With his slightly hoarse, mesmerising voice and astonishing guitar playing, you can call Mike Wyatt a troubadour in heart and soul. Wyatt’s songs appeal to the imagination by flirting with blues rock and neo-soul. He translates emotions just as expressively with guitar as with voice, making his songs packed with exciting twists. Wyatt has toured supporting Selah Sue, played festivals and shows all over from Rotterdam’s ‘Stille Nacht’ to 110 Above Festival, and had debut single ‘Somebody Better’ featured as BBC Introducing’s Track Of The Day and received national BBC Radio 6 airplay.
Discuss the relevance of social networking to music.
I guess it’s essential for any artist now to have a way of sharing your creations. I do think it can be amazing. I personally really like Instagram as it’s a way to connect with people who share the same passion as me. I think new artists can get lost very quickly within social media though, for example, to basically reach anyone on Facebook you have to pay for promotion now which I think is unfair.
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Go into detail on why you decided to choose music as a career.
It’s the only thing I’m good at and have wanted to do since I was 12. There’s not too much more to it.
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Brief us the feedback you are getting from fans on your music.
I often get the same sort of comments which are, ‘great voice, very unique’.
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Tell us how you record your song.
It varies from song to song. For ‘Somebody Better’ I came up with a chord progression and melody for the vocals, and then I set a metronome and recorded the acoustic guitar in and a quick vocal guide to follow. I then built the whole song up around these, and within the day had it all finished.
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Tell us the story behind the song.
It’s about not feeling ‘good enough’ to get that someone you can’t have.
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State your musical skills.
I play guitar primarily. Then I sing and play little piano/keys.
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Tell us how long it takes to complete a song from the start.
It varies from song to song. Sometimes they just write themselves and are finished within a couple hours to a day. Other times I might come up with a melody and wait on it a few months until I can develop it further.
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Go into detail on how you develop your lyrics and melody.
Most times I simply sing random words in a melody I can hear in my head. From there I’ll ask myself what I want the song to be about, and from there turn those random words into lyrics that make sense.
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State your five favourite genres of music with reasons.
Blues, rock, soul, funk and pop – Think this covers most music in some way. They all have the same reasons as to why I like them, because they all connect with me on some sort of level. Whether it’s the emotion that comes from the blues, or the feeling of making you want to dance with some funk. To be honest, I’m not fussed about genres and labels, I just want to connect with music in some way or another and I’ll like it.
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Describe the chemistry between you and your fans during a live performance.
I would say emotive. I try to put my all into a live performance and share how I feel when playing my songs.
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State your artist’s name and elaborate on it.
It’s just my name. I like it.
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Discuss your rehearsal.
Nine times out of ten I just rehearse at home. If I’m rehearsing with a band then we’ll go to a studio, set up and have a chat for a bit. Start with a little jam possibly to get the fingers working then just work on the songs. See what new directions we can take them. I don’t have a set way of rehearsing; I just play and work on what I feel like we need to.
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State your favourite musical instruments.
Piano is my favourite sounding instrument. Guitar is my favourite though. I’m a big fan of a tambourine too.
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Discuss your personality in full details.
I’m a fairly quiet person who works hard.
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Discuss your music career.
I started playing guitar when I was 12. I went on to study music at University. After graduating I hit up all the open mics, toured a lot, and started doing session work for a living. This got me into producing and after having a break of my own music for a couple years, got back into writing my own music and here we are.
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Share your memorable experiences with us.
Touring with Selah Sue. I got to open up for her in front of 2000-3000 people every night which was just insane. I was so nervous before going on stage each time, but the second I started playing it turned into the best feeling.
