This interview summarizes an interview with Rachel Jones, an aspiring musician. She discusses being inspired to sing after watching TV performers. Her early musical influences included The Kooks and rap artists. What makes her band different is their strong friendship and focus on enjoying performing rather than money. Her music could be described as emotive, capturing, and rhythmically pleasing. She finds inspiration from everyday life and covers learning new songs. The best gig so far was a lively show in Liverpool. Her advice is to use social media, write your own music, and practice constantly.

1. 1. What inspired you to start singing?
“Erm, I really liked watching people on the TV and seeing what they’d got, and seeing
how they performed to people. And then I just took it from there, cause I thought, I
wanna’ be like them.”
2. What music did you listen to when you were younger and how did it influence
you?
“Erm, when I was younger I kinda’ listened to erm, I think the first album I got was
The Kooks, Inside Out. Erm and I absolutely loved it to pieces. And that’s kind of
influenced me in the way that the band is and the way that we write songs and stuff.
But I also used to listen to a lot of, erm, kind of rap artists as well which was a bit
strange, considering we are quite a different, not rap band these days. But yeah,
that’s the kind of stuff. Most of a lot of things as well, and quite a lot of Jazz music as
well cause I thought I was cool. Ha.”
3. What makes you different from other artists?
“Erm, I think what makes us different from other artists is that we bring, erm, a lot of
friendship, like erm, togetherness as a band, because we are always looking at each
other on stage, and we’re not just about making money, we’re just about enjoying it
onstage, and about making sure the songs we write relate to each one of us, so we
can really express what we’re feeling through our music.”
4. If you had to describe your music in three or four words, what would they be?
“I’d describe our music as: Emotive, Capturing and Rhythmically Pleasing.”
5. You write your own songs, what inspires you? Is it easy and what if your process of
writing?
“Yes, we do write our own songs, we have an EP coming out soon, when we get the
all the money together for the last bit of mixing. Inspiration comes from new stuff
that I learn from, like if I’m learning a cover I try and inspirate it into my own songs,
and Inspiration comes from err, like every day, everyday life, everyday things that
happen to you, relationships wise or whatever or just family wise or whatever that
happens. Good times wise, erm that I get inspiration. And it’s not easy writing your
own songs, you have to try and, sometimes you’ll just be sitting there and you just
don’t know what to do with a song, and I just say leave it, and come back to it
another time. And process of writing, I used to just do the music and then do the
words, but now I’ve started like, if I come up with a tune in my head or something
and I’m singing a random tune, I’ll record it on my phone, and then I’ll go home and
try and add some chords to it cause sometimes that’s better cause sometimes,
because you can already sing, its more developed in the way you can improvise
because singings already naturally built into your body.”
6. What was the best gig that you have done so far?
“The best gig we’ve definitely done has been at The Picket in Liverpool, even though
it’s a bit of a crappy venue, erm we did on the 25th of February, and we did Moving
To New York a couple of times and we got people raving up and down, and it was

2. great cause the strobe lights were going mental and my mum ended up getting
knocked over at the side of the mosh pit which was quite funny. She didn’t find it so
amusing but I found it. It was a really great night and then we went for an amazing
takeaway afterwards, it was great.”
7. Do you get nervous before performing? And do you have any tips for people who
do?
“No I don’t get nervous performing any more; I think sometimes I get an adrenaline
rush, and erm tips wise: I would say... Have people in the audience that you know, is
good ‘cause it means you can see them, and then you are like “Yeah” it’s reassuring.
And erm, also make sure you interact with your band members as well, and make
sure you don’t look, even if you’re feeling nervous, make sure you don’t look
nervous, cause then everyone else feels awkward so it’s not good.”
8. If you make a mistake during a performance, how do you handle it?
“Erm, if I make a mistake during a performance, I normally just laugh about it to be
honest, but I don’t do much solo stuff so being in a band is better so you can hide
behind your mistakes. Erm I just kind of laugh about it and get on with it to be
honest. If it’s like, I do break guitar strings a lot. And then what you do is carry on
until the end of the song and then get another guitar. Oh definitely always have two
guitars if you are a guitarist, cause if you don’t have two guitars then it’s really
strange”
9. If you could change anything about the music industry, what would it be and why?
“Erm I think that I’d change about the music industry, I’d take a lot of artists who are
just in it for the money and the stuff like that and take them out, and get rid of them.
And just put people in who write their own tunes and mean, the music means more
to them than the money and stuff like that, and then stop people who like, Simon
Cowell and people just promoting people just because of the way that they make
money which is through their image and not their music. Which is a good thing, the
image is obviously a good thing, ‘cause loads of people like the image but, in my
personal opinion, that’s not what matters”
10. If you could perform with any artist in the world, dead or alive, who would it be
and why?
“I’d really like to perform with Dizzee Rascal because I think he brings rap music into
a different dimension, even though I probably wouldn’t be writing rap music, I think
it would be amazing to have him featured on one of my songs, and I really like his
ethics and stuff. And Rita Ora because I think she’s gorgeous and she’s got really
good songs, and she writes her own tunes and she’s cool. And I like her, so there you
go.”
11. What is something that not a lot of people know about you, but you wish more
people could know?
“Me, James and Jack have known each other since we were... At least twelve
months old and we played together as little kids and we grew up together. And we

3. kind of split up and then we came back together and I really do think that it was
meant to be that we were in a band and just being best mates all the time, it’s been
amazing.”
12. Musically where do you see yourself in a year’s time?
“In a year’s time, I would like to see myself, slightly bigger and better gigs with my
band, erm I’d like us to maybe be hosting our own stuff, got an EP out, maybe
recording the second EP, and hopefully getting on the back of a proper promotion
company. Maybe got a manager, stuff like that. And trying and just giving it all we’ve
gotta start seriously thinking about career options.”
13. Do you have any advice for aspiring musicians/artists?
“Advice for aspiring musicians would be, erm, to just get out there, get on Facebook,
get on Twitter, get on all those social network stuff. And do gigs, write your own
stuff, whatever, even how bad it is or how good it is, and practice like mad.”
Rachel Jones – AS Level Media Interview