Nola Marino (Forrest, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Recently I caught up with the talented musician Chris Reeve, who was in Bunbury with his dad, Cliff, and Cliff's wife, Lynnee. Now, I want to share Chris's story to inspire, to encourage and to motivate the many young musicians and performers both in my electorate and right around regional, rural and remote parts of Australia.

Chris Reeve was actually born in Kalgoorlie in WA, an area defined as outer regional by the ABS; however, for the last eight years he's lived and worked in Las Vegas as a musician. Chris has recently finished a world tour as a drummer for the Canadian superstar Avril Lavigne. He has toured previously with Tom Morello and Filter and done countless shows in Las Vegas and Los Angeles. According to his dad, Chris was always going to be a musician. Primarily, he is on the drums, with some guitar, and keyboards as well, and recently he was even talked into singing. Over the past few months, he has played in Canada, Europe, Japan, USA, South America, England and even Madison Square Garden, and he has played in front of 100,000 people for Rock in Rio.

How did he do this? It was just sheer hard work—hours and hours of practice, dedication and determination. So, for the young people who may read or hear this, he started just like you. He always loved music and, while he may have inherited his musical talent from his mum, it was his radio announcer dad who instilled the love and passion of all sorts of music.

When he was young and, by then, living in Perth, he was head boy at Duncraig Primary School, and he did well academically at high school. However, after school each day he would race through his homework and whatever else he had to do just so he could spend more and more time playing and learning the drums in his mother's garage—hour after hour after hour. Of course, he was involved in the school music department and went on to represent WA in the best high school drummer in Australia competition. But by then he believed he was just too far away from that big scene, and how right he was! But to get there, as I said, he worked hard, he persisted and he was determined, and, as his dad says, on the drums, Chris is a little different. He's a leftie and his style is as a solid drummer for time, and, while he can flail around, he's a middle point between the understated Charlie Watts from the Rolling Stones and Keith Moon from the Who—like him, Chris is able to hit everything in sight.

There's a lot of his work on YouTube, with performances from his early days in Perth with the band My So-called Life—the band that included his best mate Anthony Cormican, who also now lives in Las Vegas and plays with Chris and his wife, Ashley, in an eighties party band that packs houses every week. Opportunities came. Tom Morello from Rage Against the Machine and the E Street Band personally chose Chris to help him on the Fender Sessions and YouTube, and in 2015 Chris recorded a demo of a song by Filter. The leader of the band saw it and actually asked Chris to join the band, which is where he met his wife, Ashley, who was playing bass in that band. Ashley has since gone on to play in Cher's band. At different times, Chris has toured with Tom Morello, playing in various locations. Next came Avril Lavigne, and who knows what's next?

What this says is that Chris's hard work, his persistence and commitment and his determination to be the very best at what he does now sees a boy born in Kalgoorlie performing on the world stage with some of the most famous entertainers. When Chris comes back to WA, his bandmates want him to come and play with them while he's here. One thing he did do recently was visit a couple of schools to meet the music students. He simply wanted to tell them that it doesn't matter if you are, like he was, on the other side of the world; you can do anything you put your mind to. Chris is now back in Las Vegas and, hopefully, Chris and his wife, Ashley, will be visiting Bunbury over Christmas and will sit down for another coffee. I know he wants to swim with dolphins while he's here, and Chris wants to show off our South West.

So, to every young musician, wherever you live in Australia, whether you're regional—like in my part of the world—rural or remote, I say: you are not limited by your postcode. You can do whatever you choose to do, just like Chris, and get to play in some of the biggest venues in the world. Just get on with it and do it.