ROXYGEN

Band Info

Contact:- Conrad McMullen
Telephone -(02) 64 959 134,
Mobile. - 0415 461 409,
Snail mail - PO box 731, Merimbula, NSW, Auatralia, 2550.
Email conga@roxygen.com.au

In 1997 Candy McVeity - singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist - formed a band from the cream of available musos on the Sapphire Coast of NSW.

The brief:
To generate exciting and refreshing original material drawing on the combined talent and experience the group could offer.

The band:
Candy McVeity - singer etc as stated and musicaholic, with experience in bands since age 16.
Conrad McMullen - guitarist and songwriter of immense native talent with an edge to please, as much at home with flamenco and classical as heavy metal.
Simon Smith - virtuoso drummer and technical whizz, who provides a big dance beat honed from a heavy rock background.
Chris Ralfs - grizzled bass warrior and veteran of Candy's first band.

Roxygen quickly became a premier working band on the Far South Coast circuit, including annual tours to the NSW ski fields and Jindabyne, mixing it with leading Australian and international bands on the circuit. With a professional and versatile ethos, Roxygen have become the band to call for everything from special community events to pub "rave-ups" or folk festivals to Mambo surf comps.
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The result: The debut CD "The Wanting" has, happily, turned out to be surprisingly "mainstream" accessible, with a sound all our own. With elements of easy listening balladry, folk, pop and unusual instrumentation, it still retains a harder rock "edge" that a wide audience is finding very appealing. There are songs on this album that have the potential to become high rotation commercial radio classics! Judging by reactions to date we feel the potential for our music is unbounded.

The album is selling strongly thanks to local commercial radio airplay, responses at gigs, and word of mouth. As the band has matured, their gigs go from strength to strength. The band perform their music brilliantly, captivating audiences with a heartfelt journey through songs they love themselves, an upbeat vibe, sheer musicality and insightful lyrics delivered with beautiful vocal talent. The amount of feedback on the lyrical content - the topics within the songs - is amazing! They vary the shows from intimate acoustic performances to all-stops-out big PA and light show extravaganzas as the occasion demands and our audiences invariably demand more more more!

Roxygen also have some tracks at www.mp3.com.au/ROXYGEN

THE wanting is a cd you wont be afraid to leave in you stacker.

BLURB FROM THE CD

Roxygen are a band that are hard to catogorise. We play music thats all their own with a funky beat, a jazzy, poppy, folky, disco feel.

We have just released our debut CD 'The wanting' . We have tried to do the whole production ourselves in our rare spare time. Therefore it has taken us a long time to complete, through this time we all feel that we have grown musically, emotionally, grown up (?), grown older, become wiser, rode the highs and lows of the wave of life. Through all this we stayed together united by a desire to fulfill the journey and produce this collection of songs. Many compositions got lost along the way. Perhaps we shall find them for our next CD. Although the recordings heard don't have much from Cathy, she was with us for 5 years and her imput was immense. We have recorded, re-recorded and re-recorded again; Cathy couldn't stand the idea of doing it again, again. But she is still in there! Cathy composed 'Whatever' on the piano in the hotel at Wyndham. She wrote the haunting epic 'Playground' and put the Latin feel into 'Two wild birds'… & so much more.
We did much of the recording ourselves in bedrooms, sheds, lounges, kitchens anywhere we could find.Thanks to Helen Jones for the use of your house. The majority was done at JMC studios, Merimbula. The credits were complex to write. We all put in lots of artistic and technical hour's (sometimes without much technical knowledge). We started with a 4 track, progressed to a VS 1680, then the wonderful Mac with Digital Performer seduced us. We all had imput into the production of this cd. Where did the money come from? We have had many fun hours at countless gigs, touring, staying up late, playing music, staying up later, forgetting chords, lugging, keeping Lippy awake, appreciating our lovable 2 fans "Ken & Sue", lugging, eating pizza, avoiding requests for Khe San, remembering chords, 'Did we ever practice?', sound checks, plugging in leads, looking for Stoff, 'Did you turn your phone off Wattle?',unplugging leads & rolling them up.....Goodnight!
John McVeity has been with us from the early days, recording live, recording drums,guitars, keyboards vocals and other snippets of sound. He graciously offered to do the final mixes and engineering for us. His editing job was huge entailing removing squeaky chairs, barking dogs, lawnmowers and countless other weird things not generally required of an engineer. He has put in a huge effort to pull all this together for us. Thanks John for your skill, patience, effort, ear, commitment, time, resoucefullness and faith! No one else would've waded through all those tracks.
We hope you enjoy listening to 'The wanting' as much as we have enjoyed making it!
Candy, Conrad, Simon & Chris xo

ROXYGEN ARE-

CANDY lyricist, songwriter, saxophonist, lead singer,flautist and since Cathy left the band - keyboard and accordion player too.

CONRAD the irrepressible guitarist and songwriter, sings a bit now and then too.

SIMON drummer.

CHRISbassist.

CATHY keyboard, accordion, tinwhistler, songwriter. Has recently abandoned the band, but we are always hopeful that oneday she will return to the band that loves her!

EVERYONE