1. Where are you from? How did you get your artist-/band-/project- name?
I
was born in Liverpool England,and lived there until I moved to London
when I was 20, I later moved to Hamburg in Deutschland, and moved then
to Denmark. I travel to England from Denmark frequently.
I
once toured Irish pubs in Scandinavia playing music,and it was an
Irish guy "Pablo" who said that I was "Away With The Fairys" because of
the things that I talked about. Being Away With The Fairys in Liverpool
and Ireland means basically your mad, or you think differently than
most people, far out, etc.
I immediately thought it would be a good name for a band,and stuck with that.
2. How did you get involved into music?
An
uncle who wrote folk songs for a Liverpool folk group "The Spinners"
gave me his broken guitar with no tuning keys and only one string when
I was about seven or eight. You needed a brick to keep the string
down, it hurt my fingers,but I used to just play popular songs on this
one string. Later I got a "K" guitar from a catalogue and learnt a few
chords.
In my youth I joined a youth theatre where my first
musical was "Oh what a lovely war" followed by Brechts "Caucasion chalk
circle" followed by Simon Zealot in Jesus christ superstar.
I
formed a rock band playing stuff like "Smoke on the Water" when I was
16, I was the singer, but I didnt know about key changes and the bass
player who fancied himself, changed the key of the songs so that
Icouldn`t sing them, but he could. So I was relegated to backing
vocals, then the songs changed and then I was kicked out of the band. I
vowed then to learn the guitar a little bit better.
Later on at
Acting school in London I met up, played and created music with Damon
Albarn of "Blur", "Gorrilaz" and now of "The Good The Bad And The
Queen" who asked me to leave the school and be in a band with him. I
said no, but I knew he was going to be famous. Just wasn`t the right
time for me.
3. What are your influences (e.g. bands, styles, circumstances)? Your personal way of music?
I
would say my taste is eclectic, I like to listen to anything, from
Palestrina, Bach, Mozart, Beatles (obviously). Though I don´t like
musical snobbery, the truth is I´ve tapped my feet to a lot of music
that would be looked on as unfashionable. Yeah, even the Osmonds (crazy
Horses), Bay city rollers. One cant block out the music which is out
there, if you hear it, the brain records it. I like the music of Brian
Eno, David Bowie, Steely Dan, Ian dury , Supertramp, Doors, Purple,
Hendrix, The sensational Alex Harvey Band, and on and on. John Lennon
is my hero if I really had a hero, he was a guy who had many problems
who aknowledged and tried to work on them. It would have been
interesting to see how he would of dealt with this present era.
A
writer by the name of Laura Knight Jadczyk has influenced and inspired
me to write many songs of late, her book "Secret History of the
world", blew my socks off.
4. How would you describe your music?
I
would describe my music as being honest, and not hiding in abstract.
Personally speaking I believe it is the artists duty to "hold up the
mirror to nature (society) as it where", as Shakespeare said. If one
does not attempt this, one is an entertainer, not an artist , or so,
I think.
People in general don´t like mirrors though, it makes
them feel uncomfortable, but the truth is the truth whether one rages
against it or not. Its not a matter of opinion, opinion is subjective.
As Simon and Garfunkle put it, "Still a man hears what he wants to
hear and disregards the rest ".
So I would describe my music as
trying to be informative also. I actually research and cross reference
my sources before gong with what is most plausable.
5. Which is your best way to write songs/music? How can you work most efficiently?
I work better when the neighbours downstairs are out, then i can monitor through the speakers what im doing.
6. How long does it take you to create a song? e.g. writing an recording?
It
is different all the time, some times I can have a melody and the music
in a few hours, but the words won`t come for about a week sometimes.
I`m always striving to make the recordings more clearer also, I`m not a
very good sound engineer so this takes time, until I feel OK about
putting it out in the public domain.
7. Are you also working together with other musicians as guest players or in collaboration?
I
returned from Canada last year where I played some of my songs with
Canadian musicians which was fun, we performed at the "Peace begins at
home" event in Grande Prarie Alberta.
While recording in Denmark,
I work alone, playing all the instruments, though I know when the new
line up of "Away With The Fairys" happens in a few weeks time,
everything is going to change.
When playing with other
musicians I don´t dictate how they should play, and always allow their
talent to flow through. Thats a group, the coming together and gelling
of a number of folks with diffirent ideas and talents, but with a
united aim.
8. Which is your favorite location to play and where will you play next?
I
dont think there is a favourite location, anywhere with an audience is
fine with us. "Away With The Fairys" will be touring the U.K. in April.
So far Liverpool and Glasgow, Scotland are places we WILL be playing,
though dates not yet confirmed.
We would also like to play
Deutschland and other parts of Europe. I know we would like to do an
outdoor festival or two this summer. Lets wait and see.
9. Do you have a video to your music?
Well, there is a video of me in my room, miming to "Shout!" which I uploaded to YouTube and can be found at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u747W9Z0pRk
or on mywebsite at
http://www.awaywiththefairys.com/SHOUT!.htm
The tour will be documented on video.
10. Plans for the future?
Well,
touring, playing and recording, which one would expect any band to say.
I would like to open a live music venue at some point in the future.The
future is open, so let see.
11. Anything you want to add at this point?
Just if anyone catches us on tour to just come up and say hello.
and
"Life is what happens while you're busy making other plans." (John Lennon)
http://www.besonic.com/Away_With_The_Fairys