Mitch Strauss
Mitchel Sloan Strauss (born 26 October 1992) is a South African musician, songwriter and producer.
Career
Strauss was born in Amanzimtoti, Durban, South Africa to parents Shaun Michael Strauss (born 25 April 1970) and Gail Delene Strauss (born 1 August 1971).
He grew up in a household where his father had an undying passion for music and constantly had records playing through the house. Mitch developed the same passion at a young age, being influenced by the records his father played such as The Cure, Offspring, Pink Floyd, Bob Marley, Prince, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Matchbox Twenty, Nirvana, Counting Crows, R.E.M, The Doors, Goo Goo Dolls, amongst many others. On his 12th birthday his parents bought him a guitar and a book of chords, to which he immediately began teaching himself how to play and began writing songs.
In 2012 he began studying Sound and Audio Production at SAE Institute in Cape Town. However, after losing his close friend in a car accident, he dropped out and moved down to Kommetjie where he soon joined the band Among the Clouds[1] as lead guitarist with childhood friends Reece Russell, Hennie DeJager, Mishyel Lilly and Stephan Botha. The band gained popularity in the pop punk post hardcore community while releasing various singles[2] and playing sold-out shows around Cape Town.
After the band split in 2014, Mitch briefly started a side project called Parkway Kings[3] before forming the band Wear Wolf[4] with previous bandmate Among the Clouds bassist Mishyel Lilly. Wear Wolf gained quick popularity by playing every main venue in the Western Cape with some of South Africa's most noteworthy bands at the time such as Grassy Spark, Zebra & Giraffe, Yorke, and Abbey Grange.
Mitch Strauss | |
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| File:Mitchstraussorigin.jpg Strauss performing in Cape Town in 2016 | |
| Background information | |
| Born | October 26, 1992 Amanzimtoti, Durban, Kwazulu-Natal, South Africa |
| Genres | |
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| Instruments |
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| Years active | 2011-present |
After his grandparents were brutally murdered in early 2016[5] he decided to leave South Africa and moved to England on 1 April 2016. He quickly made contacts in Devon and by July was working at Lemonfest in Newton Abbot as artist liaison and a stage manager at their annual music festival. He began working as a live sound engineer and promoter around the South West while managing Plymouth band Velvet Echoes and recording their debut EP Is It Enough[6] with John Cornfield at Sawmills Studios in 2017. During this time he began conceptualising a new project called Meurot[7] with friend Luke McMullin, which would eventually evolve into the band Honeyblue.
In December 2018 Strauss had to leave England due to his visa being curtailed. He briefly wandered and drifted around the South African coastline before moving to Hamilton, New Zealand to be closer to his parents and brothers who had immigrated there in 2016.
In December 2020 Strauss moved to Belfast to join his partner and was shortly signed as a record producer to Hotbox Entertainment. He quickly became involved in the underground uk rap and drill scene while making beats for local rappers and recording and producing their tracks. However, after separating with his partner in July 2021 he left Belfast and moved to Plymouth, Devon, England and began getting involved with the local music scene while managing a cafe and bar. By August 2022 he left his full time job and accepted offers to play bass guitar and lead guitar for various local bands including Tandem with his close friend Jonathan Stafford from the band Haunt the Woods, Honeyblue, Foxhole, Cav&Friends, Lewis Hayward, and Black Sheep, while also starting his own shoegaze project Acid Cherry with Joss Dunford, Austin Mintern and Andy Obeyesekere.
References
- ↑ Among The Clouds - Sleep (Live) & Fall Out Boy - Sugar We're Going Down [Cover] | Alter© Fan Cam, retrieved 2023-01-07
- ↑ "AMONG THE CLOUDS". SoundCloud. Retrieved 2023-01-07.
- ↑ eMinor. "Parkway Kings | Punk from Cape Town, WC, ZA". ReverbNation. Retrieved 2023-01-07.
- ↑ Maybellene - Wear Wolf, retrieved 2023-01-07
- ↑ Dawood, Zainul. "Slain couple survived previous attack". www.iol.co.za. Retrieved 2023-01-07.
- ↑ Is It Enough?, 2017-11-09, retrieved 2023-01-07
- ↑ Bleached, retrieved 2023-01-08
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