Mark first shot to prominence with seminal Auckland trio Blam Blam Blam, recording and touring prolifically during its short but intense lifespan.

After a stint with 12-piece mega band Big Sideways, he went on to co-found Coconut Rough, scoring a runaway hit with ‘Sierra Leone’.

He then spent three years playing in Australia, most notably with Joanna Piggot (writer of Dragon’s ‘Cry’ and ‘Rain’ and John Farnham’s ‘Age of Reason’) and touring with Jenny Morris promoting her platinum-selling ‘Body and Soul’ album. Back in NZ, Mark was invited to join the re-formed Pop Mechanix with old Coconut Rough mate Andrew McLennan and DD Smash’s Peter ‘Rooder’ Warren. The band had a fearsome live reputation and did some recording with legendary US Producer John Boylan (Eagles, Linda Rondstadt etc), but imploded before any of this saw the light of day.

Next came a call to help out Jan Hellreigel who was starting an album with another famous LA producer – JD Souther. That album ‘The Way I Feel’ charted very respectably and had the critics very worked up. Mark was asked to join and continued to tour and record with Hellreigel for three years. The next call came from Greg Johnson, who was likewise going into the studio and wanted a sprinkle of the Bell guitar magic. ‘Chinese Whispers’ threw up Johnson’s biggest hit since ‘Isabelle’ – ‘Liberty, and once again Mark found himself a paid-up member. He went on play on Johnson’s follow-up ‘Sea Breeze Motel’, and continued to work with Greg until his departure for LA.

Mark has also contributed guitar to a large number of original NZ albums over the years as well as occasional theatre work, including writing and recording a soundtrack for The Changeling and performing in the house band for Mercury Theatre’s successful ‘Slice of Saturday Night’ musical. Mark has slung his guitar in halls, scout dens, bars, arenas, casinos, boats, tents, living rooms, TV studios, on rooftops, in vans, by river, lake and sea from Greymouth to London, Kaitaia to Dublin, Stewart Island to East Timor. No wonder he still finds it all so fascinating.

When not playing music Mark likes to race his self-built catamaran Totally Wired (currently ranked no. 1 in NZ's Paper Tiger class, he’s also an ex -Junior World Cherub Champion) Fishing rates pretty highly too, along with drinking and talking crap.