Tony Mckenzie Rock Guitarist

Tony Mckenzie Rock Guitarist 

Tony Mckenzie

Big Dan (the band) was formed around thirteen years ago originally as a recording project, Tony McKenzie being the founder member. Shortly after Tony enrolled a guy called Dan to play rhythm guitar, Ian on Bass followed by Neil on vocals. The backing band experienced a number of different drummers (mainly because good ones are hard to find!) but one of the most recent (at that time) was Pete. All members of the backing band did have previous experience with other bands ranging from covers bands to bands playing their own material. This experience is evident in the music and it showed clearly in the quality of the finished product... a catchy modern sound and a high standard of musicianship.

Most songs were written and produced by Tony at that time and all music was completely original. It is hard to categorize Tony's sound because of the variance of styles produced within the individual tracks and Tony's changes in playing technique over time. All work is copyrighted in 1997/2010 by McKenzie.

Today Tony continues to develop his own style of music which can be found on this website in many different places. Visit Bigdan Records - Tony's Record Company from the link here: www.bigdanrecords.com

Tony has actually been playing guitar since the late 60's. When he first left school he used to think that the Beatles were god.... (they still are if you check out the song writing) that is until one day when he was listening to the radio a certain drone called voodoo chile caught his attention and changed his way of thinking about music forever.

From that point on Tony had decided what he wanted to do - play rock guitar, so over the coming years he listened to people like Santana, Hendrix, Vai, Satriani, Malmsteen, Vinnie Moore and many other guitarists at the forefront of the art of electric guitar over these times.
Tony has played with other musicians collectively called Big Dan (as well as many previous bands) and now continues to write and play his own style of rock guitar as a solo recording artist. Historically in the mid 80's Tony was the founding member of a band called Hammerhead. This band was successful for around four years but split following a motorcycle accident that left the singer in a coma for many months - when the singer recovered he was unfortunately without the talent that was originally there. Wear the gear when you're on a bike and always remember that concrete street lamps don't move - ever.

Tony reflects that this was a very productive time for him with his music, but the work while recording utilizing the Big Dan sessions was also really cool.

Tonys current equipment which is in day to day use includes:

• Road King II
• Marshall TSL100
• Engl E670
• Splawn Nitro
• Custom Made JTM45 - made by Tony
• Dumble Clone for recording
• Eventide Eclipse V4 in the rack
• TC G Major in the rack
• Numerous Floor Pedals
• RG550 still hammered hard
• 7VWH for recording
• Custom Strat No 2
• Original Vox Wah
• Various Tube Screamers and copies

Checkout Tony's gear on other pages on this site.

The last album 'Berner Street' from Mckenzie - Bruce is an album where you could win $10,000 (or £5000.00) by solving the puzzle from the music The contest has now expired - but the music still rocks. The music is also some of the best work Mckenzie has written for some time and with the help of Alan Bruce these tracks are melodic rock based with some dark tinges of heavy modern stuff. Content included:

• Neverland - The Entity
• Tumblety
• Kathy
• Respect
• Creeping Death and many more really great rock tracks.

Tony Mckenzie is now working on new and exciting projects for release in 2010/11 with more emphasis back to Instrumental Rock but including some vocalised sounds too.

Tony relaxing in Florida - his favorite place in the world

Tony in the Control Room at Bigdan Studios