Role Musician Name Tony McGuinness | Years active 1988-present | |
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Birth name Anthony Patrick James McGuinness Also known as Tony McGuinness, T. McGuinness Born April 23, 1969 (age 55) ( 1969-04-23 ) Music groups Above & Beyond (Since 2000), OceanLab (Since 2000), Sad Lovers & Giants (Since 1980) Similar People Paavo Siljamaki, Jono Grant, Richard Bedford, Zoe Johnston, Justine Suissa Profiles | ||
Education University of Westminster | ||
Anthony Patrick James "Tony" McGuinness, (born 23 April 1969) is a British musician and one third of the UK trance group Above & Beyond. He is also guitarist/songwriter with cult indie band Sad Lovers & Giants.
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Biography
Tony McGuinness plays guitar (Fender Jazzmaster) with English indie band Sad Lovers & Giants, with whom he released three albums, between 1988 and 2002 and is still an active member having toured US and Europe regularly with them since 2009.
McGuinness was also a highly successful marketing director for Warner Music Group, winning awards for his campaigns for Madonna, Seal, Simply Red and Mike Oldfield. While working at Warners, McGuinness shifted away from alternative rock towards electronic dance music. He worked as A&R for a number of dance artists, including William Orbit and Hysteric Ego.
Tony McGuinness and his brother Liam teamed up to create electronic dance music under the alias Nitromethane since the early 2000s. While still working at Warner, Tony was asked to remix Chakra's "Home" by an A&R colleague.
Tony approached Anjunabeats (Jono Grant and Paavo Siljamäki) to work on the remix together. The result, their remix of "Home", was an instant hit, ruling the dance floors and topping the dance charts for many weeks. The collaboration led to the creation of Above & Beyond, consisting of McGuinness, Grant, and Siljamäki.
The inspiration for the name Above & Beyond came from a web page belonging to an American motivational trainer coincidentally named Jono Grant. Jono had the poster stuck to his wall. The slogan used by the motivational trainer was "Above & Beyond," and when the group was searching for a name to use for their Chakra remix, the slogan stuck out from the poster, giving a name to the new group.
Teaming up and working as Above & Beyond, their next most significant output was a remix of Madonna's "What It Feels Like for a Girl" during the year 2000. This track was approved by Madonna, and it was released on Warner Records.
Since then, Above & Beyond have gone on to become one of the most successful UK production and DJ groups in the world, with a number of high-profile remixes for Dido, Delerium, Ferry Corsten and others, productions under their own name (their debut artist album, Tri-State was called "Brilliant" by DJ Magazine and earned 5 stars) and as OceanLab. As DJs they currently rank Number 29 in the official DJ Mag Top 100.
Above & Beyond's second studio album, Group Therapy, features Tony's first ever vocal single with Richard Bedford on the track "Black Room Boy".
Singles
Productions as a part of Above & Beyond:
Productions as a part of Tranquility Base:
Productions as a part of OceanLab:
Productions as a part of Rollerball:
Albums with Above & Beyond:
Remixes
Other productions
Upon becoming a member of the band Sad Lovers And Giants in 1988, Tony McGuinness had a successful career in the music industry. Their discography includes the following tracks:
As a part of Oceanlab, Above & Beyond, Anjunabeats, Rollerball and Tranquility Base, Tony McGuinness produced numerous tracks as a team under the label Anjunabeats.