For 6:17, I’d define success as an artist as having a fan of my music contact me saying that my music has helped them through a tough period in their life. I’m not driven as an artist by economic success, that’s not the reason why I do it. I’d like my music to have the same effect as the artists I was inspired by to make my music, and which helped me through dark times in my life (which I’m eternally grateful for) whether that’s 5 people or 500 people. If someone was to contact me saying that my music has helped them, that would mean everything to me, and anything more would just be a bonus.
The biggest challenges for me as an artist right now would be to finally start performing my music live. I have a live band set up, however, some of the songs off the album would be hard to recreate live. The songs that will be performed live will be more minimalistic than the recorded versions, not just because it’ll be hard to recreate all the electronic and sampling elements in the songs, but because I want them to sound more raw and aggressive live. Other challenges would be to try and reach as wide an audience as possible, whilst working on a minimal budget and without being on a record label.
Outside of music, the things that motivate me are; the podcast I do with my colleagues at the studio I work at (Unit 45 Recordings) called “P’s In A Pod” where we discuss, other than music, films/tv shows/documentaries, politics, philosophy, and local venues and nightclubs. The other people I do that with are Casey Stead, Dylan Burton and Eddie Logie. Other than that, film, books and documentaries motivate me by learning from other peoples points of view, making me be more of an empathic person, also giving me more topics to write lyrics about.
The new album is quite an important moment for me with 6:17 because it’s something I’ve wanted to do for a few years with the project. I had a couple of EPs I planned to record and release before releasing an album. I had a few old and new songs which weren’t going to be on either of the future EPs, but I wanted to release them, so during the first lockdown I had time to arrange and record the album, and make all the songs work together.
On a whole the 6:17 project is very important to me, it was always meant to be on the back burner, but it’s a project where I get to experiment as much as I want and write songs and lyrics that are a lot more personal and darker than the music I make in the other projects and bands I’m in.
My goals for 6:17 in 2021 are to finally start to play the music live when gigs are allowed to start again safely and to maybe start recording the new EP which was meant to be recorded last summer. I might have 2 new tracks coming out in the next couple of months, as part of a collaboration with another local artist, so hopefully, 6:17 will be more active than it’s ever been in 2021.
