Who?

All the members of The Klezmonauts live in mid Wales. From varying professional and musical backgrounds, our core musicians (listed below) have decades of experience between them each adding their own flavour to the unique sound of the band. With additional vocalists & musicians to hand we are able to provide a varied line-up suitable for all occasions.

Here are short biographies of each of our core musicians & some photographs.



	TOM DEAKINs early dabblings with wind progressed to a classical clarinet training at the Welsh College of Music. Attraction to John Peel’s eclectic taste led to abandoning clarinet, whilst pursuing indie-rock guitar dreams in various dives around Manchester. Took up clarinet again in squats around the North with punk band ‘Number One Son’ (described as heavy metal snake charmers!) & then Bass guitar duties with dance rock outfit ‘Bull Goose Loony’. A move back to Wales revived an interest in playing folk tunes (badly!) on the mandolin & so the clarion call of the Klezmonauts reunited Tom & the clarinet, on which he was pleasantly surprised he could still honk. In Klezmer, he found beautiful melodies with precision & wild abandon in equal measures! Webmasters comment: Tom plays a most beautiful & unusual metal clarinet.


	CHRIS has been a Clarinettist for more than 20 years, having toured Europe with both Band & Orchestral experience. A love of mid Wales resulted in him moving to the area & taking up Saxophone. With an eclectic taste he might be heard belting out Peter Gunn on his red Tenor Sax (nicknamed "The Tarts Handbag") but can most often be found playing his Fremont Soprano Sax (also red so The Tarts Purse?) with The Klezmonauts. With some musical arrangement skill (?) any "bum notes" are invariably his fault - but don't tell anyone!


	ANDY WARREN: Following his experiences of playing bugle in a scout band he took up recorder when a student and simple system flute some years later. Since the tender age of 36yrs he has played tenor sax as well. Particular interests include C17 English, French dance, English ceilidh music (in sax-saturated style), Irish, Jazz, South American flute & guitar and – yes, Klezmer. He’s self taught apart from some sax lessons, and has played in Kitty and the Tomcats (once billed finest ceilidh band in Wales), a flute and guitar duo with eclectic tastes, and with the poet and storyteller Andrew Fusek-Peters.


	MATT WATSON is of Jewish/Border-Scots stock and grew up in London with klezmer in one ear and the skirl of the pipes in the other. Now he runs a music shop in Mid-Wales and plays guitar, tin whistle & Jew's harp in various dance bands and folk sessions. His secret dream is to master the tea-chest bass. Shhh!


	CORNELIUS (A.K.A. David Eger) grew up in a practising Jewish family in London. For years, he forsook his origins in favour of Irish music. It was not until moving to that most Gentile of places, Mid-Wales, in late 2006, that he was unexpectedly grafted back onto his rootstock by the Divine Gardener and became part of the budding sprig of musicians that has blossomed into The Klezmonauts. He is now a practising luthier and has founded Montgomeryshire's first secular synagogue.


	Don't let the photo fool you. Originally from Outer Mongolia PETER was born 7:36AM, 1st April 1894 & from the age of six took up the Morin khuur tutored by the monks of the Shankh monastery. Put in to a time capsule & awakening 100 years later he quickly became bored with the simple, honest life & hankered for a life playing thrash metal whilst bungee jumping in the sea of tranquillity. It was here that his trusty horse-head violin bit the dust so he hitched a ride to Powys & discovered the infamous fiddler Terry Yakki. Enslaved in Terry's basement he finally escaped by eating Terry Yakki and stole Terry's Violin which he still plays to this day.


	“B” was imbued with Mozart whilst still in the womb & emerged into a big family where each sprog was expected to take an instrument to at least grade 5. At 16 she rebelled & gave up the violin for ~20 years. In 1996, she picked up a fiddle at a jam & realised she was still in love with it. Rock-folk band ‘Naked Feet’ soon found her & off she went playing at folk festivals in Lorrient, Kilkenny & Cornwall. The band fell apart leaving B hungry for something that seemed to run in her veins: Klezmer, her Great-Grandfather having come from Budapest. 'The Merry Maids' soon formed playing Cornish & Klezmer tunes. In 2006 B moved to Wales with fate bringing her to us, transforming B from 'Merry Maid' to 'Klezmonaut’ over night!


	KITTY is a versatile musician, equally at home playing in an orchestra, or fiddling for the Morris. After studying classical music at Leeds University she travelled around Europe, performing as a duo with an itinerant hurdy-gurdy player. She settled in Wales in 1990 where she is well-known as an inspiring teacher and musical director of community band Ffonic. In April 2007 Kitty took a break from the band & set off (with partner, fiddle and guitar) on a 3,000 mile tandem expedition. She's now back and, (together with fellow Klezmonaut, Cornelius) has launched a new ceilidh band, HiJinx


	MATT PERRY started out playing bass guitar, but later drafted into double bass work. Went from heavy metaler to jazz cat, now enjoys playing klezmer with his band mates. When questioned on how he joined the band, he simply recalls; "I got up out of bed one day and there I was playing klezmer music, you could say it was a natural progression." Pet loves are: drinking (claims to free up creativity), playing instruments with price tags on, trying to confuse band mates by playing out of key.


	ANDY TYLER-WHITE was formerly British and Commonwealth Koppit champion. Briefly gained gold and silver at Seoul, but stripped of his medals after failing a rugs test, when he tested positive for Axminster. Turned pro in 1989 just as modern tastes consigned the Koppit Dens of Dickens’s London to history. His “percussive” style of play was sampled by Yello, leading to his seminal John Peel sessions and resultant “Kopp a Load of This” bootleg. Allergic to F^# natural and anything beginning with £. NB: Strongly denies any involvement in the mysterious “Bridgwater Incident”. (Edit: WARNING! This is the biography of a Percussionist. As such the web master of this site recommends copious pinches of salt whilst reading it!)


	DAVE MEEHAN originated on Hayling Island, beach bum by birth, Celt by nature. Was involved in the Bristol music scene the early 80's, but was let off with a caution. Soon after found himself in Wales working with Heavy Horses. Nowadays he mostly tries to play the Bodhran, Bass, an array of percussive instruments, and renovate wooden boats (the latter not on stage!).