My story so far

I was born in Kuala Lumpur, Malaya, the son of a Chinese mother and New Zealander father of Swedish, Irish and Scottish extraction.

Raised variously in a pastoral seaside village in New Zealand, the heady bustle of post-war Singapore, a West Australian boarding school and on an iron mine deep in the jungles of Malaya, I had an interesting and unconventional life from the outset.

When the time came to make my own way in the world I trained as a graphic artist and began to earn a living in Auckland, New Zealand, briefly as a cartoonist but mostly as an Art Director in Advertising.

In the early 70’s, at about the same time I was morphing into an advertising copywriter, I accidentally became a Pop Star.

To find the details of my career in NZ during the 70s I suggest you visit this site: www.sergent.com.au/music/johnhanlon.html. Bruce Sergent has diligently detailed my past work better than I ever could. Another good source is Audio Culture: http://www.audioculture.co.nz/people/john-hanlon

In 1978 I chose to leave the stage and sought a quieter, more private life in Australia where I drifted back into advertising but continued to write songs as a hobby.

Now, some thirty years later, I feel I have unfinished business musically and find the Internet has opened new possibilities for artists of all kinds. It offers us the opportunity to build a fan base through the most powerful marketing force of all — word of mouth. And I’m excited by the challenge of finding new ears, making new friends and perhaps selling enough songs to fund my future recordings.

However, music isn’t all I do, I’ll also explore the possibilities of short stories, film scripts, plays, poems and so on. My website is an ongoing open exhibition of where this exploration takes me.

I have no idea how it will evolve but will try to make this place rewarding and fun for all of us.

Because if you’re not having fun, why would you bother?

John looks back at his early career in this Radio New Zealand interview.