When I first started writing music I was definitely trying far too hard. I'd always ask myself internal questions before penning anything. 'Will social media like my songs?', 'can these lyrics lead to  world peace ?',  'have I stuck enough hammer-ons and harmonic twiddles in this chord progression to show the internet that I'm getting half-decent at guitar?'. Every songsmith (and probably creative in general) goes through a similar process, especially in a world so rife with competition yet demanding of originality. 

 

It took me maybe 100 half-written melodies and years of coming up with excuses not to play at open-mics for it to finally click.  I had been writing songs that I felt were ok for other people to consume rather than songs that I wanted to write.  For better or worse, Wind and Stone is an attempt at a reaction to this realisation. It's about fantastical nonsense; pirates, dreamworlds and mysterious islands.  But nested within this, I think it's ultimately about the methods we use to escape in a society that's becoming evermore disconnected from reality.  I wanted every track to feel like it exists in a living and breathing world, and  In many ways I wanted to write a love song to adventure - which I think is an incredibly complex but beautiful emotion. In order to achieve this all, I  gathered a troupe of absurdly talented friends and headed out to Grans House studio to enlist the production wizardry of Angus Lyon.

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