Andrew David Joseph was born 20th April in the city of Wagga
Wagga, New South Wales, Australia. At the age of 4 his family
moved to the central N.S.W city of Dubbo, a city of around
35000 people. Andrew comes from a musical family. His mother
Rosslyn played a little piano but it was his father Barry,
who was Andrew’s biggest influence in his younger years.
Barry is a gifted guitarist, has a strong voice and would
often bring his guitar along to a friend’s barbeque
or family get-together. At the age of 7, Andrew awoke on
Christmas morning to find that Santa Claus and his trusty
reindeers had placed a shiny new guitar under the Christmas
tree.
Andrew started to take guitar lessons almost immediately
with legend 60’s artist, Leo DeKroo from “The
DeKroo brothers.”
At the age of 9 Andrew performed in his first concert. Leo,
his teacher would encourage all his students to join the
concert each Christmas, he also encouraged the students to
try singing. Andrew performed a vocal song whilst accompanying
himself on guitar, it was the first time his parents had
heard him sing.
Throughout his schooling years, Andrew played in the school
orchestra and performed most weekends as part of a backing
band for an organization that raised money for charity. After
leaving school, he taught guitar in a local music store and
would play in clubs and pubs every weekend with his 3 piece
band, “The Lost Boys.”
In 1991 Andrew and his band, called “Run Silent,” packed
their bags and moved to Sydney.
Run Silent started writing and performing their own compositions
and recorded their first CD soon after moving to Sydney.
The debut album was well received, especially on the Asian
market and in 1996 the band performed a successful tour of
Indonesia, eventually selling around 10000 copies of their
album. Andrew’s own composition “Ship Upon A
Painted Ocean” reached the Number 1 spot.
The band returned to Sydney and enjoyed regular work, often
playing up to 6 nights a week but after 6 long years in the
same group, Andrew decided it was time for a change.
In February 1998 he left Australia and headed to the Alps
of Austria. He was fortunate to have work pre-arranged by
a friend at the well known ski resort, St Anton and performed
together with fellow Australian, Rob Luca on keyboards. Rob & Andrew
or “The Shrimps” as they were affectionately
known, continued to travel and perform all over Europe for
the next 3 years before Rob decided to base himself out of
Copenhagen/Denmark and Andrew out of the nearby city of Lund
in Sweden.