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Band Members Info
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 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 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! |
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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 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 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) |
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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 But after
few years He was getting bored and he needed the change. Yeah. In 2005 he came to Since
that I’ve been contacted over internet to play few covers in 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 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 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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