Birds of Wales

Judith had a chat with Morgan from Birds of Wales

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CONFRONT: Hi Morgan

MORGAN: Hi Judith

CONFRONT: thanks for giving us some time in your very busy touring schedule and allowing us to have an interview

MORGAN: no problems, it’s our pleasure

CONFRONT: Great, so first I would like to start by explain to you what we are. Well our magazine is called CONFRONT magazine. We are an online music magazine that some friends and I started 3 and a half years ago. We want to bring music to the world!

MORGAN: this is awesome

CONFRONT: let me start with some fun questions we ask all of our interviewees, we call them the CONFRONT questions!

MORGAN: cool, cool

CONFRONT: What would be the first and the last CD you remember buying?

MORGAN:  Euhh, the first CD I ever bought in my life?

CONFRONT: yeah!

MORGAN: I remember but I was a cassette…

CONFRONT: oh it can be that too of course!

MORGAN: oh ok goodJ well it was Moxy Fruvous, I must have been about 10 years old, and I had to get this tape.

CONFRONT: cool, and what would be the most recent one?

MORGAN: I bought one a days ago or really a week ago, Broken Bells, it’s the James Mercer from The Shins, they are my favourite band of all time…

CONFRONT: I love that band

MORGAN: so Broken Bells is more or less a Shins album

CONFRONT: cool and what would be the first and last concert you remember attending… but as a fan of course?

MORGAN: as a fan… oh ok… you know things change once you get in a band, because you always feel like you’re working when you’re at a concert, but the last one I went to just as a fan would be Block Party!

CONFRONT: cool, they are a really good band live.

MORGAN: yes they are

CONFRONT: and what would be the first one? Do you remember?

MORGAN: yes I do…The Crash Test Dummies…

CONFRONT: nice!! Very cool

MORGAN: it was great

CONFRONT:: Are theses bands influences? made you want to do music?

MORGAN: do you mean those two in particular or…

CONFRONT: well those two and any other bands… what would be you influences?

MORGAN: well for me it was Wilco’s first album AM. This album is the big album for me and also the first Shins’ album was a big one for me.

CONFRONT: cool. Do you have any guilty pleasures musically??

MORGAN: quite a few, quite a few… well everybody as some, it’s all about if people admit to them or not …

CONFRONT: always

MORGAN: well I have quite a lot of Nelly Furtado on my ipod

CONFRONT: Canadian artist sticking together and she is a very talented woman…

MORGAN: of course and that work she did with Timbaland… very good. There is also, Katy Perry, yup a lot a Katy Perry lately

CONFRONT: yup great stuff.

MORGAN: ok let see… the Juno soundtrack…

CONFRRONT: nice!! Ok let’s talk about the more serious stuff…

MORGAN: cool

CONFRONT: the new album is coming out on April 13^th

MORGAN: exactly

CONFRONT: when is comes to making an album all bands have their own ways of working, do you guys have a specific working process? Do you guys working together, individually, please tell our readers about you ways of working!

MORGAN: well  I write all the songs, I send an acoustic version of it to the members of the band, then everyone kind of work on their parts of it at home so that when we get to rehearsal we have something to actually work on as a band. We just keep playing the song over and over again afterward

CONFRONT: you guys have kind of a jam session in rehearsals

MORGAN: exactly

CONFRONT: you guys have worked with amazing producers such as Jeff Dawson, Mike Fraser and Mike Gilles how was that?

MORGAN: it was nice, it was fancy. It was a very enjoyable process. It was really nice to be working with people that clearly knew what they were doing…

CONFRONT: of course

MORGAN: we also worked in a  world class recording studio, this is very exciting.

CONFRONT: it made you guys realize it was the big thing right?

MORGAN: yeah this is like the real, big, fancy grown up stuff

CONFRONT: I like that the real big fancy grown up stuff… J you guys have been touring a lot in the UK, Europe and in the US… a bit a Canada as well… do you see a difference between touring there and here? Is it very hard for you to come back to Canada, and you’re not that known here after being there?

MORGAN: it’s been interesting…there is pros and cons about them both but Europe is great because of the fact that all the cities are so close to each other, and Canada is a bit more difficult because of the driving. It’s been really interesting. This is actually going to be our first record officially released in Canada, so it’s going to be nice to see, hopefully we’ll have more success here too…

CONRONT: talking about success and working hard… there is a lot of young kids right now that do want to be in this business… do you have any advice for you fans? Or even just for regular kids who do want to do music for a living, who do want to call this is a job… if we can call it a job?

MORGAN: I’ve got a lot of advices for them…

CONFRONT: ok go ahead…

MORGAN: ok let’s see…well first I’d like to tell everyone to focus on the song writing but also to not be afraid to ask for people’s opinion about their work… and by opinion I mean the real thing, they have to surround themselves with the right people that will tell them from the get go if their work actually need more work. I’m saying this because it did take me a long time to realize that I needed some outside opinion to improve my song writing so…I think my main advice is to focus on the song, and get a hand full of VERY impressive recordings. You don’t need to have a full album but yeah a hand full pf VERY good recording.

CONFRONT: yeah and work from there..

MORGAN: exactly. What more can I say…the fact that we started playing in Europe before playing here in Canada and in the US, made it very interesting… because in Europe they think you’re fancy because you’re foreign and when you come back home people start thinking you’re fancy because you’ve played somewhere else… we played of that… and my main statement on that is that bands have to create a story…

CONFROTN: wow I like that

MORGAN: yeah, you have to be doing interesting that separates you from other bands

CONFRONT: for sure specially theses days

MORGAN: yeah there are more bands then over now…I think

CONFRONT: you’re right… you mentioned before asking for advice, for people’s opinions…do you feel like it’s hard for most to accept those advice and opinions?

MORGAN: definitely but I feel that when it come to that one has to leave his or her ego aside, and when you do learn to do that, it opens up for a lot of very healthy growth.

CONFRONT: I do agree, ok last but not least…I don’t want to hold you back to long… what would you want your legacy to be… Birds of Wale 10 years from now?

MORGAN: I would like for us to keep making music. I love the idea of travelling touring the world and meeting people. I also love the fact our songs mean something to people. If we can keep making music and meaning a lot to people, I’ll be really happy

CONFRONT: of course. Thanks a lot for your time this was great, hopefully you guys will be coming to Montreal soon…

MORGAN: we will we will

CONFRONT: great, thanks again

MORGAN: thanks

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