Biography - About Mel
I picked up the guitar for the first time when I was 20 yrs old and going to College at Oklahoma State University, USA. I’ve never had lessons. It took me about 10 years to create my first song "We Will Never Have This Time Again" for the 2000 Australian Olympic Softball Team. I’m a professional softball player and travel a lot so the guitar was a friend and music a whole different language to me – the perfect escape!
After 4 Olympic Games, the Spirit of Olympism gets in your bones and I guess the decision to remove Women’s Softball rattled me a bit. I used my love of music and writing mainly to create songs as gifts for people or teams, that is, until the IOC voted Softball out of 2016 last year. From this moment on I realised I had enough material to put a CD together to fuel a dream – to unite the International Softball Community and keep our hopes and enthusiasm ‘alive and kicking’ for Olympic Reinstatement. I remember it clearly, when the CD Dream started – I was in Seta, Japan at the time and I woke up at 5am and couldn’t fall back to sleep. I then walked down to nearby Lake Biwa with pen and paper and made a list of all the songs I had. It was one of those rare Magic Moments. I haven’t slowed down since.
"This CD Project has been a wild ride for me, full of creation, reflection, heavy doubt, inspiration, insecurity, fear and magic moments. I wouldn’t recommend the ride to anyone. Unless of course, they were driven to the core by a Dream."
I was already enrolled in an Audio Engineering Course as it was something I was interested in when I wasn’t playing in the professional league in Japan. So when the inspiration for the CD sprouted up, I knew exactly where to go and how to do it.
Out of the 7 songs, my most moving tribute and I’m lucky if I get through it without a tear in my eye… is ‘Aussie Spirit’.
It was inspired by the loss of my Mother in 2003 and the 2004 Athens Olympic Softball Team who won a Silver Medal.
Prior to Athens our team attended a team bonding camp at Emu Gully in Queensland. Our activities focused on the core character values displayed by the ANZACS in times of tremendous hardship on the world stage. It’s easy to see why the song is so emotional for me!
"When I think about writing a song, I think what a wonderful Gift. I could go out and take 20 minutes to an hour and buy a cool present for someone OR I could sit down for hours upon hours pondering and reflecting over how special that person is and why, and then spend more hours trying to compliment those qualities perfectly in song. This CD is my Gift to the International Softball Community."
