One of our new favourite artists is Rupert Stroud! The talented Yorkshireman is preparing to release his new single ‘The One’ on July 29th. He took some time out to have a chat about his music, his process and what’s coming up
Hi Rupert – how are you?
I’m great thanks! I love the summer season…even if the weather isn’t always that great in Yorkshire! It’s a busy time of year for us with festivals, gigs and events that we’re playing all over the UK!
How would you describe your sound?
I would describe it as beat driven Indie rock. I used to be more of an acoustic troubadour when I first started out a few years ago, before getting the band involved after a year or two of traveling around solo. Being on the road is so much more fun with the band! Banter is always flying and it passes the time during those long car journeys to and from gigs!
We love your new single ‘The One’ – what is the song about?
Thank you. Well ultimately it’s about love! It relates to a few inspirations in my life. Love for your family or love for your friends. The people that mean the most to you. It’s also about having that person in your life who you want to make proud. Much of the inspiration for the song came from the love I feel for my brothers little boy who is just two years old. I feel incredibly lucky to have him in my life and the love I feel for him is quite overwhelming sometimes and has really taken me by surprise. I am his uncle but also his guardian. I think it is best if people listen to the song and relate to it in their own way, it can mean whatever you want it to mean really but I suppose ultimately it is about love. When we play it live I love it when my fans/the audience sing the hook line back to me! The power of love can be scary, whoever it is for, as it’s such a raw emotion. It’s not a calculated feeling-it’s something which comes deep from inside you. The song is a little about the insecurity and vulnerability of love and hoping someone recognises you and that their feelings are as strong for you, as yours are for them.
You recorded the track with Will Jackson, who has worked with The Kaiser Chiefs and Embrace in the past. How did you come to work with him?
I stumbled into his studio one day a few years ago and played him a few of my demos. This was just after he’d recorded with the Kaiser Chiefs. I asked him if he would like to record and produce me and to my shock and delight he said yes!…and we’ve been working together ever since. I’m very fond of Will. He’s like a crazy cool uncle figure to me. He’s a very talented musician and producer and I’ve learned a lot from him over the years.
The music video is great too. Do you enjoy making videos?
I do enjoy making music videos! I always get a little nervous about how they’ll turn out, as I always want to put out great content for my fans. The concept of this video required quite a lot of pre-production. I wanted it to tell the story of the song, whilst also including a performance element to it. I’m lucky to have a couple of trusted friends to help me put together these videos.
Tell us about being a songwriter how do you craft your songs? Does the melody come first or do you craft melodies around lyrics you have written?
I write them in a few different ways…there’s never a set writing process…I write lyrics all the time throughout the day. Sometimes they’ll just pop into my head along with a melody.…even when I’m lying in bed and can’t sleep. I’m always hashing out ideas on the guitar and playing around with riff ideas. Sometimes Will Jackson and I sit down with a guitar and a piano and just jam and ideas fall into a structure of a song. I try not to over think the writing process and let things flow naturally. If you try to write a great song sometimes it inhibits you. I don’t like to question the method and the madness.
What would you be doing if you were not a musician and recording artist?
Probably sitting in a corner feeling miserable about what could’ve been! Thinking “if only I’d got off my back side and had a go!” I was a bar tender and waiter during my time at uni…and worked various office admin jobs too. At school I enjoyed art and painting…so perhaps an artist…which is even harder than the music business I think. Something in the arts for sure!
Which recording artists do you most admire?
I have a few music heroes. Richard Ashcroft is an artist I admire-lyrically and melodically I’ve been a fan of his ever since I heard “Bitter Sweet Symphony” when I was about 10 years old. I remember the moment-I was running around the house and ran past one of my brothers bedroom and he was blasting the song out…I literally stopped in my tracks. To this day it’s still one of my all time favourite songs!! Guy Garvey is a dude too! I love his relaxed stage presence (I saw them live in Sheffield in 2011-brilliant show) “The Seldom seen kid” is just a near perfect album in my opinion! Leonard Cohen is another great inspiration to me his lyrical genius is pretty unmatched, he started out as a poetry major at Columbia University but found he couldn’t earn a living so started putting them to music, the rest is history, as they say. I went to see Leonard Cohen at The Leeds Arena a couple years ago. At the ripe old age of 78 (at the time) he put on a captivating performance from the moment he walked on stage to the moment he left! A true poetic legend!…and Hallelujah is most definitely one of the most beautiful songs of all time…The Jeff Buckley version is my favourite recording though…still Leonard wrote it 🙂 Jeff Buckley was also a total genius who sadly died too soon.
Do you have any worldy advice to our readers who want to get started in the music industry?
Be prepared to work hard! haha !! Always be open to learn and adapt but stay true to what you really want to put out there. In the industry there’s enough people trying to mould acts into something they’re not. If you’re making music that you love, then chances are, there’s gonna be people out there who’ll love those tunes too. Oh and the internet is the greatest tool an up and coming band can use to get their music out there! The importance of performing live has become crucial as there’s nothing that beats that direct connection of playing gigs to your fans and then chatting with them after the show. I know my fan base well! I love chatting with them after gigs. It’s one of the best things about this job! I love interacting with people and the fans are the ones who are going to buy your music and merch, come to your gigs and follow you on the road to success cheering you on all the way!
Are you playing live soon?
We have some cool show’s all over the UK this Summer (you can check out where we’re playing on www.rupertstroudmusic.com ) and some cool festivals coming up, on the 30th July we’re playing Livestock festival with Reef , Reverend and The Makers and The Fratellis. Also Bingley Music Live Festival on 4th Sept with Travis, All Saints and We Are Scientists!
What is up next for Rupert Stroud?
Well we’re getting back in the studio intermittently towards the back end of Summer to finish off an album following the success of “The One”!
The recording process was interrupted by disaster at the end of last year!…Bit of a long story- Basically My producer and writing partner Will Jackson and I had started recording this song before Christmas 2015. We’d left the song unfinished a week before Christmas and said “let’s finish it off after the holidays… Boxing day came and the Leeds floods hit!! Will’s “Soundworks Studio” was located on Kirkstall Road Leeds which was struck really badly by the floods! Being a basement studio it was flooded to above head height!…everything was destroyed from the SSL recording desk (which Coldplay had recorded on back when the desk was at Parr Street studios in Liverpool) to the grand piano to many more pieces of technical equipment! It was a complete write off!…luckily Will had got to the studio at the time when the studio was in about half foot of water so he managed to save his precious guitars (some he’d had for over 20 years) and of course the most important thing to a recording studio-the computer hard drives with back ups of recording files etc.! So we had the song semi-complete for the first 2-3 months of the 2016 and only around March time did we get round to finishing the track! Which in a way was perhaps a bit of a blessing. It gave me time to work on other songs and take some time out from “The One” and then revisit it. I certainly hadn’t got bored of the song and knew it was the next single I wanted to release for my fans! I’m very proud of the song. I think it’s got something! And when you’re proud of your music then there’s a high probability the fans will love it too! 🙂
I’ve got a load of songs to get down and get out there to the people but it’s about getting the timing right and making sure we have the campaigns all lined up and ready to push it here there and everywhere. We have some more tour dates coming up for Oct/Nov time which will be announced soon so keep those eyes and ears open. Check out www.rupertstroudmusic.com or my Facebook and Twitter pages.
