Having a voice similar in character to Peter Gabriel, Fish & Sting has helped singer/songwriter Mark Trueack (Truey to his friends) to realise a life-long dream of a career in the music business. During the mid 80's to early 90's, Mark worked on the other side of the industry gaining valuable insight & knowledge as a record company executive.
Also at the time, he pursued his passion for performing by recreating a Genesis cover band, 'The Genesis Touch'. Highly regarded nationally around Australia, the group consistently played to packed houses, but unfortunately had to disband due to Mark's interstate employment opportunities.
While in Sydney, New South Wales, Mark began his song writing career with local producer, Matt Stevens, penning two fine songs, Time For Change and This Life. (These could turn up on Unitopia's second release!) Retuning to Adelaide, South Australia in 1996, Mark was introduced to Sean Timms, by a mutual friend, who noticed the similarities in both musical tastes and personality. After a night on the town & a few beers, the two proceeded to begin a song writing partnership that continues to this day.
The first of these songs was a highly different version of 'Take Good Care' titled 'Taking Care In This World'. Quickly realising that they 'had something here' they continued to write together whenever and wherever possible.
During this time, Mark re-teamed with his 'Genesis Touch' pal Matthew Atherton, himself an extremely highly regarded concert organist/composer and formed Pangaia to play some of the now named Unitopia music. Unfortunately, due to differing expectations the personnel quietly went their own ways.
This left Mark without a live vehicle for his larger than life on-stage persona (He stands at a very modest 6'6" in the old scale). Convincing Sean that playing live was the best way to fine-tune & promote the Unitopia music, they recruited the very best musicians available and proceeded to form the rest of the live line-up that is Unitopia.
Since the formation of the band, Mark has also had several other opportunities to perform, most notably the John Lennon memorial concert on the anniversary of his death in late 2005. Although still working as an executive at Legend Digital Technology, Mark hopes to one day make music his full time occupation as it is already his full time passion.
He is married to his wife of 20 plus years Cheryl, and they have two lovely daughters, Holly (who has a cameo appearance on Justify) and Brittany. He also enjoys watching movies, hosting the odd backyard cricket competition and reminiscing about his glory days as a professional Australian Rules footballer for both the Sturt and South Adelaide Football Clubs.
As co-founder of Unitopia, Mark is an integral part of the process, not only as a world class vocalist, innovative songwriter, constantly creative co-producer and morale booster, but as a relentless driving force behind everything that Unitopia has achieved so far and is yet to achieve. The passion he injects into his music is endless (as is his sense of humour!) and his knowledge of the music industry and record companies in particular has given Unitopia a wealth of knowledge to draw from, making the journey forward an exciting and potentially lucrative one.
Mark Trueack
Vocals/Hand percussion
Production/Song writing/Creative direction
Equipment:
On stage, Mark uses anything he can get his hands on! He also dabbles with piano, guitar (as much as his 4 and a half fingers will allow!) and writes or co-writes all the lyrics for Unitopia.