Fable Cry - Zach Ferrin

Catch up with Fable Cry's Zach Ferrin and check out the video for single "Fancy Dancing".

What inspired you to start Fable Cry?

Zach Ferrin: Well, growing up, music had always been apart of my life. My parents were both musicians and I'm one of four children, who all played instruments and/or sang.  When me and my youngest sister picked up instruments of our own - I played guitar, she played violin - we started playing together and, through high school, we played in different bands together of varying sorts, always the two of us. After that, it was the way of most high school bands, other people got interested in other things and we still wanted to keep going with music so we started the duo, Fable Cry, beginning in 2010. I’ve always been inspired by and enjoyed multiple art forms, music being the main one, and just all varieties of performance. I've done some theater, some puppetry, so the idea was to find an outlet to do all of those things. We didn't want to be a band that just played music, we knew we wanted to be a band that told stories and involved theatrics and props and try to bring the whole audience into it and make them feel like they were there for a reason. A lot of bands, I think, just jump up and they play the song and they may be great musicians, but there's not a whole lot of connection with the audience.  So we had this desire to bring back storytelling, like old bards and jesters, entertaining people, trying to reconnect the worlds of stage and audience; this age of constantly being connected through the internet can also make one feel detached, and we wanted to push back a bit. 

Why grow the band?

The first album we did we played everything on it, to try and make it sound like a full band. The live show has always been energetic and very moving, but it was only a duo and we kind of wanted to make up for that lack of sonic energy by making it a full thing. So, the way we've written and were writing at the time was always made for a full band and we had to sort of dumb it down in our live shows, so the addition of members seemed inevitable.  The first addition was a cellist, Joshua Dent, who we had played shows with and gotten to know while he was playing cello for other musicians/bands around town.  We tried it out, and it was perfect.

Then, at the beginning of last year, my sister left the band and left this gap, but also left a lot of new opportunities for growth, and it was crazy; in this short, two month period there were three others (violin/vocals, bass, and drums) that either we had known for a while, or they'd just moved into town or were in similar circles and it kind of turned into a five piece overnight. It all came together in a really good way.

What sets your live shows apart from other band's performances?

Well, as I mentioned, the storytelling. We tell stories, of course, writing songs is all telling stories, but we tell stories in between songs and as intros to songs, often in character, and as characters from our songs. A lot of our songs have crowd participation; we have one song called "You Ain't My Baby No More" and it sort of has this fifties feel, complete with “sha-doops”, and then murderous revenge over a broken heart - a bit melodramatic, admittedly. Well, following the line “you left me standing in the rain” we open up umbrellas and that’s everyone's cue to take their hands and clap them on their laps or on their tables. When the whole audience does that it sounds like rain and you just gotta see it, it's fun. We've thrown out eye patches, for some of our pirate-like songs so the crowd can dress up with us, and even invited people on stage. Again, it's kind of that connecting, trying to get people involved.

How would you describe your style?

We call it theatrical scamp rock but that title sort of evolved; we kicked around some different things. At first, it was kind of, it had some gypsy elements, some Beirut, some of that in there, but there was this other element that we couldn't quite figure out.  In our song, "Hobo Wicked Fix", one of the character’s name is Scampy and one of our friends started describing us as scamp rock after we started using “scamp” as a verb onstage and online.  It seemed to fit our music too well. It sounds 'scampy'; it's not quite punk, not quite ska, or rockabilly, but it's the attitude I think, kind of like the blues or punk have their own attitudes, and that can be as important as the music itself.  The scamp somehow described our sonic sound, but it also described a lot of our characters; foxy, sneaky, scampy.  Then there's the theatrical elements of course, being a theatrical band and telling stories and dressing up and wearing make-up. The rock is pretty self-explanatory.  And there it was: Theatrical-Scamp-Rock

How does this forthcoming album compare to your debut one?

One of the main differences is that now we're actually a full band and don’t have to fake it through the recordings whereas, like I mentioned, with the first album it was just two of us. We recorded guitar, drums, accordion, violin, cello, bass, banjo, and just kind of piled it all on. My sister and I had our core instruments that we played well, and everything else we did a decent job at faking! The new band members are all so talented and bring their own creativity that allows everything, as a whole, to be a lot more technical, more musical, and a bit heavier than the last album. The last album, it being a brother and sister duo, seemed cuter, maybe; this album's less cute, it's a little darker, a little heavier. If I had more patience, it would be a great Fall album, because this has a lot of spooky elements, a lot of songs about horror themes, which is fun and one of our main influences, thematically. It's a year-round holiday for us, Halloween.

What's the best thing you've heard someone say in response to the "Fancy Dancing" video?

Oh man, I think something that's exciting is when people say that they have it stuck in their heads or can’t stop watching it.  A lot of the music I write will randomly come to me, the melodies often will just pop into my head and I get them stuck in there first.  That refrain came to me before any lyrics that fit it did, and the plot to the song also sort of revealed itself as I was writing it, so I think, yeah, having people complain about having it stuck in their heads for the last week, I'm like 'yeah! me too!’  We've also had several of our fans send us videos of their single digit kids singing the song or watching the video and just totally obsessed with it and kids are so honest that they're going to tell you if they think it's terrible or not waste their time with it.  So to see such a positive response from people of all ages, it’s extremely flattering and, hopefully, they'll grow up and continue to enjoy our music!

What effect has being in Nashville had on your music?

Nashville has a lot to it, I mean, it's Music City, but it's really beyond that. When we were first touring it was surprising to some people to find out that we were from Nashville.  From the outside, a lot of people think it's all about country music and that is obviously a big part of it, but when you're actually here, there are so many people really excited about doing new things and different things with music.  And since nearly everyone plays music, it’s very inspiring to try and keep up.  There aren't a whole lot of bands here doing what we're doing, but I think just the opportunity to find eclectic people, and the variety of people that are here, that's really wonderful.  If you watch the show Nashville, just know it’s not like all of Nashville.  There's a character on there who's supposed to be an East Nashville hipster and it’s funny to see; we're from East Nashville and it's kind of like the weird, young, artsy side of town. It's funny to see how other people are portraying Nashville.

Which of your influences would you want to work with?

I think most of our idols are dead, unfortunately; I would love to work with Jack White in some capacity, I really admire what he does. I think he's actually done really cool things in helping to expand some of those preconceived ideas of what Nashville is, which is cool.

Any songs you're stuck on right now?

We listen to so much music, a lot of throwback stuff; most of today I was listening to Danny Kaye. A couple weeks ago, I wore "Uptown Funk" out; I heard it for the first time and just got obsessed with it - myself and so many others. I was surprised at how much I enjoyed that, that song's just so freaking catchy it's ridiculous and that video's too much fun. Definitely an added perk to being in a band and playing is the variety of free shows you see by sharing bills with so many great bands.  Many of my favorite bands and artists to listen to are friends that I’ve met either here in Nashville or on tour.  Hearing what is going on in the various local scenes, I'm really excited about what is to come for music. It's headed in a really cool direction I think; perhaps I'm biased, though.

What do you want listeners to know about your music?

That's hard to say, I think everybody - I think everybody listens to or enjoys songs for different reasons and has their own sort of interpretation of it and I like that. I think a lot of our songs, lyrically, are somewhat abstract and though they might tell an obvious story, they  often have some hidden messages in them too. In Fable Cry, there's this fable aspect where there's this story within a story where it kind of gives an idea or a lesson or a warning of something. I don't want to tell anybody what to think or how to think about it, I just want them to enjoy it in what way they do - and if they end up getting obsessed with it in the process, that’s okay too!

Why choose the name Fable Cry?

We had several fantastical songs written before we had the band name and we kicked around a lot of ideas; a lot of really bad ones, a lot of okay ones. We kept going back to the word “fable.”  That word is just so good in its meaning and I just love everything that it encompasses, but we didn’t like it on its own.  We tried combining it with several words and when we came to “cry” it was perfect.  Fable Cry.  It was an immediately triumphant shouting of whimsical tales.  Now, just like then, we want to be heard and we want people to listen, and we’ll keep shouting these stories at you until you hear us.

All five of us are performers and it starts with the music and we love writing the music and playing the music but, if there was no audience it would greatly reduce the enjoyment of playing it.  Sharing your creativity with others can put you in a vulnerable place so when so many people react positively, it really is the best. I hope they enjoy it, I hope people check us out and like what they see and hear and become obsessed. 

Fable Cry             Facebook             Twitter             YouTube

Forebear

Catch an interview with the talented members of Forebear, listen to their entrancing debut EP, and head to all the sites below for more.

Why make the name switch from Wise Cub to Forebear?

Scott: When Wise Cub first started it was just a solo effort and of all the people that managed to help me out over the course of that time, be it production wise or ensemble wise, it was Molly, Nick, and Mike, who, when we finally came together and started working as an ensemble, that the sound was beginning to change pretty dramatically. To just honor that change and the amount of time the four of us had worked together, where Wise Cub evolved from this solo effort into a whole band effort, in that time it was important to me that we honor that evolution and, in union with that, the shorter, more superficial answer is that there's a band called Wild Cub and it was making things. It kind of prompted our interest in changing the name to begin with. And the EP that was released by Wise Cub very early last year to what we put out at the end of this last year, it's so different, so it makes a lot of sense to come out as a brand new entity.

How would you describe the sound now?

Molly: I would say the closest thing that I've just been telling people is cinematic rock.

Scott: I concur.

Nick: I have - it may be the first time the band's hearing me say this - but I have trouble with cinematic rock because I don't fully get it, because it means we play like 'epic rock,' I would say that...

Molly: Not epic rock. Cinematic. As in like soundtrack, movie scores type, cinema. Cinematic rock.

Nick: Yeah, but I see it more as just like a little primitive, more abstract alternative with a spin on it.

Molly: People say that it's like folk but I feel like they only say that because there's a viola in the band.

Scott: Yeah, that's true. They don't know how to take it.

Molly: Yeah, they hear string and they just assume, oh, it's either classical or folk, but it's not utilized in that way at all.

Scott: Yeah, definitely not.

What do you guys keep in mind when you are writing new songs?

Nick: We're never really trying to go for a specific thing. We might write one song that does sound cinematic and like string based and harmony based, but then the next song we write will sound like The Pixies, so I think it's less, like, what are we trying to do when we write and we just pick a nugget of an idea and end up going from there and in that we'll add all our elements. I think it's much less about what are we trying to do and we sort of just let that happen very organically.

Scott: It's just kind of we impress each other, and not with virtuosity, but with creativity and I also think we're not overstepping somebody else's creativity, but yours is coming through theirs. I think that only really comes from having such a close relationship with everyone in the band, you establish this really incredible creative shorthand and I think one thing that we really excel at as a band, more than anything, is our ability to really listen to each other, not just the parts, but really listen to each other in whatever form we decide to make it when being creative; and particularly when we're playing on stage, not just in the creative sound that comes from writing the song from scratch, but the execution of that song when we're on stage and we're super aware of our levels and just playing within the parameters of whichever venue we happen to be at. I think it really boils down to the relationship between the four of us and, like Nick said, we may not be planning to write something cinematic, so to speak, but as a result of the four individuals and our individual influences, we just mellow so well that it just happens to create something alternative. I think truly alternative, not in the way that alternative connotes a genre of music, but seemingly just off-tilt of a lot of conventional forms of rock and roll.

Nick: Alternative tends to pigeonhole you sometimes to kind of that mid-nineties rock, and I definitely mean alternative in the sense that we all love rock, we all have different forms of rock and, when it's brought together, it's a different thing, hopefully, than you've heard before.

Are there any bands you guys would compare yourself to?

Scott: Based off our influences and just what people tell us, as far as what we sound like, I keep saying that like for me, last year, there was a moment where there was a time where within two months of each other I saw Atoms for Peace and John Williams at the Hollywood Bowl. Atoms for Peace is this amazing rhythmic percussions, but it's like a very dancey, tribal, yet modern repertoire that just really, really motivated me and then John Williams, just to witness how he conducts was pretty incredible, I think that was when I really started realizing how much I need to listen to my band mates and how they're moving in a song.

Nick: I think you can almost isolate each individuals part in a way, because I would say, you know, Mike's drumming style is super, weirdly rhythmic and, for me, one of my biggest inspirations is this bass player called Tim Commerford, he played bass in Rage Against the Machine. I don't think we sound anything like Rage Against the Machine, but I'll have a bass line that I'll be like oh, that's really inspired by that, so I don't know if the band would be inspired by that or just like each individual part. I would say we sound like Muse, also; Muse, Radiohead, those are the few bands I've heard us compared to.

What's been most influential to your music?

Nick: I think that, as far as mentorship is concerned, we could easily throw it over to Scott Gordon. He's been an incredible producer over the time we've worked with him, particularly on this EP we just released and he's been an amazing guy to work with. He really encourages the hands-on approach that also turns us onto some outside the box ideas.

Scott: Yeah, I think influences, as far as the recording process, Scott Gordon, our producer, definitely. I mean, one of my favorite influences of all time, I love John Frusciante, who is famous for playing guitar in Red Hot Chili Peppers but has got a slew of solo material that spans everything from singer/songwriter to electronica and that's really inspiring to me, especially in this band where we don't want to pigeonhole ourselves. We don't want to be afraid to write a song where the first half is just this acoustic guitar and then the second half is going to be this sort of explosive electronic riff thing and I think, for me, to be inspired by such a vast catalogue that is just one artist says to me that you can do whatever you want musically, don't pigeonhole yourself to one style or do one specific thing.

Nick: Yeah, absolutely, I can say, again, we inspire each other so much just by virtue of sharing our sound. The range that encompasses our individual music interests is just so expansive.

Molly: For me, what may make our sound as interesting as it is - hopefully - I mean, I grew up playing classical music, I used to just play classical, so that and movie soundtracks and things like John Williams and Hans Zimmer, you know, I grew up on that and I loved classic rock growing up, like Queen and Led Zeppelin, but just within the band, it's all these guys, really, that have influenced me a lot in terms of opening my mind and heart to different kinds of music. I mean, this is a person who didn't listen to Nirvana until like two years ago so I was like 'oh, this is really cool' like a twelve year old kid listening at the time so I think that's kind of where we are. We're not starting with 'oh, let's start a band and sound like this,' we're coming from such different places and we're not over-thinking it, we just get together and just play.

Nick: Sometimes that definitely causes some tension in the songwriting process,  and not in a bad way, just definitely sometimes we're all trying to go for something different or we've got this one part in a new song that's going to be on our forthcoming EP, a song called "Nosis", where the end is like this big three part harmony thing and, for me, my background is like Led Zeppelin and Red Hot Chili Peppers, I'm that guy, and I just have to like trust fall into my band mates arms and say, like, alright, don't fully get it but I'm going to trust you guys.

Molly: Yeah, but I feel the same way in other songs. There's another song that's coming up where there's this really hard rock part and, to me, it's like that sounds too cliché rock, I don't know what people think rock is. But they're all like this is awesome, so I just trust them.  

Nick: Yeah, there's a lot of trust and we're getting better at it I think too, just letting each other, you know, if somebody really feels passionate about something, letting them take the reins and that's the really cool thing about where Forebear has gone. It's really become a collaborative where, you know, Scott and I could be working on a song for a month and Mike's playing and, all of a sudden, Mike goes, 'you know what guys, we gotta do, I wanna try this' and he'll bring the dynamic down.

Scott: It changes everything.

Nick: It changes everything we've been doing but it works.

Scott: We just roll with it. I think, as individuals, we've really gravitated to so many different types of music and the fact that we just are individuals that gravitated towards each other and there's been that sort of trust fall, that we all are, every time we meet, three/four times a week, as a band or just as individuals, we are so fortunate, and it comes from I think, especially having been in a solo project for as long as I was, it's such a beautiful act to let go. And like Nick and Molly are talking about knowing when to take the talking stick, so to speak, and letting your passion speak through, I think we've gotten really good at this.

Do you have any rough dates when the EP might come out or what it will sound like?

Scott: Late April probably and, I think as far as what it sounds like, I think it sounds most like Forebear than anything we've released prior.

Nick: Yeah, I think sometimes, when bands exist for a long period of time, they're expected to turn something out that sounds expected and we've only released three or four songs so far and so, in that period of time, it was our first effort to produce something. This being our sophomore EP, so to speak - can't believe I termed it that way - but this being our second release, we've definitely really fallen into being able to articulate what we want and our writing process and production process with our producer Scott Gordon and I do think there are so, so, so many cinematic moments in the songs, but also some really cool alternative things; I think the alternative feel of this record is going to really come from taking the time to be experimental.

What do you want people to know about your music?

Nick: I just hope people enjoy it, I'm not trying to force anyone to feel a certain way, but then again I'm not writing the lyrics - that's another side of it. I think that there are certain songs that emote happiness and there's certain songs that emote energy and then there's other songs that emote emotions on maybe more of a darker side, so there's a little something for everything you're feeling on the EP.

Mike: I don't know, that's a tough question.

Scott: It is, but one thing I'd like to say is, particularly with one of our songs, "Eon", that is featured on this forthcoming four song EP, I remember feeling like, alright, just Mike and I have had that conversation about how we really like playing on stage and seeing people move and seeing people dance. I love dancing, one of my favorite things to do is go to concerts with my band mates, festivals especially, and just kind of immerse ourselves in the beauty of just being in an audience and not standing out and just being another dancer, and I really wanted to create music that would get that reaction from people, but I think I may have been struggling from moving out of writing emotive, darker, slower songs and I was talking with one of my students the other day about what it's like, to go from a place of writing sad songs to happy songs, and I said, 'it's not necessarily a matter of writing just to say, all of a sudden, I want to write happy songs, but rather starting with writing about something that feels good'. It makes for bringing out a more emotive theme, but it moves you. We've got this one song called "Eon" that's coming out and that, for me, was an effort to write something that made you want to dance that still happens to express maybe some darker elements, how I felt, how I was dealing with it. Songwriting for me has always been a manifestation of whatever little bits of stuff I've been dealing with inside and to have it manifest into something that feels really good and moves other people is a total win and I think this record has a lot of moments like that. It's got plenty of purely emotive moments, but you don't get lost in it because I think everything is really intentional and there's different styles of songs and I think that stems from us experimenting in the studio; and not just in the nature of self-producing it and having it be a good song before we brought it in to the studio, but really making sure each one stands out from each other. As far as whatever the overall theme is, just getting a taste of all these blogs writing up about our first EP, it's pretty interesting to see what people make of it and I think, as long as we're creating something that affects people enough to spend some time thinking about what they think they should call it, we've won, that's great. More than anything, I just want this EP to affect people.

Mike: I don't think there's an expectation on what we're supposed to sound like in the eye of the audience member, they're just excited to hear something new and we just happen to be that thing. I know I've heard Fiona Apple say that it's not her plan to become a rockstar and create this album and tour and be big and famous, she's just controlled by these emotions and she needs to get them out and the way to do that is by playing and writing songs, so it really, for me, stops at the band level. I want my band members to like the shit and then the audience, whatever. I've noticed from the past half dozen shows, way more often than not, the people that come up to me or other people in Forebear are people that play instruments or are in bands and they seem to have a way of understanding the music, have an easier time getting a grasp of everything that's happening.

Scott: I get that too, that's a good point, is that there's obviously room for it to be affecting a lot of people. It's cool that it lets us do that, not just affecting people in a pop, emotional level, but there's a sort of..

Mike: You can't just put it on under a conversation.

Scott: Totally, speaking for every single one of us.

Mike: I want people to sit and think to themselves, 'ah, I didn't know you could do that'.

Scott: That's really great, I like that a lot. It was funny to me, because we have a colleague band and I saw them do a social media shout out, something to the effect of, when was the last time you just put a record on and just listen to it and I thought to myself, yesterday. I thought everybody really does make the time to listen to music, have it in the foreground, have it be what you're doing, not just as a distraction or in the background and, yeah, I like leaving people with that message.

Molly: I mean, we talk a lot about our music and what makes it good, but we're still such a new band, I mean, we're still figuring it out and, as much as we talk and as much as we admire each other and as much as we care about music and all that, it comes down to we enjoy playing together, we enjoy what we do, and we hope that everybody else does too. 

Forebear             Facebook             Twitter             SoundCloud

Rachel Potter

Catch an interview with Rachel Potter and get the new album, Not So Black and White, out now.

What got you interested in music?

Rachel Potter: I was just born with the music gene; my parents were rock n' rollers, they met in a band in Alabama. I grew up with my mom being a singer in church to start off with and she became a voice teacher when I was about ten or eleven and she herself put out records, Christian albums, while I was growing up. Music was just always part of life and I guess I just never really saw myself doing anything else.

Were there artists whose work inspired you?

I grew up studying Whitney Houston and Mariah Carey's voices and then, once Celine Dion came along, hers as well. I was always fascinated by their vocal abilities, but the artists that really inspired me were always country artists. Martina McBride, Shania Twain, The Dixie Chicks, to name a few of the female; there's a big list of men as well, including The Rascal Flatts and George Strait. I think I always really loved the vocal abilities of pop music and the storytelling of country and I've never really been able to get away from the dream of being a country singer.

How would you describe your sound?

Big mix of pop and country. I love the vocal abilities of pop singers and so I think I've always loved to be able to belt high and sing riffs and all that kind of stuff, so I incorporated a lot of those kind of vocal stylings into my country music with storytelling so, yeah, I would describe my sound as similar to what Carrie Underwood is doing but maybe a bit more pop.

What was the best thing about having been on The X Factor?

I think the best part about The X Factor was just the fans. The exposure was so invaluable that now I can put out an album and people actually care and want to hear it, so that was probably the best thing about The X Factor. Also, I've never done anything more stressful in my life; I've never been more nervous than I was on that show so now I sort of feel like I can do anything cause it's like, hey, it can't be as scary as that was.

How does performing your own music compare to performing someone else's words on Broadway?

Yeah, that was a big part of why I decided to move to Nashville and go after this dream, this goal, because I loved my opportunities that I had on Broadway and it was some of the best times of my life, but there is a point where, as an artist, you really feel that you have something to say, that you want to say it with your own words and I just - I'm a songwriter as well as I play the guitar - so I just really wanted the chance to share my art instead of sharing other people's for a change. Both are extremely satisfying, but I'm really enjoying this piece of life to be able to say what I want to say.

Where do your ideas come from when you are working on new songs?

I feel like I'm sort of, like a method actor, I'm a method songwriter, and generally I don't really write about anything unless it's happening to me. I guess I'm sort of a selfish songwriter, I just write about what's going on in my life, so if I'm going through heartbreak, that's most likely what I'm going to write about or if I'm needing to hear some inspiration that day or whatnot, that's going to happen in the songwriting.

Do you have a favorite track from the new album that's coming out?

I don't know that I have a favorite, but I will say that one of my favorites is - I'll give you two and why - I love "Not So Black and White". That one's really like the kind of flagship song of this record. I knew that I wanted to name the album Not So Black and White and didn't even have a song titled that yet, but it was just my sort of vision of what I wanted to represent, to be able to touch on the things in life that are not black and white, relationships and love and career and sexuality and dreams and all these things that we are sort of all trying to figure out in life that really don't have an equation and so that's sort of life the mission statement song of the record, so I love that one. Then, a surprise song that I actually wrote maybe a week before we went in to the studio is a song called "Try". It came out of a real life heartbreak but turned out to be one of my favorite songs on the record.

How would you describe the album, as a whole?

Well, I think that there's definitely a vast array of feelings and moments and I think that the overall tone of the work is kind of just real life, there's not a whole lot of sugarcoating things. There is one song on there that's really meant to be inspirational called "Worth It" but, for the most part, each song kind of lives in the moment of the emotion that was happening when I wrote the song so kind of, I guess, a snapshot of what I've been going through the past few years. My goals for it, just overall with my music, I've always thought that if it touches one person, if it helps one person get through the day, then it's worth it. Hopefully, this record tells people that none of us really have it figured out and just maybe make people feel less alone and that we're all just muddling through and sorting out how to get through all of this stuff, love and life.

What inspired "Worth It"?

It was right after I got kicked off The X Factor actually and it was the first song I wrote when I got home and I think I've always seen myself as a hero, like I really identify with Katniss at the Hunger Games like, yeah, if I ever got put in the arena, I'd totally win, that's how I like to see myself, but then, when I was actually thrown into this real life arena I, quote on quote, failed. If you look at it, you can't really say that I failed, I didn't win, but I did a pretty good job, but I was really down on myself when I came off the show. I had higher expectations of myself, I was disappointed in my performances, I was just really beating myself up. I wrote that song for myself to try and pick my own self off the floor and get it together. Another thing that happened when I was on the show was I was all of a sudden exposed to all of these young kids on Twitter and the internet, collectively as it were, that were all suffering in different ways and kind of sharing a lot of stories about self harm and depression and bullying and things that these young people were going through, and I guess it was a lot targeted towards them. If I could impart any of my, quote on quote, adult wisdom on these kids that all of a sudden looked up to me, those are the things I wanted to say and, as simple as it is and perhaps cliche that everything's going to be alright, sometimes that's all we really need, is for somebody to say, 'hey, it's going to be okay'. Even though that's the most simple statement, sometimes I feel like that's all I want is for somebody to just hug me and say 'it's going to be okay' and so that's sort of like my hug on the record.

I'm actually going to be performing on a cruise ship that leaves from West Palm for two weeks called Bahamas Paradise Cruise and I'm going to be doing all my country music on that cruise. I just like randomly booked this gig so, if anybody down in South Florida feels like taking a cruise and listening to country, then I will be cruising the Bahamas from March 21st to April 2nd, I will be on that cruise.

Rachel Potter             Facebook             Twitter             YouTube             SoundCloud             Instagram

Peter Kelly

Catch an interview with Peter Kelly, listen to new single "Tailwind", and look for his new album coming soon.

What got you interested in music?

Peter Kelly: Honestly, MTV. When I was a kid I used to watch MTV and I just decided that's what I want to do and, at first, it was just kind of like I want to be in a video and I want to be on T.V. and I want to have screaming girls and stuff but, once I kind of got into it, it got more about wanting to be good at what I did. I was a guitar player and I wanted to be a good guitar player. I went through the whole thing of trying to be a guitar shredder and pursued that, listening to bands like Dream Theater and Steve Morrissey and all these great guitar player types and I went to Berklee College of Music and that was where I was at, I was like I just want to be an amazing guitar player. I started to listen to more pop and singer/songwriter stuff and it switched there and I started writing a little bit, I never really sang before and I started singing and that's where it really started, was at college.

Where do your ideas come from while writing?

My ideas come from just about anything. Ideas can come from driving your car or having a conversation or watching something on T.V., it's just kind of anything that happens and being able to pick out and recognize what has the potential for being a good song, what's interesting enough to want it to be turned into a song. It can be any type of situation, like there's a new song on the album called "Suicidal" and it was just, I was sitting in the club with some friends, getting ready to do a gig, and everyone's dressed up and there's music playing and there's that atmosphere and we're all sitting around a table and everyone was just complaining about this and that and how bad life was, this was going wrong and that was going wrong, and that situation turned into a song; writing about there's this festive thing and we're all putting our happy faces on, we're all dressed up, but everyone was kind of suicidal and that was the theme behind the song. So, it's just picking out a moment, like where that was just a conversation and saying 'wow, this situation could be a story'. Things like that.

What made you decide to go solo after working with a couple of bands?

Honestly, I think I just didn't like dealing with bands anymore. Bands are great because it spreads the workload around and there's someone there to bounce ideas off of but I found, with a band, there were people whose opinions and work ethic I trusted and some people that I didn't, so it was that struggle that always kind of detracted from the whole creative process and the forward motion type of thing. I felt I was spending a lot of time dealing with internal issues and band politics, rather than let's just make this the best band or the best song or the best show we can make it. Actually, after a while, I just got fed up and I stopped making music. I was doing a cover band and then I started playing guitar for this country band and the producer was this guy, John Campos, who is the guy who produced my first EP and this new album I am working on now. He kind of got me into writing for some things he wanted to do and he became the band member: he became the guy to feed off of and work on stuff with and come up with ideas with and became like the partner. It seemed to be a better experience for me, just dealing with one person, someone who's likeminded and had the same goal and same idea, what we need to do and how it needs to get done, so I think of him as the band. It's me and him. I always talk about 'we' because he's as much a part of it as I am and it's just a simpler relationship. I have a band that I use if I do live stuff, but they're not as much our partner as they're just playing the music that I'm writing.

How would you describe your sound?

I think the music I'm doing is a hybrid of everything I've ever listened to. I say I fall into a pop type of genre, but I've listened to everything from metal to jazz to classical to classic rock to electronic dance music and singer/songwriter folk type stuff; wherever that all went in my body, it kind of mixed together and it comes out in what I sound like. I don't know that I'm going for any one thing, I think there's this element that seems to come out and I just draw from everything. It's definitely a pop type sound with a bit of a songwriter edge and I think they're maybe more musicality, in terms of the guitar playing and the way I write, they're a little more technical at times.

Are there any current artists you take inspiration from?

Right now, I really love Mumford & Sons, I think they're a great band. I like Jamie Cullum a lot. I love P!nk, I think she's such an underrated vocalist. I was watching her Storytellers the other night and it blew me away. Ed Sheeran types - singer/songwriter types - I always love those kind of people. I mean, I tend to listen to my favorites like Billy Joel and The Beatles and Dave Matthews. There's a band out of Canada called Big Wreck which is one of my favorite bands of all time, they're more of a heavy rock band. The Wood Brothers are another band I like a lot right now, they're kind of new. Those are the people I listen to the most for pleasure.

What can you tell us about the new album?

If you compare it to the other EP, I would say things are more on an upper, higher, positive note, rather than the dejected, broken-hearted type of note of the last EP. We've been working on this album for a while, there was a bit of lapsed time in the middle of it where some personal problems took over and we had to stop working for a while, but we actually started working on this album two years ago so there's a bit of what we were listening to and what we were going for then and what we're going for now, so you can hear the difference in sound. I don't know if there's any real surprises, I think it's very typical of what I do. I think, in terms of production, we pushed it; we went in two different directions in terms of what is going on right now in music and what are people doing and what types of equipment are you using to get it done and we kind of branched out, but there's nothing that's going to be like 'wow, who is doing that'. If they're familiar with my music, it's very typical of me, just new songs.

What do you think will be the most popular on the album versus which one is your favorite?

I don't know, every time we finish one, that's my favorite song. The song that we're going to be getting ready to premiere in the next couple weeks is like a love ballad called "Inside Out" and I just got the master yesterday and I love the way it sounds. I was a little concerned about how it would turn out, but it's become one of my favorites to listen to. It's kind of got this old school but of an R&B type of vibe to it and we had this guest vocalist named Eve Soto to add a bit of a soul type of sound to it. There's that song "Suicidal" that I mentioned that was one of the first songs we started working on and I got the master to that yesterday and I can't wait for people to hear that song; that's the biggest surprise, is a really unique type of dual personality song going on and I find it really interesting. We had a horn player come in and I'm really excited about that one. The first song, "Fear of Landing", that came out, I still love that one. The song's that aren't finished yet, I mean, there's one of them I just finished writing and we're starting to record it and I don't even know what it's going to sound like, so I can answer better when the album's out.

What's the best compliment you've heard about your music?

Actually, some girl wrote me last night and wrote something to the effect of 'I love your music, I listen to it every night before I go to bed' or something like that. It was on Twitter and I was actually sitting in my car, listening to my masters, and I wrote back that she made my night and I get a lot of that type of thing. I had one girl say that she was looking to buy a Bose stereo and she had one of my songs and she went to the Bose store and was blaring "Tailwind" through the Bose store. It just kind of blows me away like, wow, I made that song in a little studio in Queens and now it's being played in a shopping mall to test out the system. I'm hearing more and more of it on social media, so it's all great. It's hard to pick out what the best one is.

What do you want to do with your music?

I hope what the music does is what the music I like does to me. I don't know that I'm going for anything, I don't know what I'm trying to be different, I don't know that I'm trying to be unique, I don't know that I'm trying to be accessible, I'm trying to get out of the way of the music. Whatever feels right, whatever makes me happy, whatever makes me feel what I want to feel is just what's going down. I think, with a lot of musicians, there's this push to not be too pop-y or not be too indie or not be too this, I'm just not doing any of that. I'm writing what I like, what I would listen to; I would buy this album, if this wasn't me, this is music I like to listen to. I honestly like listening to these songs and that's what I'm trying to convey. I didn't shoot for anything other than just to make an album for the songs that I like and I want it produced the way that I like. I'm proud of what I did because I find myself walking around now, singing the songs, saying I can't believe I wrote that, I can't believe it turned out as good as it did, and you hear from people on social media and they're doing the same thing and it's exciting to see it doing what I want it to do. I want people to like it and feel good about it and be able to sing along and that's my point. I'm not trying to make a bold statement. 

Peter Kelly             Facebook             Twitter             YouTube             SoundCloud             Spotify             Instagram