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We Sat Down With Who?!
Hey guys! Welcome to VENTS. What made you, first of all, get into music?
James: I’ve wanted to do this since I was 17 or 18. I was a big fan of Zeppelin, the Who, the Allman Brothers, and music in general. That led me to pick up the guitar as my first instrument at 18. Around that time a buddy of mine started a band and offered me his uncle’s old bass if I agreed to join.
Scott: I’ve always had music playing in my head, when I was a kid, I thought there was a radio stuck in there. My very early days of songwriting were writing nasty rhymes about my older brother. He’d chase me down and beat me up, as brothers do. I knew that the better the songs were, the madder he’d be. So, I got some great practice in songwriting and got very good at singing while running.
My first guitar was actually originally my sister’s. My parents bought it for her and got her lessons, but she never really played it much. For a couple of years I was literally a closet guitar player, I’d take my sister’s guitar and play it in the closet because I was afraid of her catching me playing it.
Q: How much role do you think internet advancement plays in the industry?
James: We’re trying to adapt. We started doing this back in the early 90’s, late 80’s where we didn’t have YouTube, we didn’t have a lot of the things that people have today to get their music out there. Back then, you needed to know someone with money to back them. It’s been helpful having these tools to get ourselves out there. I just wish that we’d had those tools back in the 90’s.
Scott: What the entire package of music has evolved into an amazing thing. You used to have to go around selling your music at gigs. Now, you don’t even have to play gigs, you can upload your music on the internet and find your audience there. It is transforming, which is inspiring and it’s overwhelming at the same time. There are parts of the industry that I didn’t even realize existed until recently.
Q: How do you go about writing the songs you perform?
James: For the most part, we bring in our ideas individually and the band has been transforming them into the band’s composition from there. Our writing style has evolved over time though, we’ve started to write some songs more collaboratively.
Scott: It’s neat to listen to the album and then go back to what was originally brought to the band. You can hear the rough recordings of an idea and see what it transforms into when you add in keyboard, bass, and drums to it. We’ve definitely become more collaborative over time.
Q: What’s in store next? What can we look for from Black Hills Soul?
James: We are still fairly unknown, but we are really excited about our debut album “Where It All Begins.” We’ve also got a bunch of new songs that we are going to be recording soon. Right now our focus is on press and getting our album out to as many people as possible.
We had some touring opportunities over the summer. But we’ve decided to build some relationships with local venues first. We do want to get out there, we want to perform as much as we can, and we want to record some of these songs that we are really excited about.
Scott: At the moment, we are playing mainly around the Black Hills region. There are a lot of great venues out here, we’re known for our music. We’ve formed relationships with some great venues who are interested in original music.
Thanks for the chat, guys!
To find out more on Black Hill Soul follow them on:
https://instagram.com/blackhillsoul/
https://www.facebook.com/blackhillssoul
