I'm Simon Pipe — Musician, Tattoo Collector, Beach Boy, TV Presenter, Audio Engineer and other stuff from Barbados

Hi Steemit, my name is Simon Pipe and I'm a musician from a small Caribbean island called Barbados.

Me on the left with DJ Simmons, a friend and local spoken word artist

My best friend @jamtaylor has been telling me about this site for the past couple weeks and today I finally decided to check it out.

Apparently you guys like it when people verify their photos.. so here's what I got.....

A little bit about me

I learned how to play guitar and bass mostly through some foreign youth leaders at a Christian missionary organisation on the island called YWAM.
With YWAM I became involved in worship bands and leading worship in a few youth groups and churches on the island. Many musicians on the island have their beginnings in churches as churches tend to have instruments that most of us could not afford to buy as young people.

That's me with a reggae band KDB back in the day. I don't think I have to point out which one I am.

I started making recordings using some of my father's old cassette tapes — I'd put a piece of masking tape over the tabs and put it in a tape player set to "mic" and press record.

Then an American who attended the church I was part of was leaving the island and gave me a 4 track tape machine. That was my introduction to multi track recording and boy was that exciting!

About 10 years ago in @jamtaylor 's bedroom laying down some tracks!!!

I left school at 16 and went to work for 3 years during which I saved money to go to England and study audio engineering.

I studied in London and worked there briefly before the company I worked for declared bankruptcy and I headed back to Barbados.

As soon as I returned home, I got hooked up with a couple of bands and started working the club circuit with a reggae band called "Fully Loaded", a funk-rock group called "South 11", and a jazz percussionist named Onika Best, as well as doing some solo performances and small acoustic gigs with one or two other artists.

I also wrote and recorded some music and released it during that time, which led to me performing at shows and festivals in the Caribbean, opening for a wide variety of reggae and dancehall artists.

I set up a basic recording studio which I still operate, recording artists and adverts.

I work with a group called Iron Pipe, made up of two spoken word artists and myself. We perform mostly at cultural events.

Iron Pipe is Adrian Green, Simon Pipe and DJ Simmons

There's so much more to share, but for now i'll keep it to this.

My latest project has been an EP called "Tropical Depression". I wrote all of the songs, and co-produced them with two members of Barbadian pop group Cover Drive, Barry and T-Ray.

The first single off the EP is a song called "Build A Kingdom".

Before I released, I sent the songs to @jamtaylor, and he loved that particular track and offered to shoot a video for it. That video shoot is a whole other story in itself, but for now, I hope you enjoy!