Stoogie

Stephen “Stoogie” McAuley, age 32.

Stoogie in his own words

Early Life

I am from Ballycastle, a small town on the North East coast of Northern Ireland.
I have been playing drums since I was 15 when all my friends played guitar and all we wanted was to be in a band so I done the needful and got myself a drum-kit and have never looked back.

I have played in various local bands before going to Belfast for University to study Civil Engineering. After graduating in 2001, I worked in Dublin for 2 years then when to Australia for 6 months and then came back home in 2004 to work and try to start playing in a band again. I heard about a local music forum(fastfude) which was a good place to get info, gigs, music news, and recruit so I joined it and pretty soon got a random message from Davey (our guitarist) asking if I’d like to come and jam. So that was that and i joined Nine Lies, or Last Giants as they were called at that time in Spring 2004.

Thoughts on kit and working with the band

Drums/ music type things: I own a couple of drum-kits, various snare drums and cymbals, I have no big favorites gear-wise but have 2 Ludwig snare drums which are the cats pyjamas I have a wee recording setup in my house so can record my drums to any of the songs we write in practice and either mix them myself(still learning this) or give the files to Steve to mix. We’re done this for a few of the songs and it works pretty well and I enjoy the process and learning more about recording through my own trial and error.

I’m a generally laid back chap who enjoys the simple things, but I’m an engineer outside music so that comes through when we’re working and practicing. I think I have a good sense of humour and we have good craic practicing and being in the band with each other, but I’m also pretty straight talking and will call a spade a spade and try my best to be honest and loyal.