Michal Atkins

I often refer to myself as a passenger of life...I was born in Prague under the Iron Curtain...I came home one day and started telling my mum about Russian generals and strategies of war and she just said 'that's it we're leaving' ! Not an easy thing to do at the time considering also that my dad worked as a electro engineer for the police..hence he knew a lot of secret codes... we packed up for a ''holiday'' and left everything behind. We had to go through the back of eastern Europe to make our way back to the west. Along the way our car was almost crushed by falling trees in Romania in one of the biggest storms of the last 100 years ... times that my mum wondered whether it was all not meant to be. But we finally arrived to the Austrian Border and as luck would have it got a young guard just as nervous as my parents. One wrong move at this stage and my parents were heading straight to jail. But we made it through and while we seeked refugee status in Austria slumbering through with 5 other families in one room the C.I.A came to speak to my dad. Not just stuff for movies but real life... he did not want to betray his country but gave enough away to help our situation. We eventually found ourselves in Canada...despite constant threats to our family back home and of them coming to steal me away to bring me back home so that my parents would have no choice but return and be arrested. So somehow I managed to have a normal upbringing and life till Michael Hutchence came along. In my late teens while INXS performed at the American Music Awards they huddled around the drum kit and as they all turned to play the first not to Suicide Blond the moment Michael turned to grab the mic on my dull cold sunday afternoon a bolt of lightning hit me and I stood up and thought this is not what I want to do....This is what I HAVE to do in life! Becoming a rock star is not as easy as it seems, first you sped years breaking the mould that everyone has cast you in over time and then only then was I free to follow my dreams. I packed a bag full of dreams and a guitar I couldn't play and headed to Australia. Got of the plane and said 'right here I am I am a rock star'. That was 10 years ago and along the way Energy, The Universe and Karma have paved an amazing journey filled with astonishing stories to make my debut album "Life in Numbers" possible.. I have sacrificed so much to get to this stage ...but there is nothing that would make me feel more alive