Born Cootamundra NSW.

Middle boy and middle child of 9. 3 sisters and one brother ether side of me.

Sang with family from an early age. The family is known in certain circles in Sydney as "the Von Sheehan Family Singers" as everyone sings. Sang in the car on trips, sang rounds while doing boring family chores, made up songs and sang advertising jingles. Parents loved singing and I grew up with every musical Richard Rogers ever wrote and lots more. Listened to musical soundtracks from before I could talk. At one stage I knew the whole libretto to Jesus Christ Supertar word and note perfect. I am really quite tragic when it comes to singing.

My love of harmony stems from singing in a trio with my older brother and one of my older sisters. We would always seek a harmony from a basic tune. We won Sydney talent quests and appeared on Channel 10's Pot of Gold.

With my love of singing harmony I was destined to be a baritone really. When I heard of 'woodshedding' when I joined barbershop and discovered what it was I thought "this is what I have been doing all my life".

My first choral outing was, unsurprisingly, a church choir, the Caingbah Folk Choir which operated out of the Catholic Church in a Sydney suburb. We had the whole deal, electric guitars, drums, bass, tamborine. The 70's was the time when the Catholic liturgy went 'bossa nova baby'. We had a ball singing at church on Sunday nights and getting paid wedding gis all over Sydney. We appeared on television several times and sang at the Sydney Town Hall and recorded an LP.

When I moved to Canbera in 1985 my singing withered for almost 15 years. I tried to join a men's choir but they were a German based choir and I was not interested in the songs. In 2002 I discovered and joined the Australian Rugby Choir. They were a 4 part (Tenor 1 and 2, Baritone and Bass) accompanied choral group who were essentially formed around the ACT Brumbies (then) Super 12 team. We sang at Bruce Stadium at home games around the ground entrances for about an hour before the start and then on the field with the Brumbies theme song before the kick off.

When the Brumbies made the (home) final the president of ACT Rugby sacked us and brought in a big razzamatzz show. In the week before the game the outcry in the paper and on radio turned him around. When the big game came around the crowd wen bananas when 120 of us trooped on to the ground to sing "from the montain country where the brumbie reigns supreme. From the country's capital there comes a rugby team..". A special moment but the Brumbies lost to the Crusaders in the snow.

When I moved to Brisbane Janette joined the Donald Simpson Leisure Centre in Cleveland near where we lived. 2 gentlement in the theatricals group were part of the Bayside Barbershop Singers. They encouraged me to go along and I liked it.

Very shortly after I joined there was a Regional Convention at Logan. I saw an amazing quartet called Fast Forward and an even more amazing quartet called Realtime and was hooked. I knew this was my singing art form.
A member of the Blenders who was also a member of Bayside was constantly pestering me to join the Blenders. I thought that 2 nights would be a bit much but when Battle of the Choirs came along I joined for the ride. The rest is history as I never left until Sound Connection was born.

At the convention in Hobart I competed in 2 choruses and a quartet from each as well. That was barbershop overkill and will never be repeated by me!