Mike was brought up in Manchester, played violin and saxophone in the Rochdale Youth Orchestra, before graduating from Birmingham School of Music (now Royal Birmingham Conservatoire) as a singer, he worked for 14 years as a night club DJ in Manchester. He moved to Oswestry in 2007.

Mike sings Bass with Cantiones in Oswestry, and is a cantor at the Orthodox Church in Shrewsbury.

After volunteering for the Oswestry Youth Music Festival and seeing the disproportionately low numbers of State school entrants, he initiated the idea of starting a charity to support State educated children to learn an instrument and sing, believing passionately that all children should have the opportunities that he had.