He began writing his own music by the age of eight and while a teenager at Huron Park Secondary School (in Woodstock, Ontario) he formed a band called "The Guards Of Zeus", with classmates Jon Bartley and Mike McGinnis.
Due to less than enthusiastic album sales and the band's inability to finance their own American touring, Reunion dropped The Awakening from their roster.
The final roster for the band consisted of Tanner and Horrocks, with Tony Lind on guitars and Darryl McWaters on drums.
In 2000, Tanner quit the band, citing an obvious lack of success in the marketplace coupled with personal and marital issues of his own.
Lind and McWaters would eventually re-join Tanner as members of Jim Witter's multi-media tribute show "The Piano Men - A Trip Through The 1970s with Billy Joel and Elton John."
He began working for a company in Canada which produced and created projects for children, specifically in the gospel industry.
[3] He began touring as a side-musician, playing for artists such as George Fox, Jason McCoy, Deric Ruttan and Jim Witter.