Matthew Mallardi


Location: Townsville, QLD

Challenge: Asperger’s Syndrome

Website: facebook.com/matthewpmallardi

Matthew Mallardi was born in the city of Townsville, a large coastal community in Queensland, Australia.

Matthew grew up with Trace Anne Mallardi (mother), Paul Mallardi (father) and older siblings Joshua and Hollie. The family owned a 700 acre sugar cane farm one hour west of Townsville.

At the age of 5, Matthew was diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome.

Matthew credits his love of must from his parents. From a young age he was exposed to INXS, ACDC, The Angels and Sherbert. Matthew’s fondest memory was of the family road trips where signing along the Australian rock classics was mandatory. His music taste expanded when he was passed down the family cassette collection at age ten.

At aged 15, Matthew was enrolled at Heatley Secondary College. It was here that Matthew met his first music teacher, Bjarne Ohlin. The former guitarist of Australian rock band The Divinyls, Ohlin played an important role in the development of Matthew’s passion for drums.

Much of Matthew’s class time would be spent tapping his hands to whatever beat was stuck in his head; that was until lunch time when Bjarne would open the drum room so Matthew could make that beat in his head come to life.

Matthew’s parents decided that a move to Townsville would be good for the family. Matthew quickly signed up for drum lessons with local drummer, Constantine Hagialou. Matthew showed great talent and within six months his parents had purchased him his first drum kit. This allowed Matthew to spend all of his spare time practicing and to further hone his skills. Early morning starts at school also allowed Matthew time to practice for school performances, assemblies, concert bands and the school rock band. Matthew’s passion for drumming continued to grow throughout his school life. After graduation, Matthew continued to perfect his skills and passion for performing in original bands around Townsville.

Learning all that he could from Constatine Hagialou, Matthew began searching for other opportunities and inspiration. To date Matthew has studied with Steve Pope, Luke Williams, Grant Collins, Lucius Borich, Thomas Lang and Dom Famularo. Matthew took each opportunity to learn from their individual talents and credits each for contributing to his drumming success.

Matthew’s career highlights so far have been his contributions to numerous music festivals around Townsville and North Queensland, having a personal invitation from Nicky Bomba to play drums and percussion at the 2013 Palm Creek Folk Festival and being a recent contestant in the North Queensland Drum Competition in Macaky.

Matthew’s artistic idol is Michelangelo, the artist and sculptor.

Matthew can be seen drumming along Flinders Street in the Townsville nightclub district on Friday and Saturday nights. Matthew spends time in his studio recording drum covers that he regularly uploads to his own YouTube channel.

Matthew says “I don’t think I have a disability. I have a gift to be so passionate about something I love. Drumming completes me. Everyone has dreams, but if your work hard they will become a reality.”


Matt Mallardi - Busking