Hiya folks thanks for joining us in the virtual RGM lounge today, grab a brew and take a seat.
Q1:What made you decide that music is a thing for you?
I had a difficult childhood. My only escape was going to bed where I could listen under the sheets to pirate stations on a radio that my parents didn’t know I had.
Q2: Introduce us to you and your musical history.
My father was a semi-professional singer but never encouraged me to sing or do anything musical. Maybe he didn’t want me to challenge him? I got my first guitar aged 13 and would play and sing in the shed at the bottom of our garden. That shed became my home.
I formed a band at school mostly playing Cream covers.
Some years later I co-founded The Molesters a punk band in Brighton.
I then didn’t play for quite a few years but then founded The Cides in Bristol.
Q3: What was life like for you before music?
Before I connected with music I was lost. I had all this creative early teen energy and nowhere to channel it. I seriously believe that without music I would have got into self-harm.
Q4: What was the first song you heard that steered you into a music path?
The Kinks – ‘Waterloo Sunset’. The beautiful lyrics about a boy and a girl with nothing but each other’s company, the tender but raw simplicity of it. The music, the vocal harmonies – it still gets me today!
Q5: Where do you feel you currently sit within the music industry?
I like this question. I hate to be ‘genre-ised’. When The Cides started to develop, all the digital distribution channels (Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon, Soundcloud etc.) wanted to put us in a box – “What genre are you?”
Fuck, if I want to write an acoustic song about love I will. If I want to write something a bit jazzy, I will. Fortunately, given the current state of the world, most of my songs are about injustice; they are sung with anger and passion – that puts me in the ‘punk’ genre.
Q6: What’s the biggest thing you have learned from someone else in the industry?
Don’t go with the flow. Stick to your guns. Don’t bend to the industry.
Q8: If you could wish for one thing to aid your career what would it be?
How to distribute my songs to people without having to go thru the ‘AI consent’ processes.
Can we go back to something like vinyl without the horrible eco consequences?
Q9: Do you ever worry about people taking things the wrong way or cancel culture? Discuss….
Clarity is big for me. In all aspects of life. If I am clear, nobody can claim ‘you didn’t tell me that. If I offer clearly my truth, how it is received, is down to the listener, not me.
Q10: Do you sign up for any conspiracy theories? If no why not?
Let’s, first of all, agree on a definition of ‘conspiracy theory’.
I’ve done some research on this and it seems a ‘conspiracy theory’ is defined as a view that goes against the ‘law’ promulgated by the authority that currently holds power over people.
It seems the astronomer Galileo was one of the first conspiracy theorists who, for daring to suggest that the Earth went around the Sun not vice versa, was threatened with being burned at the stake as a heretic by the Church. Noah in the bible was also a conspiracy theorist – then it started to rain…
Q11: What was the worst experience on stage?
Supporting The Damned at Sussex University when our drummer had a fight with Rat Scabies.
Q12: Tell us something about you / each member that you think people would be surprised about?
The Cides is a community. We all like growing vegetables. We also universally like having a siesta and sex at around 3 pm when it’s too hot to work. We have a ‘love in’ – we all get into the ‘bed of all’. Normally it lasts 3 hours – beautiful.
Q13: What makes you stand out as a band/artist?
We are not afraid to stand against the system and vocalise musically that stand against the mainstream Ed Sheeran media world…
Q14: hear you have new music, what can you tell us about it?
Yeah, our new single ‘This Being Human’ is about considering the downsides of transhumanism, of having a chip in the brain. The importance of love and being human. If we don’t resist, this could be the end of the human race.
There’s a lot of interest, even excitement, about ‘the gain function’ humans will enjoy by embracing Transhumanism. It appears to be awash with benefits. From enabling the blind to see to acquiring Jason Bourne-like superpowers. But is there a downside? Yes, a big one!
The science requires a Transhuman Neural Chip (TNC) to be placed in the brain, itself a computer, that enables computational and wireless communication capabilities. When we take the computer function out of the brain, what does it actually mean to be ‘human’? A question we might all ask.
Q15: What was the recording process like?
Recording is always a day of reckoning. I can sit with a guitar and sing a song from one night to the next and deliver different versions depending on where I am emotionally and spiritually. When recording, in 3 minutes or so, I have to commit to a snapshot of expression.
Q16: What was the biggest learning curve in writing the new tune?
I’m working with some amazing French musicians. Gratitude. But because of language differences, most have no clue re the subject matter. I could be singing about the higher cost of a Mcdonald’s burger or the inner city parking fines.
Q17: Would you change anything now it’s finished?
My songs are never ‘finished’ – they are selectively abandoned.
Q18: Is there anything else you would like to share with the world?
Have an amazing EXIT PARTY!
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