Behind the Scenes at The Bedford, London

A Musician’s Journey……….

I plan for this to be a more regular occurrence to give my fan base a little bit of background into my material and my journey. Okay, here is my intro blog:

Time flies for definite! It is nearly two years since I made the decision to go solo with my music career and leave the comfort of a band. The main reason for the change was simple for me in the respect that, musicians are often busy with many other projects and with life in general; therefore going solo meant that I could gig and work at my own pace and schedule, rather than to have to fit in around three to four other musicians. This has given my work much more independence and also spontaneity in many other areas. I am also really fortunate to have an added bonus of the great opportunity to work with a fantastic bunch of musicians who make up a full band version of my songs for certain gigs.

The main thing I have learnt since I began this project is to trust the intuition that I had for my own music and my sound. It is almost a cliché nowadays to say that but for me it is absolutely true. You can't help but be pulled towards trying to be current sounding or fitting in to a market/ musical style in the industry, and this can be necessary and works for many artists. The alternative is to do what you really want to do musically and maybe as an artist take a risk; then as long as you believe in the music, play with passion and give a bit of yourself away each performance, people will feel it if it's good. They shouldn't be left with a choice!

The story of the album Bare Bones; what began as something I did purely for myself because of a desire I had, went a little like this…… borrowing a friend's house for a couple of weeks, setting up my recording gear and laying down a bunch of songs in a raw and old fashioned way has resulted in the most successful material I have created to date. People who had followed me over the years went out of their way to tell me they felt my music much more than they had in the past.

After playing Guilfest 2007 I had really good feedback on the full band versions of my songs. Therefore in late 2007 I recorded five of the album tracks with the band to then release the EP 'Wear a Number' in spring 2008. This release along with great support from my new management company and a busy gig schedule during the summer has taken me through to now where I am currently which is writing new material. Check out my gig schedule, come along to some of them and you may just be amongst the first, of hopefully many, to hear some of my new material.

See you soon guys.

All the best,

Billy Irvine