8 Ball Aitken
Vocals, National guitar, slide guitar, mandolin & stomp box

Biography
8 Ball Aitken is a young musician with a positive vision for the future. A participant in the YAMP mentoring program run by Youth Arts Queensland, he is currently working with mentor Paul Piticco, manager of Powderfinger. Together, they are creating a useful music industry 'game plan' which will assist 8 Ball in manifesting his goal of becoming an international successful performing and recording artist. Standout track 'REFUGEE' from 8 Ball's current release 'BEHIND THE 8 BALL' has received Triple J and regional radio airplay Australia wide. 8 Ball is currently working on a new roots release, due in November, 2005.

8 Ball comes from Mareeba, Far North Queensland, the oldest son of a family of eleven children.  Raised by a hippie cult leader and drop-out from society, he grew up with few material possessions, strict discipline, and strange ideas. 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.

8 Ball's father taught guitar to prisoners, and he absorbed music from an early age. He began playing guitar seriously when he first went out to work in the fields, mainly as a way of escaping emotionally from his circumstances. The music that appealed to him and moved him was early 20th century blues, jazz, and country as well as his love for reggae music. These forces combined shaped him into getting further into music, and serious about music as a way of life. He learned everything he could about music. The day 8 Ball walked away from farm work and decided to be a professional musician was a major turning point in his life. He was 19 years old. He packed his bags and hitch-hiked down the East Coast of Australia, winding up in Brisbane -- and the rest is history. Since then, 8 Ball has performed in several bands at a range of events:

FESTIVALS & OUTDOOR VENUES:

Brisbane Blues Festival (Brisbane), Straight Out Of Brisbane Festival (Brisbane), Woodford Folk Festival (Sunshine Coast hinterland), Lost World Festival (Gold Coast hinterland), Cararra Stadium (Gold Coast), Yungaburra Folk Festival (Yungaburra, Atherton Tablelands), Kuranda Amphitheatre Little Day Out (Kuranda)

BRISBANE VENUES:

Brisbane Powerhouse, The Troubadour, The Rev, Roma Street Jazz & Blues Bar, The Zoo, Club No. 12, Melbourne Hotel, Pineapple Hotel, Story Bridge Hotel, The Healer, Manly Hotel, Imperial Hotel, Orient Hotel, Waterloo Hotel, Jazzy Kat Cafe, Grantley's Cafe, Satchmo's, Tongue & Groove, Ric's Café, University of Queensland, Queensland University of Technology, Southbank TAFE, Visible Ink

REGIONAL VENUES:

Hard Rock Cafe (Surfers Paradise), Metropolitan Hotel (Mackay), Johno's Blues Bar (Cairns, 8 month residency with Pete Burges, ex-Backsliders), Charlie's (Cairns), Germania Club (Cairns), True Blues Bar (Cairns), Anthill Hotel (Mareeba), Peninsula/Highlander Hotel (Mareeba), Royal Hotel (Mareeba), Mareeba Leagues Club (Mareeba), Mareeba Bowls Club (Mareeba), Clohesey's Country Gardens (Kuranda), Black Stump Hotel (Atherton), Pensini's (Tinaroo), Commercial Hotel (Nanango), La Opera (Maroochydore), Peregian Beach Surf Club, Kurrawa Surf Club.

SUPPORT GIGS:

8-Ball has opened for Xavier Rudd, Stringmansassy, Dirty Lucy, the Bondi Cigars, Eugene 'Hideaway' Bridges, the Zydecats (featuring Lucky Oceans), Enrico Crivellaro, Finis Tasby, Alice Stuart, the Detonators, Phil Emmanuel, Elephant Mojo, Lisa Hunt, Doug Ford (ex-Master's Apprentices), Barry Harvey (ex-Chain), & Johno's Blues Band.

As a musician, 8 Ball would like to see other members of his generation take action and do something practical to create positive change. "Young people must wake up. We are the leaders of tomorrow, and the world will be what we make it. We must use tools like music, art, the media and whatever our skills are to voice our opinions and make positive statements.  I hear a lot of emerging musicians tell me that they want fame and a squillion bucks. Well, get off your butts -- and make gigs happen, write original songs, be different, network, wear clothes that aren't just jeans and a shirt with a label that the corporations brainwash you with, turn off your propaganda boxes and get into a creative head space." 

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