Graham Morris Vocals & guitar |
Graham started playing guitar at the age of 17 and was the singer in a school band for a few months. They played one christmas gig and won a prize at the school music competition playing Whole Lot of Rosie! Graham briefly played in a band while at Nottingham University but it quickly fell apart as people kept leaving the uni to get jobs. Then there was a 14 year gap until Splinter! Graham co-founded Splinter back in 2003 after meeting a bunch of musicians who got together to perform a one off Christmas gig. Originally the band was a five piece playing a range of rock, pop and motown classics. Things were pretty rough and ready in the early days but they managed to get plenty of pub gigs and soon became quite well known in the area. After about eighteen months the cracks were beginning to show and the band broke up. They had only just recruited Fin as the new bass player when this happened and not surprisingly he was not best pleased. Fin, Mick (the drummer) decided to carry on and began looking for a lead guitarist. As luck would have it Graham bumped into an old work colleague (Dave) who was looking for a band to join so we grabbed him and started rehearsing up a new set. Splinter Mk2 was born. Things went from strength to strength with Fin and Dave on board and the band started tackling more challenging material. After about a year Dave decided to bow out of the band so began the search for a new lead guitarist. After a series of extremely depressing auditions they found Nick (Splinter Mk3) who was an old pal of Fin's and the two on them had played in a previous band called Bombshell. Nick brought a whole new dimension to Splinter. His playing ability was excellent and his job as a sound engineer meant he quickly transformed the sound of the band by bringing it top quality equipment and expertise. Things continued to develop in the right direction for the next eighteen months until a tough decision to find a new drummer had to be made. A quick look on the Forming Bands website resulted in making contact with and arranging an audition with Dave. They auditioned Dave on a rainy Tuesday night, offered him the job on Wednesday and did a gig with him on Saturday (Splinter Mk4). It turned out that Dave was an ex-professional drummer with immense experience who was just returning to the gigging scene after many years. With his impeccable timing, power and style he transformed the sound of Splinter overnight. We now felt that we really could claim to be one of the best covers bands in the area. Splinter Mk4 went from strength to strength until December 2007 when Nick anounced his intention to leave the band. Nick had accepted a position in a professional function band and it was becoming impossible for him to commit to all the gigs Splinter had booked. So the hunt for a new lead guitarist was on again. Enter Paul. Fin had known of Paul for many years through Pauls music shop and through other bands that they had played in over the years. After a couple of sessions with Paul it was clear he was the right man for the job and he joined Splinter (Mk5!) in January 2008. They then dropped him right in it by telling him that he had 3 weeks to learn all the material! In September of 2008, Dave decided to hang up his drumsticks and retire from gigging. Fortunately, Paul Richardson, long time drummer with the Erics was interested in joining us and made a seamless tranision into the band (Mk5!) Recently Paul anounced that he would be leaving Splinter to play more Indie material with local band The Flatliners. After a round of auditions were offered the position to Ian Barnes, a very experienced drummer whos band Angel of Sin had come to an end. Ian will be gigging with us from August (MK6) Apart from writing band histories, Graham's other interests include sailing, skiing, hill walking, mountain biking. |