Today, we sat down with Mitch and Joe from Face of a Stranger to talk their inspiration to write music, the type of music they listened to growing up, and much more! Be sure to check out the music of Face of a Stranger on Spotify below after the interview!
Interview:
What is your inspiration to write your music? Is it your
surroundings?
(Mitch) Experience, observation, fiction, fact, opinions, horror, sci-fi, concepts of all kinds. Just kinda write what I’m interested in and let the lads do what they do to help create the whole package.
(Joe) I think just depends on the mood im in, sometimes i can pick my guitar up and ill just play some new riffs that i think are cool and then others i can play for 5 mins and i just know its not going to go anywhere, its just a state of mind i guess.
What type of music did you listen to growing up?
(Mitch) my dad always listened to Soul, Motown, Blues, Country, Dillion, Sabbath, so I was always singing to that in the car and at home. My older brother, Luke, started blasting GnR, Oasis, Matchbox 20, Ocean Colour Scene, Savage Garden, The Verve….Backstreet Boys, haha! Then I discovered The Offspring, Metallica, Slipknot, Alice In Chains, Staind, Soundgarden, Nirvana, The Vandals, Pennywise, Zebrahead, Megadeath, Iron Maiden, etc. Then gradually got into all the heavy stuff, like Machinehead, Cannibal Corpse, Eye Hate God, Spineshank, etc. Growing up i loved hip-hop, NWA, Biggie, Tupac, Eminem, Dre, Snoop, Jedi Mind Tricks, Klashnikoff, Kyza, Chester P, Devlin, etc. Loads of pop, rock, metal, blues, soup, country. It’s a melting pot really.
(joe) I think the first albums i had were Hybrid Theory, Chocolate Starfish and Weathered by Creed, i guess i was about 9/10 then. Pretty obvious CD choices for someone my age at that time in fairness, everyone was into Linkin Park and Limp Bizkit.
Is there someone you looked up as a hero?
(Mitch)I think the only artists I looked up to was my dad. He wasn’t a big artist or anything, just a local singer songwriter, but seeing him perform made me wanna sing and play guitar, and I did, I’m self-taught in guitar and vocals, getting my national diploma in performing arts, going to uni to do film-making, really allowed my discipline to thrive.
If you weren’t a musician, would you be doing today?
(Mitch) Exclusively writing horror fiction. Stephen King and Dean Koontz, HP Lovecraft, James Herbert, great writers, some of the best, I do some writing now still, been writing since I was 9 years old, but never pursued getting published…maybe I should in case the music doesn’t work out, hahaha! No, I kid. I’ll be making music with FOAS till I’m dead, haha!
What advice do you have for our fans out there that want to create
music?
(Joe) Just to do it for you really, dont worry about anything else. Just make the music that you enjoy listening to, anything that comes as a result of that is a bonus. If you like it, and the rest of the band like it thats the main thing and the band will last longer as a result.
Music:
