John began performing live in 1981 as keyboardist, guitarist and songwriter-in-chief for Auckland band '67 Listeners.

During this time he acquired his longtime passion for audio engineering, often being called on to set up a P.A. system or fix somebody's guitar lead at short notice.

In 1984 John took up a full-time position as house engineer for Eastbourne's Grand Hotel Conference Centre in the UK. "My role was to provide staging, lighting and sound facilities for conferences, trade shows, band performances and product-launch events" says John, "and while it was a valuable learning experience for me, it didn't really satisfy my creative urges".

He next joined London company Mediatech as an audiovisual technician, and took on many interesting projects including installing the equipment for the NASA Pavilion at the Paris Air Show, complete with multi-screen slide shows, eight track audio systems, special theatrical lighting effects and video workstations.

Other projects included a complete video theatre installation at British Telecom's satellite tracking station at Goonhilly Downs, a travelling roadshow for The Economist newspaper, and maintenance work on several high-power slide projectors used on Frankie Goes to Hollywood's tour of Europe and Japan.

In 1987 John returned to NZ and began work on many studio and live projects such as the British Pavilion at Expo 88 in Brisbane, digital studios at Mandrill and Digital Post, TV studio installations in Tahiti, TV3, Horizon Pacific, Prime, Sky, TVNZ, Maori TV and MTV in New York.

He has performed as guitarist, keyboardist and vocalist in several bands, has credits for TV and radio jingles, as well as soundtrack compositions for corporate videos. His work includes location sound recording for film and TV, but his first love has always been the studio, where he spends countless hours recording, editing, and mixing projects for himself and others.

In 1993 a suggestion was made to John by his great friend and former band-mate Mike Halpin. Mike had heard some ambient music tapes in his travels, and realised this was a direction John could take, so after a brief discussion John set about the project with his usual dedication and focus.

The result was 'The Call Of The Waitakeres' a musical journey inspired by the beauty and peace of one of Auckland's best-known landmark areas.

It quickly proved popular among health practitioners as a relaxing background to their therapy sessions, and also with yoga teachers. For others it was a relaxing and mood-enhancing experience at home, and for one lady in particular - the tape helped her cope with the sudden death of her partner.

In 2008 John re-visited the project as cassettes were of course no longer in vogue. The entire album has now been re-recorded and mixed for CD release. John admits to some temptation to change some of the sounds but decided against it. "I had so many positive comments about the original tape that I felt the music should be preserved as much as possible" says John, "although I had to replace one of my keyboards which developed a fault so there are some subtle differences".

As one half of Auckland duo 'As U R' he has released another CD he is very proud of, a project that features his trademark melodic and detailed sounds on several instruments including voice.

John also acts as creative multimedia director for children's entertainers 'The Dance-a-Lotties', a high-energy fun-filled act filled with song, dance and laughter that kids up to around the age of 8 love.

And on the odd occasion he is not working in the studio or out and about filming, he can be found painting, writing, designing or brain-storming his next creative venture.

John Michael Stevens (taken around the time of the original cassette recording).

John Michael Stevens 2005

John Michael Stevens 2008

John's Other Projects:

BeatOnTrack - Resources For Indie Musicians

As U R - Soundscape rock

Lisa Jimmieson - Alt rock

Dance-a-lotties - Childrens entertainment