Born 1965 in Kemspey, NSW and the second youngest of six children, Stu moved with his family to Newcastle Christmas 1972. The next year at age 8 and inspired by his older siblings already playing with the Toronto & District Brass Band, he began to learn the cornet and also join the band.

In the ensuing years Stu went to play the demanding Soprano Cornet with Toronto and District Brass Band and the NSW Youth Brass Band.  Both as a soloist and with the brass band he went on to win many regional, state and national competitions culminating in 1982 when he took out first place in both the NSW and Australian Junior Soprano Cornet Championships.

At age 15 Stu became restless and left school taking on a four year Metallurgy traineeship at BHP Steelworks.  It was during this time at the steelworks that he had so much success with his cornet playing but also met Gionni DiGravio - a fine musician and songwriter.  Gionni was also a trainee metallurgist and was fronting local Newcastle bubble gum punk group The Mansons.

 Gionni and Stuart went on to form The Hipslingers and reached critical acclaim through the eighties and early nineties as one of Newcastle’s finest original bands.  Fiercely independent, passionate and anti-establishment they made many recordings and released several singles, LPs, CDs and live recordings.  They turned down a record deal with Michael Gudinski’s Mushroom Records in 1987 because “they were taking too long to release their first album, “Panoramic””.

In hindsight it was possibly a bad move but the boys hooked up with promoter Andrew McManus and the infamous Harbour Agency and while remaining on the fringes of commercial success went on to support almost every major Australian touring act of the era including The Hoodo Gurus, The Church, Hunters and Collectors, The GoBetweens, Icehouse, Richard Clapton, Jimmy Barnes and even INXS at the Melbourne Entertainment Centre.

In 1992 Hipslingers released their final offering “Somnium” from which JJJ picked up the track “Love Will Remain” and it was placed on high rotation over the summer.  But not long after and disillusioned with the Australian music industry the band played it’s final show in Newcastle at the Cambridge Hotel and called it quits.

Stu kept in touch with the industry after that by hiring sound systems and mixing for live bands.  He would often do impromptu trumpet appearances from behind the mixing desk at gigs and after one particular job he ended up being invited to join the band. 

That gig was at a party in the spring of 1994 and it was the first gig of the jazz supergroup Fish Fry, Newcastle and the Hunter Region’s finest exponents of jump jive, jazz, swing and rhythm and blues.