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Band Members Info

Leigh - Vocals

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Born in Salisbury during a summer storm in 1975, Leigh was almost named “Storm” by her Mum, until her Dad talked her out of it!  Having a “boys name” was no walk in the park either though! From a very young age Leigh had the confidence to sing and act in front of anyone who would listen.  From playing the Virgin Mary in the Infants Nativity Play, singing solo pieces in school and church, learning all the words to the score of Grease by age six, Leigh had an interest in the performance arts and decided early on she was destined to be a “thespian”!   Going on to study piano/keyboards and taking classes in voice, tap, ballet and jazz.

 

At age 12 Leigh penned her first song.  She had a particular passion for harmony singing and age 13 started a duo with her cousin called “Gemini”. They sang their original songs to backing tracks recorded in Leigh’s home studio with full dance routines for various reviews and productions over the next two years.  During this time she also recorded some demo’s in professional studios in both London and Southampton whilst vocally training with locally acclaimed singing teacher Robin Gair.

 

Through out her teens through work with local am-dram societies and school projects she appeared in productions of “Jesus Christ Superstar”, “Oklahoma”, “Annie”, pantomimes “Aladdin”, “Puss in Boots”, “Jack and the Beanstalk”, “The Wizard of Oz”, and took leading roles in plays including “My Mother said I never should”, “Cecily”, “The Best Laid Plans”, “Vinegar Tom” (which she was also Musical Director for), “Room 504” (for which she won Best Actress in Studio Theatre’s One Act Drama festival).  She also co-wrote music and appeared on recordings with other local artists including Neil Lucas.  In 1993 after completing her ‘A’ levels in Music and Theatre Studies she was awarded a placement at East 15 Acting School to complete a three year acting degree, which saw her moving to North London.

 

Life took a change of direction in the mid 90’s and Leigh decided to leave her course for various reasons, still holding a huge interest in the arts, and in the meantime still writing songs and one act plays she fell into a “normal” life and began full time work in publishing and later for EMI.  Then a brief dalliance with the “Thalian Players” in 1997 before Marriage and her two children followed and an almost completely happy existence, moving further east to Colchester in 2004, until when age 30 hit she realised the deep longing she had again to get back on the stage. 

 

In 2005 she took a refresher course with professional vocalist/conductor Patrick McCarthy and then formed “The Lazy Orange Housecats”, which consisted of two female vocalists with two guitarists, playing heavily acoustic harmonic contemporary folk/pop covers, personal favourites by artists such as Sheryl Crow, Indigo Girls, Shawn Colvin, Melissa Etheridge and Martina McBride.  This was where she met Linda who also briefly played drums for the band. A year or so into this project her singing partner decided to quit and that brings us to 2007 when she auditioned for CrossOver and the rest as they say is history….

 

Leigh's Influences are: The Indigo Girls,  Madonna, Evanescence

 

Leigh Likes: Occasional drop of shiraz cabernet, gigs, Igor's funny sound effects, Musical Theatre, holidays (but not caravan ones!), lie-ins, shopping in the sales, going to the gym and thrashing her husband at badminton

 

Leigh Dislikes: Having to be a good girl, people who push in front in queues, tactlessness, door step beggars (get a job) and caravans!

Linda - Drums and Vocals

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Born in January 1978, Linda soon realised that this meant people were destined to forget her Birthday forever as it was too soon after Xmas. With a father who was into music in a massive way and had tried forcing instruments onto her older siblings with no success, Linda was his last hope. Luckily she took to playing Chick chick chicken and grandfather’s clock with ease on the guitar and found her first instrument of choice at age 4.

 

Through school she went through many different weapons of musical destruction, including Violin (now there’s a way to punish parents), Cello (too big to fit under a chin and the pointy bit really hurt), clarinet (used to make her pass out and forget to breathe) until finally at age 14 she nagged and nagged for a drumkit. After learning air drums to You Could Be Mine her mum finally gave in and got a surprise present of her first drumkit for her 15th Birthday (yes luckily that was the year her Birthday was remembered!)

 

Linda started joining bands from age 16 and the first band of any real promise was a covers band called JR Hartley where Linda also discovered she enjoyed singing almost as much as banging things. What started as one or two songs in the set finally became about a third of Linda on vocals, possibly as the original vocalist was getting on a bit and needed a well earned rest! Other bands followed in Swindon including Laruszo and Origin, playing mainly original songs with a few indie and heavy covers chucked in for good measure.

 

In 2000 Linda moved to Ipswich with her husband for a job in engineering and despite being made redundant within a couple of years she decided to stay and call Suffolk her home. She’s been in many great bands since making the move including Limo Wreck, Terrapin (where she played gigs being 8 months pregnant) and Blackout.

 

Finally family life of 2 children slowed her down for a year or so and it wasn’t till she had finished producing offspring with her 3rd child she finally got back out there to audition for Leigh’s band The Lazy Orange  Housecats back in 2006. That went well for a short time but then fell apart unfortunately and Linda joined the first incarnation of CrossOver called Softwire with Lauren and Igor. After some success gigging, the threesome decided that they wanted to move on and look for some more talent in certain areas of the band and so met Leigh and Pete through auditioning. CrossOver was formed in May 2007 and Linda couldn’t be happier playing with them. Oo-er!

 

Linda’s Influences – Crowded House, Faith No More, RHCP, Metallica, Slipknot, George Benson, Blues Brothers and even some country since meeting Leigh!

 

Linda's Gear - Mapex Saturn Fusion Kit in Violet Stardust, Pearl Chad Smith Signature and Yamaha snares, Meinl Byzance 14"hats, 16" Crash and 20" Dark Ride, Sabian 17" Studio Crash and 18" China, Mapex and Yamaha Hardware, Tama Iron Cobra Pedal, Tama Stool and Protection Racket Cases, Ahead 7A sticks or Vic Firth 5B's and the odd brush and hot rod here and there, K&M Mic stand and a Shure SM58 Mic borrowed from Leigh (hehe), she also has a yamaha stage custom advantage fusion kit as backup - now you're either asleep or very sad!

 

Linda’s likes – her children when they behave, her dogs and rabbits (apart from the poop scooping), watching music telly and hospital dramas, eating out with good company, watching gigs and playing them and Egon's eyebrows from Ghostbusters! (the saddo)

 

Linda’s dislikes – arrogant people, tactless people, and having to drive on the motorways for 3 hours at least to see her loved ones BOOOO! She's also scared to death of thunderstorms

Lauren - Guitars

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Also born in January but 10 years later (ahhhh the youngster of the band) Lauren also feels the pain of people forgetting her birthday. She's a local Suffolk girl not like the other wiltshire girls! Her Dad is also heavily into his music and is a great guitarist himself so it was probably written in the stars that Lauren would pick up the guitar one day. She managed to resist the urge though right through until her early teens so there were no embarassing renditions of nursery rhymes to sit through for her family!
 
Despite having a talented guitarist as a father, Lauren is mostly self taught through a strong independance and wanting to achieve things herself. In a few short years of playing she has amazed her fellow band mates with her talents but not one to rest on her LAURELS (sorry) she's always wanting to improve and practice MORE MORE MORE!
 
Lauren contacted Linda on the internet to find a drummer for the band she and Igor were in together called Softwire. Linda joined them and they were gigging successfully for sometime but things didn't work out with the other members so they decided to set up something new and keep Igor's incredible talents in the process! Once new members Pete and Leigh were on board, CrossOver was born!
 
Not just a guitarist, she plays a catalogue of other instruments including bass, keyboards, mandolin and has recently taken up the drums (watch out Stixy!) As well as being heavily into playing music she also has a great talent for drawing and you can see many great examples of this on Lauren's myspace page at myspace.com/laurenf360
 
Lauren is possibly unique in her field as the only guitarist the band have known to warm up with her volume turned DOWN. I believe this is a highly rare quality among guitarists known as consideration for others!
 
Lauren's Influences: REM, B-52's, Crowded House, RHCP
 
Lauren's Gear: Jetglo Rickenbacker 360, Crafter Electro Acoustic, Laney VC-30, Boss GT8 multi-effects
 
Lauren Likes: Playing every instrument under the sun (except didgeridoo it seems), drawing, cooking, eating good healthy nosh, her pets and the new found freedom of her vegmobile. She has a keen interest in Psychology and is hooked on Big Brother and any old people's telly!
 
Lauren Dislikes: Bitchyness, arrogance and people who judge others too fast, she also is not a big fan of wanky guitar solos and "music" where people scream instead of sing!

Igor - Keyboards

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Igor has done a great job writing this biog himself and whilst it may not be perfect we're amazed how well he's done and none of us are about to attempt to write ours in Slovakian!!

Igor is the one who was born abroad in Slovakia and first language is not english. When he was four he started to play in children’s TV program called Golden Gate. Singing, dancing and playing a role was really exciting. Hence when he was six years old he started to attend a music school in Slovakia, where he was taking piano lessons. Also his grandmother gave him maybe best school ever as she was brilliant pianist. He has learned the classic music theory for eight years. Also he was taking drums lessons for 2 years. His Dad also big violist bought for him his first keyboard when Igor was 8 (first Casio). Along his educating on secondary school he started to learn how to play guitar himself. Igor went through the different styles of music - rock, pop, blues, jazz standards, funky. He didn’t play only covers but I started to write his original music too. Till 18 he was very quiet guy and even he didn’t play in any of local bands. Since he has joined an university in 1996 he’s  jumped in to hip- hop. Very different style of music. The freedom he couldn’t forget. Later on he joined his first rock band, year later another called The Flirt with an enthusiastic singer. Also his uncle started to teach him playing  saxophone. Theirs big shows in local pubs have been really memorable. They’ve got a couple of awards from music competitions from Slovakia. Their songs were played on local radio stations in Slovakia and Czech republic.

But after few years He was getting bored and he needed the change. Yeah. In 2005 he came to UK as good target to learn English and work hard to buy the best keyboard in the world - KORG.

Since that I’ve been contacted over internet to play few covers in Ipswich by Lauren and the rest of the story you know.

His big “problem” is can’t remember names of bands. Why? He is saying bands on music scene is changing very often and after 2 years many of those are gonna split up. Then no one gonna remember them (except some strong one’s)

 

Igor's Influences are: everything of the big one’s + some from Slovakia

 

Igor Likes: my son Philip ,computers, electronics, beer, and my all keyboards (currently 4) and English breakfast

 

Igor Dislikes: “big” blokes in theirs tunings cars, long travelling and women in the front of wheel who driving veeeeery slow

Pete - Bass

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Pete started playing accordion aged 9 in the family band and took up bass shortly afterwards. His school career was ruined (apparently) by forming a rock band. He got interested in folk music at Dukes Folk in Whitstable, met and played with outstanding musicians who later went on to form Oysterband and other amazing projects.

Pete then gave up bass for a long time during an extensive foray into Irish traditional music, eventually re-emerging in 1998 to take up tuba.

His interest in electric bass reawakened by his son's guitar playing, Pete answered Linda's ad in partysounds and the rest is history.

Pete's Influences: Ry Cooder, Colin Hodgkinson, James Jamerson, Iain Kearey, Richard Thompson, Oysterband, Danny Thompson, Jackie Daly, Martin Simpson, Bellowhead

Pete's Gear: Basses by Yamaha, Fender, Bass Collection. Amplification by Burman, EBS, Euphonic Audio, Markbass

Pete Likes: scuba diving, decent beer, old Ducatis, morris dancing, banjo playing

Pete Dislikes: trad jazz, crashing old Ducatis, people who don't do what they say they're going to do

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