Joseph Bagley 29109246
In this essay I will be talking about artistic influences and learning from new musical experiences/others and how this affects my writing and collaborating in pop music. Although I spent little time in university this year, my musical writing and playing style were greatly influenced by working with others in university as a band.
At the start of my year I was influenced by metal and rock such as Bring Me The Horizon and Catfish and The Bottlemen. These bands influenced my playing from the beginning of my musical journey and have consistently been inspiring the way I play guitar. When I first came to university I met my band I would be working with and they were not inspired by this music themselves. This forced me to be open minded and adjust my playing towards how the others in my group played their instruments and sang. Tas (vocalist) was inspired by artists such as Adele and Chappell Roan. This was exciting as it was a new genre for me to explore and learn to fit my style in with. While still adding elements from my past inspirations of heavy handed playing and melodic guitar riffs, I adapted to play with my more pop-routed band mates.
My main inspiration as a guitar player was Johnny Bond, former member of Catfish and The Bottlemen. This includes the guitar tone i would use a lot and his way of playing, Johnny would use volume swells and pitch shifting effects to create tension and build up songs to their anthem sounding choruses and guitar solos during live performances. Catfish and The Bottlemen as a whole really knew how to put on a great live show from start to finish, keeping crowds enticed into their performance. Bob Hall, the former drummer, would use subdrops at very high volumes on specific songs such as Soundcheck and Pacifier to further increase the energy at their gigs, which is very effective – proven by them selling out a full UK arena tour in 2019. Seeing these gigs in person really had an impact on me and how I interpreted music, further pushing me to enjoy playing high-energy music as a guitarist.
I recently saw Bring Me The Horizon live at Leeds Festival. This being the third time I have seen them, they always put on a performance to remember, interacting with the crowd musically and verbally. To me it feels like Oli Sykes, the lead singer of the band, has a certain way of getting the crowds attention he will call the crowd names until they open a mosh pit big enough to his liking however on the other spectrum he will come around the crowd and hug fans as he performs Bring Me The Horizons hit song ‘Drown’. This shows he knows how his lyrics in this song affect his fans, “who will fix me now, dive in when I’m down, don’t let me drown”. Oli uses the music to communicate his struggles through depression and addiction which really resonates with young fans across the world and fueling a deeper connection with the fans and band. Bring Me The Horizon often use heavy metal breakdowns and storytelling-like lyrics to artistically express their frustrations and struggles. This is especially shown in their song ‘Pray for Plagues’ from the album Count Your Blessings which the band released in 2006.
During my brief time at university this year, my band and I wrote three songs that each capture our music tastes and inspirations with a mix of genres. For example our first song, I felt, captured the essence of John Mayer with a blues style tone. Lucas – our other guitarist – played a big role in this song, he added blues/funk guitar parts which gave the song a more modern blues feel. After our first demo of the song we made the artistic decision to switch the bass-line to a piano which we thought enhanced the pop sound further driving us away from that hip-hop sounding bassline. To further include the style of other band mates the vocals/lyrics have more of a rap influence at certain points of the song giving it a call and response type vocal for the other vocalists to sing along with. We used simple rhythm guitar parts as we thought it would be too much sonically if we added a more busy rhythm guitar.
In our second song we decided to go for a more pop/ballad sound, this song contained soft vocals and a big dynamic build-up as if the whole song is a crescendo constantly going up leading to the final climax of the song, consisting of a guitar solo and overdriven guitars. This song, to me, feels inspired instrumentally by bands such as the Eagles and Journey. However, lyrically and vocally it feels inspired by more modern pop artists like Sabrina Carpenter and Chappell Roan. in this song i got to use loud electric guitar to complement the acoustic at the end which was inspired by how Bring Me The Horizon often use big crescendos near the end of their songs.
Our third and final song was a piano driven modern pop song with inspirations from David Bowie and Billy Joel, a specific song that inspired the piano to this song was Time by Bowie. However, we modernised the 80s carnival-like sound to a more twenty-first century twist. We all felt happy with the diversity of the songs and including each other’s unique styles to complement the songs as a whole.
While I was not in university much this year, I still feel as though my songwriting and adapting to other genres has drastically improved. I would like to continue to discover new genres and ways of writing songs to further expand my knowledge on collaborating and performing. I am very excited to keep working on my musical journey with new people and new influences to help further my skill as a guitarist trying to stand out in this era as it is becoming increasingly difficult to sound unique in a time of following trends.
Bibliography
Catfish and the Bottlemen song that was very influential and backs up my points made.
Bring me The Horizon song that backs up my points.
Video of Johnny Bond from Catfish and The Bottlemen talking about how he uses gear to enhance his live guitar sound.
