Exposed Vocals sits down with THE URGE for an exclusive interview
Exposed Vocals: So tell us your story. Where did you grow up? What made you decide to become an artist?
THE URGE: My story with music starts in not quite the stereotypical way (sort of like our music in a way). I was actually born with Autism and ADHD (which are neurological disabilities that can really take their toll on you). And my start through music came thanks to a man named Robbie Williams and an album called The Ego Has Landed. Having grown up in Te Aroha, New Zealand and at that age being somewhere around 3 years old: I was able to connect with his music better than most nursery rhymes, and with help from that music I’ve become the person (and musician that I am today). Ivy Blue was formed on the basis that music is music and that it doesn’t have to be long and it doesn’t have to be short. It just has to be enough.
Exposed Vocals: How did you come up with that name? What was your inspiration behind it?
THE URGE: Ivy Blue was a name that was just simply selected within the moment of it you know. Usually I’d be able to explain it well- but when it came time for me and A.Flow (our former drummer) to select the band’s name, we had gone through about 3 or four names (that were really stupid) thinking they would sound cool and out of nowhere came this mysterious name called Ivy Blue. When that name was suggested we just ran with it and here we are.
Exposed Vocals: What do you think about online music sharing? Do you ever give your music away for free? Why?
THE URGE: Online sharing of videos and music is sort of the way things are going now in this brave new world we call the 21st century. In some ways, if it’s done properly and fairly for all artists then I have very little issue with it. But at the same time you have sites like Spotify and Rdio and such that really just don’t get the clue at all about fair treatment and payment for music. They really don’t. And that’s where the problems with digital ‘streaming’ comes in. They may make music more popular than it has ever been, but these younger bands coming into it now haven’t gone into it for nothing. And that financially is what a lot of these younger bands are getting. Nil-toi. Thankfully Ivy just narrowly missed that bullet but it is killing a lot of bands in the process because it’s not run in a way that can benefit all artists at any point in their career (within reason). I mean everyone’s got to start somewhere, but is this really how we want to build the next generation of musicians?
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?
THE URGE: If I can take that question in another direction, there is something important about music that you must learn and understand before you do any of that. First thing that you’ve got to do is go into a garage with your instrument/s and just play for a while without any true intentions whatsoever. Then once you’ve got your head around that, then get your musically-capable friends together into a garage and just play as a group/friends just having a jam- once again without any real intentions. Once you feel comfortable with that, then go book your gigs at the local pub or a friend’s house party or such and again just play. That’s how Ivy Blue was born in that sense. We just played.
Exposed Vocals: Do you ever make mistakes during performances? How do you handle that?
THE URGE: Me personally, sometimes. I have certain songs (such as Forever December of our third album ILLUSIONS) that have 2-3 delays on my guitar (because I do the guitar parts as well as singing) so if I don’t fully concentrate on songs like that then it does not sound pretty (and no impression of Freddie Mercury can usually save that). But there are other songs like The Bridges from the new album 19 (or even Streets of Dreams and Factory Road) where I can let loose a little more and just enjoy it. Mistake wise it usually depends on how much I concentrate on that song and the complexity of the song. In most cases thankfully I get off lucky.
Exposed Vocals: Do you tour? Anything interesting happen on tour that you think our readers would enjoy hearing about?
THE URGE: Believe it or not, we were originally supposed to have this new album out quite some time back and the original plan was to do some shows around New Zealand in the second half of 2015 (i.e. NOW) to promote it. But around April I began having more issues with my knee (which was already up and down a lot beforehand- and when it came back this time it was a lot worse). So I went to my doctor and she recommended I have a few tests (such as Blood tests, X-Rays, and MRI Scans) to try and get to the bottom of things. What resulted was not the worst feared scenario- but it ended up in a lot of significant damage that has practically side-lined me from touring until around about January-March next year at the earliest. But when we do tour, we tend to make it more of an experience than just a band playing. We like to give our audience (and our fans who put us where we are) something that will give them not only their money’s worth in ticket sales but also gives them a lasting memory they can cherish. That’s what a tour is all about for us. And if we can use what we do to create that then that’s what touring and playing live means to us.
Exposed Vocals: Where do you usually gather songwriting inspiration? What is your usual songwriting process?
THE URGE: Well, we go in with almost nothing believe it or not. Sometimes I’ll bring in some rough ideas for lyrics or sometimes Daniel (Marsorm) or Josiah (Bernard, who has just joined the band) will come in with a crazy idea that sounds good. We’ll give every idea a try and if it works, then we pursue it a little more, and from that usually the best 7 or 9 songs are what goes on the album. Some people may say that 7-9 songs is not an album because there’s not enough songs on it, but I would rather have an album with 7-9 high quality songs on it that can stand up in their own rights and as an album than 16-18 songs made in a pressure cooker that may stand well as an album but would fall if they were released on their own if you get what I mean? And that sort of goes back to what you were saying before about Spotify and streaming. People may be going more to streaming sites to hear music, but they are not stupid. They can smell a rotten egg instantly and we are all too aware of what happens to those bands (as we’ve seen it happen many times over). So the aim for us in that area is to give our fans and the general public music that can last.
Exposed Vocals: Do you have a band website? What online platforms do you use to share your music?
THE URGE: We have social media all over the show. We have Facebook, Twitter, Ask.Fm, YouTube, Soundcloud, Reverbnation, website, and as of a few weeks ago we also have Ivy Blue based video games that we’re creating with Sploder.Com using their game creator. So really, to answer this question it’s not so much a matter of where we are, it’s just how to find us. So here are some links for you:
Website: http://ivybluebandnz.wix.com/ivybluemusicFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/ivyblueofficialbook
Twitter: https://twitter.com/IvyTwitOfficial
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCg5GntJQhwzo5o8SJPNfolg
Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/ivy-blue-music-nz
Reverbnation: https://www.reverbnation.com/IvyBlue
Ask.Fm: http://ask.fm/IvyBlueOfficial
Sploder Games: http://www.sploder.com/games/members/ivybluegames/
(As you can probably tell- that is quite a few links, but we’re prepared to do that for our fans and we are on those sites regularly so we do interact with as many masses as we can).
Exposed Vocals: What are some really embarrassing songs that we might find on your mp3 player?
THE URGE: I don’t think I’ve got so many embarrassing things on my iPod that would be of much interest at all- but I do like listening to a bit of Iron Maiden. Bruce Dickinson has a powerhouse of a voice (I try and model some of my singing after that, with a bit of Bono, Freddie Mercury, Robbie Williams, and many others mixed in). Despite my vocals- if I were up against ANY of them in a singing contest for half a million dollars or something then I’d probably lose (hahahaha).
Exposed Vocals: If you were given half a million dollars and a year off, what would you do? How would you spend it?
THE URGE: Well as a musician you never really get time off anyway (as once the music bug hits you, it’s very hard to shake off even for a year without losing some spark) so knowing me I’d invest some of it into my own guitar rig and to Ivy Blue itself (as you never know what could happen). I’d save about 100,000 of it to invest in a bus or two (and go get my licenses for them). One for personal use for holidays and driving around with friends and stuff and the other would be customized for Ivy Blue tours so it can carry band, crew, and equipment around the world (which would work out a lot cheaper than the standard way of touring the world as you don’t have as many expenses to worry about hence making it cheaper and slightly easier to do). The rest I’d either put towards a holiday in Queenstown, Gold Coast, Paris, or California, otherwise I’d donate it to the Future Te Aroha trust (of which I am a volunteer).
Exposed Vocals: Any planned studio upgrades? What are you working with now?
THE URGE: Well, for the first three albums we did a lot of it at Hikutaia St in Te Aroha: but as I’m now living in Morrinsville I work from home with Daniel and Josiah and we just do it that way (we don’t need expensive studios to make an album). As far as what we’re using we use a mix of Mixcraft and tape. Yes- TAPE. Most bands have abandoned it for whatever reasons they have chosen but we like the sound quality of tape better. And when it gets transferred to Mixcraft for VERY MINOR editing- it sounds great. It also puts the pressure on us to deliver so when we go to do those songs live it can stand out as “being as good if not better than the record itself”. Most of the process is live anyway so why manipulate it? At the moment, we’re just promoting the album and getting ready for next year which I kid you not the experience we plan to take out will be amazing beyond words.
Exposed Vocals: How do you find ways to promote your music? What works best for you?
THE URGE: Well that’s the thing. Finding ways to promote your music in a significant way is getting harder to do (partly thanks to technology as the next newest thing is that for no more than a few months or a few minutes or whatever). So in terms of finding a method it’s an ever-changing rule book that you constantly have to adapt to or get written out of. What works for us is just using what we can to get out there and prove to people we can exist, we do exist, and we exist with style.
Exposed Vocals: If you could perform anywhere and with any artists (Dead or Alive) where and who would it be with? Why?
THE URGE: Robbie Williams, Queen, REM, Iron Maiden, Black Sabbath, David Bowie, all my other musical idols (there are several) and Ivy Blue at the Future Te Aroha Center. Don’t really know why, but I guess it would be a giant jam session with some of my heroes just networking, sharing ideas, and just playing. Forget the gig for a moment- that would be the ultimate cool. The show itself would still be cool but the rehearsals for that show would be just as special (if not slightly more).
Exposed Vocals: So, what’s next? Any new upcoming projects that you want to talk about?
THE URGE: Well, the new album 19 just came out about a month ago so in the recording respect we’ve just come out of that. At the moment we are beginning to turn our attention to a more comprehensive, international tour of some kind in 2016. But before we can even finalize those dates I need to get my knee back in shape (and that’s likely to take the rest of 2015 because of the nature of the injury). So for the rest of 2015 we’ll just be promoting the album, we might start to write new things, there may be a couple of VERY SMALL shows, but that’d generally be it for me and my recovery’s sake. 2016 is when sparks will truly fly.
Exposed Vocals: If you weren’t making music, what would you be doing?
THE URGE: Either driving buses or becoming an Early Childhood teacher. Both create memories that you can hold onto (mind you, at times I’m a young child at heart so an Early Childhood teacher’s role would suit me well).
Exposed Vocals: Do you remember buying your first album? Who was it? What was going through your head?
THE URGE: The first album I brought with my own money was Queen (I believe it was A Kind Of Magic reissue in 2011)? I’ve had many CD’s in my time as Christmas presents, Birthday presents, and all sorts even since then. I might be wrong (as a result of having so many CD’s and most of them being in my collection for so long)- but that is the first one that comes to mind.
Exposed Vocals: How do you juggle the rest of your responsibilities while trying to stay ahead in your music life?
THE URGE: I just take it one day at a time and one job at a time. If you overload yourself you’re going to burn brighter than the sun having a tantrum (and that is bad). So while staying ahead in your own life and your music is important you have to do so in balance otherwise it’s your downfall.
Exposed Vocals: What should fans look forward to in 2016?
THE URGE: Well, I imagine that depending on how the exact tour dates fall that we might have time to do an album (although I’m not promising we will). But most of our focus next year will be getting out there and playing live again (which we are all looking forward to heaps). I guess anything outside of that will show itself if it’s right for us and we’ll take it as the wild wind blows.
