Pat Simmonds is a musician from New Zealand. The product of an Irish immigrant family with Carlow connections, he is the eldest of five siblings, all of whom play music, inheriting a mantle that extends for generations on his Mother's side. Many of his cousins in Ireland are County and Provincial champions on various instruments. He spent many years in Conamara where he performed with some of that regions great musicians, The Connolly family, John Beag O'Flatharta, Sean Keane, Sean Tyrrell, Charlie Lennon, Pat Mitchell, the Shannon sisters and others. He has appeared numerous times on Irish, English and European television and radio and collaborations have garnered several songwriting awards in Ireland including Foinn '91 and two Pan Celtic Festival firsts.
In 2000 the band were invited to appear at the millenium concert in Gisborne, New Zealand where they played to an audience of over 30 000 people.
His recording credits include the live to video concert "Gael Cheol Tire Chonamara", hardcore folk band The Far Canals, Spidoolin, the New Zealand bush band Murphy's Law and many others.
Recently he established his own recording facility, Makorori Studios, producing albums for a number of musicians including the critically acclaimed singer/songwriter Jon Brooks (2006 Greenman Review Songwriter of the year, 2008 Canadian Folk Music Awards songwriter of the year nominee), folksinger Enoch Kent (2008 Canadian Folk Music Awards traditional singer of the year), storyteller and concertina player Carol Ashton, John Eccleston, Jim Fay and coordinated a number of celtic theme albums for Solitudes. He has guested on albums by accordionist Ena O'Brien and bagpipe funk merchants Taxi Chain.