Almost Famous
WORDS: Rosaria Sgueglia (Sprout Editorial Group)
TheSprout caught up with Chris from Cardiff album-orientated rock (AOR) outfit Serpentine and found out about the most important thing in his life: the music.
Sprout: When did you start and why?
Chris: My real passion with music started at quite a late age, just before my 16th birthday. My uncle, when visiting one day, brought down with him a brochure of electric guitars saying that he was going to buy one and learn. It aroused my curiosity and I wanted to find out more about the instrument and the type of music my uncle was going to play. Subsequently he brought me a few Metallica albums to listen to and after hearing them, I asked to borrow more and more, whilst persuading my father to buy me a beginner's level guitar to learn on. I found old heavy metal and rock giving me a whole new enthusiasm and adrenaline rush that I'd never felt.
Upon getting a guitar I decided to teach myself, learning from any sources I could with only a few informal lessons from Darren Brookman, a friend of my uncle's. Since then I have wanted to play with the ability of all the musicians I admire and write songs as good as theirs.
S: Tell us a bit about your band
C: Serpentine formed in April 2007 when a friend's brother said he knew a keyboardist who was looking for a guitarist. He gave me a few songs they'd written on his keyboard and I learnt them to audition. When I went round there and played his songs we instantly hit it off and struck up a great writing partnership. The friend's brother who introduced us then took up bass and has made tremendous progress to be at the ability he is now. To complete the line-up we have recently found a drummer and started working on demos with a well known singer, Tony Mills. We write AOR music, which although being different from my first love, heavy metal, is something I also enjoyed and subsequently have gotten more into. Our music is mainly AOR, but with my love for heavy metal I can sometimes make it slightly heavier. I'd like to think we've managed to take our various influences and create our own sound.
S: Where do you find your inspirations?
C: Everything around you can inspire you in some way. I am more a composer than author, dealing with the music side of things rather than the lyrics. The mood I'm in can sometimes determine what I'll write. Most of the time an idea springs to mind from nowhere and one of us will take it to the rest of the band and we'll work on it from one idea to come up with a whole song. Regarding guitar solos, I either have to plan out what I'll play and make a concerted effort to write one, it can immediately come to me or it comes from jamming with the track, picking out the best ideas. Every creative process for each song is different.
S: Is there somebody in the music field you would love to be like?
C: Steve Harris, the guitarist from Shy. He's really got an ear for a melody, writes fantastic songs and some spellbinding solos. They're played with real emotion and are written to suit the song. Not only this but when I met him, he was a real nice guy, very humble, with no ego whatsoever and willing to take the time to talk to all the fans.
S: How hard is it to turn your passion into a job?
C: A guitarist and friend mentioned earlier called Darren Brookman once gave me brilliant advice: "There is always someone out there better than you who can do something you can't. You can learn from them and you will never stop learning to play guitar because there's always something new to learn". I live by this advice so that I can always learn new things to improve my ability. I don't ever want to be egotistical, thinking I'm better than other people. I like to keep myself grounded with a level head.
S: Have you ever been touring?
C: Sadly I've never been touring. I have a few gigs coming up soon with The Lec Zorn Project and Serpentine. I'm sure they’ll be a great experience. Get back to me in a year or two, who knows?
S: Where do you see yourself in 20 years?
C: Hopefully having had some success in the music industry with albums and tours completed, with the ability to make a decent living doing the thing I love most.
S: If you could have a dinner with five people from the music panorama, who would you invite?
C: Assuming I could invite anyone, living or dead, I would invite Blackie Lawless, Zakk Wylde, Steve Harris, Neal Schon and Randy Rhoads. The reason I would do this is because they all have very different styles of writing/playing and I would love to find out more about them. What actually makes them write the way they do, to see if I can learn anything more to take these strong influences and develop my own sound/style.
S: What are you up to now?
C: Right now we have a gig at Rock Fest in November and the four track demo is nearly finished ready to search for the right deal. We also have a photo shoot for the album coming up. We are also taking part in the writing, playing, engineering, producing, mixing and mastering of four tracks on the second Lec Zorn Project album, The Test Of Time. The bassist (Gareth Vanstone) will also be playing a track on the album.
S: Any advice for young people who want to follow your steps?
C: I'm grateful for the opportunities that have come my way and I think there's definitely an element of luck in getting places within the music industry. I would tell the people who want to break into the music industry to just put all their effort into it; you have to make the most of your opportunities and make sure you do everything to the best of your ability. You don't know when you might be in the right place at the right time.
