Exposed Vocals Interviews The Updraft Imperative
The Updraft Imperative : Hi! We’re the Updraft Imperative, hailing from Brisbane, Australia we are; Josh Kerr (Vocals), Danny Ragless (Drums) Iain Broadley (Bass) and Murray Siddans (Guitars).
Exposed Vocals: So tell us your story. Where did you grow up? What made you decide to become an artist?
Danny – I grew up in Brisbane, was interested in music from a young age, ended up playing the drums, playing in bands, rest is history…
Iain – Been living in Brisbane since the day I was born. I’ve always liked my music. My earliest memory is listening to Credence Clearwater Revival on tape. I started out playing drums from a young age. And then from the age of 14 I started playing guitar, and a few years later started playing bass. I’ve played in various bands since I was 18 and love the satisfaction of writing and recording music.
Murray – I was born and grew up in an Australian country town, about 3 hours from the coast, with around 10,000 people. I didn’t ‘decide’ per say, it’s just that music made sense to me I guess. I could hear it, feel it, anticipate it, and appreciate it. Somebody said to me now long ago ‘So, are you still doing music?’ I thought they made it sound like a chore…if I didn’t ‘do’ music I think my life would be hard to reconcile with.
Josh – I was born and raised in the same small country town in Queensland as Murray. I have fond memories of my childhood and school life. I grow up in a Christian family where my parents were involved in the local church. Which I consider a great blessing. I don’t think I decided exactly to become an artist. I pretty much just enjoyed playing music and writing songs as I grew up. And I feel the same about it now, actually.
Exposed Vocals: How did you come up with that name? What was your inspiration behind it?
The Updraft Imperative: As a gospel group, we played with a few names to start with. But the idea of not growing faint, running and not growing weary, and rising on the wings of eagles sounded like a version of life we want to encourage people that they could have. And have without all the chemical and concocted highs one can experience with all the lows to offset the highs to follow. So The Updraft Imperative we came to be…it’s important we all look for those moments, to both experience them, and the One who allows us to have them.
Exposed Vocals: What do you think about online music sharing? Do you ever give your music away for free? Why?
Danny – I’m not against giving music away for free, that is an avenue one might consider to get themselves heard a bit more among people. It can also be a headline grabber for a well-known band who doesn’t usually do free music.
Murray – yes, I’ve given dozens of our albums away for free. I suppose I’m personally more comfortable doing that face to face as I have a moment to connect with that person, and hopefully they’ll take something positive away from that (apart from our album;)) Online sharing is less secure and impersonal. But you can always see and hear us on all the streaming services and YouTube.
Josh – We have been fairly relaxed about sharing our music with people. But, it does frustrate me that people are so willing to grab what they can for free without regard for the artists. I’m not sure how music lovers think that the artist can afford to keep making the music they like, if they don’t get the money for it. Crazy really.
At the same time, we have also seen our music as a ministry tool, to help share our faith in Jesus. So, it would be silly to be so tight reigned on our music that people didn’t get the opportunity to hear it. But we do love people buying our music, obviously.
Iain: I think online music sharing has its pro’s and con’s. Don’t ask me to elaborate on that
as I don’t use online music sharing facilities all that much.
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?
Danny – Play heaps of shows, but play good shows. Practice hard, make sure your sound will stick in people’s minds.
Josh – Most of time, I feel like one of the bands you are referring to. That is until I hear that we are being playing on overseas stations and on different charts and things. But, really I think if you believe in what you are doing and work hard, I think that’s all you can do.
One of things that has been an enormous help is having a manager. Sometimes that isn’t achievable for everyone. But, we have been blessed with an awesome, hardworkingmanager who loves the music and has become a great friend. Even if she does live on the other side of the world…!
Murray – do NOT ever take anything for granted; a compliment, a gig (paid or otherwise), some encouragement (even the ‘well meaning’ type that makes you cringe into oblivion). NEVER assume that your music is the best, but never underrate yourself either. Practice practice practicepractice. If the band you’re in don’t want to practice, maybe find one that does…my experience is you may not have to shred like Hendrix or drum like Moon, but punters will ALWAYS comment and enjoy how TIGHT (their word for well-rehearsed) you are! If you can’t find a manager, spend time networking and harassing stations…if you honestly have good tuneage you’ll stand a good chance of getting played!!
Exposed Vocals: Where do you usually gather songwriting inspiration? What is your usual songwriting process?
The Updraft Imperative: Song writing inspiration……Musically, this comes from the mixed bag of musical influences that has moulded us as musicians. Lyrically, all our songs are related to our relationship with God and His grace to us. This is the driving force behind what we do.
We’ve been recording our song writing sessions, and this have been a great help with locking stuff down.
The last album had a bringing together of different (mainly) acoustic style songs that we then added bass/drums/guitars to, then recorded those. This time around, however, we have a 3 piece engine room with the front man brining the vocals/lyrics. It’s certainly different to our last approach, wewant to make it as inclusive as possible so that we all have ownership and input of the songs and thus album.
The tunes seem to be coming out really easily lately.
Exposed Vocals: Do you have a band website? What online platforms do you use to share your music?
The Updraft Imperative: We do indeed! You can find links to all the various online platforms at www.theupdraftimperative.com as well as blogs, videos and reviews. As well as through social media, you can contact us via the website – and we would urge you to do so! We love hearing from you – YOU are the reason we do what we do.
We’ve got some tunes including a dance remix of our single One Life on Soundcloud –https://soundcloud.com/theupdraftimperative You can follow/like us on Facebook – http://www.facebook.com/theupdraftimperative Chat to us on Twitter – http://twitter.com/TUI_Official and watch some video messages from us as well as our latest music video, Pieces of My Past on YouTube – http://youtube.com/user/TheUpdraftImperative
You can hear/buy our first album, Chair and the current single Pieces of My Past on Google Play – https://play.google.com/store/music/album/The_Updraft_Imperative_Chair?id=Bxvh52ygzynpg4oqzfsklj43qky&hl=enITunes – https://itunes.apple.com/au/album/chair/id584524232and Spotify – https://play.spotify.com/album/5zHaO94cwcQPx4FwqYYPgA
Exposed Vocals: If you were given half a million dollars and a year off, what would you do? How would you spend it?
The Updraft Imperative: I’m sure we would be fairly unified to say we would love to do some overseas touring with new a new album under our belt. Maybe upgrading some equipment??
Exposed Vocals: How do you find ways to promote your music? What works best for you?
The Updraft Imperative: Our fearless manager Di does a lot of promotion for us, we’re all very thankful for that.
YouTube is a good platform to share music via video. It’s a highly used medium and can work well. However it needs other promotional tools like Facebook and twitter to keep things moving. I know our manager has good things to say about Twitter. Great for networking. And then Facebook seems to be good with some friendly banter sharing of photos and other news. We also have a mailing list, which works well with keeping our followers up to date in more detail.
Exposed Vocals: So, what’s next? Any new upcoming projects that you want to talk about?
The Updraft Imperative: Our main focus at the moment is writing. We are really looking forward to recording again and reckon we are going to have a bunch of great tunes for you to get into.
Josh – We have a new single coming out soon with a bit of a focus on the tragedy of human trafficking and slavery, which is somewhat personal to me. So, keep an eye for that one.
Exposed Vocals: If you weren’t making music, what would you be doing?
Danny – No idea. Music is pretty much my existence.
Murray – well my day would probably be similar to what it is now…manager a garage!!
Iain – If I wasn’t making music I’d still be stuck in printing.
Josh – Well, I would probably be more involved in my church and I am also currently involved with a mission that helps rescue girls from sex slavery and then educate and train them. I would be able to spend more time helping in that area. And there’s always my day job.
Exposed Vocals: How do you juggle the rest of your responsibilities while trying to stay ahead in your music life?
Danny – That is currently not too difficult. I work the same hours every week which is pretty easy to plan around. And I have a very understanding wife 🙂
Murray – with practice and the occasional amount of help from family and friends!!
Iain – Well still living at home with my folks helps me juggle my other responsibilities.
Josh – Umm. Yeah. I feel like my life is a constant juggle, and I’m pretty much never ahead in any area.
Exposed Vocals: What should fans look forward to in 2016?
The Updraft Imperative: New tunes in the next few shows for sure. We have the second of our singles out before the end of the year, accompanied by a music video. We are really looking forward to releasing it!!!