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My many interviews and features have appeared, and continue to appear in, countless music magazines around the world. From Australian Guitar and Rolling Stone in Australia to Classic Rock, Guitar & Bass, Metal Hammer, Performing Musician, Total Guitar, Kerrang! and Record Collector in the U.K. From Guitar World and Goldmine in the U.S to Snaggletooth in Canada. From This Is Rock and Guitarra Total in Spain to Chitarre in Italy. I also supply exclusive interviews to Ultimate-Guitar.Com, and contribute to UK's Guardian Series Newspapers' Limited Edition magazine as well as Fairfax Newspapers' M magazine, The Sunday Age in Melbourne.

In my capacity as music journalist, I have interviewed a who's who of the music world as well as spent time on tour with numerous artists. Artists the calibre of Aerosmith, Velvet Revolver, Foo Fighters, Matchbox Twenty, Kiss, Motley Crue, Iron Maiden, Steely Dan, The Doors, Bon Jovi, Black Sabbath, Def Leppard, Queens Of The Stone Age, Korn, Motorhead, Deep Purple, Judas Priest, Marilyn Manson, Cheap Trick, Hinder, Tool, The Cars, The Smashing Pumpkins, Queen, Nickelback, Alice Cooper, Slayer, Foreigner, Blondie, Yes, Megadeth, HIM, Linkin Park, John Mayer and many, many others.

Please visit www.joematera.com for more info.

As a guitar player, I am a 20 + year veteran of countless original and covers outfits. My playing CV includes being the lead guitarist in the pit orchestra for award winning stage productions of Les Miserables and Chess as well as playing guitar and performing live shows with Ash Naylor (Even) ,Tim Henwood (The Rogue Traders, The Androids, The Superjesus) and Dan England (Australian Idol). I currently play lead guitar in legendary Australian pop-rock outfit Geisha with Chris Doheny - one of Australia's finest singer/songwriters - at the helm.

Geisha enjoyed tremendous success in the mid eighties with numerous chart and radio hits including 'Kabuki', 'Part Time Love Affair', 'Rainy Day', 'Fools' Way', 'Calling Your Name' & 'A Girl Like You' The group produced two albums; the critically acclaimed self titled 'Geisha' in 1985 and 'Midnight To Dawn' in 1987 - The band sadly disbanded in 1988. With a stack of new songs under his belt, vocalist and founding member Chris Doheny teamed up with noted guitarist and rock journalist Joe Matera at the tail end of 2007 to begin the next exciting chapter of the band's career. The aptly titled 'Birthday' is the first taste of Geisha's brand new album scheduled for release in 2010. The band recently hit the road for the first time in 22 years.

'Birthday' was produced by legendary US producer Tom Werman who is noted for his work with Cheap Trick, Motley Crue, Ted Nugent, Twisted Sister, LA Guns, Stryper etc. Werman offered to produce when he heard a demo of the track in early 2008. “When I heard the demo I knew the band had a chart hit on their hands... It took me back to those crazy days of working with Cheap Trick. I thoroughly enjoyed producing the track & I'm very happy with the end result”. 'Birthday' has a strong melodic structure with big vocals, tasteful guitars and a touch of Hammond Organ.

Please visit www.geishatheband.com or www.diamonddogrecords.com for more info.

Reviews:

"Birthday is a great song. Succinct, emotive and one of those rare songs that seems effortless, disarmingly simplistic. It is full of lush echoes of the eighties and brought up to speed by the sheer clarity of production. In days when bands cling to genre, 'Geisha' seem beyond that contemporary landscape. Fewer and fewer artists are capable of producing such an accessible emotion these days. Perfect, really." - Mick Middles (The Guardian - UK)

“Geisha return with a deliciously catchy pop rock track, marrying monster choruses with slick production values.” - Ed Lamington (Australian Guitar)

“A classic rock ballad that aims straight and true at the heartstrings.”- Guitar & Bass magazine(UK)

“Great song, big sound and a fine piece of music. I love the chord progressions and especially the harmony lead break ... the melody sings. Hardly anyone does that these days and it works beautifully – we need more like this.” Rick Brewster (The Angels)

I've met, interviewed and spent time with a lot of my musical heroes in the course of my career, and some have now become good friends of mine.