Exposed Vocals: How did you hear about Exposed Vocals? What made you decide to sign up?
Jody: I heard about Exposed Vocals through Randy Morano who introduced me to the website. I decided to sign up because I want to gain as much publicity as possible and to get my song called “Happy’s where I wanna be” out there.
Exposed Vocals: So tell us your story. Where did you grow up? What made you decide to become an artist?
Jody: I grew up in a place called Kessingland a small little village in East Anglia in England and lived there for 18 years, and now currently live in Carlton Colville, England. What made me decide to become an artist is the determination to achieve my dream, and make people feel something from my songs as I do with songs that I personally like. Plus I would like to entertain people and dance on stage to make it even more interesting for viewers.
Exposed Vocals: How did you come up with that name? What was your inspiration behind it?
Jody: The name I have chosen for myself is my actual name, which I have decided to keep as my artist name. As I couldn’t decide whether to just use “Jody” or “Jody Sturman” and to me it felt better to use my full name.
Exposed Vocals: What do you think about online music sharing? Do you ever give your music away for free? Why?
Jody: I think online music sharing is a very good source to use, as I use sound cloud and Myspace for ways to find my music online. Online music sharing is very good if you would like the publicity for people to listen to your songs, and the more people that listen the more people will hear your songs and be interested. I haven’t been able to set up for people to buy my music or even download it for free yet, but I wouldn’t mind to sell my music for free to start off with as then people will download the song because its free rather than something that costs, as I would just like my song to be online for people to download.
Exposed Vocals: Since everyone was a start-up once, can you give any smaller or local bands or artists looking to get gigs and airplay some tips?
Jody: I started off with singing lessons for 3 years which I found helped me a lot with my knowledge to do with singing, and to see what type of songs and the style of music that would suit my voice. How I started getting publicity is by emails, emailing local community radios as you never know they may be interested in you and sending them your music videos, as it always helps to have a music video with a song.
Exposed Vocals: Do you ever make mistakes during performances? How do you handle that?
Jody: I haven’t started doing performances yet as Ive only just started up as an artist and getting interest, so watch out for 2015 for gigs and performances.
Exposed Vocals: Do you tour? Anything interesting happen on tour that you think our readers would enjoy hearing about?
Jody: I don’t tour yet, but I would like too.
Exposed Vocals: Where do you usually gather songwriting inspiration? What is your usual songwriting process?
Jody: For my first song “Happy’s where I wanna be”I co wrote that with my singing tutor as he told me loads of different ways of songwriting and the process of it. The inspiration I get is personal experiences that have happened to me, which I then write about in my songs, as the audience tends to relate to your songs more if they have similar personal experiences too. My songwriting process is to write about an experience you have been through and to them pick some quotes from that piece of writing. As expressing your feelings can then end up being a beautifully written lyric piece.
Exposed Vocals: Do you have a band website? What online platforms do you use to share your music?
Jody: I do have my solo artist website which is www.jodysturman.wix/singersongwriter.com
My facebook page: www.facebook.com/jodysingersongwriter
Twitter: www.twitter.com/?lang=en-gb
Myspace: www.myspace.com/jody.sturman
Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/jodysturman
Exposed Vocals: What are some really embarrassing songs that we might find on your mp3 player?
Jody: I have loads of embarrassing songs on my playlist, such as the Backstreet boys called the right stuff, Justin Bieber called Baby. Just loads of cheesy, happy songs.
Exposed Vocals: If you were given half a million dollars and a year off, what would you do? How would you spend it?
Jody: If I was given half a million dollars and a year off, I would go on holiday to places that Ive always wanted to visit such as Egypt to visit the tombs, America to New York or LA. Or I would take a year out to just promote my music in different countries to gain even more publicity.
Exposed Vocals: Any planned studio upgrades? What are you working with now?
Jody: I have decided to do a dance track for my next song which I am currently writing at the moment, that has a catchy sound that gets stuck in peoples heads and has a big chorus, meaning dramatic and loud. I will also experiment more with my vocals in the higher range with the chorus and then a lower sound with my voice in the verses.
Exposed Vocals: How do you find ways to promote your music? What works best for you?
Jody: The ways I find to help promote my music at the moment is local community radio stations, Ive currently been on Radio Blyth in Southwold for a live interview, and I am also expected on Radio Felixstowe for another interview. On the 18th of January I am going for an interview with Castle FM radio, and a TV interview on Mustard TV on the 19th of January. Ive also been in contact with an newspaper interviewer who I’m meeting up with on the 16th of January for his entertainment column in the east Anglian daily times newspaper. You just have to email and get in contact with people and then they should be able to help you out and promote you.
Exposed Vocals: If you could perform anywhere and with any artists (Dead or Alive) where and who would it be with? Why?
Jody: If I were to perform anywhere It would have to be the 02 arena in London because of its popularity, as it has artists from all over the world featured there. Who I would like to perform with would be either Ariana Grande or Calvin Harris, because Ariana Grande has a very soulful voice which I could find easier to work as she’s in a similar key range to me. Calvin Harris because he always writes catchy songs and his music is always dramatic and has good beats to the songs that always make me want to get up and dance. For me, that would be amazing to be given the chance to work with someone who is a professional DJ whilst singing lyrics to one of his songs.
Exposed Vocals: So, what’s next? Any new upcoming projects that you want to talk about?
Jody: To finish off my new dance track and finish the music off in a studio, whilst going to the interviews for the radio stations and TV channel.
Exposed Vocals: If you weren’t making music, what would you be doing?
Jody: If I wasn’t making music I would look into teaching for primary school children, as I’ve had previous work experience in a school and I enjoyed it. I would also do after school classes teaching children how to sing.
Exposed Vocals: Do you remember buying your first album? Who was it? What was going through your head?
Jody: I do remember buying my first album it was by Nelly Furtado called Whoa Nelly, I was inspired by how she could sing in different languages and still sound amazing. Plus the amount of genres she can sing too from Folk-pop, Pop, Dance, Rnb and much more.
Exposed Vocals: How do you juggle the rest of your responsibilities while trying to stay ahead in your music life?
Jody: I also do a University course in design which requires a lot of my time, but I always juggle round my music to make time for it, as I do singing lessons every Wednesday night, and the nights that I have free time I practice my singing at home, as the more practice the better I think.
Exposed Vocals: What should fans look forward to in 2015?
Jody: Hopefully set up performances, plus listen out for me on the radios and Mustard TV channel. Plus loads of new songs that will hopefully be finished which will be on my website and social media sites. I am also hoping to have more publicity with my song “Happys where I wanna be”, so then people will be able to buy it.
