ME: I found you through Spotify suggesting your new song, BULLETS, and I instantly fell in love with it. What is the inspiration behind that song?
DEVON: At its core it's a song about betrayal. About those moments in life where you build a relationship with someone, be friends/partners anything and you might get walked over. The song talks about the feeling of feeling like a ghost of yourself after a situation like that.
M: I absolutely love your somewhat trademark usage of a Christmas tree. What is the story behind that?
D: It's not a christmas tree! haha. It's a pine tree. It's one of the logos of my area. I live in a place called the Forest of Dean. In Gloucestershire. Ovs the place is just a huge Forest full of those kinds of trees. I was spray painting a logo for a video one day and I made the tree logo randomly. Though it looked awesome and really felt like it represented home and felt quite iconic. So I started to use it as a little tag of sorts.
M: Recently, the BBC playlisted the song. How did that feel?
D: Yeah its an amazing feeling. Its all through bbc introducing and bbc introducing in the south west are huge supporters of my music and i cant thank them enough. Its always cool getting played on radio 1 and I have been played before on previous songs with Jack Saunders but this time it was like my first break into daytime radio so everyone you know from the hometown, From your past is more likely to hear it. It has definitely felt like the local community in gloucestershire have now started to cotton on to what im doing and i've been getting loads of really supportive messages and awesome videos of it just coming on there radios and them being like "swear this is the kid i used to work in the jewellery store with/ go to school with" Its a cool feeling. Super thankful.
M: BULLETS is having a lot of success - did you ever feel that it would prior to releasing it?
D: To be honest when it felt special when i wrote it. However i make sure every song that gets finished is my favorite song in the world at the time. Otherwise i don't see the point in saving it. Thats the way i work so i know that down the line i will still be happy with the songs. I tend not to think if a song will be successful though. As long as i think its my best song yet then thats what is important. The way the industry works these days it doesn't matter if you have an amazing song or not. If you haven't got the platform it doesn't matter. So there is no more writing a great song and it is blowing up because its great. You just have to hope the one that catches that is your best song in that moment.
M: I also absolutely love the music video for BULLETS. Do you come up with MV ideas alone?
D: Thankyou! Yeah I came up with the ideas alone. Storyboard them...terribly. Then I send them to my close friend and camera guy/editor Matt Alderidge at Relive Cinema. He then usually just goes along with my wacky ideas...Tells me if some stuff will work or not lighting wise and makes the shots that I think of come to life as he knows what lenses to use etc. Then he works his editing magic and we usually end up with a great result. Its all very DIY. So we are just using what is around us.
M: How did you come up with this one? D: I usually just sit listening to the song and think of ideas in a notes app. I'm typically not a video guy so its not my first strength but it has to be done. This was just a case of thinking about what we could get away with on no budget that looks good by keeping it simple. I think that if you have no budget and you try to shoot way to high you usually end up with something that looks quite ameture. Which we learnt the hard way back in the day. M: Do you have any advice for upstarting musicians that are wanting to get out there and have their music heard? D: Make sure your songs are good. That is first of Stop playing shows everywhere with covers and weak originals. We are all the same... when your young you just want to go go go. Gigs Gigs Gigs but it wont do anything for you at all. Take a year or Two or as long as you need just writing and recording solid songs so when you do lauch the quality of songwriting is up there. If you come from a place with no local music scene like me you wont be able to gig and support big bands so use that iphone to your advantage and get building online. Find a manager early days that can get you releasing music properly. Don't be afraid to promote yourself. Back in the day i used to get banned on instagram alot for promotion/ even got permanently banned on tinder for using it to promote haha. Stop caring about looking "COOL" and promote yourself because whats cool is having people listen to your music. Take the upfront embarrassment because starting out in music is embarrassing. No one cares. No one will take your serious. Then as soon as you start getting somewhere. Everyone jump on the bandwagon and think your cool. Trust me... M: Can we look forward to any live performances this year yet? D: Hopefully soon working on getting a tour together as we speak. M: How about more new music? D: Yes BULLETS isn't a stand alone. It's part of something big coming late summer. (that was supposed to come last year...) That's all I can really say at the moment haha. M: I like to end on a fun one - If you could take a BULLET (I’m priding myself of this one) for anyone, who would it be and why?
D: Hayley Williams cause she's been my childhood crush for many years and I'm still convinced we might get married someday.
תגובות