A GUITARIST who hails from Kidderminster is enjoying musical success after his band made a deal with the biggest Christian record distributor in the country.

A global television deal is also in the pipeline and a contract for the guitar band's next album is expected to be signed in the coming months.

A guitar distributor is said to be also interested in sponsoring the musicians to play its instruments.

The group at the centre of this frenzy is Worcester-based Whitestone, whose bass guitarist, Mat Gill, is a former pupil of Marlpool First School and Harry Cheshire High School.

The 35-year-old, who lived in Kidderminster until he was 20, was also in the town's Boys Brigade and enjoyed "jamming" sessions with fellow members, including singing postman, Darren Richards.

It was reading of Darren's latest venture - the release of his third album Swing and Smooches - that prompted Mat to make contact with the Shuttle/Times & News.

He explained the band, whose members all met at St Paul's Church in Worcester, formed around two years ago when he and fellow guitarists, Steve East and Nicos Michaela, got together.

Nicos had been in various other bands since the 1970s and asked his friends if they wanted to record a CD. Much of the music had been written before singer, Lydia Boyd, and drummer, Tim Stringer, came on board, Mat said, and the band then recorded its first album, Waiting, themselves using an eight-track recording desk.

It was mixed by Colin Owen, from Malvern, who has worked with the likes of Judas Priest and ELO.

It is this CD that Revelation TV - which has a record company called R Records - is promoting and the same international company is expected to offer Whitestone a record contract for its next album.

"We've got a distribution deal with www.praise-him.org and have also been offered a deal with Revelation which is a big global television company.

"They've also got radio stations and their version of MTV, called RTV," said father-of-three, Mat.

He added the band was going to London on May 4 to record a live version of their album for RTV and radio.

"I didn't think this was ever going to happen because I'm 35 now but everything seems to have happened all of a sudden and the last four weeks have gone really fast," he said.

"My eldest son, Josh, who is 12, plays the guitar as well and thinks I'm going to be a bit of a rock star but I've told him to hold his horses," he added.