Today, we sat down with The Spectre Beneath to talk their inspiration to write music, advice for musicians, and more! Be sure to check out the music of The Spectre Beneath on Spotify below after the interview!

Interview:

What is your inspiration to write your music? Is it your
surroundings?

I’m not sure I’m inspired, I just have this inner drive to try and better the last thing I’ve done. I finish a project and allow a couple of weeks to be pleased with it before I start analysing what I can do to improve and do differently next time. I absorb as much music as I can, old and new and that definitely influences the types of riffs I write, and I think getting a seed of an idea and evolving it into an epic track is very addictive. I love writing stories so reading, watching films and TV inspire me to write the lyrics as we’re definitely story writers in our songs and avoid real world topics and anything relationship based because other bands do it better than we do.

What type of music did you listen to growing up?

There was no metal in my house when I was growing up so the only heavy music I heard was anything that made it onto Top of the Pops, which was rare. However, I did like the glam rock of the 70s. Slade, Sweet, Suzi Quatro and anything that had some energy to it. My brother liked Ska so I listened to a lot of that as well, The Specials, Bad Manners, Madness to name a few, and I’ve always been puzzled why it never made a come-back, it’s got so much energy. I think I was twelve when I borrowed an Iron Maiden album of a friend from school. My life definitely took a turn at this point. Hearing Invaders for the first time was like a switch being flicked inside my brain telling me this is what you want to do. It was music that was heavier and faster than 70s glam rock, how could I resist?

Is there someone you looked up as a hero?

There are many but the one I looked up to the most from an ability and song writing standpoint was Adrian Smith from Iron Maiden, in my opinion, the band’s secret weapon. I love his solos, they are melodic, catchy yet fitting for the song without being too flashy. But it was his song writing I’d always found appealing, and still do. Most of my favourite Iron Maiden songs were penned by Smith or at least he was involved: 22 Acacia Ave, 2 Minutes to Midnight, Paschendale to name three. I always admired his level headedness in interviews. He always came across as a quiet, private sort of a chap, driven by creating music and that was someone I could identify with rather than those who lived the rock n roll lifestyle.

If you weren’t a musician, would you be doing today?

I like to write books and stories, horror, thrillers and whodunits mainly. I released my 5th full length novel last year and I’m about a quarter of the way through writing another whodunit. I have a few shorter stories as well. If I weren’t doing so much music, I’d certainly be concentrating on my writing and have a lot more completed works under my belt. I did go to Ealing studios to study film, script writing and screenplays because I wanted to write horror movies. I learned a lot but I also realised writing film scripts is too formulaic and not for me, it was too restrictive. It also ruined movies for me as well as they’re basically all the same when you strip away all the razzamatazz. I’m happy writing novels and short stories.

What advice do you have for our fans out there that want to create
music?

I started writing my own music within weeks of learning a few chords so don’t let your ability or lack there of if you’re just starting to learn, put you off from composing. Granted, my own ideas at the time were three or four chords strung together with a mumbled melody over the top, but, like everything, you get better with practice and you soon get to know what works and what doesn’t. Try and record your ideas as well, keep a log of them because you never know when you’ll refer back to them and there maybe ideas you didn’t appreciate first time round. The slow, dirty riff in the middle of one of our songs, 20 Shillings a Town, was only the third riff I’d ever written but seemed to fit as a break down in that song.

Music: