My name is Mark Driscoll and here is my musical resume

I am a guitar, drum and bass teacher based in Bromley, Kent. I have been fully DBS checked and I teach at my home studio or at a students own home if required. Please read on to see my musical history.

I began my musical training in 1988 by learning to play the guitar. I formed my first band with friends about 2 years later. I ran this band for the next 10 years through various name and line up changes playing, rock, blues, rock and roll, 60’s soul and reggae covers. The band gigged regularly in the London and Kent area, often playing 2 to 3 times a week.

This helped me to develop as a versatile guitarist, as I provided both the lead and rhythm back bone of the band. It also helped me develop my understanding of different rhythms, styles of music, various time signatures and even gave me a good training in time keeping. It was during these years that I first started messing about on the drums, often jumping on the kit during breaks in rehearsals and at the end of sessions.

Throughout this period I was teaching guitar to a few students but was mainly concentrated on my own playing. I had branched out into original projects as a guitarist in a pop band and as a bass player in a rock band. Both of these bands played in various London venues including The Rock Garden. From 1996-2000 I was also playing main guitar in a duo covering a wide range of material and gigging throughout London, Essex and Kent.

In March 2004 having taken a few years out of gigging and teaching, I formed a new band with my old drummer and bass player. We called ourselves Adrenalin Switch and with a new singer have been performing more and more ever since. We cover material from Hendrix, Cream, ZZ Top, Kravitz, Nirvana, Foo Fighters, Metallica and many more! Check out the link for the bands YouTube on the links page!

Having taught guitar to many people over the years in early 2006 I decided to start teaching more seriously and started building up my guitar and bass lessons. It was also at this point that I started getting more serious about the drums. I began practicing at least twice each week at Ascape Studios and started pushing my playing more and more.

In early 2008 I began teaching a girl student the guitar who was also learning the drums. We began regularly practicing together and within a year she was playing with my band. My old drummer had unfortunately had to leave the band and we were between drummers at the time. She would play guitar and I would drum for the first set and then we would swap over.

In May 2009 while I was setting up a band for this same girl student I arranged for the sister of one of my other guitar students to come down and drum for her. She had been having drum lessons at school for about 18 months, but when she turned up she could hardly keep a rhythm together. The girl was so impressed with my drumming that she asked me to teach her and I have been doing so ever since. She is now able to play a wide range of rhythms and capable of playing in a band and has even played live at a few gigs that I organized.

I recently decided that as a complement to my guitar and bass lessons it was time for me to also start teaching the drums. I now offer drum lessons either at my home studio or at the students home if they have their own kit. The lesson prices vary so for more information on my drum lessons including rates, please go to the lessons page.

I still regularly teach electric, acoustic and bass guitar lessons from my home studio and also travel to some students. Information regarding these lessons can be found on my guitar lessons website a link for which can be found on the links page.

Bringing things up to date as of 2020

In November 2011 having run my band Adrenalin Switch for over 7 years we finally played our last gig at the same local Bromley pub where it had started The Railway Hotel. We had at our peak played 7-8 gigs a week, virtually every Friday and Saturday night, and regularly played to over 100 people at the Railway.

For the next couple of years I focused on my teaching and also helping some of my students with their own bands. In 2014 I decided to get back into live playing and feeling like a change decided to concentrate on drumming this time. I joined a band called Frankhams Flashbacks and played a few gigs with them until they split up in 2015.

After a couple of tries at putting together my own band I finally formed a band called Mark In Time with a couple of my students and one of their friends. At that time they were all aged about 18-19 years old. I had taught one of the students guitar since he was about 12 and the other bass and guitar since he was about 14. The bass players friend was already an accomplished drummer and singer. We played our first official gig together in May 2017 with me swapping from guitar in the first set and changing to drums in the second. The two students played bass and guitar with the bass players friend singing and swapping with me from playing the drums in the first set to playing rhythm guitar in the second.

We played about 18 gigs in 2018 and when the singer left at the start of 2019 I swapped to just playing the drums. At that point we had a female singer join us along with a guitarist. This guitarist then left towards the end of 2019 and my student playing bass then switched to the guitar. Luckily the partner of our female singers was an experienced bass player and he took over the bass playing duties.

We have been playing together with this lineup since then and if you would like to check out the band and maybe see us play please find a link to the bands Facebook and Youtube pages on the links page.

As well as gigging I am still teaching more and more students the guitar, bass and drums so for more information please check out the rest of the website. Thanks for reading and I hope you find the site helpful and interesting.