Farryl Purkiss Biography

'Born and raised on the north coast of Kwa-Zulu Natal, Farryl(25) has been playing and writing music for the past 11 years. His music is acoustic and unhurried in construction, songs that were initially never intended for an audience. He recieved his very first guitar at the age of 14 years, a gift from his mom. At first he only dabbled in playing, it seemed to be the current trend at the time with his friends, so of course, not to be outdone by his mates, began to teach himself how to play.

He and his neighbour Robin would sit outside Robins older brothers room and watch him and his friends jamming, trying to pick up any scraps from the jam session, and so his journey began. Growing up learning skills and techniques passed down from friends who shared the same love affair with their guitars. Jump Foward 8 years, Farryl is sitting on a lone stool facing a crowd of about 200 people, with guitar in hand and nausea in his stomach still present from the visit with the toilet bowl 10 minutes prior.

It is his first gig, opening for one of the most popular bands in his home town of Umhlanga Rocks, a band called Perez. He is petrified and even though his dark glasses hide his eyes, you could still make out that his eyes are shut tight. He manages to whisper his way through 4 songs, eyes sealed the entire time, but as he finishes his last song, the crowd applaude and cheer, he has never played for anyone in his life except his dogs, and for 200 people to be cheering him on he his filled with inspiration, he wants to perform. Jump foward two years, he has just got out of the water from a surf and there is a message on his fone, it is from the legendary South african musician, Nibs van der Spuy, it says he needs to talk to him about something, and so came the offer of recording an album.

Farryl signed a distribution deal with the SHEER/GREENHOUSE label, all he had to do was supply them with a finished recorded product and artwork and they would press and distribute the album for him. So Farryl approached David Birch(Squeal) to record and co-produce his album at Davids studio TROPICAL SWEAT located in Durban. They started recording in October 2004, and finished in January of 2005. The album was released in April of the same year. Since then the "session" musicians he used on his album to lay the drum and bass have become his full time band, and they have been travelling around the country playing at festivals and events sharing there mutual love for honest expressive music.