After a sparkling career touring the world with the Australian Bee Gees Show, the Mooroopna-born ‘vocal chameleon’ is showing no signs of slowing down.
In fact, with gigs booked on yet another cruise liner — Carnival Vista — setting out from Port Canaveral in Florida in May, Mr Lines seems to be just getting started.
Between long weeks aboard ships on the other side of the world, Mr Lines still finds time to return to his home in Cobram.
After finishing Year 11 in Mooroopna Secondary College in 1988, Mr Lines decided he wanted to pursue a career in sign writing. That passion led him to become an apprentice with Arthur German of German Signs at 18 years of age in 1990.
After finishing his training, Mr Lines worked with German Signs for another four years until 1998.
At that time, Mr Lines was already heavily involved in the local music scene. In 1999, Lines impressed crowds enough on the ‘Red Faces’ segment of Hey Hey It’s Saturday to finish runner-up.
It was enough to give him his foot in the door of the music industry. Later, he got a call from a band in Melbourne, who wanted him to come practice.
But it was while watching a performance in 2009 by the Australian Bee Gees Show one night with his then-partner that Mr Lines was really inspired.
“Man, I’m watching the Bee Gees, and I was doing a double-take at how good those guys were,” he said.
Soon, Mr Lines got the chance to vocal-coach the then performer for the role of Robin Gibbs. When the performer had to pull out ahead of a major US tour in 2010, Mr Lines stepped in.
“The Bee Gees opened the world for me,” Mr Lines said.
And even the most cursory flip through his passport would prove that to be the case.
Mr Lines went on to tour with the show in places such as Singapore, Germany and Egypt.
While on tour through Egypt, Lines took the chance to see downtown Cairo, the Sphinx and — naturally — the Great Pyramids.
One evening, Lines and a bandmate decided to leave their hotel and go for a leisurely stroll along the Nile River.
It wasn’t until later that Mr Lines and his friend appreciated the drama unfolding back at their hotel.
At one point on their stroll, the shrill urgency of a phone call broke the evening peace.
It was Mr Lines’ Egyptian minder, whose panicked voice told Mr Lines and his friend all they needed to know about how much potential danger they were in.
It was 2017, about five years after the uprising that became known as the Arab Spring. According to Mr Lines’ minder, tourists had been reported missing.
“Having us there was a big deal for them because we were probably the first English-speaking foreigners to visit,” Mr Lines said.
Another tour saw Mr Lines and the show visit Guam, the US military base in the Pacific Ocean.
Mr Lines said he was taken aback by the affluent streets lined with high rises and shopping malls and the poverty-stricken neighbourhoods beyond.
Just the day before Mr Lines arrived, a car ran into the crowd at one such mall. At least seven people were killed.
“We were wondering why the place was so sombre,” Mr Lines said.
Many tours later, Mr Lines decided he was keen on something different.
For the past few years, he’s been performing to holidaymakers on cruise liners out of the United States.
On May 15 last year, while home in Cobram, Mr Lines got a call from his agent asking him if he would like to work on the Carnival Paradise cruise liner, departing from Tampa, Florida.
Mr Lines said yes. However, there was a catch.
Other than the down-time afforded by the 14-hour flight to Los Angeles, Mr Lines had no chance to catch up on rest. The day he touched down in the US, he found himself performing before a crowd of holidaymakers aboard the Carnival Paradise.
At least, he said, the show went down well with his audience.
It may just be all in a day’s work for the musician.
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