by J-C0B

“What genre do you play?” – Everyone Else.

Seriously, have you ever told someone you write/perform music only to have someone ask what genre you play? Because that seems to be most of my experience with people, and it’s more or less the reason I decided to call this oh so important first EP I.B.F.R or, for those of you who skipped the title, Indie Blues Folk Rock.

Listen to these album while reading the text.

Early Influences

I mean, I’ve never really thought about genre when I was writing. I just write what I feel in the moment, and whatever comes out that’s what it, is ya know?

There is something to be said for influences though. I mean, like everyone I started out listening to whatever my parents liked, or what was on the radio, and generally that for my mom at least was John Mayer, Bryan Adams, and anything country. Those three things have had a HUGE part to play in my musical journey. John Mayer’s “Inside Wants Out” EP is probably my all-time favourite album.

But from those three, my musical tastes expanded and grew, in my pre/early years I was really into bands like Thousand Foot Krutch, Kiros, and the Beat Crusaders (oh yeah, did I mention I’m a big ol’ nerd?). Then once I left middle school, my taste in music just went off the walls. I started listening to Classical, Blues, Swing, Jazz and pretty much everything else other than pop/electronic.

Sidenote: I actually was really big into the boy band NSYNC when I was 6-8 because my best friend Emily was, so of course I had to be, too. But she changed schools in grade 3, and we didn’t see each other much after that. I never really liked pop afterward, except the occasional song here and there anyways…

Some of the artists I listened to a lot in high school and just afterward were Ben Folds 5, Louis Prima, Michael Buble, House of Heroes, Weezer, Jack Johnson, Joe Hiasashi, and Jack White along with a ton of others.

It was in grade 10 when I picked up the guitar for a third time and actually decided to take it seriously. I started trying to write songs right away, and nothing really stuck till I moved away from home the summer I turned 19. The first song I wrote and played for anyone was called Good Music, and the first one I actually recorded was called A Little Bit Older. If you want to know the order of them after that, just check https://soundcloud.com/jc0b101.

I.B.F.R.

Everything I have written since then is a piece of my journey through life, and I.B.F.R. reflects that journey in more ways than one.

Outshine The Sun, the first song and the one that represents Indie, was a song I wrote when I was feeling down but hopeful and full of passion. The second song representing Blues is Basement Full of Stones, it is a song that took me at least three years to write.

I was playing the main riff in my jam room at the time and my best friend walks in and asks if he can sit in on the bass and we proceeded to jam for a good 30 minutes on the same riff before he asked what’s it called and I jokingly said “Basement Full of Stones” and he said “cool”. I didn’t really think about the song again for quite some time till I was listening through some old recordings on my phone and came across the one I had taken that night. Three years and a couple more moves later I was sitting in my office at work waiting for a customer, and playing the riff and I finally got the lyrics to BFoS.

That song really represents a lot of inner turmoil and self-struggle I’ve gone through. I didn’t really understand what the song was until after I had played it for a crowd for the first time. My personal struggles with mental illness are tied strongly into BFoS.

I’m not gonna lie I love Sometimes. Although this Folk tune, song #3, was written when I was in a down moment, it’s super happy and upbeat because that’s what I needed at the time.

The fourth and Final letter R for Rock is represented by the fan favourite Summer’s Rain (drip drop). Now, when I wrote this song, it was nothing. When I wrote the song it was summer, it was hot, and there wasn’t a cloud in sight (well at first anyway). I was sitting on the back porch playing my Gretsch and enjoying the heat when all of a sudden I felt something wet hit my face and then slowly but surely the sky got darker, and a small random summer’s rain rolled in and the whole time all I could do was watch and play my guitar to the sound of the rain coming down. The storm only lasted maybe twenty minutes and immediately after, I packed up and went inside, finished writing and recorded the first rendition of the song on SoundCloud. After I listened back to the recording about forty times and played it a couple more, too, I realized that it was more than just a song about a random storm.

So, those are the songs and some of the thoughts that represent I.B.F.R. And, yes, there are two more songs on the EP. But the other two are two we added because they felt right in the studio. Maybe I’ll do a write up about them another time.

Back to my original thought. People always ask me what genre I play, and I can never really say. So this album is my answer:

I don’t play one genre, I play music.

See you in the next verse.

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jc0bsmus1c@gmail.com

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Artist’s Note

Kelowna, British Columbia, Canada

Indie, Blues, Folk, Rock, Acoustic, Alternative, Rando



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