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Biography

Far North Queensland’s best loved banana picker (turned full-time guitar picker) 8 Ball Aitken has just released his third album, ‘REBEL WITH A CAUSE’, which is available now through MGM Distribution, recorded on vintage analogue equipment and produced by notable producer Garth Porter (ex-Sherbet). 

8 Ball Aitken is authentic -- a real-deal Aussie character who rattles the roof, stomps the planks, and gets his audiences whooping and hollering along in a frenzy of pure exuberance.  He plays a sizzling hot Queensland blend of original country, blues & roots music. 8 Ball’s material delivers a fresh serve of honk, stomp, Aussie swamp music, straight from the Mareeba Delta -- roots music with balls.

The red-headed Queenslander’s first single ‘COWBOY MOVIE’ (from album ‘REBEL WITH A CAUSE’) has received radio airplay right around the world in twenty-six countries, including charting in the European Country Music Top 40. Another song, ‘YELLOW MOON’ has won the 2008 EMI Music Blues & Roots Song of the Year at the Q Song Awards. He is currently nominated for two Southern Stars Awards.

8 Ball’s current single, ‘CYCLONE COUNTRY’, is  number six (September 2008) in the Australian CT 30 country charts. The music video for ‘CYCLONE COUNTRY’ depicts 8 Ball’s experience of working through a cyclone during his time on the banana plantation. It can be viewed at http://www.youtube.com/user/8ballaitken

8 Ball has performed several international tours. He’s just returned from touring Japan for the fourth time, where he headlined the popular Rokko Sun Music Festival. In 2008, he has played a string of dates in Singapore, the UK (including a live appearance on the BBC), Poland, and Finland. 8 Ball’s most recent USA tour included performances in Nashville, Los Angeles and New York City. He has also recently returned from his third tour of Fiji, where he was employed by the Australian government, performing music as a cultural ambassador on behalf of DFAT and Austrade.

8 Ball is touring Australia throughout the second half of 2008 in support of ‘REBEL WITH A CAUSE’, playing a wide range of festivals, clubs, pubs and special events. Highlights of his Australian touring so far include the East Coast Blues & Roots Festival in Byron Bay, the Woodford Folk Festival, the Tamworth Country Music Festival, the Gympie Muster, the Australian National Blues Festival in Goulburn, Blues at Bridgetown, Coastfest, Peats Ridge Festival, as well as the Melbourne & Adelaide Fringe Festivals.

Coming from a farming community in Far North Queensland, 8 Ball Aitken is the oldest son of an impoverished family of twelve children. 8 Ball spent his adolescence on a banana plantation, living in a rough tobacco shed with resident rats, bats, snakes, and spiders as his sleeping companions. He started work as a farm labourer aged fifteen, doing back-breakingly hard work on the mango and banana plantations of the Atherton Tablelands, a man's work for a boy's pay. He had to help support his family with these wages.

When 8 Ball was nineteen years old, a radical conversation altered his life path. “I used to work on a farm all week, then party all weekend,” he explains. “An Aboriginal elder from Townsville was visiting my town, and we were talking on Sunday morning after he had been watching me play guitar all weekend. He sat me down and told me off sternly – ‘I will be really disappointed if I visit next year and see you still here drinking and smoking, just wasting your talent and your life away,” explains the ex-farm worker, recalling his labouring in the Atherton Tablelands fruit plantations as a young teenager. He packed his bags, grabbed his guitar, and hitch-hiked south to the Big Smoke of Brisbane. “This was a ‘time stands still’, life-changing experience”, adds 8 Ball. “From that point on, I have stayed true, and followed my dream of making music and taking it out to the people”.  

8 Ball Aitken is currently available for interviews. Contact Phoenix Movement Records / management on phone: 0408 075 959 & (07) 3393 2621 or email: bird@phoenixmovement.com

What the critics say...

Some 8 Ball Aitken festival performances include:

• Rocko Sun Music (JAPAN) - 2008
• Gympie Muster – 2005, 2008
• East Coast Blues & Roots Festival (Byron Bay) – 2007
• Mud Bulls & Music 2008
• Brisbane Festival 2008
• Blues At Bridgetown 2008
• Australian National Blues Festival (Goulburn) – 2007
• Grass Roots Music Festival, Brisbane - 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008
• Big Sound 2008
• Q-Song Awards 2008
• Greenfest 2008
• Thuringowa River Festival (Townsville) - 2007
• Tamworth Country Music Festival - 2007, 2008
• Suma Beach Festival (JAPAN) – 2007
• Yagubi World Music Festival (Hervey Bay) – 2007
• Beenleigh Jamboree – 2007
• Roots By The River – 2005, 2006, 2007
• Woodford Folk Festival - 2002, 2005, 2006
• Peats Ridge Festival (Sydney) - 2006
• Brisbane Blues Festival – 2003, 2004, 2006
• Sunshine Coast Blues Festival - 2005, 2006
• Earthbeat Festival (Mildura) - 2006
• Coastfest (Sydney) – 2006
• Groove and Grape Festival (Brisbane) - 2006
• Adelaide Fringe Festival – 2006
• Melbourne Fringe Festival – 2006
• Blues on Broadbeach - 2006
• Mackay Festival of the Arts - 2005, 2006
• Valley Fiesta (Brisbane) - 2005