From the suburbs of London to the Global stage.. New interview with Sugardrum
How did you hear about Exposed Vocals? What made you decide to sign up?
– I saw one of your posts on twitter and decided to follow you.
So tell us your story. Where did you grow up? What made you decide to become an artist?
– I grew up in a leafy suburb of London known as Harrow. I’ve been making music since I was about 11 when I started writing songs on the piano. When I was younger I used to record songs using 2 cassette recorders next to each other to multitrack with as I couldn’t afford a 4 track at the time, and this was in the days before iPads and cheap laptops were around. I taught myself the guitar when I was 18 and have carried on using this as my main songwriting instrument.
How did you come up with that name? What was your inspiration behind it?
– it came to me as I was cycling to work one day and I felt it just fitted with my music. It was a similar feeling to how song lyrics just come to me then feel right.
What do you think about online music sharing? Do you ever give your music away for free? Why?
– I do, It’s great to be able to put my music out there and share it with those keen to listen. It feels exciting to think how far across the globe it can travel. But I think it’s important not to give too much music away and leave something else for users to buy such as a special limited edition CD or vinyl.
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?
– Twitter is great for finding blogs and online radio shows are great to reach keen audiences who are music fans, so it’s always worth sending through your music to online stations. Visiting local open mics can be a good way of meeting other musicians you can then get together with to put on gigs yourselves. This was how the musicians collective Wupadupa (www.wupadupa.com) I’m part of got started. Basically think local first and don’t get too carried away with the promotional side of things at the expense of finding time to create and record music.
Do you ever make mistakes during performances? How do you handle that?
– I have sometimes forgotten the words to a song, but I just make up some new ones instead which is fine as it makes the live performance unique and each song has a life of its own each time. Sometimes I finish a gig and realise there’s one song that I forgot to add to the setlist. The irony is it’s often my song “Forgotten” that I forget!
Do you tour? Anything interesting happen on tour that you think our readers would enjoy hearing about?
– I’ve just done a mini tour of London to launch my Postcard EP and am heading into festival season now. My plan for the summer so far involves performing at opposite ends of the country so will be covering quite a lot of miles. Some of my favourite festivals I have played at include the Glastonbury Greenfields, Small World and Secret Garden Party. One amazing gig happened when I least expected it at the End of the Road festival where I went as a punter a couple of years ago. A friend and I were jamming away in a beautiful wooded glade all lit up by fairy lights, looked up at the end of a song and were amazed to find a small crowd had gathered to hear us play. We ended up doing a short gig, followed by lots of others around the festival.
Where do you usually gather songwriting inspiration? What is your usual songwriting process?
– I find that ideas for songs tend to pop into my head as I’m doing something else, so having a notebook, pen and a recording device to hand is useful. I put a lot of thought into the words as I like them to tell some kind of story or have some kind of meaning to them. Some of the words for my song “Postcard” came to me as I was walking around a festival. I rushed to my car and practised singing the new words over the guitar part until I was happy with them and then formed the complete song later that day on stage at the festival.
Do you have a band website? Do you have a Facebook or Twitter? Do you use Bandcamp, Spotify, ExposedVocals or SoundCloud to share your music?
Yes.
www.sugardrum.com
www.facebook.com/pages/sugardrum/289395918859
twitter.com/sugardrummusic
sugardrum.bandcamp.com
soundcloud.com/sugardrum/
What are some really embarrassing songs that we might find on your mp3 player?
– are the Bee Gees and Barry White embarrassing? If so then I’m happy to be embarrassed 
If you were given half a million dollars and a year off, what would you do? How would you spend it?
– it sounds corny but once I’d made sure my family were ok financially I think I’d probably give a large chunk of it away. No one person needs that amount of money, especially when there are so many worthy causes out there in the world. Environmental issues are close to my heart so I imagine I would give some money towards an organisation in that field that needed it; that way the money would be helping everyone. I also love my life as it is so find it difficult to imagine doing anything else right now
Any planned studio upgrades? What are you working with now?
– I’m using a little Mac laptop, a Presonus Firewire sound card and an old dbx valve pre-amp which all sounds great so no plans to change any of it right now. I usually hire microphones as I can then get to use something really nice like the Neumann M147 we used for the last recording session.
How do you find ways to promote your music? What works best for you?
– Keep active on social media looking for new opportunities that get posted there. I have a list of all the people I have sent CDs to and venues I have played at so I know which ones to try again when I have some new music to promote. I also share contacts with other musician friends in the industry.
If you could perform anywhere and with any artists (Dead or Alive) where and who would it be with? Why?
– I’d love to sing some vocals with an electronic act or something completely different to what I do now such as a 70s disco band, but in an acoustic style or working with a really good producer such as Brian Eno or Nigel Godrich. Playing keyboards for a band would be fun too as I use a lot of keyboard and electronica on my own recording already so it would be nice to be able to do that in a live setting.
– Favourite venues would be the Union Chapel, Barfly in Camden and the Glastonbury Greenfields; I did a support gig at the Barfly a couple of years ago and the sound and atmosphere was great.
So, what’s next? Any new upcoming projects that you want to talk about?
– I’ve got some great festival dates booked and some exciting smaller concerts in the pipeline. I’m currently recording some extra parts for a remix EP of one the songs from my last EP, making 2 new music videos and writing songs for my debut album. Oh, and I’m also working on a novel based on some of the songs I’ve written. So, pretty busy, but fun
If you weren’t making music, what would you be doing?
– writing stories and wondering why I was no longer growing my nails long on my right hand (it’s to pluck the strings on the guitar)
How do you juggle the rest of your responsibilities while trying to stay ahead in your music life?
– I work part time doing web design which gives me time during the week to focus on songwriting, promotion, recording and video making. Being a web designer meant I was able to build my music website myself and it’s one of the reasons I got into web design in the first place. I’ve also met other musicians through creating websites for their music too which has led to other musical opportunities.
