The Team

Collectively the Caragan team have personal experience of all areas of the music industry. Through years of working in the business they have built up an impressive array of industry contacts. Check out their CVs below:

Vince de la Cruz

A grammy nominee, Vince has been in the music industry for 20 years and was the founder member of the band Katrina and The Waves ("Walking On Sunshine"), writing several of their hit records. Over the years Vince has worked alongside The Beach Boys, Don Henley, The Kinks, Fleetwood Mac, Hepburn, George Michael and Vangelis. As a song-writer Vince has written music covered by major artists including Jefferson Starship and April Wine. He also penned the Summer top 20 classic "Sun Street" for Katrina and the Waves.

Mike Nocito

Mike is an acclaimed song-writer, musician, engineer and producer with 25 years of music-industry experience. As well as achieving huge success with his own band, Johnny Hates Jazz (international smash-hit singles include "Shattered Dreams" and "Turn Back the Clock"), he has engineered and produced songs for many famous artists including Duran Duran, The Thompson Twins, The Police, Gina G, Pink Floyd ... and many more.

Girl-band "Hepburn" were one of Mike's projects to have several hits (including "I Quit" which featured in the Buffy The Vampire Slayer TV show as well as reaching the top ten in the UK charts). In the studio Mike has just finished mixing some of the tracks on Steve Brookstein's (of X-factor fame) debut album.

Daren Walder

Daren has been in the music industry for 10 years, starting in RAK studios under the direction of pop-legend, Mickie Most. In the studio Daren has worked with a huge number of acts including The Cure, The Stone Roses, Johnny Hates Jazz, and the Lenny Kravitz band. As a tour manager, Daren has worked alongside Westlife, Five, A1, Samantha Mumba, Billie and Atomic Kitten.

At Caragan, Daren is in charge of maintaining relationships with our partner music-industry companies. He has numerous close contacts at the very highest levels in all the major labels (including Sony, Universal, Polydor, Virgin, EMI, BMG) and many of the influential independents (including Edel, Instant Karma and Independiente). Daren also has connections with major production companies: e.g. Metrophonic, responsible for artists such as Lemar, Enrique Iglesias, Gerri Halliwell, G4 and Cher.

Alex Cooper

In his 25 year's of musical experience, Alex's career has encompassed every aspect of the industry. This experience has included performing (a grammy nominated song-writer and performer, Alex has toured the world several times over and even won the Eurovision Song Contest!); managing (he has negotiated a dozen or more major deals); co-producing and A&R (his history of identifying hits goes right back to Supertramp and "Dreamer").