3.15 /// Rockin' the Mic at 40!...

Ever dream about being in a band, rocking the stage as you belt out classic hits that make the crowd roar? Well, this is me, stumbling into a band right before I hit the big 4-0! Attempting to put my unique twist on hits like "Sunshine of Your Love" by Cream and "Hootchie Coochie Man" by the Jeff Healy Band. But what happens when a guy who is out of practice playing guitar and the piano, and can sing a little bit becomes the lead vocalist? Listen in to find out!

As we jive to the beat and navigate our way through practices and recording the sessions, you will discover the thrill of singing someone else's song, the challenge of learning lyrics, and the joy of finding your own voice. 

I'll also share my experience auditioning for a West End musical. Spoiler alert - I didn't get a callback, but the journey was enriching and taught me a lot about talent, self-confidence and the power of believing in yourself (I have to put this into practice). Buckle up for rock 'n' roll prattle!

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Chapters

• 0:00 Joining a Band and Pursuing Dreams
• 9:31 Exploring Being in a Band

Transcript

Stephen: 0:00

Hello, welcome to StevenSpeak. Thank you for joining me again. Today's episode is going to be about something that's happened to me recently. Musically, finally, and I managed to just achieve it just about prior to turning 40. Stick with me and I'll explain all in a moment.

Stephen: 0:34

Welcome to StevenSpeak, the podcast. Unscrupted Prattle on everything and nothing.

Stephen: 0:49

Thank you very much for joining me on this on the podcast. Grab yourself a brew, whatever your poison is, as long as it's not poison, don't kill yourself. Sit back and listen to me prattle on about the subject today, which is me joining a band. A little mysterious intro from me today I joined a band. How weird.

Stephen: 1:19

I've talked about before how I'm a little bit musical. Probably could be about a million times better than I actually am because I never practice, got a room full of instruments that I just stare at half the time and just mess around on occasionally and really should invest a lot of time. I still need to do that. I really need to do that. Every time I get organised something happens that puts me back. You all know my brain's a bit weird and I can't cope with things sometimes. Both of the excuses, basically, I think.

Stephen: 2:05

I mentioned on the show that I did a soundscape for a local charity museum Eritre Center and crew. They wanted a sound produced, so I did that, used my talent. It went out really well. The guy that was supplying the PA system let me just adjust my microphone. There was a guy that was providing the PA system because I was literally just providing the sound. He was a lovely chap called Dave and we were chatting away. He just mentioned that he used to be a DJ and stuff like this. Shout out to Dave Hello Dave, if you listen to this. He just basically mentioned that he was thinking about starting a podcast as well. He used to be a DJ and he was looking for something to get back into and get back on track and just occupy his time a little bit Something he could do from home as well, rather than doing his DJing, because he said he was getting a bit old for that.

Stephen: 3:07

I'm not going to disclose Dave's days, but he was older than I expected him to be. He's a fantastic chap and he looks brilliant. He's done a few things. He used to be a teacher and he's come a bit of a friend to me. He mentioned basically he used to be in a band as well and that he was trying to get it going again. I mentioned that it's something I've never been in. I said that I was a bit musical and could play a bit of guitar and play a bit of piano and sing a little bit. He was like oh, we kind of need a singer and a bit of keyboard and stuff would be cool. I was like, yeah, we got to chatting and then we met up for a coffee just to discuss podcasting and stuff. To be honest, he was kind of interested in how I got started and him trying to start his. We basically got chatting on that and he basically had mentioned to a couple of the old band members that he had kind of started up again and do a bit of practicing. And yeah, before I knew it it was like, yeah, this is kind of happening. Yeah, so I'm the lead singer of a band and I managed to.

Stephen: 4:21

We had our first practice just before I turned 40. So technically that's one of the bucket list before 40. So, and at the moment I think it's just like kind of a practice when I don't think we're looking at getting any gigs or anything. If we do, it'll be like, you know, hope I might nice and stuff like that, just if we play to public. Yeah, we don't sound too bad. To be honest. We've only had two practices so far. We had one this week, wednesday just gone, and we're kind of meeting up like every month. There's a couple of the guys have retired, a couple of them still have jobs, so there's the six of us all together, including myself. So we have a couple of guitarists, three guitarists actually, a bass player and Dave that kind of introduced me to all. He plays the drums, although I think he's looking kind of to like to like retire his drum kit and maybe focused more on like just recording us and filming us and kind of maybe being a bit of a managerial role. But yeah, it's been good so far. It's been an interesting experience.

Stephen: 5:22

I've never really been for all my like things that I've done in my life, like kind of like creatively and musically and my acting and stuff like that. When I was younger I'd say that as if I was on the West End or something which I wasn't. I did like school productions. I was always doing, I was always in the band, I was always in clubs and stuff like that and I did. I auditioned for a West End musical. I didn't get a callback and I don't think that was because I wouldn't have been any good. It's just that the kids there were just something else. They were just on another level of and I wouldn't talent talented yes, they had talent. I would say I wouldn't have said no, like a great apart from dancing, not a great deal more than I had at the time. I think I could sing pretty well at the time and you know I was really comfortable with acting and I think I was all right, you know.

Stephen: 6:17

I think I was pretty good, but they had the edge on me for dancing, like they were all been dance schools and stuff like this. They were just so, so confident. So I think that's always been my problem with stuff like this is having that confidence to kind of think that I'm any good. But when I went out, when I auditioned for West End, like there was one loud dude queuing up with me and he'd actually called he actually called a newspaper to come and interview him and they did, which was just bonkers to me. I was thinking what's like, who are you? I mean, I don't know if there was anyone like reasonably famous. I didn't recognize him. I don't know if he'd already been in a West End production and got good reviews or he was an up and coming actor, I couldn't even tell you like, but he literally found the Daily Mirror and some guy came out and took pictures of him. He was posing while he was queuing up because there was hundreds of kids. I'll just say that the play was the bugs, him alone, yeah, and the audition was very excuse me, excuse me, that was very rude of me yawning I was yawning myself apparently. Yeah, it was just like you had to do like a bit of a scripted bit. Then you had to do like a dance bit. It was the dance, but I was no good at it because, like, it was very much like, it's very much like the scene from Friends, where Joey is taking a dance class and he's lying on his CV and the guy literally says oh, can you teach the class? I've got to go and do something. He goes oh, yeah, no, yeah, no problem. And the guy literally goes right, it's really simple, it's just this. And he shows them the dance routine and he goes have you got it? And like Joey's like oh, yeah, of course I have. I was Joey. They literally showed the class like once or twice, when this is the dance routine bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. It was quite complex For me, it wasn't, at least anyway.

Stephen: 8:08

And then, and then they put the music on and like right, let's go through it. And I was just like what? And there was probably like 10 or 12 of us. They called through for the dance bits. They called no more than 15 at a time, it was probably like 10, 12 at a time to do it. So they could, obviously, and we had to wear a number and then you got sent out and then some people got called back in. So I got called back in, which I thought was a good thing, but in hindsight I'm guessing it was a bad thing, because they were probably calling the worst of the bunch in to try and wean out the really bad people.

Stephen: 8:37

So I presume that was me, but I just couldn't get it and I was very, very self-conscious of the dancing. I've got nothing to tangent here, but anyway it kind of put me off like ever like auditioning for a band or anything, because I've always wanted to be in a band and even though I kind of play instrument, I've never really kind of felt like I would want to play an instrument in the band. I've always felt like being the front man would be, would be the thing for me, the singer. And because I'm very, when I get going I'm very, I feel like I'm very dramatic and I can hold people's attention. It's not easy for me to say stuff like that Makes me cringe. But people have said to me, like you know, I'm a good talker and got it presenting and when I've done karaoke and stuff like, I've been able to get the crowd going. No, karaoke is different because everyone's normally leathered.

Stephen: 9:27

I've been leathered rock bands concerts, I suppose, anyway. But yeah, they've presented this opportunity and I've kind of gone into it and still really nervous as hell, really nervous about learning words learning the words to the songs is kind of the worst thing at the moment we're doing.

Stephen: 9:43

We're doing quite a few covers Well, didn't all covers say that, but there's probably like 90 percent of them that I know well. And then there's a few songs that, like I know them I don't know them really well Essentially like album tracks. So you know that you know the popular release ones, but you've heard, heard the album, but not listen to these as much kind of things. So, lending the lyrics and it's also learning how to sing them as well, just getting that kind of. Getting that kind of you know what level do you start at, what tone are we going to use? And and try to get that kind of. I'm really trying not to mimic the bands and stuff. I'm trying to like put my own twist on it, and that's quite difficult. Actually I'm trying to find my voice. I think that's what I'm saying.

Stephen: 10:35

I've been singing for years, saying karaoke is, and just in the shower and to myself, when I've been recording myself at home, when I've been writing songs and stuff. So I kind of know what I sound like. But it's different when you're singing someone else's song. I think when you write your own song. You sing it how you want it song. When you sing someone else's song, you have this like interpretation in your own brain. So yeah, that's been quite difficult so far.

Stephen: 10:58

Yeah, but back at school and I was never I played with some bands. There was a couple of bands in school and I sang a couple of times with them when they needed a singer. I think one of the guys used to do the singing but for certain songs he asked me to come in, so like NDS assemblers and stuff. So I sang with them a couple of times. And then the school band and stuff I don't really count because it's like school band, but this other band they'd form this band for themselves, like guitars, drums etc and bass guitar and stuff, and that was pretty cool to be asked. But yeah, I've seen signs of them stuff like there used to be a club in Krugel and they used to have signs of both songs saying like singer wanted blah, blah and I was thinking I could do that.

Stephen: 11:48

People have told me I've got an alright voice. Could I do that At the time? I think I definitely could. I have noticed that my voice is not as good as it used to be, even my perception of my own voice, which I don't have a very strong opinion of, has faltered. I think it's just laziness. I think I recorded the session Wednesday with my digital stereo recorder. If anyone is interested, it's on the website. It's a Tascam DR40X stereo recorder really good quality, not a sponsor, just like Tascam stuff, and it was a good price at the time and yeah, it sounded alright.

Stephen: 12:31

there was a few bum notes from me, I think. There was a couple of times where I didn't know totally where to go, whether I should start up high or low, and as soon as I started singing I changed my mind immediately and had to swap my kind of position. But yeah, I think, in general I think we sound good. Consider it's like the second practice Like lost a bit of time a couple of times. A couple of bum notes from the guitar sometimes, I think what it was.

Stephen: 12:55

I think we were playing one song in a different key and one of the guitars were playing one. We'd gone and looked up the tabs and I think someone was playing one key and we had to stop one song and go like hang on, what key you're playing in. But yeah, probably something we should have started out before we actually started playing really. But we just was like oh, we'll just start jamming, but it's been good, it's been good. So I'll name some of the songs we've been playing. Actually, let me just get my phone because I'll forget them. One of the ones we've been looking at so far is I've got on my phone a little playlist because I've been driving around in the car.

Stephen: 13:38

I don't know why I'm whispering.

Stephen: 13:40

I've been driving around in the car, I've been putting the playlist on and like singing to the long term in the car. I really do need to learn the lyrics. It's like one of the things I can't stand on stage and stand with. I don't really want to stand and have my iPad there. I might need to do some backup, I might back up, but I don't want to have to just read off it because it's really obvious. You should have to do that.

Stephen: 14:10

So we've got Hootie Hootie man by the Jeff Healy band and that's one of the songs that I'd heard but didn't really know too well. Hey Joe, by the Jimi Hendrix Experience. I knew that song but I probably not really sung it before, to be honest. Same with Hootie Hootie man, sunshine of your Love by Cream. Yep, everyone knows that. Knockin' On Heaven's Door by Bob Dylan. But we do like a reggae one which is pretty cool Reggae version of it Can't Get Enough by Bad Company I saw it standing there by the Beatles which I cannot get in my brain. I can sing along to it, but when it's me singing I fuck it up every time. Which?

Stephen: 14:42

is really, really annoying. Melissa by the Almond Brothers Again, that's the one that we thought we were all playing different versions of. We added these this week Rough Boy by ZZ Top and Cocaine by Eric Clapton, and I think we're going to add another one I can't remember what it's called. Let's see if we can find it. In the Wotsam group it is the Georgia Satellites Keep your Hands To Yourself, which one of the guys played, and it seems quite funky, quite a cool tune, like a lot of bluesy riffs and stuff in it. So yeah, should be quite interesting. So that's kind of the kind of music we're going for at the moment, and we also play Wicked Game actually as well. Chris Isaacs Wicked Game, wicked Game's game, singular, god, yeah, and I don't think I do a bad job at singing them, to be honest.

Stephen: 15:42

If I'm honest with you, I think I'm pretty average at the moment. I think for some songs I sound better than others. I think I may be more relaxed with that style, maybe more relaxed with the lyrics, maybe more relaxed in general. I don't know. I don't know. But yeah, I'm feeling it. I'm pleased that I can go out and just do a bit of creative stuff and not take it too too seriously. It's been just fun so far and I say, if we don't get a gig out of it, I'm not overly bothered. To be honest, it's just great hanging out with some guys that want to jam and just to be able to sing some songs. And I really need to practice. This forced me to practice a little bit, but still I need to actually make this room accessible enough that I can practice without having to move stuff around, which at the moment, to get to my piano and stuff, I'm having to move some stuff and that's not helpful because that is literally a block to me.

Stephen: 16:45

I'm like oh, I can't do that because I have to move three things.

Stephen: 16:49

And it's pathetic, and I know it's pathetic. You don't have to tell me this, my brain just can't cope. I'm a wreck. Yeah, it's nice to be in a band and if we do do a gig, do do, then I will let you know and I'll put it on social media so you can come and throw tomatoes at me and maybe meet me in person.

Stephen: 17:16

But no, I'm enjoying it at the moment and it's something I've always fancied doing. So it's a big tick in the box for me to say that you know, I'm in a band and that sounds pretty cool in itself, doesn't it really? Yeah, that's kind of what I wanted to tell you about this week and yeah, is it something that a lot of people have done? I feel like I think it's. I suppose it depends on circles You're in, because there's probably like part of my friends group would be like oh yeah, I've never done anything like that before. Probably part of them would be like oh yeah, I've been in a band or I've played guitar and I've done this, and X, y, z and done a little bit. And there's a couple people I know that have been in bands or still in bands. So I suppose I suppose it just is the time people be hanging out with us for this, and that is to like what they thought their experience of it would be.

Stephen: 18:10

But yeah, I just, I just, I just, I'm just enjoying it. It's, it's something to do at the moment and it's it's given me pleasure and yeah, long may it continue. And you know, something comes of it. Something comes of it. If it doesn't, then I'm having a nice time and that is always good and that's that's we've got a focus on, I think, at the end of the day, and that's that's kind of like my ethos for the podcast and and we kind of start my own, my registering as a business for it and like trying to maybe Make it work for me. I'm kind of going into it with very open-minded and and Fun in mind, rather than this could turn into something, and I think there's a fine balance between putting enough into it and to achieve something and just fucking around.

Stephen: 18:57

Yeah.

Stephen: 18:58

I'm hoping that it just carries on for now, and if something, if we get a gig out of it, then happy days. If not, then you know we're just having a nice time and that's cool. So yeah, so yeah. So that's me, that's. That's, that's the podcast this week. I hope you enjoyed that, and let me know if you've been in a band, let me know if you are still a band. What do you play? Um, do you just sing that? I don't want to be in two bands. I'm enjoying it that much though, like you know, it's always good to get experience. I think I do need to. Um, oh, if you got any techniques from our voice, you only techniques to warm up, warm down, strengthen my voice, you know.

Stephen: 19:38

Every little helps.

Stephen: 19:38

So yeah, thank you very much. Check out the website, steven speak calm, if you want to be on the show. I think you're some of the interest and see you are in a band, you know what. Chat about it and contact me and follow me on social media at Steven speak PC. And if you're super awesome, you love the podcast so much that you want to you contribute, then you can now subscribe and you can contribute to help me put these things out there for a bit less cost to myself. That would be awesome. Anyway, thank you very much and I'll hear you. Well, I won't hear you. You'll hear me on the next episode of Steve speak. I'll speak to you soon.

Stephen: 20:16

You've been listening to Steven speak the podcast. Thanks for listening to my unscripted prattle on everything and nothing. Visit Steven speak calm for updates information on my blog. You can follow more updates on social media at Steven speak PC. Thanks very much and I'll speak to you soon.