Q & A With Musicians Fern and Harry

First show?
I’ve been performing as a solo artist for over two years now, in various different venues all over the country including Beverley, Lincoln, Hull, Newcastle and many more. Since starting university studying creative music technology I have formed my own band where we play both my original material and unique takes on popular songs. The band consists of a drummer, bassist and myself on guitar and vocals. These full band arrangements tend to be a lot more energetic in comparison to the acoustic sets and we enjoy doing both as it’s a totally different vibe.

Song writing ideas?
The majority of ideas come from my own life experiences and generally issues most people can relate to; dealing with life in general and more specific events which have shaped me through out my life. When I first started writing lyrics they tended to be relationship orientated and still are to some extent, however some more recent songs have been aimed at dealing with the obstacles we all come up against on a day to day basis.

Have you always played the style and type of music that you play now?
Not at all, for many years I was crazy for heavy metal music, then I kind of mellowed out (grew up I suppose), went all acoustic and spent a lot of time working out catchy melodies and pretty chords. I’m fairly obsessed with music and so spend a lot of time listening to all kinds of artists and essentially integrating everything I’ve learnt into how I play and write songs.

Who and what has inspired you the most?
Foremost as a guitarist was singer songwriter Dave Mcpherson of ‘InMe’. I remember when I was something like 13 going to a local gig they performed at and initially thinking wow this guy is amazing, I’ll never be that good. The reality was it more or less spurred me on to try be the best I could be at whatever instrument I played. I’ve been performing from a young age though and for me nothing beats performing in front of huge crowds and being rewarded by knowing people are entertained.

What artist do you most admire?
There’s too many people really to mention, however I’m currently a big fan of Ellie Goulding, not only because she is gorgeous and I want to marry her, but because I have a huge admiration for her songwriting style and the whole process/method that goes into creating the end result.

What was the first song you ever played together ?
I originally used to get Fern to sing bits and bobs on recordings I’d been putting together over the past 2 years at university. We then decided it would be good fun to work together over summer as we both have similar tastes in music (and I force her to listen to all my music at university haha). I think the first real duet song we sang together in full was an acoustic take on the awesome Regina Spektor track Samson; a recording of this can be heard and downloaded here.