Rocking on

Andrew Mathieson
FROM the moment a zealous toddler was capable of bashing chopsticks on his pillows, Marc Collis knew there would be a place in the music industry for him.
The two-year-old also loved to mimic Dire Straits on the air guitar.
Then things got serious.
“I was five when I started playing the piano, as my mum played the organ,” Marc recalls.
“Within six months I was playing proper songs.
“Mum said she knew straight away that it was where I was going, musically that is.”
Marc was only 15 when, as a St Joseph’s College student, he headed his first serious band at the end of the 1997 school year, with his 11-year-old sister Stephanie also tagging along on the drums.
Nothing was going to stand in Marc’s way – not even a few brittle bones and a wheelchair.
Marc suffers osteo genesis imperfecta, a crippling bone disorder that has affected his body since birth.
But the would-be-rockstar doesn’t consider it a disability.
“I used to be able walk up until I was about 13,” he explains.
“Then I chose to go into a wheelchair because I was just breaking too many bones. It was a conscious decision on my part.
“A lot of people who are in a wheelchair don’t get a choice.”
Marc, performing on stage in a wheelchair, has shrugged off perceptions of what a front man should be.
For the best part of a decade he’s been a lead singer, guitarist and chief songwriter.
“You just have to keep writing good music because it’s all about songs,” Marc reckons.
“A lot of it is what you look like but when it comes down to it image and looks can only count for so much.
“It’s about how you connect with people.”
Band members Marc and Steph along with Ben Jarvis and Barry Brauer came to prominence on the Geelong live music scene with The White Room.
They peaked in front of 16,000-plus crowds at the Sydney Entertainment Centre supporting Canadian grungers Nickleback during an Australian tour.
“Playing to thousands of people makes you open your eyes and appreciate what you’ve got,” an optimistic Marc believes.
He also wrote nearly all the music for The White Room, which emanated from harder-edged Plunja.
Personal experience provided Marc with plenty of inspiration for his songs.
He nominates one sobering tune – Unbreakable – as expressing his personal pain.
“If you listen to everyone of my songs, there’s always a message,” he insists.
“I never write a song for the fact I need to write a song to sell.”
The White Room parted ways in July after a final show at Geelong’s Barwon Club, a venue with many happy memories for Marc.
After releasing the Enemies Closer album, the Barwon Club was where he discovered all the hard work had finally paid off.
“All of sudden we went from having 50 people at the shows to having 400 at the Barwon Club out of nowhere after the album was played on radio,” Marc muses.
“That was one of the biggest thrills.
“There’s nothing like a home crowd.”
Marc’s certainly not slowing down now, either.
The 25-year-old is venturing into a solo career, including the release a single – Louder On The Inside – by the end of the month and a debut album before the end of the year.
And only last week he was asked to write a song for an Australian movie soundtrack.
“I guess I’ve never sat back and thought now I can’t do it,” Marc reflects.
“Don’t give yourself excuses, I say, because as soon as you do, you will never ever do it.”