He left home at 17 to join one of the UK's biggest dance hall Big Bands, but was fired for rehearsing in company time with his own group.
He was playing in pubs and clubs in Scotland when he saw an advertisement for keyboard players in the music newspaper Melody Maker, which turned out to be from the progressive rock band Jethro Tull.
Vettese made significant contributions to Tull's heavily electronic album Under Wraps, (1984)[1] toured with them again in 1986, and recorded as a guest musician on Rock Island (1989).
In the 1980s he worked with and produced a diverse range of artists including Cutting Crew, Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Go West, Pet Shop Boys, Bee Gees, Cher, Foreigner, Carly Simon and Clannad.
[2] More recently he has worked with Box of Frogs, Simple Minds, Annie Lennox (the Grammy winning arrangement of "Walking on Broken Glass"), Zucchero, Simon Nicol, Peter Cox, Heather Small, Dido, Sophie B. Hawkins, Andy Leek, Beverley Knight, Hanne Boel, Gary Barlow, Mark Owen, Geri Halliwell, Melanie C, Nate James, Alex Parks, Darren Hayes, Robin Gibb (most notably on the album 50 St. Catherine's Drive) Laura Critchley, Peter Heppner and Spark.