![\"stephen96_2\"](\"https:\/\/blakeofficial.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/08\/stephen96_2.png\" "\\"stephen96_2\\"")
<\/h3>\n<\/h3>\nStephen was born in the picturesque spa city of Bath, to a German rock-guitar-playing father and a British opera-singing mother. Surrounded by classical, rock and pop music from a young age (at 5 years old he told his parents that he wanted to be Michael Jackson) he didn’t realise he actually had a singing voice till his mid teens. Initially picked out of a school assembly at age 14 for singing \u2018too loudly\u2019, the head of music went on to urge Stephen to spend his school days studying classical voice and academic music, and the evenings writing and singing with local indie bands. <\/p>\n
In 1997 Stephen was urged to audition for the prestigious London Guildhall School of Music and Drama, a seemingly impossible aim as he still couldn\u2019t read music. However, against all odds, Stephen was one of just 9 male singers to be granted a place to study singing at the world famous college, from over 4500 applicants. He also took the record for youngest male to ever get a place.<\/p>\n
Leaving Guildhall in 2000, Stephen auditioned for and started to record with a group called ‘Lion Heart’ on the Sony Classical record label. The group comprised of 5 classical singers, aged 21 to 28, singing well known arias in harmony. Sadly the group weren\u2019t released, but Stephen enjoyed the experience greatly, hoping to revive the idea in the future at some time.<\/p>\n
In 2004 Stephen began writing his first album of songs, recorded with his voice and local bands, at studios near Bath. The album ‘Bamboo Haze’ featured 12 songs and received great feedback from independent record labels, hinting that although now working a \u2018nine to five\u2019 Stephen should stick with his first love of music.<\/p>\n
After nearly a decade of trying to get into the music industry, with many knock backs, it seemed that finally Stephen’s dream was coming true. In April 2007, after just one rehearsal with Guildhall college mate Oliver Baines and new friends, Stephen signed as a member of Blake, to Universal Records in London. The Blake journey had started.<\/p>\n
Stephen continues to write music for himself and others. The 2010 single ‘Unsung Hero’ on Blake’s 3rd studio album ‘Together’ was written by Stephen and legendary US song writer Denise Rich (writer of top ten US hit \u201cFrankie\u201d) <\/p>\n
In Stephen’s spare time he is a very keen motorbiker, skier and traveller. He writes and speaks for biking organisations, backed by Honda Motorbikes, encouraging new people to take up two wheels. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Stephen was born in the picturesque spa city of Bath, to a German rock-guitar-playing father and a British opera-singing mother. Surrounded by classical, rock and pop music from a young age (at 5 years old he told his parents that he wanted to be Michael Jackson) he didn’t realise he actually had a singing voice […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":2,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blakeofficial.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blakeofficial.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blakeofficial.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blakeofficial.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blakeofficial.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blakeofficial.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4\/revisions"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blakeofficial.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blakeofficial.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}