this is our weekly interview post. We want to sharpen your senses for HIVE musicians, that´s why we made it our goal to interview a new musician every week.
There are a tremendous amount of very talented musicians on our HIVE Blockchain. Too many of them are going unnoticed. We at HMVF and Blocktunes are here to change that. Our interview series will let you get a look behind the curtain of some of these artists. Their music, their process, and their goals. Let us come together to support the music of HIVE.
Of course these posts will also have the purpose of collecting funds for HMVF, to be able to create as many music videos for these awesome artists as possible. 🎵
We wish you lot´s of fun with the interviews and consider supporting these awesome artists please!
This week's musician is 
Have fun with the interview of this pleasant singer-songwriter who sees himself more as an entertainer than a musician.
When I was first born, I looked my mother in the eye and said, what do you think my stage name should be? She suggested Basil, and I thought that was acceptable. Then after a few moments deliberation, we decided to throw my dads surname on the end to give it a bit of extra dynamic. In hindsight, it was a poor choice…..it hasn’t got me anywhere!
I am a singer songwriter with a wordy, theatrical delivery a bit like Tim Minchin or Tom Lehrer and sometimes Shel Silverstein. I play somewhat clunky self-taught piano but I think of myself more as a word smith and entertainer than a musician. My songs tend to be a mix of poignant and irreverently comedic using unusual imagery at times and often with a twist of nihilistic melancholia or something else jaunty and uncomfortable. Delivery ranges from almost spoken word, beat poetry to folk rock, musical theatre and at my most tender, Im told; a poor mans jeff buckley! hehe
Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen are right up there as two of my biggest poetic heroes. When you can’t sing beautifully or play like a wizard you have to use words and the power of songwriting to captivate your audience and that is what I aspire to when I write. However, despite Cohen being a bigger influence early on, its Dylans irreverence when writing and recording that have helped me to further my craft more recently.
I also love talking heads, Dr. Hook, Nick Cave and Kevin Coyne for their stylistic approaches.
oo The White stripes as well, I love how he uses his voice. I can think of loads of others who inspire me, but those are a few who help me to accept my own style and give me courage to keep on developing.
I write lyrics in notebooks. Sometimes it will stem from something I sing to myself while im in the shower or if Im going for a walk and theres no-one about, but mostly I just write straight in to a notebook. I suppose its quite often a line or two that come in to my head which then inspire me to pick up the pen, but from there I tend to write a whole poem, usually in verses format and often finding a chorus line to tie them all together. They tend to come out fairly well formed, I don’t make a lot of edits usually, although there are some exceptions and I do have a few songs which have been added to over years, but that is unusual for me. If I like the poem, I often find that it has a certain tune in my head and I can take that to the piano and try to look for the notes. Often my piano playing is very rudimentary, consisting of a few chords which closely follow the rhythm of the words, but every now and then I produce something slightly more technical. Im not incapable of playing nice piano riffs, in fact Ive come up with a few sneaky ones that I think are pretty lush but I don’t have an very autonomous left hand and I often struggle to sing and play at the same time, especially if I try anything to clever with the piano.
The new stage that Ive been in for the last year or so is inviting other musicians to come and join me and help to flesh the song out with more dynamic musicianship. This is where things can get really exciting, but I feel Ive only just had a taste of that so hopefully there will be more to come!
I don’t know really. I suppose from an egoic point of view I hope they go away thinking wow, that guy wrote some great songs! Haha. But really its just nice to be able to share creative output with a generous audience and if people feel entertained, or moved, or inspired in some way then that’s a beautiful thing. In fact the best feeling would be if someone felt so inspired that they wanted to collaborate or do something for themselves. Part of my current collaborative phase is about breaking down perfectionist ideals with recording and musicianship. I don’t care how new you are to the trumpet, jump on board and make it scream!
It already has. When I first jumped on the blockchain in 2017 I hadn't ever shared my songs with anyone outside of my close circle. The feedback I got from the OpenMic Songwriting competition was so encouraging (not to mention the financial rewards!) that it really jumped my songwriting in to another gear and inspired me to start looking in to home recording.
The reality is that Im not a hugely career focused person. If I was I have no doubt I could have used Hive to build up a strong level of support over the years and be supplementing my income with my music. Receiving actual financial reward for your personal creative output has a deeply transformative effect and I will be forever thankful to Hive for what it has given me. Perhaps the best is yet to come?
Haha. Sadly Im not the guy to look to if you want success in the new music industry or the old one! I haven’t even made a music NFT, so that’s how on the pulse I am. But for anyone out there who’s like me and just loves to create without too much pressure, I say don’t be hard on yourself. We don’t all have to be high flying career artists! Just keep doing what you love the way you love it and if you find other people who love it too, well that’s just a bonus….. and for that, Hive is an excellent place to start!
Well as you’ve probably gathered, I like to take things at my own pace. Im closing in on 100 songs written but I still havn’t managed to put an EP together let alone an album! I only just started playing a bit with other musicians last year and this year I finally plucked up the courage to do my first ever live gig (which went really well!) so I guess the aim this next year might be to finally piece together an album. I like to record the whole band playing live, ‘Bob Dylan style’ so that there’s an unpolished live sound element to the finished tracks. Who knows, maybe I’ll even make an NFT out of it! As long as Im not making myself stressed and anxious. Creativity, happiness and health come first in my life and career a long way second. Haha
Lots of Love and peace and freedom to you all
Basil x
Support this awesome artist and help him being able to continue making great music!
Have a great weekend everyone and see you at the next interview!
Yours,
