SHARP PRACTISE
1.Sharp Practice means what for you ?
Sharp Practise means several things to us. First, there’s the musical reference, sharp as in a # note, practise as in what you have to do lots of to be any good as a musician. Secondly, it goes back to when I started as a songwriter. I kept getting told “we like your songs, come back when you have put a band together”. To do this at short notice I got a friend who is a make-up artist to help me create five characters, we had them photographed, I played everything on the demos and I went for it! The artwork fooled record companies etc into thinking I had the full band in place. Once I got offered a deal, I had to own up and put the real Sharp Practise together of course! Nonetheless, that element of sharp practice enabled to me form Sharp Practise. Now I hope Sharp Practise will come to stand for ‘a band that tries hard to play good songs well’.
2. What are your influences ?
Mostly songwriters with bands, such as Bruce Springsteen, Bryan Adams and Tom Petty. Also, melodic rock groups like The Cars, Gin Blossoms etc.
3. Do you plan to contact any labels for your music ?
As you know, we now have a recording contract with Positive Records, a UK based indie company. They’re very supportive of what we do and I think it’s going to be a fruitful relationship between the band and the people at Positive.
4. Do you think classic rock is welcome these days in your country ?
Yes, there’s at least one high circulation magazine I can think of which is devoted to classic rock (in fact, the mag is called Classic Rock!). There certainly seems to be good demand for concert tickets and steady record sales for classic rock bands in the UK. I personally think that the media can sometimes give a misleading view of musical taste over here in the UK, it seems to be preoccupied with flavour of the year singing groups like Hear’Say or the boy bands. Don’t get me wrong, this type of act is often good, professional entertainment, but their very nature makes it easier for TV executives, for example, to slot these bands in for a quick mime of their latest single on the lottery draw programme or whatever. The success of more serious music shows like Later with Jools Holland, shown late at night on BBC2, where artists play live, tells me that many people still want to hear real music played by bands with a degree of musical ambition.
5. Any plans for touring ?
Hopefully later this year. We’re working on our first record for Positive, so finishing that is our number one priority at present, but once that’s completed we’d like to get out there and give people a chance to hear us. With any luck, we’ll get over to Greece and then readers of Skylight can judge for themselves whether Sharp Practise is worth listening to!
