Profiles

LAVENDER HILL are:

SILVER

Vocals, Guitars and Keyboards

Born in Clapham, near Lavender Hill, which explains the band’s name.  The family moved to Croydon where he grew up.  He had his first guitar lesson at age 9 and started learning the piano when he was 12.  “I can’t remember where I first heard The Beatles a couple of neighbours my age formed a band playing covers when we were about 11,” says Silver.  “I think our first gig was a Christmas party of my parents.” He bought a second-hand electric bass and played in several groups during his teens before switching to vocals when he went to college in Exeter.  After graduating he moved away from music until a major career change and a job as an entertainer in a holiday village in the south of France.  He lived all over the world, playing in bands and as a solo artist.  He had a successful collaboration with the Cameroonian singer Tom Yom’s in Africa and France before moving to the United States where he played for the American version of Mid-Life Crisis. He took a break which ended one evening in the music room of a friend in Moscow, of all places.  He and the friend exhausted their repertoire of blues songs, Silver came home, signed up to learn how to play lead guitar and a few months later, Lavender Hill was born 

RAZZ BETTS

Drums, Vocals

Ray comes from Kent.  He’s been working hard since becoming a  professional musician from the age of 14.  He has been a session player in most of London’s recording studios and a side man on many tours, summers in holiday camps, playing every kind of music from big bands, folk, funk, jazz and rock.  He’s been a member of numerous bands – Einstein’s Monsters, Surrey blues outfit Hallelujah Junction, and The Catch Band being the most recent. He writes on his own and with Silver, and his backing vocals are a big part of Lavender Hill’s sound.  That vast experience has been used to best advantage by the band as Ray has arranged all their songs.  

ROB GWYNNE

Bass, Vocals

Rob is the newest member of the band, joining in 2017.  He is a native of Vancouver, Canada.  A lifelong devotee of that country’s rock scene, his driving bass is a fundamental part of Lavender Hill’s sound.  His infectious enthusiasm can be heard in every song and his backing vocals in a few.