Marty Willson-Piper | |
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![]() Willson-Piper in 2016 | |
Background information | |
Born | Stockport, Cheshire, England | 7 May 1958
Genres | Rock |
Instrument(s) | Guitar, vocals, bass guitar |
Years active | 1972–present |
Labels | Um & Ah Records, Survival Records, Festival Records, Rykodisc, Heyday Records, Second Motion Records, Schoolkids Records |
Website | http://martywillson-piper.com/ |
Martin Howard Willson-Piper [1] (born 7 May 1958) known as Marty Willson-Piper is an English guitarist and singer-songwriter famous for his work as a former long-time member of the Australian ARIA Hall of Fame inductees, psychedelic rock band The Church. He joined in 1980 after seeing an early gig where they were performing as a three-piece. He was an integral member of the band for 33 years. He was also the guitarist for the English alternative rock band All About Eve from 1991 to 1993 and again from 1999 to 2002. He has also worked with Swedish progressive rock band Anekdoten and has collaborated with Linda Perry, Jules Shear, Tom Verlaine, Charlie Sexton, Aimee Mann, Brix Smith, and Rob Dickinson amongst others.
Willson-Piper was born in Stockport, Cheshire, on 7 May 1958 and grew up as a teenager in Thingwall. He has a brother and an adopted sister. When he was three years old the family moved from Compstall where his parents had a pub called The Commercial. Around 1970, the family moved to Birch Vale in Derbyshire, a small village between New Mills and Hayfield, where his parents took on another pub. They later moved to Thingwall.
At 14 he was taught the guitar by his brother, who was a member of a cabaret band. Willson-Piper soon started his own band with school friends. After leaving school at 16, Willson-Piper worked various jobs. He soon travelled to mainland Europe busking outside train stations and working odd jobs such as grape collecting.
He moved to Australia in April 1980. Willson-Piper went along to see an early performance of The Church and was asked to join the band a few days before his 22nd birthday in May 1980.
On 6 May 1980, Willson-Piper joined The Church on guitar, vocals and bass guitar, alongside Steve Kilbey, Peter Koppes and Nick Ward. [2] [3] Willson-Piper's sound was influenced by guitarists such as Tom Verlaine and Bill Nelson. [4]
Willson-Piper contributed to most of the Church's studio releases and was a member almost continuously from 1980 to 2013. The only exception is the 1997 album Pharmakoi/Distance-Crunching Honchos with Echo Units , which only featured Kilbey, Koppes and drummer Tim Powles and was released as by "The Refo:mation".
In 2013, Kilbey announced on the band's Facebook page that former Powderfinger guitarist Ian Haug had replaced Willson-Piper. [5]
Willson-Piper has maintained a steady solo output since the mid-1980s, releasing six solo studio albums and three live solo albums. [6]
Four of his albums are collaborations with long-time friend Dare Mason (who has produced and played on Willson-Piper's solo releases) under the name Noctorum. [7]
In September 2015, Willson-Piper's band Acres Of Space embarked on a tour of the United States. During the spring and summer of 2016, Acres of Space toured the Eastern half of the United States. In December 2016 / January 2017 Acres Of Space played four shows in Chile.
Marty and his wife have toured as an acoustic duo, playing shows in Uruguay, Argentina, the United States, Germany, Spain, Portugal and the UK.
Willson-Piper is an avid record collector. His music archive, the In Deep Music Archive (named after Argent's 1973 album In Deep), is an eclectic collection of music in many forms. An historical and contemporary library of various physical formats: vinyl, CD, cassette, reel to reel tape, 8 track, 78 rpm, VHS, DVD, Laser discs, reference books, encyclopedias, catalogues, biographies and magazines. The archive's digital presence is the In Deep Music Archive website with regular posts about both popular and more obscure artists included in the collection. Collected by Willson-Piper over the past 50 years, the archive has grown into a collection through a life of scouring the record stores around the world, but also through donations from friends, fans and record labels. It currently holds an estimated 50,000 vinyl records and is located in Porto, Portugal, UK. [8]
Willson-Piper is married to violinist Olivia Willson-Piper and was married before to Australian Lucy Stewart in the early eighties.
Steven John Kilbey is an Australian singer-songwriter best known as the lead singer and bass guitarist for the rock band The Church. He is also a music producer, poet, and painter. As of 2020, Kilbey has released 14 solo albums and has collaborated on recordings with musical artists such as Martin Kennedy, Stephen Cummings and Ricky Maymi as a vocalist, musician, writer and/or producer. Ian McFarlane writes that "Kilbey's solo recordings [are] challenging and evocative. They ran the gamut of sounds and emotions from electronic and avant-garde to acoustic and symphonic, joyous and dreamy to saturnine and sardonic".
The Church are an Australian rock band formed in Sydney in 1980. Initially associated with new wave, neo-psychedelia, and indie rock, their music later came to feature slower tempos and surreal soundscapes reminiscent of alternative rock, dream pop, and post-rock. Glenn A. Baker has written that "From the release of the 'She Never Said' single in November 1980, this unique Sydney-originated entity has purveyed a distinctive, ethereal, psychedelic-tinged sound which has alternatively found favour and disfavour in Australia." The Los Angeles Times has described the band's music as "dense, shimmering, exquisite guitar pop".
Peter Koppes is an Australian guitarist, best known as a founding and almost-continuous member of the independent rock band The Church. He is a multi-instrumentalist, also playing mandolin, drums, piano, and harmonica. He has also released various solo albums and various recordings with his group The Well (1989-1995). Koppes lives on the Australian Central Coast in NSW but sometimes spends time on the Sunshine Coast in Queensland where he sometimes produces albums and has previously conducted seasonal 'song writing' and 'performance for demo recording' short courses at Nambour TAFE, as well as offering private tuition in guitar, bass, drums and song writing. His daughters are Tatiana 'O' Koppes and Neige Koppes who had their own band, Rain Party but now have independent solo careers.
Of Skins and Heart is the debut album by the Australian psychedelic rock band The Church, released in April 1981 by EMI Parlophone. It peaked at No. 22 in the Australian Kent Music Report Albums Chart.
The Blurred Crusade is the second album by the Australian alternative rock band the Church, released in March 1982 by EMI Parlophone. Moving away from the new wave leanings of their debut, it was stylistically more complex and "a smoother, fuller release". "With its mystical lyrics the second album ... brought the group's own style more into focus". The album peaked at No. 10 on the Australian Kent Music Report Albums Chart and "Almost With You" reached No. 21 on the related Singles Chart.
Seance is the third album by the Australian psychedelic rock band The Church, released in 1983. More atmospheric and brooding than its predecessor The Blurred Crusade's jangling psychedelia and upbeat rock, it shows a greater use of keyboards, with the guitars taking largely textural roles on many songs. While numerous tracks have become fan favorites over the years, the album saw considerably less success in Australia than previous releases and had limited exposure internationally. Apart from the psychedelic noise experiment "Travel By Thought", which prefigures the band's extended improvised tracks of the 1990s and beyond, all songs were written solely by Steve Kilbey.
Persia is the fourth extended play by the Australian psychedelic rock band the Church, which was released in August 1984. It was the follow-up to their earlier 1984 EP Remote Luxury, and continued in a similar stylistic vein.
Heyday is the fourth album by the Australian alternative rock band The Church, released in November 1985. The album marked the first occasion when group compositions dominated one of the band's releases. Steve Kilbey has said: "The demo situation was getting to us - me writing the songs on my eight-track and bringing them along to the band. It sounded too stiff. We'd reached this new energy level on stage which by far superseded anything we'd ever recorded, so we knew the only way to get sounding like that was for the whole band to write together."
Starfish is the fifth album by the Australian rock band The Church, released in February 1988 by Mushroom Records in Australia and by Arista Records internationally. The band's international breakthrough album, Starfish went gold in America and has remained their most commercially successful release. The album sold 600,000 copies in the United States alone. The first single, "Under the Milky Way", charted on the US Billboard Hot 100, peaking at #24, and at #2 on the Mainstream Rock Tracks chart, leading to significant exposure of the then relatively underground Australian act. In Australia "Under the Milky Way" climbed to #22, and Starfish reached #11 on the album charts.
Priest=Aura is the eighth album by the Australian alternative rock band the Church, released in March 1992. It peaked at No. 25 on the ARIA Albums Chart.
Forget Yourself is the fifteenth album by the Australian alternative rock band The Church, released in October 2003. It was recorded at drummer Tim Powles' Spacejunk studios in Australia and features many straight-to-tape recordings with few overdubs.
Sometime Anywhere is the ninth album by the Australian alternative rock band the Church, released in May 1994.
Uninvited, Like the Clouds is the 20th album by the Australian alternative rock band the Church. It was released in Australia on 20 March 2006 and internationally on 17 April.
Hologram of Baal is the eleventh album by the Australian alternative rock band The Church, released in September 1998.
Jammed is the sixteenth album by the Australian alternative rock band The Church, released in August 2004. It was their second album of entirely improvised material, following the Bastard Universe bonus disc from Hologram of Baal and consists of only two extremely long tracks. It was only available from the band's website or at their gigs.
Magician Among the Spirits is the tenth album by the Australian alternative rock band The Church, released in August 1996. The album title was inspired by a book written by Harry Houdini and C. M. Eddy, Jr. (uncredited) in 1924, in which the famed magician discussed his investigations of spirit mediums. A photographic negative of Houdini is incorporated as the centrepiece of the album artwork. The album was reissued with a revised track listing as Magician Among the Spirits And Some in 1999.
A Box of Birds is the twelfth album by the Australian psychedelic rock band The Church, released in September 1999. It consists of cover versions of tracks by artists who were influential on the group's music.
El Momento Descuidado is the eighteenth album by the Australian psychedelic rock band the Church, released in November 2004.
After Everything Now This is the thirteenth album by the Australian alternative rock band The Church, released in January 2002. It was produced by group member Tim Powles and the rest of the band.
Further/Deeper is the 24th album by the Australian alternative rock band The Church, released in October 2014.