played on the radio and video games like Guitar Hero. My first guitar riff I learned was“ Purple Haze” by Jimi Hendrix and I then went on to get guitar lessons and began to be inspired and learning songs by all those guitar players which I mentioned. A lot of rock, blues and metal music was the foundation of my guitar playing. So, my childhood was a mixture of video games, sport and tweaking guitar pedals and amps and spending a lot of time practicing for hours in my room and spending a lot of time on guitar company websites such as Ibanez, Gretsch, Fender, Marshall, DiMarzio. Plus spending hours just watching video clips of guitars, pedals and amps.
However, I never really knew what I was going to do after high school. I knew I wanted to do music, but I didn’ t know what it was when it came to music. My dream was always to be touring and doing sessions, but I never had a sense of direction of what to aim for. However, that all changed when I met Nigel Hendroff in my last year of high school in 2015. There are three people who have really inspired me a ton in my journey of music and faith growing up.
And those people are Nigel Hendroff, Michael Guy Chislett and Stu G. I’ ve grown up watching those guys on all the old Hillsong and Delirious DVDs. Out of those three, Nigel was the guy who I saw play a ton in person.
Since my brother has been attending Hillsong since the early 2000s and Hillsong being only 10 minutes away from where we live, I would tag along with my brother whenever he went to rehearsals and served as part of the youth worship team or on Sunday services, Christmas spectaculars and special events. I would always be fascinated with Nigels guitar playing and music directing. He has such a versatile and diverse musicality on guitar that he seriously could play anything of any genre and the way he conducted a band with an electric guitar going from playing soft acoustic stuff, to jazz and a full rock and roll solo always blew me away!
I remember also seeing him play with Brooke Fraser( now Ligertwood) in the earlier days of her career on TV like the live shows in New Zealand with Paul Mabury on drums and the
Albertine shows and just being blown away with how he fitted the electric guitar in a pop setting. Just incredible! I even got to play his 2014 W / D / W rig that he used on the“ No Other Name” tour when Goodwood Audio were running a guitar pedal event called Stomp Town back in early 2015. I saw Nigel play in Memphis when he was on tour with Elevation Worship & Casting Crowns( CCM tours don’ t happen in Australia so it was still pretty special) and he got me a free ticket to watch!
So back to the point, Nigel has been one of the BIGGEST musical influences of all time. The journey to meeting him came when I got invited to a Thursday night team night at the Hills campus. That night was amazing because Erwin McManus spoke there too. It was incredible and you pair that with a guitar masterclass with one of your guitar heroes and it was something that I’ ll never forget. I would attend team nights to connect with people and for some reason during that time, Nigel’ s guitar masterclasses would keep going on. So after a guitar session one night I went up to him and asked if I could hang with him and get to chat about music and
46 November 2025 Subscribe for Free...