Published: September 13, 2010 7:51 PM EST
By: Isaac Davis Jr., MBA (Juniorscave.com)
New Music Spotlight September 2010 Edition
The Wandering Bards
Music Now Artist/Band Spotlight Weekly Series
The Wandering Bards
Colin McKay (Vocals, Acoustic Guitar, Banjitar & Djembe) of The Wandering Bards recently spent some time speaking with our Webzine online about the band’s music. What we are enjoying the most about the band are their original sound and creative style that come out sounding quite refreshing to the ears. In this spotlight, we spoke to Colin about the joy and plight of the DIY artists, the thrill of producing and making music that they enjoy, and musical influences that have had an impact on their music. Here is the entire spotlight for your reading pleasure.
Isaac: HI The Wandering Bards! You are living, working, and performing in WESTFIELD, New Jersey. Describe the music scene in your location and what does this mean to you as an artist/band.
The Wandering Bards: Well, Westfield, NJ is considered part of The Greater New York Metro Area so we perform in New York City as well as in our more immediate locale. While it is certainly a very densely populated place to live and work but there are not a lot of venues to choose from but there IS a lot of competition, musically-speaking. So (naturally) we try to make our music as exciting and interesting as possible! We not only perform in the more traditional nightclubs, but also cocktails hours, Bar Mitzvah's, backyard parties, festivals and coffee houses. Since we are all-acoustic we are not quite as loud as a rock band and this opens us up to different venues. Also, no matter what the venue of the gig is, we always are "The Wandering Bards" and the music the way we enjoy it and by proxy others shall as well!
Isaac: You have listed a ton of iconic music giants as your musical influences. Of these influences, who would you love to work with in a collaboration effort in the near future?
The Wandering Bards: It would be great to collaborate with Willie Nelson, either on stage or in a recording studio.
Isaac: That would be a great collaboration there.
Isaac: What’s the biggest challenge of pursuing a career in music?
The Wandering Bards: Getting paid for one's art. This is called "Figuring out the Monkey Puzzle".
Isaac: What do you like about performing in an intimate setting versus a huge setting and vice versa?
The Wandering Bards: In a more intimate setting, the band, as a whole, might play more intricately and complicated since (odds are) people be in a more "listening mode". Conversely, in a huge setting, the band might play more "To the back of the room" with not only more physical gestures but in a simplified groove so that the music comes across as one big pulse.
Isaac: What is the process you take to write? How do you go from a spark to a completed finished song?
The Wandering Bards: The writing process takes on many different avenues to achieve the end result. It could be I have a song more or less written - chords, lyrics and melody but when presented to the rest of the band but it is up to them to come with their own parts and then the song make take on a different feel, tempo, etc. as ideas flow from all members collectively. Then as the leader, I may take all these ideas and "produce" the song from there. Or, Ron, our bass, may simply have a bass line and we build the whole song from there. We record our rehearsals and we each listen to the song on our own time and come up with ideas. Kenny and I, as the singers, will then work on the lyrics. It is a process that can certainly take time, depending on how often we rehearse.
Isaac: When did you decide you wanted to take the DIY (Do It Yourself) route?
The Wandering Bards: When it became obvious that getting professional, outside "help" was going to cost waaaay more money than we had. I feel that has become even dicier with the current economic turmoil of the music business.
Isaac: What are the pros and cons of doing everything yourself vs. working with others in the music industry?
The Wandering Bards: The biggest con is one ends up spending a lot more time on the business side of things than the creative side even when the creative side is what drives the whole interest of performing in a band.
Isaac: What is the most difficult part about juggling family life, work, and a music career for you as a performer/artist/band?
The Wandering Bards: The hardest part for The Wandering Bards is the mere fact that we are a quintet so getting everybody's schedules to line up months in advance is not an easy task.
Isaac: What are your plans for the future?
The Wandering Bards: As musical unit, we aim to perform more "exciting" gigs (such as opening up for Willie Nelson!) as opposed to simply more gigs. We are also making efforts to get some of our original music involved with movies, TV shows and commercials.
