Today, we sat down with Victory Kicks to talk about music inspiration, advice for musicians and much more! Be sure to check out Victory Kicks music blew after the interview!
Here is the interview:
What is your inspiration to write your music? Is it your surroundings?
Hi, thanks for having me. Yeah, I guess so… in that I generally write songs about everyday things – work, friendships, relationships, conversations I overhear, stories I read in the news, anything really so long as there’s something I find interesting about it, or that sparks a feeling in me or something in it that reveals something to me about myself or about people in general.
What type of music did you listen to growing up?
I grew up listening to a lot of 80s pop music as well as older stuff that my parents had in their record collection – lots of Simon and Garfunkel, Nina Simone, Joni Mitchell. As I got older I got really into bands like REM, The Replacements, Pavement, Big Star, Wilco, Spoon, Guided by Voices and later on people like The War on Drugs and Death Cab for Cutie.
Is there someone you looked up to as a hero?
There’s a big list of people who just amaze me musically. If I had to pick just a few: Robert Pollard from Guided by Voices is a bit of an inspirational figure for me – just such a brilliant songwriter and managing to sustain that over such a huge number of albums really is something I admire massively. Jeff Tweedy from Wilco is a great songwriter and an inspiring musician but is also such a knowledgeable and interesting person about music. Nels Cline (also from Wilco) is probably the most incredible guitar player I’ve ever seen live and also seems like just about the nicest guy you could meet – and again, a really interesting person to hear talk about music. Paul Westerberg I love as a songwriter and just as someone who kind of embodies everything that I love about rock music. And what’s not to love about Tom Waits?
If you weren’t a musician, would you be doing today?
Probably something a bit more financially sustainable… gambling?
What advice do you have for our fans out there that want to create music?
What, apart from don’t listen to anything that guy from Victory Kicks tells you, he doesn’t know what the hell he’s doing? Here goes, for what it’s worth… my advice would be that life gets busy so if you really love making music, make sure you make the time for it: build music into your schedule, set aside the time – even if it’s just an hour after work or on your lunch break – and make sure you use it. Force yourself to write lots of songs, don’t worry about them being perfect – the good ones will rise to the top over time. The more you write, the more you’ll be able to write so get yourself into the habit. Set yourself deadlines in terms of finishing things and moving on – don’t get bogged down trying to overwork something into the ground – know when to stop, or if you’re not sure, put an end date on it and commit to that. And lastly, always try to expose yourself to new music – you’ll keep getting inspired that way. Could go on but that’s probably enough advice… oh apart from, listen to the new Victory Kicks single, it’s really great… sorry.
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