Meet Coastals

Hamish Cotton

Hamish started learning the pipes in New Zealand at the age of 8 with tuition from Lofty McIntosh and later Dennis Pierce and his sister Sheran Hancock, NZOM. He played in his first New Zealand National Championships with his home band Feilding & Districts at the age of 12. Hamish came to Western Australia in 1999 to join the WA Police Pipe Band as a full-time piper and competed in numerous competition and concert events including the 2001 USA Open Championships and the 2003 World Pipe Band Championships.

In 2004 Hamish left the band to work full-time with the Police Operations Centre as a radio dispatcher. In 2005, Hamish joined the New Zealand Police Band as a guest player on its tour of Ireland which included competitions around Ireland and the European Pipe Band Championships. Hamish was an active guest player with WAPOL from 2007 to 2014 and performing in Russia at the Kremlin Zoria (2007) and the two Australian grade one championship wins in 2012 and 2014. In 2015 Hamish left WAPOL and Joined the Auckland & Districts pipe band as a guest player performing at Grade one Level in New Zealand. In 2016, Hamish took over a tutoring role leading Coastals in competition till now.

John Christensen

John originally started playing with the City of South Perth Pipe Band (as it was known then) in February 1999. Under the tutelage of Graeme Gurney, he rose the ranks through competing in almost every solo competition he could, full band and mini band competitions and playing general gigs and street marches with the band. Things really started to kick off for John when he travelled with the band to Dunedin New Zealand for the 2007 NZPBA National championships, the band was in grade 4 then. Coastals swept the grade 4 competition, and John hasn’t looked back since.

After returning to Perth, the band was swiftly upgraded to grade 3, and John kept pushing from there. He travelled with Coastals to the World Pipe Band championships in 2009 in Glasgow Scotland. Competing at the North Berwick lead up competition, combined with attending the Drumming for Drinks event (in which Top Secret Drum Corps competed – and won), and witnessing all the other world class drummers and drum corps’ simply inspired him further through the week. Attending the Edinburgh Military Tattoo was a real highlight also. Although the band didn’t place that well on the day, playing in a solid drum corps that Coastals had was the real highlight. John also travelled with the band to the Malaysia World Band championships in Kuala Lumpur in December 2009 which was a very different type of pipe band experience.

In 2010 John was invited to be a guest player with the City of Cockburn Pipe Band in grade 4, and travelled with them to Glasgow for the Worlds again. Playing the lead up competitions at North Berwick, Bridge of Allan, then the entire lead up week, and the Worlds was another fantastic experience. Also travelling with Cockburn to play in the St Patrick’s Day parade in New York City USA in 2012 was another unforgettable experience.

Also in 2012 John travelled with Coastals to Ballarat VIC for the Australian National championships. Although the band didn’t place well overall on the day, it was another positive experience playing with a very tight drum corps under the lead tip of Roy Hamilton this time and with guest players from a Singapore pipe band. After this trip John was invited to be a guest player with grade 1 WAPOL under lead tip Chris Johnston. John also travelled with Coastals to the 2016 Australian nationals in Sydney, and again in 2018 Australian Nationals in Brisbane preceded by the lead up competition in MacLean NSW, under lead tip Julian Anderson.

Since this time, John has been a solid 2IC to leading tips of EJ Brown and Julian Anderson, and then eventually taking over the drum sergeant role full time following Julian’s retirement from playing. John is the current B grade solo champion in the Fremantle (7 years running) and WA State Solo competitions, and regularly plays up in A grade to have a crack at the WAPOL drummers competing.

For his day job, John is a mechanical engineer working at a valve company in Canning Vale. He lives in Hilbert with his wife, 1 year old daughter, 1 year old boy, and a cat. He is a Saggitarius who hates long walks along the beach because the sand gets in everywhere.