Mike Brady was born in England and moved with his family to Australia when he was 11 years old. His recording career began in the mid 60’s with the formation of MPD Ltd (Mike, Pete & Danny). MPD Ltd went on to become one of Australia’s most successful pop groups of the 60’s with hits such as “Little Boy Sad”. The group toured overseas, including England and Mike toured extensively throughout Vietnam during the war. When MPD Ltd disbanded, he continued to record the occasional solo single, one such single being the hit “Sympathy” which reached the National top 10.
After MPD Ltd, Mike spent the majority of his time building his career as producer and writer of jingles for Television and Radio. One such jingle brought Mike back into the public spotlight. He was asked to record a promotional song for Channel Seven’s Football program. This song being “Up There Cazaly” went on to be the biggest selling local single of its time, with sales in excess of 250,000 and has become the unofficial Anthem of all Australian Rules Football Fans.
His song “One Day In September” has become part of the Football language. He also co-wrote and produced Greg Champions huge hit “That’s What I Like About Football.
Over the years, he has been responsible for some of Australia’s most catchy advertising jingles. His jingles include; classics such as “Lucky, Your with AAMI” and “Hard Yakka” and many current music tracks on TV. Mike has written jingles for most of Australia’s famous brands.
During the 70’s Mike formed his own Record Label and Record Production Company, Full Moon Records, and publishing company, Remix Publishing. Two hugely successful singles released by Full Moon were Mark Jackson’s “I’m An Individual” and Joe Dolce’s “Shuddap You Face”. “Shuddap You Face” broke the record previously held by Mike’s “Up There Cazaly” as the biggest selling single in Australian History and has been translated into many different languages.
Mike and his company have produced albums for artists such as Tina Arena, Colleen Hewett, Mark Gillespie and Mike Rudd and Bill Putt. Many of Mike’s songs have been recorded by leading artists including Tina Arena, and John Farnham.
During the heady boom years of the 1980’s and early 1990’s Mike “diversified” into areas not associated with his core talent – property development, hotel acquisition, timber milling, restaurant ownership and various other ventures. This was at first a great success but the good times did not last and Mike slid from the top of the heap to the bottom.
He talks of this being a major lesson of staying true to what one knows, which in Mike’s case was music and jingles. Over recent years Mike has continued to write music for films and television projects together with writing songs for various sporting events – “Courage In Their Eyes”, which was used to launch Channel Seven’s media broadcast for the Olympic Games and “Rise To The Moment”, which was the Paralympic Official Team Song for the 2000 and 2004 Games.
Late 2006 saw Mike in the home of country music, Nashville Tennessee. He had a swag of songs he’d written over the years that he had always wanted to record. “Nashville musicians continue a skill tradition that is like a living culture handed down and improved on from “generation to generation”, says Mike.
In 2009 Mike recorded “The Living Years” album, a collection of songs which Mike has sung or wanted to sing throughout his career. Growing up in Australia it was hard not to be exposed to the “Pop Revolution” of the 1960’s and 1970’s or even to be a part of it. Roy Orbison, Smokey Robinson, Ike and Tina Turner, The Beatles and so many more were the inspiration for a generation of “Aussie” rockers, many of whom went on to carve careers in the business.
Mike continues to work live at concerts, festivals and corporate shows. He appears either solo or with his band. He also shares aspects of his ‘on the road’ education as an in demand public speaker both here and overseas. Mike can be heard over the summer period as 3AW presenter of “Mike Til Midnight”.