Tana Smith

Tana began his career as a teenager in Samoa with the band from the legendary Mount Vaea Nightclub in Apia, the most popular club of it's time under his mentor Oli Brown. After securing his place in the band Tana quickly became one of the favourite singers, both with locals and the large number of tourists that visited the island. The band toured Samoa and featured Tana on the following self titled album. After the album was released Tana was sent to New Zealand to work with former Mount Vaea member Pene Matautia who was now well established in his own right with the Kokonut band, which had been a fixture in the West Auckland scene for sometime. Tana joined Pene with his new band at Club Leon while they worked on his first solo recording. Tana quickly released his first single back in Samoa called "Samoa Manaia" this was followed up by his album "Mealelei". Also while in New Zealand Tana had his first taste of Hollywood when he was cast as a cadet for an episode of 'Young Hercules' which starred a very young Ryan Gosling. Soon after, Tana was approached to record in LA where he met future collaborator Sam Tu'uga, of Jamoan Jam and Pacific Soul. Tana went to Brisbane Australia to work with Sam on the album 'Natural'. While in Brisbane he starting acting again in a series of short film projects that would eventually entice him away from music as a full time career. Tana was cast as 'Ethan' in 'Tin God'. The film had no budget but the cast lead by Tana gave strong performances which helped this small film win a loyal audience. The film screened internationally and was released on DVD in Australia in 2011 and internationally in 2012. Two other films followed, 'Loyalty' and 'Who pays the Hitman' before, in mid 2010, Tana took the next step and formed his own production company to undertake production of the film 'Still Waters'. Still Waters had it's premiere screening in Cannes 2011 during the film festival just months after Tana had lost everything in the floods which devastated large regions of Australia. Still Waters was released in Australia in 2011. In 2013 Tana teamed with Director John V Soto to work on an upcoming script. After this he began work on his short film Upgrade, co-producing with Peter Fragoudakis.