We're Only Here For The Banter - Michael Cassidy

Michael Cassidy was kind enough to join me in the studio at Pulse Community Radio on Monday night. By the curse of worse luck possible, the computer that was recording the session crashed, meaning his acoustic guitar and soaring vocals have been lost to the vast emptiness of computer limbo.

However, Michael was also kind enough to be the first ever artist featured on my new Q&A feature, 'We're Only Here For The Banter'. Check it out:

Hello. How the devil are you?

I'm very good man, having a lovely day today wandering around town, how's yourself?

I'm well thanks for asking. Tell us a little about your music and your influences.
 
I would desecribe my music as mainly folk with influences from the pop and rock genres. I play on my own and with a band. The songs on my own are definately more gentle where as the songs with band are a little more rock and meant to shake your hips. Influence wise, I've been lucky to have grown up amongst great music. One artist who I really admire is Rufus Wainwright. Want One and Want Two are definitely two of my favourite albums ever.

You've played in bands previously, how has that influenced you, and how does it compare to going it 'solo'?
 
Yeah I played in a band called Signals with my best friends from school and we still practise to this day. It's a total group organic creative process when we write songs whereas going solo is all on my own. I enjoy working with others but I probably enjoy the process of starting and finishing a group of songs on my own. Although I am going into start my first album and I expect the producer will want to have a large input into my music but I am looking forward to that! 

Scotland, especially Glasgow, has a thriving music scene. How do you find being a part of that?
 
It's great as there are always great artists and promoters who like what you are doing and want to put you on. I've been lucky enough to play with some great bands and some great shows in Scotland. I recently  supported Ben Howard on his Scottish dates and it was brilliant. It's great to be able to go and play gigs all over Scotland and know that there will generally be a crowd out wanting to hear great music. Glasgow has a ridiculous amount of venues and you can guarantee at least one great gig will be happening every night of the week in town. This is extremely exciting for a musician.  

Is there a lot of support amongst each other?

In my experience most Scottish bands and singers are willing to help each other out. You get the odd bunch of wanks but you find that the guys that are nice tend to get asked back to play more often. I also think the Scottish blog scene is thriving and there are so many great bloggers out there helping out new music. Peenko especially has been great to me so far!

You recently recorded a video for your song 'Everybody's Scared', tell us a wee bit about that.

Yeah, basically my friend Paul Allison is a film maker and he wanted to do a video for the song. We met up and when he told me his idea I was thrilled with it. It basically took a full weekend to film and has me walking through Sauchiehall Street into different pubs on my own. It pure works well with the song and Paul done a brilliant job! In fact we're doing another video to a song I have called "Till You" very soon so watch out for that.

What's your biggest achievement so far?
 
A couple of months ago I had a song played on Radio 1 by Ally McCrae to big audience. It was even bigger for me because that week his Scottish show for some reason was broadcast to Scotland and England which gave me an even bigger audience!

What could we expect to see/hear from your live shows?

Well I really like to perform well and try my hardest to impress people. I am also guilty of some nervous chat which I have been told is quite funny so even if you don't enjoy the tunes you can have a laugh at me embarassing myself! I do like to get into it and whilst I am playing solo I will try and make up for the absense of four other band members.

Speaking of live shows, what does the second half of the year hold for you?

Got a few gigs supporting different people including RM Hubbert and Beerjacket in Stereo on the 14th July and even going down to Newcastle to support Ocean Colour Scene in August which is exciting. Also playing the Ignition Festival in August in Newcastle with some big names so if not for me come down for them and jump over to see me whilst your there. You can see all my upcoming gigs on my Facebook artist page at http://www.facebook.com/michaelcassidymusic

As well as the Facebook link above, check out the following:

Michael Cassidy on Twitter - http://twitter.com/MCassidyuk

Michael Cassidy on MySpace - http://www.myspace.com/michaelcassidyuk

Michael Cassidy on SoundCloud - http://soundcloud.com/michael-cassidy-music