Written, Vocals, Produced, Instruments, Mixed… by Pope…
It all started in the 80’s… MJ and Prince were duking it out, Sony genius made music portable, and in a relatively small unknown part of east London, England a child was born; the amalgamation of two generations of musicality.
The son of two classically trained concert pianists and grandson to a classically trained jazz pianist Pope was surrounded by music since birth. From an early age mama Pope would practice piano daily, and papa Pope would play jazz clubs late into the night to pay the bills, whilst pursuing his own classical dream. This fostered and grew Pope’s curiosity for the piano and by age three Pope had learned his first piano piece, by age seven he was improvising. It was around this time that papa and mama Pope split, a split that would have lasting effects and temporarily disconnect him from his wider paternal family. Flash-forward to five years later, the computing revolution was in full swing, Pope produced his first record and a re-union with his paternal family ensued. This marked the start of years of classical jazz training from grandpa Pope…
As Pope grew, so did his musical influences and musical knowledge, which were hugely varied; from Marvin Gaye to Rachmaninoff, Chopin to Herbie Hancock, Duran Duran to The Prodigy, The Rolling Stones to Daft Punk, Public Enemy to Bach and much in-between. The more he listened and learned the more his musical craftsmanship and passion grew.
Pope’s production skill and musicality set the foundation for a successful award winning career as a DJ and producer touring the world as one half of an electronic duo. Times were good but something was missing. The partnership became increasingly fraught and like most things in life, ended. One of the final records the duo released was inspired by Pope’s Supertramp-esque keys and featured, for one of the first times, vocals written and performed by Pope. This was the key that Pope had been searching for, the freedom of expression that he had been missing. Everything became clear, safety in numbers had prevented Pope from taking a solo risk, shadows cast back to the days when papa Pope left home. Not anymore.
Pope hunkered down in the studio and set to writing and producing original records and songs. In tandem he began training his voice and refining his unique vocal tone. Pope cites a wide range of musical influences including soul, electronica, dance, R&B spanning many artists including Prince, Chopin, Quincy Jones, Tower Of Power, Chaka Khan, Marvin Gaye to name a few. In an age of music by numbers and generic vocals, Pope’s production, influences, musicality, distinctive voice and large vocal range all come together to make his performances and records special and truly distinctive.
Pope’s first release “Forever” hit over 1.3 million plays on Spotify. Following on, Pope is currently releasing his four part debut ep series entitled the #jointhefaith EP on his new imprint, jointhefaith records. The first two records from the #jointhefaith EP were released in March and April 2016 and have so far reached over 1.2 million Soundcloud plays and nearly 100,000 Spotify plays…
Is Pope England’s unique answer to Scotland’s Calvin Harris, you decide. One thing is for sure, Pope is set for greatness. #jointhefaith
EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW
Exposed Vocals: So tell us your story. Where did you grow up? What made you decide to become an artist?
Pope: I grew up in England, UK in both London and Birmingham. I come from a really musical family, both my parents trained as concert pianists and my grandfather was a jazz pianist. Becoming an artist wasn’t really a decision it’s more than that, music has been, ever since I was born, my life. For me being an artist is an extension of being in music.
Exposed Vocals: How did you come up with that name? What was your inspiration behind it?
Pope: My artist name is my surname!
Exposed Vocals: What do you think about online music sharing? Do you ever give your music away for free? Why?
Pope: I think that it’s very hard for new and upcoming artist to get noticed in the industry. I think free music and paid for music both have their place. Artists need to get paid for their work but at the same time I’m for giving back to fans and spreading the word through downloads on sites like Soundcloud. My new #jointhefaith EP series is all free and the first two records have received over 1.2 mill plays on Soundcloud and 100,000 plays on Spotify in the last month.
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?
Pope: Work on your music, be true to yourselves, work even harder on your music, promote, promote and network, network…
Exposed Vocals: Do you ever make mistakes during performances? How do you handle that?
Pope: I’ve only performed live studio sessions so far but… I used to be part of an electronic duo that toured internationally. Yes I make mistakes, everyone does. I do try to prevent mistakes as much as possible by practising a lot but if something goes wrong during a performance I just keep forging forward and try to forget about the mistake and stay in the moment.
Exposed Vocals: Do you tour? Anything interesting happen on tour that you think our readers would enjoy hearing about?
Pope: No Pope touring yet, it’s coming…
Exposed Vocals: Where do you usually gather songwriting inspiration? What is your usual songwriting process?
Pope: I gather song writing inspiration mainly from the harmonies I compose and also life events and emotions. A lot of time I’ll sit at the piano and improvise chord progressions and start vibing with melodies on top, adding in lyrical themes that I feel intertwine with the mood of the piano and vocal melodies. This is how I created my latest live acoustic recording of “Survive”. I sat at the piano, improvised the chord progression, vibed the melody and together the overall harmonies felt like loss and recovery to me, so “Survive” was born in just under 2 hours. Less often there will be a feeling, situation or emotion I want to portray through the music, so the process is reversed and the lyrical ideas will come first followed by the melodies.
Exposed Vocals: Do you have an artist website? What online platforms do you use to share your music?
Pope: Yes I have an artist website it’s http://ashleythepope.com as well as social channels including Soundcloud, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Vine, Snap…. etc They are all useful to help spread the musical word and I share my music across all of them. I find that a lot of people only use one or two networks on a regular basis.
Exposed Vocals: What are some really embarrassing songs that we might find on your mp3 player?
Pope: Is Earth Wind & Fire embarrassing?
Exposed Vocals: If you were given half a million dollars and a year off, what would you do? How would you spend it?
Pope: Finish an LP album, chose 3 singles, produce videos for all the singles, then promote, promote, promote!
Exposed Vocals: Any planned studio upgrades? What are you working with now?
Pope: I work on Cubase ITB but sometimes use outboard FX and synths. I have an original Jupiter 8 which is great for pads and am in love with my Adam A7X monitors. I use these along with Yamaha NS10’s and a tiny pair of Matsushita speakers to check how my mixes are going to sound on small devices like cell phones.
Exposed Vocals: How do you find ways to promote your music? What works best for you?
Pope: Spreading the word about your music as an Indie artist is tough. I find having an easy to remember name helps and also branding record releases and all social media sites in a coherent way helps to create a clear unified message across all channels.
Exposed Vocals: If you could perform anywhere and with any artists (Dead or Alive) where and who would it be with? Why?
Pope: I’d be performing at Madison Square Garden because it’s such a historic and grand venue with Prince, Pharrell, Marvin Gaye, Chopin and Sia.
Exposed Vocals: So, what’s next? Any new upcoming projects that you want to talk about?
Pope: I’m in the middle of releasing my debut ep series entitled #jointhefaith. All the records are written, sung, produced and mixed by me. The first two records “Lets Be Together” and “Music Is Emotion” are doing really well and I’m looking forward to releasing the next two records soon.
Exposed Vocals: If you weren’t making music, what would you be doing?
Pope: I’d be in a casket!
Exposed Vocals: Do you remember buying your first album? Who was it? What was going through your head?
Pope: Yes I do, it was Michael Jackson, Bad. All I can remember is thinking “this is awesome” and playing it on repeat off cassette.
Exposed Vocals: How do you juggle the rest of your responsibilities while trying to stay ahead in your music life?
Pope: Life is always a juggling act, I stay focused, work hard and keep moving forward.
Exposed Vocals: What should fans look forward to in 2016?
Pope: More music, more acoustic studio sessions and live Pope shows!
