John Prior (musician)


John David Prior is an Australian musician, composer and producer recognized for his work with Matt Finish, Adrian Belew, Mick Taylor, Roy Buchanan, Champion Jack Dupree, New Theatre, Coca-Cola, The Great Outdoors, Iota, Wicked Beat Sound System, Kevin Borich and Dale Barlow.
Sydney Morning Herald reviewer John Shand wrote: "Prior was a nexus of energy, fun and accuracy" performing with Adrian Belew.
John is the owner and director of Mammal Music Pty Ltd audio/video production company and Unity Gain Studios, where he has composed and produced albums for many independent artists including the ARIA Award winning Tibetan Prayer, ARIA Award nominated The Hipbone Connection and ARIA Award nominated The Story of Abbey.
He has also produced a number of works for film, television, theatre and advertising, gaining an Australian Guild of Screen Composers Nomination for orchestral composition and production.

Musical history

The 1970s

Prior started playing guitar aged 8, drums at 11, vibraphone at 17 and piano at 24. During his teens, he performed in the bands Mandrake, then Legend with brother Rob Prior and neighbor Paul Williams at The Kirribilli Hotel, the Mosman Spastic Centre and Sydney Boys High School. With the addition of keyboards player Chris Short and the name change to Conic Section, they composed original jazz-rock fusion, performed at the Limerick Castle Hotel and won the Festival Of Pop band competition at Flemington Sydney in 1974 and a 2SM song competition in 1975. The band TAPP, comprising John and Rob Prior, Peter Astley, Geoff Taylor and Peter Noakes recorded at Wirra Willa Studios, Glenfield Park.
At 16, he played drums with Stevie Wright, Sea of Clouds, Atlantis, the Northbridge Jazz Band and formed experimental funk band Hot Dogma with Craig Learmont, Peter Astley & Anthony Smith.
In 1979, Prior formed Matt Finish with singer/guitarist Matt Moffitt and through to the end of the seventies, they played regular residencies in clubs and pubs around Sydney every night of the week, often double-gigging on weekends.
In November 1979, a few months after forming, radio station broadcast Matt Finish live-to-air from the Civic Hotel in Pitt Street, Sydney and continued to broadcast the raw live performances for a year.

The 1980s

During the eighties, Matt Finish was one of Australia's most popular live bands performing thousands of live shows to more than a million people including national tours with U2, XTC, Midnight Oil, INXS, The Ramones, Split Enz, Cold Chisel, Brian Ferry and The B-52's.
Matt Finish released Matt Finish Play Africa, Short Note, Fade Away, Matt Finish, Word of Mouth and numerous singles. The Short Note album was re-released on CD in 1989 and is still available from music shops.
In 1985, Prior travelled to London and Brussels to record the Matt Moffitt solo album By As Little As A Look with producer Nicky Graham. While in London, he continued studying piano and music theory with Peter Sanders and electronic music using computers, synthesizers and samplers at CBS Studios London and Fairlight CMI's studios in Sydney.
During the late eighties, Prior toured Australia as drummer with Roy Buchanan, Champion Jack Dupree, Mal Eastick, Girl Overboard, Troy Newman, Jackie Orszaczky, Guy Le Claire, Stephanie Howell, Baby Loves To Cha-Cha, Getaway Plane, T-Vibes, Bastiaan, Bob Armstrong and Charlie McMahon; performed drums with Rob Hirst and hundreds of other drummers and percussionists at Bondi Pavilion; performed solo at the first Australian Music Day Concert; performed each year at the Sydney, Melbourne & Brisbane Music Trade Fairs and conducted drum clinics and music clinics in music shops around Australia sponsored by Australis Music, Tama Drums, Akai Samplers, Dynamic Music and Sabian Cymbals; taught drums at Drum City Sydney and Emmanuel School Randwick; composed music for productions at Sydney's Ensemble Theatre, Nimrod Theatre, Griffin Theatre, New Theatre and Belvoir St Theatre; and produced local independent artists including Megan Williams, One Franc, Sandi Chick, Amanda Mann and Guy Le Claire.
In 1989, Prior travelled to New York to produce Matt Moffitt and Jennifer Barrett and perform percussion with Pacific Orchestra

The 1990s

In 1990, Moffitt and Prior reformed Matt Finish with former Eurogliders members Guy Le Claire and Lindsay Jehan and New Yorker Jennifer Barrett. Managed and promoted by Prior, the band completed their most successful tour to date including fifty sold-out performances around Australia. The band recorded four songs at Studios 301 and Bondi Road Studios that were released in 2009 on the album Kite on a Hurricane Day.
During the nineties, John also performed with Olivia Newton-John, Crunch, Monkey Principle, Mick Taylor from the Rolling Stones and Alex Lloyd.
In 1992, he formed Mammal Music production company, incorporated in 1994, and built Unity Gain Studios audio and video production facilities in Erskineville in 1997.
During this period, John composed and produced several production music albums for Bruton Music UK and dozens of albums for local independent artists including ARIA Award winner Tibetan Prayer with Yungchen Lhamo and the ARIA Award nominated The Hipbone Connection with iOTA, which spawned 6 charting singles.
He composed and produced music, dialogue and sound effects for film, television, theater and advertising including soundtracks for MTV, The World Around Us, AFTRS, Australian Federal Government, NSW Tourism, Australia Today Indonesia Tomorrow, Jesus Christ Superstar, feature film This Won't Hurt A Bit, award winning short film The Red Dress, The Great Outdoors, Paradise Beach, Art of Stone, Barnardos, Coca-Cola, McDonald's, KFC, Levi's, Sun Alliance, Sky-Garden, Andronicus, Toyota, Slazenger, Buttercup, Just Jeans, Frutti, Hi-C, Milo, Sydney Turf Club, Deloitte, BA Insurance and Price Waterhouse.

The 2000s

During 2001, Prior traveled to Europe and the US to attend numerous music festivals, then returned to Australia to produce the jazz/fusion album Day And Night with Bob Spencer's band Eclection before forming the experimental electronic project Ear Candy, with jazz maestro Dale Barlow, Wendy Dorsett and her son Kayci, and producing the underground dance hits Made in Australia, Feels Like Summer and Candy For Your Soul.
In 2002, he co-composed, arranged and produced the ARIA Award nominated rock opera The Story of Abbey , which also had a successful theatrical run at the Sydney Seymour Centre, and produced the album The Need To Fall with rock band Merge.
In 2003 he produced Leave Nothing Untouched with dance troupe Astral Taxi and composed 20 albums of commercial library music that continue to appear in soundtracks around the world.
In 2004 he composed an original orchestral score for the Deloitte advertising campaign Out For Glory and formed the world/fusion band Newtown Beats with Eddie Quansah.
In 2005 he produced jazz vocalist Jennifer Whatson's debut self-titled album and composed an orchestral score for New Theatre's production of the Spike Milligan play Badjelly the Witch, which ran in January 2006 and January 2007.
In 2006 he composed and produced a dramatic orchestral score for the short film A Fairytale of the City featuring Sam Worthington, produced recordings with guitarist Bob Spencer and singer Meryl Leppard and toured Australia with King Crimson singer/guitarist Adrian Belew and bassist Al Slavik. Their first performance was at the East Coast Blues & Roots Music Festival in Byron Bay to 75,000 people and John and Rob Prior promoted further shows with Adrian at the Basement in Sydney and Manchester Lane in Melbourne.
During 2006 Prior also produced recordings, directed videos and performed live with Sydney bands Newtown Beats, The Lovely Sons, Robot Productions, Hot Dogma and Swing Thing.
In November 2006, he produced the Matt Finish single Don't Fade Away with singer/guitarist Luke Dixon, bassist Matt Cornell and sound engineer Greg Clarke; directed, edited and promoted the accompanying video clip; and in December 2006, John and his brother Rob promoted Matt Finish's Matt Moffitt Memorial Tour featuring Dixon, Cornell, Clayton and a guest performance by Rick Grossman.
During 2007, he managed, promoted and performed on a 35-show Matt Finish tour featuring vocalist David Adams, bassist Harry Brus and a number of guest guitarists including Guy Le Claire, Eliot Reynolds, Steve Edmonds, Les Rankin and Kevin Borich and jazz saxophonist Dale Barlow. While touring, Prior also promoted and performed a number of music clinics and workshops at music stores around Australia in association with sponsors Allans Music, Tama and Sabian cymbals, including a performance at the Sydney Guitar Show featuring Kevin Borich and Steve Edmonds. In December 2007, he produced the Matt Finish album 1978 - 2008, released January 2008.
During 2008, he produced Steve Lockyer's debut Sticks & Stones and David Kingdom's Tattoo and managed a Matt Finish tour with special guest jazz musicians Dale Barlow and Guy Le Claire, both childhood friends. In December 2008, he directed, edited and produced a video clip for the Matt Finish song Short Note from archival footage.
In January 2009, Prior edited, produced and authored the Matt Finish DVD Live at the Musicians Club 1981 with the only existing concert video of Matt Finish in the eighties. In February 2009, he produced the Matt Finish EP New Frontier featuring singer David Adams and collated and remastered an extensive collection of Matt Finish recordings that were released in December 2009 as the Matt Finish Flight Case, a 12-disc box-set including a book and posters. The band performed more than 30 shows around the country during the year. He also produced the albums The Shaggers with The Shaggers and The Cat, The Fiddle & This Tune with Sameera Bashir.
In 2010, Prior composed, produced and released an album of original Arabic music entitled The Red Sea, produced an album of Russian folk music with Sydney composer and pianist Tatyana, and performed drums live with Matt Finish, Newtown Beats, JFK, The Erskinevillains, Bulli Lama, The Swingers, Ray Husband's band and Mysterious Travellers, a tribute to Weather Report featuring acclaimed jazz musicians Dale Barlow, Bill Risby, Phil Scorgie, Fabian Hevia and David Fester.
In 2011, he formed the band Stone and the Sky with Swedish vocalist Pontus Duvsjo and they recorded and performed a number of live shows including a benefit concert that raised $50,000 for the Prince of Wales Foundation. He produced the album Nowhere To Hide with vocalist Peter Colleer's band The Unnamed Sources
In February 2012, he promoted a tour with Matt Finish and then a series of concerts through the year at the Marrickville Bowling & Recreation Club entitled The Do featuring local soul and groove artists and a percentage of ticket sales was donated to local charity Father Dave's Youth Center.
During 2012 and 2013, he produced albums at his studio, Unity Gain Studios Erskineville, with Sophie Von, Ray Husband, Love Child, The Inner West, The Ians and Peter Colleer; plus the single Bass Straight with Gordon Trott.
Since 2014 John has produced and played on albums and soundtracks for Farooq Haider, Love Child, Deloitte Australia, Sacred Cow, Heavily Made Up Boy, Shanghaied Project, Warren McLean from Divinyls, Placebo Cure, Music Box, Ray Husband, Travis Masters, Samantha Cartwright, Paul Kougias and Eddie Brown; and promoted, managed and performed shows with Matt Finish, Ray Husband and Oz Rock Roadshow featuring Mark Gable from Choirboys, Steve Mulry from Ted Mulry Gang and Bob Spencer from Skyhooks and The Angels.
In 2013 John formed The Association of Australian Musicians and AIMA, an online forum for Australian musicians managed by AM, with more than 11,900 members in 2019.
Since 2014, John is also a co-founder and active member of APRA's Resolution Pathways Dispute Resolution Committee and Peer Review Committee, developing the peer review system for 100,000 APRA members to seek advice and resolve disputes, and winning the Australian Disputes Centre’s ADR Corporate Team of the Year award in 2016 for innovative dispute resolution.
Since 2017, John has taught music and produced student recordings regularly at Dulwich High School of Visual Arts and Design sponsored by Canterbury Hurlstone Park RSL.
John continues to perform live with Matt Finish, including 'Classic Hits' and 'Pure Gold' shows for Empire Touring featuring other popular Australian artists such as Dragon, Radiators, Ross Wilson, Mi-Sex, Real Life, Wendy Matthews and GANGgajang, with shows during 2018 at Enmore Theatre with 2,000 people, WIN Entertainment Centre Woolongong with 2,000, Sandstone Point with 7,000 and Wagga Racecource with 4,000, and Australia Day 2019 at Parramatta Park with 20,000 people.

Discography

Matt Finish