Start of Career
At age 14, Cilla became a professional musician. He played in various bands in and around Perth before spending a year in London in 1979. In 1982 Cilia joined Invasion Force where he met locals Alf Demasi and Lloyd Allanson. Together they formed the Perth band The Flying Fonzarellis. The Flying Fonzarellis released several recordings and toured Sydney in 1984. The band had some chart success holding the number one spot in Perth for a few weeks.
After the Fonzarellis, he went on to play in Dave Warner's Sensational Sixties and then with Midget and the Farrellys who were extremely popular in Fremantle throughout the Americas Cup. Already his passion for that stinging surf music guitar sound was obvious.
He went on to tour and record with Dave Warner's band, Dave Warner’s From The Suburbs. Cilia moved to Sydney in 1989. He played & recorded with The Brookes. He toured Western Australia in 1993 with the Big Land - Big Heart tour. That band contained Dobe Newton of the Bushwackers, Ernie Dingo, Dave Warner, Greg Macainish of Skyhooks, Paul Hitchins, (Sports) Dave Clarke and Cilla. They toured Vietnam with a similar concept in January 1994.
In 1998 he recorded some instrumental guitar songs. Bosco Bosanac, the bassist with the popular Australian group The Atlantics heard one of his demo tapes. The band is noted as the "Australia's own surf music maestros".
One Friday afternoon Bosanac called Cilia. He said "You sound all right on the recordings but can you play live?" His band's guitarist had just called in sick. Martin did the gig and Bosco told the other members from The Atlantics about him, and Cilla has been an integral and permanent member of the popular surf music band since. The Atlantics have gone onto record many of Cilia's songs, which have appeared on various Atlantics records, in feature film soundtracks, surf movies, and PlayStation games.
In August 2007 Cilia released his solo album Revenge Of The Surf Guitar.
Read more about this topic: Martin Cilia
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