First off how are you? How was the first Gig of the tour?
“Great! It’s always nice to play a venue I haven’t played before in St Albans; I enjoy doing the solo gigs as its more relaxed and I can chat to people afterwards. It was a great atmosphere especially for a midweek gig and being solo I can adapt the show to the audience and how they’re responding”
I saw on your Instagram you’ve released 50 songs since 2020, how do you pick your set list from that?
“Well, I guess most people know me from The Starsailor material so at least half the set is those songs, and the solo songs are ones I’ve released most recently, are doing well or I’m most comfortable playing live”
What keeps you making music to this extent after the success of Starsaillor?
“For a long-time it was just the band, creating a record and then touring it; a 2-year cycle constantly. I guess financially it’s also enough to sustain you, but now it’s not as easy as albums don’t sell like they used to.
It’s a double-edged sword as an artist because I believe artists needs to be paid more from streaming, but it’s also made it so much more independent and easier to release music, there’s something nice about writing a song, producing it to your best and within a few months it being out into the world”
I bet it’s a massive shift from when you were first putting out music…
“Yeah, there was a lot of promotion prior to release because you wanted to make sure everyone was ready to go to the shop to buy a physical product, I think that’s still the case with albums, as Starsailor are releasing a new album and there’s going to be a big campaign and effort towards that”
Who are you biggest inspirations and have they changed throughout the years?
“Initially Jeff Buckley was a massive influence vocally, The Beatles are a constant and obvious answer with their range of material. The Charlaton’s were a band I saw a lot growing up as well.
More recently Bon Iver, I saw him live in Leeds. He experiments a lot within singer song writing with releases and collaboration, he’s a benchmark of where I’d like to be in my career and what I do. But I’m also happy with how it’s going now its just good to aim as high as you can”
Are there any Artists that you feel deserve anymore recognition than they currently have?
“One artist who deserves more recognition is sadly no longer with us is a singer called Gavin Clark who sang on a lot of Shane Meadows films, his voice is unbelievable. I think it’s become a more difficult question with Spotify a lot of music isn’t necessarily breaking into the mainstream but it’s finding its own audience. There’s loads of amazing music out there!”