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Warren Mars at Uluru
Warren Mars was born in Melbourne, Australia, to a middle-class professional couple. His father was a design engineer with a large petrochemical company who loved to play the violin. His mother was a librarian at a regional library who played piano and sang. His parents were both atheists and he never attended normal church service during his upbringing.
He was a prodigious reader in his childhood, consuming all the myths and legends of European culture that he could get his hands on. The Norse pantheon was an especial favourite. He was a talented student, being intelligent and well read, though lazy, being more interested in friends, drugs and music.
He started piano tuition at 10 like many children, but it was his discovery at 11 that he could play the harmonica by ear that really got him into music. From there he went to playing piano by ear and ceasing formal lessons. Playing piano by ear led to singing along with it and writing songs.
When his friend Dale bought an electric guitar and learned to play, Warren cast around for something to play along with him, Dale's sister's bass was handy and that morning they wrote their first song together: "Make My Stand". They soon formed a band with John, a friend from school and called themselves: "Led Boots". They played a strict diet of heavy metal and since no one else wanted the job Warren took on the job of singer. Although they played together for 2 years the band performed only one gig and folded.
Despite being refused admission to the school choir and his friends telling him he couldn't sing Warren was not deterred and continued to sing, fronting a number of similarly unsuccessful bands. It wasn't until he began learning the violin in his mid twenties that he began to develop a better sense of pitch. This sense of pitch was improved again in his thirties when he joined a local choir and learned to sight sing. His vocal production also improved in this environment.
He moved out of home after completing secondary school, got a job and lived the high life for a brief period before quitting work and experiencing the dole for the first time. After a difficult period where he fought to regain his sanity following too many LSD trips he bit the bullet and went to college where he obtained a Computer Science degree with distinction.
Despite a great facility with those nasty little machines Warren found that the commercial world was not for him and he was soon back on the dole, where he remained.
In 2004 Warren formed "The Martian Way" as a means to get back to playing his beloved rock music and to liberate the many songs that he had stored up over the years.
Influences: Kenneth McKellar, John Shirley-Quirk, Paul Robeson, Georgio Tozzi, Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Queen, Pink Floyd, Yes.
Likes: roast dinner, chocolate mousse, cold beer, coffee, Tolkien, Flann O'Brien, sex, Eraser Head, Phantoma, Essendon FC, central Australia, relaxed open-minded people.
Dislikes: McDonalds, Coke, Hollywood movies, advertisements, current affairs shows, time wasting, big cities, uptight egotistical people.