. “Keyboard” magazine named him one of the top 10 players in the world, “Down Beat” lauded his “killer groove” and compared him to Jan Hammer – and even the “New York Times” and the “Washington Post” have praised Adam’s live shows.
Born on February 15, 1958 in New York City, Adam is the son of Elektra Records founder, Jac Holzman. Adam grew up in California and started classical piano lessons at age 12, but his main influences were “The Doors”, Leon Russell and Dr. John. He started getting into progressive rock and jazz-rock during the late 70s, which in turn led to a growing interest in jazz.
“First I was influenced by groups like “Emerson, Lake & Palmer” or “Yes”. When I heard Chick Corea, the Mahavishnu Orchestra and Billy Cobham I got completely turned on to jazz.” he says today. “But I only started getting serious about jazz harmonies when I was in my late 20s.
Even today there are still some gaps in my jazz knowledge. But I do not consider my musical role to be a keeper of jazz traditions. I try to make entertaining music today, influenced by rock, jazz-rock, funk and a lot of other styles and ideas.”
One of his first big jobs was a new recording of the opera “Carmina Burana” by composer Carl Orff, led by Ray Manzarek of the “Doors” and produced by Philipp Glass. He then played with various groups including the group “Fents”, which Adam co-founded before coming to the attention of singer Randy Hall.
Miles Davis first hired Adam for some keyboard work for “Tutu” and then as second keyboarder for the live tour that followed. While Miles Davis hired and fired musicians at an enormous rate during these years, Adam Holzman actually stayed for almost 5 years. “I must have done something right”, Holzman says today.”I was so nervous in the beginning – I didn’t think I would survive the first tour.” He must have done a lot of things right, since Miles later promoted him to “musical director”, when Robert Irving left the band in 1988.
After one more year Adam moved on – to work with Michel Petrucciani, who asked him in 1989 to join him for a cooperation to which he also contributed several compositions.
“I couldn’t resist the challenge, because it gave me a chance to expand in several ways – both as a writer and as a player, since the live shows were much less structured than Miles shows.”
During the early 90s, Adam also worked for Chaka Khan, Robben Ford, the band “Kelvynator” and many others. At this time he was also preparing his solo career, which started with “In A Loud Way”, when it was released in the USA in the fall of 1993.
Parallel to this he also founded a steady live band, which was originally called “Mona Lisa Overdrive” (inspired by William Gibson’s novel). Because of copyright reasons, the name was later changed to it’s current name “Brave New World”. The first lineup of the band included bassman Steve Logan and drummer Van Romaine.
During 1994 the band changed before a tour of Germany and Poland. It included Aaron Heick (Sax, ex-Chaka Khan Band), Freddy Cash (Bass, formerly with “Arrested Development” and Mark Ledford) , Juju House (drums, ex “Chaka Khan Band” and “Arrested Development”, drummer on the legendary recording “Slave To The Rhythm” of Grace Jones) and guitarist Mitch Stein, who performed for Tania Maria, David Sanborn and Chaka Khan (among others).
In 1995 Adam appeared in the US with Brave New World and continued occasionally performing with Michel Petrucciani – but was also a member of Wayne Shorters group, which toured worldwide in fall of 1995. While Wayne Shorter got very mixed reviews on this tour, many reviewers lauded Adam as one of the outstanding musicians in the backing band.
From 1997-2000, Adam recorded and toured with the late, great sax player, Grover Washington. Over the past several years of the new millenium, he has continued working with his own band, Brave New World, releasing Jazz Rocket Science in 2005 and 4 live cd recordings as part of the “Alive” series. Adam has also been producing new Miles Davis projects for Sony and continues to play side gigs with Droid and the Jane Getter band.
As a hobby, Adam also draws cartoons and you can check out his cool and highly successful “create a custom comic” service at bigfuncomics.com. He is married to guitarist Jane Getter and they have a son, Russell, who was born in 1994.
Craig Blundell
has been playing drums since the age of 3 and is now recognized in the top handful of “Progressive” drummers, educators and clinicians in the world. Over his decades of playing and studying, he’s dedicated hour upon hour studying his trade and gradually built up his profile and reputation over the last few years as a true ambassador for British drumming on the international scene. Millions of people a day listen to his recording and programming work on television and radio globally every day whether it be radio jingles, TV themes or on many Rock and Progressive Rock outlets.
In more recent times, Craig has gained huge respect in the Drumming community and features in many Drumming publications and has regularly been featured in their readers polls an on the front covers. He's always in high demand to perform live or record for many artists, producers and record companies for many artists and projects spanning many different genres and has a reputation for getting the job done quickly and efficiently.
He has played in many different settings and genres over the years, from serving in the Royal Marines Corps of Drums aged 16 to performing at the world's biggest drum festivals. He has performed with members of many iconic bands but it's the Progressive genre where he is establishing himself globally and where he's most at home. Craig is currently touring and recording with Steve Hackett and records for a lot of international artists from his studio in the UK.
Craig is also a very well respected educator and is regularly lecturing at universities, colleges and drum seminars on his experience in the industry and the power of self-motivation. He has a hugely successful teaching studio, which produces some fine talent month after month and continues to grow with students from all over the world. He is a regular contributor to many magazines and is always asked to contribute at education seminars and events because of his unique perspective on drumming and the positivity he brings within it.
Outside his busy lifestyle as a player, international clinician for Roland, Mapex Drums and Paiste Cymbals, he is very much involved with a lot of companies in the research and development of their respective designs and also features highly in their adverts and videos. He is a key part of the R&D team at Roland Japan and has had input and designed patches and sounds for the TD-9, TM2 TD-30, Handsonic, SPDS-x, TD11, TD15, TD25, TD17, Octapad and TD-50 and has written many backing tracks and soundtracks for press release videos.
Craig is a real innovator of his trade and continues to push the boundaries of his instrument with his relentless workload, drive and motivation. His tireless, infectious energy and desire to help others makes him one of the most respected players and educators in the world.
