Steve Tynan originally founded The Firetones in 1993
Mark has been playing and studying drums since the age of 15, which is now 32 years ago. He was originally self-taught by listening to the likes of Phil Collins and Neil Peart but later studied seriously with a session drummer.
He has been gigging consistently for many years mainly with a blues and soul band, though he has a jazz/prog rock band project in progress at the moment.
In later years Mark has been influenced by Steve Gadd, Steve Smith, Peter Erskine and has a broad taste in music from Brand X and Weather Report to Fairport Convention and Van Morrison, to Pink Floyd and ELO.
Paul started playing guitar age 10, took up bass at 16 and
discovered a demand for bass players! He started off with
instrumental / rock 'n' roll band 1972, various function bands.
Then 1978 he spent 15 months, with a resident night club band
backing cabaret.
In 1979 Paul bought a double bass and spent two years with a
jazz trio. There was a folk band intermittently for best part of 12
years too. More function bands and duos until 1993, when Paul
played bass for 'A Slice of Saturday Night' at The Strand Theatre
in London's West End.
Then Paul played keyboards for a function band in Reading before
moving back to Burgess Hill, playing 60s and 70s. Nowadays his
number one priority is The Firetones 'family'.
Steve started playing guitar after seeing The Buddy Holly Story. He bought Buddy Holly Masters CD and played it over and over again and decided to learn as many songs as he could.
Steve always wanted to be in a in a Rock and Roll band so he thought "Why not form one of my own".
The original line-up consisted of a singer, lead guitarist, rhythm, drums and bass. After a while the singer left unexpectedly and Steve took over the vocals and the rest, as they say, is history!
As a boy Mark loved Chuck Berry and George Harrison so he practised posing in front of a mirror with a tennis racket until a proper guitar could be sourced.
Mark learnt to play The Shadows' tunes and Chuck berry's Johnny
B Goode and Roll Over Beethoven. He then went to london to study
Jazz and popular guitar styles.
26 years later and Mark is a Firetone by night and a guitar
teacher by day! He can often be seen rockin up the pubs and clubs
with panache, style and volume.
We, of rock n roll expertise, can honestly say that of all the guitarists we have heard...he is one of them...