I’m now stepping off of the back of being in bands for the past 15 years. Being around other musician does hold a lot of attributes, everyone adding their own flavour which entombs a particular dynamic that is never duplicated, but I was drifting evermore into writing bare bones songs.
I do love the whole band thing - the camaraderie, bouncing off other musicians ( it was a cold night, we had to keep warm some how) and I do miss the benefits you gain live, layering sounds & harmonies, counter melodies & such. But at the same time songs can often evolve when played as an ensemble in a way that loses the essence & heart of their true core.
I found I was being pulled more and more towards stripped down music. Listening & loving particular styles where true master songwriters skilfully knew how to highlight how less really can be much much more.
Artists such as Mike Scott of The Waterboys & Glen Hansard/Marketa Irglova of The Swell Season were burying themselves right inside my bones. The intimacy of the exposed vocals right in the room with you, the kind of music to close your eyes to & take in all the nuances, the subtle little breathes virtually reaching the back of the neck lifting every hair.
The raw sincerity of it really grabbed me - the way they would let the song itself breath, with an ebb & flow of swells. A chorus dropping down with a suction-like gentility or a certain line lifting, pricking the ears & holding your attention, movements within the music pushing & pulling all the time, I developed such inspiration & awe towards it & found myself writing much more acoustically driven songs.
I would never claim to be a supreme vocalist (I‘d lust for Sheryl Crow’s grit & character over Mariah Carey’s every octave any day) & I’m certainly not a guitar extraordinaire. But my voice & style of playing suit’s the songs I write.
I am a nightmare when I have just penned a new tune. It’s like a kid at Christmas time - Look at this Look at THIS. Wanting to play it to all & any who’ll persevere (usually friends or family - beat them into submission), but I take the view point that every artist loves their own music because it is written...
tailor-made to their tastes. So I find I get desperate for & welcome any forms of outside opinion & criticism, hence I jump at a close audience of people whom I know to be direct & honest (got to feel for my wife & siblings - No More, Please No More!!!!)
If pushed I would say that my strongest - just in my opinion- asset is my writing. I have always had an affinity with words, and melodies are ever flowing through my head like a barrel with the tap left on. Sometimes this can be a curse because I can never switch off my mind & always have 1000 things bouncing around in there - be it the middle of the day or 3am in the morning. I’ll be scrambling around for paper scraps rushing out lines before they’re gone & trying to hold onto the next 2 or 3 verses that are sprouting up. It’s the same with anything else creative, I write poetry & novelettes and I am good friends with many other musicians, poets & writers, it is so evident talking to them, how inspiration never keeps standard 9-5 hours, but it’s something I would never change.
I am finding myself being drawn, more & more into becoming a recording artist these days. I have recently acquired a publisher - which has taken me on as a songwriter & composer. This is allowing me the chance to sell my songs to established artists for them to perform, as well as sell my songs as compositions (as performed by myself) for a range of media – such as films, TV, documentaries etc.
This doesn’t impede my rights as an artist & I am still looking for the right label/company who can offer me the proper support in marketing myself as a performing artist.
