I became a part of "Drinkwater" towards the end of 1991. At the time I was employed at Musical Sounds, Greenlane, and it was there while strumming a cheap guitar that Phil made me an intriguing proposition. This was the deal: they needed a drummer to complete 3 months of booked work and they were offering me $50 per gig. Now $50 isn't a lot of money, but Phil's furious coercive techniques sold me and within a few days I was arriving at the Lincoln Rd, Henderson, address for the first practice.

Virtually from the first note I could feel myself locking in to what was happening. Mark on bass had a great sense of rhythm and Jo Stradwick had a uniquely energetic guitar style, with Phil bringing his own visual style to the job of lead vocals.

From the beginning "Drinkwater" seemed to have a corporate vision in the sense that each of us felt strongly about our commitment to God, and we wanted to reflect that in the way our band came across. We wanted to play the best music we could with our intended goal being to encourage the young Christian crowd and also to break into the Auckland gig scene where Christian bands typically weren't accepted.

By mid 1992 the band was playing every weekend and after selling 1100 copies of our six song demo, we decided to work on an album. At that stage we were all working full time and playing in every spare moment so it was hard to find time for recording sessions. In the end it took 8 months of night sessions and weekends to record the album obviously not the ideal situation, some songs were finished months after being started.

The recording project put a lot of pressure on the band, and to add to the drama, we had been selected to feature in a half hour documentary that focused on "life in an up and coming New Zealand band." Needless to say large parts of our stressful moments were caught on film and aired on national TV.

I guess any band that stays together for a while faces a certain amount of stress, the changing goals of the individual members, the pressure to make the band successful, the feeling of wanting to live up to the expectations upon you. Even though we were all great friends eventually some cracks developed in our relationships as we faced some tough decisions. Going full time was a hard one, everyone would have to give up their present employment. We had to weigh up our futures, Jo especially had a decision to make as his job had good long term prospects.

Other questions such as how could we pay for our coming album? How would we sell it? What was God's plan for "Drinkwater"?

A band is a lot like a family in that you spend so much time together, the great moments and the not so great moments, you share it all. It just so happened that our struggles were filmed for TV and our developing story was exactly what they were after even though we laugh now at the final program that screened the exposure did help us as a lot of people in cities we had never played in got to hear about the band.

During this whole process Jo decided to leave the band. "Drinkwater" was taking up so much of our time with gigging and recording that it just wasn't conducive to his full time work as a quantity surveyor. When Jo left it was a big change for us. We tried a few combinations but nothing really clicked until we started jamming as a three piece, with Phil now playing guitar as well as singing lead vocals.

Mark and I remained on our original instruments but increased our vocal duties and began singing backing vocals in most songs. At that point we started writing a lot of new songs and the band entered a new era.

In 1993 with the release of "Three Murky Vibes" coming up, we decided to go full time. Phil and I left our jobs and Mark took a break from Teachers College. It was a big year for the band. We were playing constantly a combination of Christian gigs, pubs, clubs and schools. We always enjoyed playing high schools. It was a challenge to go into the school and have 30 minutes to try and get the crowd behind you.

One of the classic moments for the band was at our album release gig at the "Powerstation" in March of that year. We had planned a big build up kind of a start. We had over 600 in attendance, one of our biggest gigs at that stage. I came out and started the song on drums, Mark joined me and finally Phil came running out. Before he had even started playing, he tripped over the monitor wedge and fell, guitar and all, into the audience! To make things worse when he finally got back on stage, his guitar had gone out of tune. Mark and I had to keep playing the intro while Phil tuned his guitar so we could start the first song. I remember thinking "What is he doing? How is it possible to fall off the stage? How can you do that?" It was all a bit of a laugh!

Another highlight would have been our South Island tour. We spent 6 weeks in the South Island. With our band, plus our sound man, and all our gear crammed into a Chrysler Valiant and trailer we played 25 concerts and a TV appearance while we were there. We played all the main centers and even managed to brave the icy mountain roads to get to the West Coast and play in a classy Westport wooden hall. It was a great experience for us. It was exciting to be doing this "band on tour" kind of thing, although there were no tour buses and hotel rooms for us, just friendly people putting us up, and us just having a good time playing our music.

At the end of 1993 we were beginning to wonder what was next for us. We had spent the entire year up and down the country promoting the album and trying to generate the kind of money needed to sustain a full time band (supporting ourselves was important, we chose not to go on the dole). We were considering our next move when some opportunities began developing in America (where we had someone acting on our behalf). We started making plans in that direction and were looking at relocating the band to the States.

Around this time, Mark and his girlfriend Nicky got engaged and he decided to return to his studies. We talked together about him leaving the band. It would have been a huge adjustment for us to carry on without Mark. For a while we looked at the options and still considered going to America, but in the end I think we all felt that our time was up. I believe we were all feeling a pull in different directions in our lives. We had spent a full on two and a half years together in the band, living in each other's pockets, seeing each other nearly every day. We had been through some awesome times together, but there comes a time when things have to change and people move on to something new.

I feel like our whole band experience right through to the break up was very much a God thing. God developing us, bringing us together, pooling our talents and giftings, then moving us on to a new place of challenge. I feel stoked that each one of us has gone on to further places of ministry.

Phil, still feeling the vision for full time music, has moved to Nashville, Tennessee and is now a member of the "Newsboys", one of the biggest bands in the Christian music world. He feels very positive about staying and getting more involved in the Christian music scene.

Mark has completed teacher's college and has been a key figure at Christian City Church, West Auckland, running the music team. His new band "Elephant" have recorded an EP and are due to set off overseas with YWAM this year.

For me personally, "Drinkwater" was a great experience, we came together as a musical group but it was almost like God hi-jacked the band. There was always a sense of God in what we were doing throughout our touring in NZ, playing in secular venues and high schools we were forever explaining to people "why are you guys Christians?" "Why would you want to be into God?" We ended up in these great conversations with people who liked our music but couldn't work out the "God connection". On our South Island tour we took a non Christian sound man and spent many traveling hours discussing the subject of our Christian walk. Shortly after our return from tour he became a Christian and is now involved in a local church worship team.

In playing our Christian gigs it was a real opportunity to see so many people in different cities who were putting on these gigs solely because they wanted to help young people. They would put a great amount of time into the concerts and a lot of times foot the bill themselves. It was a great thing to witness. We really enjoyed the Christian crowd, they were so good to us and we tried in return to encourage them to "go for it" with God.

Music is such an excellent means of communication. It speaks to the soul, not only of those listening, but also to those playing. If you let God into that dynamic it's totally powerful! I loved that aspect of the band, and I think we all grew from experiencing what God was doing with the band.

Towards the end I felt like wanting to become more connected to the people we were trying to encourage, rather than just playing our 40 minute set and then moving on to the next gig. I had always been involved at Christian City Church central where I had been part of the worship team. When the band split up I didn't quite know what would happen but I felt that God was in control. A lot of things seemed to come together for me. I spent a lot of time helping to run the youth church meetings we run on Thursday nights, and the more I did it the more I felt God speak to me in this area. A real sense of wanting to help young people experience what I had been through, Essentially being saved from life without God and growing and moving in the things of God.

For the past fifteen months I have been a full time staff member at C.C.C. My job description is to Pastor the young people and head up the music department, which suits me perfectly because I get to work closely with our young people and see God touch their lives, yet still get to do the music thing!

It's amazing when we can look back and see how God has worked in our lives. Two years later we all feel glad that we did it-that we gave it a go; making a CD, going full-time, getting on TV, it's all stuff you can look back on and say 'WOW''!! We actually did it.

One thing that really encouraged us was the Die Hard attitude of our crowd. We would sometimes have people traveling to different cities to see us play. We personally want to thank all those people who came out to see us so often, those that bought our albums, and who wrote us encouraging letters. We received such incredible support from people around the country. Thanks Very Much!!!!!

I believe we fulfilled a lot of our objectives and I hope we lived up to the expectations of those who came out to see us.

At the time of writing this article, It is a week out from the Parachute Extreme Festival and we have a little reunion gig to play three. A couple of nights ago we had a practice, It wasn't too bad after two years- We still remembered most of the songs. Some people have commented on the number of LAST gigs we have had.

Well I guess we've all had a good time in the band that it seems like fun to get back together and jam through the set one more time. Who knows maybe in twenty-five years we'll record another song. I mean if it's good enough for the Beatles then it has to be good enough for us!!