Issy Burnup – Interview – Thanks for Asking!

Issy Burnup – Interview – Thanks for Asking! – by Liam Sweeny.

RRX: Like songs, every artist has a unique feeling about their first show. What was your first show like? Was it your best show? If not, what was your best show like?

IB: My first show was rather unexpected. I have a lung disease which used to put me in hospital regularly as a teenager, during this time I learnt how to play guitar. Well, when I was 14, I was in hospital for a couple of weeks. Prior to admission, I was quite mediocre on guitar – however, with nothing else to do I would practice in the courtyard from about 8am to 9pm when the nurses would come get me. By the time I went home, I was OKish at music. A few weeks later a live music festival was on in my hometown, and I had decided to sneak into one of the clubs to check out the music. Suddenly a wild woman with big red hair dragged me up on stage and I was doing my first public performance – in front of about 200 people! I come off stage and someone grabs me, they offer me a gig for the next day, how awesome… Only problem was, I only knew 4 songs!

Now while this certainly wasn’t my best show, I had a lot of ‘personality’ on stage which combined with the amount of alcohol drunk by the patrons, made my set sound excellent! My best show would come about 10 years later, this time with my band. We performed a 4 track Meatloaf style ‘rock opera’ I had written, called The Night Rider, which concluded with me dropping dead at the very end – it was all rather dramatic…

RRX: Music genres are difficult for some artists. Some strictly adhere; others not so much. What is your perspective on the genre you play, or the genres you hover around?

IB: I’m glad you asked this question… I struggle a fair bit with the genre debate. My first love was Rock – vintage 1970’s, blow your hair back, rock – think David Bowie, The Who and Blondie. As I got older, I developed a passion for country music which will never die. But right now, I’m absolutely loving Buck Cherry and Devon Thompson. All of these genres have influenced me a great deal, in fact I take a lesson from each genre. I love the strong musical hooks and adventurous chord progressions of the vintage Rock sound. Country music has an emphasis on lyrics, every word is thought about, and every lyrical section develops the story until there is an ‘epiphany’. Meanwhile, modern Rock has a certain ‘severeness’ to it, the melodies are sharp, but the lyrics are sharper. As a younger artist I found myself getting really hung up on trying to find a genre that I fit into, but now I’ve realized, I don’t want to fit into any genre, my songwriting is what is because of multiple genres.

RRX: My singer punched my drummer out. Memorable moment, though nothing to brag about. But we have these things that, when summing up your endeavor, an incident comes to mind. What do you got?

IB: Picking only one incident might be a bit hard – but I’ll try… A few years ago, I was doing a covers gig with my friend, the gig was about a 3hr drive away in this little country town. We get to the venue and start setting up…. There was a tiny stage which we somehow managed to fit on, and there where holes in the walls EVERYWHERE. We get halfway through the set and all the sound gear just turns off – the power point in the wall had died mid set. The owner then gets us to plug into an extension cord hung from the ceiling with duct tape. It was a super quiet night and there were only 5 people there, all of whom were less than interested in the music, then suddenly two of them jump out of their stools and start buzzing around. Then a crowd of random people start running in from the back outdoor area. I’m thinking – woohoo, they must love our cover of Creedence Clearwater! But no, turns out there was a knife fight on the street behind us and everyone was quite enthralled. The night finished with the owner trying to pay us with a dodgy cheque. Welcome to the music industry…

RRX: Our style comes from the extension of our influences. It’s like an evolution. We’re influenced, and it inspires us to influence. What can you say about your influences, and what you feel you’ve done with their influence as a musician or band? Have you extended their work?

IB: I was heavily influenced by Meatloaf. I remember when I first listened to Meatloaf’s Bat Out Of Hell record. It changed my life. I had gotten a box of free records from a friend and Bat Out of Hell just happened to be in it. It was a journey. I loved the way the music moved, you could feel it’s pulse rise and fall, in the vocals you could hear the passion, with the ferocity, but then with a sudden tenderness it would all change again. It was like watching the unwritten Tarantino movie in my mind. I never got over this fixation with Bat Out of Hell and ended up writing my own Rock Opera – The Night Rider.

As a performer I get heavily inspired by Meatloaf, the personality he conveys through his vocals is almost like a musical theatre production, and his on-stage performance – now that’s something else altogether… I would not deny occupying my share house bathroom for a solid hour just to practice my Meatloaf-esque stage presence – but please don’t tell my flat mates how long I was in the bathroom… Or that I spent all that time doing air guitar in the mirror!

As a songwriter I worship Jim Steinman (who wrote Bat Out of Hell), his creative freedom has deeply influenced me. In the modern age I think songwriting has been heavily simplified to the same chord groupings, song structures and even song topics. This is a generalization – there are still lots of incredible writers out there, the Indie Rock scene is quite interesting at the moment!

But the way Steinman has no boundaries with his writing really inspires me to move away from thinking ‘okay, this technically goes with this and this’. I now choose not to think until the bulk of the writing is done, instead I focus on ‘intuition’, after all there is plenty of time to think things through. I remember sitting down with my lead guitarist when he had just joined the band, he said ‘nothing in this song should technically work – but damn, it’s a banger!’… That was all the encouragement I needed to continue along the road of Steinman X Bat Out of Hell X Freeform writing strategy I had developed. Anyways, yeah, I think Meatloaf’s cool, you know that record Bat Out of Hell isn’t too bad…

RRX: Would you rather have one of your songs blow up and make you a one-hit wonder and household name, or would you rather have all your songs be solidly received, but no chart-climbers? (You have to pick one or the other here.)

IB: I don’t care if I never ‘blow up’ to be Number #1, I would rather be Number #1 in someone’s Spotify wrapped playlist. In life, love and music I have a personal saying ‘I love it when you love me, and I love it when you hate me, because either way you won’t forget me’. At the end of the day, I can’t remember half of last year’s hit songs, but I know every single word to Happy by Tori Forsyth because it means something personal to me. I spill all my thoughts into a song – even the dark ones, because someone else needs to hear them too. When you listen to a song that connects with your inner thoughts, you realize that you’re not alone, and even if I make just one person feel not so alone that is awesome because they will never forget me – who knows, I might hit #1 on their Spotify wrapped.

RRX: We let it out differently when we play music. The happy, sad, good and back; it can all be put out musically. Overall, do you feel better when you sing about the better times, or the worser times? Is there a difference you can describe?\

IB: It’s fickle thing songwriting. Obviously when writing about something good, the whole songwriting process is naturally a more positive and uplifting experience. When writing a sad song, depending on how personal it is, it can feel like a flagellation, or a self-inflicted punishment. However, when all is said and done, and the personal sentiment has passed, I get more joy out of performing a sad song because it reminds me of how far I’ve come and what I’ve overcome. When I can sing my sad song with a happy mindset, I know I’ve won and gosh I love to win. But, when singing a sassily bad ass song, now that just makes me feel sexy.

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