Peter Coia

Born – Bellshill, Lanarkshire, Scotland on October 4th MCMLII (Yes, the year is in Roman Numerals!).

Peter first showed an interest in playing the guitar aged 11. A self taught musician, he used an old acoustic guitar that had always been hanging on the wall in his mothers home and learned from two books he purchased, one called ‘First Steps In How To Play Guitar’ and another with 500 chord shapes.

After leaving school in 1967, he worked as an apprentice engineer by day and played guitar in local bars and clubs in the evenings. From his teens to his early twenties he performed in a variety of bands playing styles ranging from Country Western & Folk to Pop. He also learned to play bass guitar, keyboard, classical guitar and began writing and recording his own music, lyrics and poems.

During this time Peter still pursued his engineering career and in 1980, he formed his own engineering company [Righead Engineering], manufacturing parts for the then booming steel industry in the area. This commitment to his engineering business made it difficult for him to continue with live performances, but he continued to write and record material. In the early 90s, the local steel industry went into decline, forcing him to wind up the engineering business in 1992.

Peter returned to the music industry and concentrated on improving and expanding his range of instruments and is now an accomplished musician and composer, who writes and produces a mixed variety of material under his own label ‘Peter Coia Music’. Although his singing capabilities leaves a lot to be desired (and he is the first person to admit this), the quality of his compositions and his versatility as a musician are exceptional. Most of his recordings are made in the studio where he plays many of the instruments himself. Very few composers can be heard singing or playing their own compositions the way they were originally meant to sound and most songs are changed to suit the singer and the musicians who eventually record the material.

Peter Coia now lives in Stirling, Scotland and is still producing music for ‘Peter Coia Music’.