Influences

song writing

My biggest song writing influence’s are Noel Gallagher (during Oasis), Alex Turner and John Lennon. I like Noel Gallagher’s ability to write catchy tunes which everyone knows off by heart. Especially during the first album “definitely maybe”, songs like “supersonic” and “live forever” masterpieces as they took a very simple chord progression and made it into something so catchy and jut plain “rock ‘n’ roll”. I like the way Alex Turner writes his lyrics especially during the first two Arctic Monkeys Albums. The first Album “whatever people say I am, thats what i’m not” tells a series of stories especially songs such as “when the sun goes down” and ” a certain romance”. I also love how in the second album the album title “favourite worst nightmare” is repeated in several of the songs. I also love the way John Lennon and Paul McCartney both knew what styles their voices suited. This showed in their songwriting as songs like ” Hey Jude” and “yesterday” are sung by McCartney as they are softer songs whereas “revolution”and “I am the walrus” are sung by Lennon as they need a much more raspier sound to match the rock instrumental.

Guitar style/tone

Over the years I have created my own guitar tone which consists of a Gibson les Paul through a driven Marshall silver jubilee half stack. My biggest influence is Jimmy Page. His tone is very similar to mine which consists of a lot of treble with around half the gain and low mids. Jimmy Page plays with a range of dynamics and not just with the volume at ten the whole time, especially in songs such as “whole lotta love” where the main riff has a bit of the volume rolled off and then turns it up for the solo allowing it to cut through everything else. His style of lead playing is very melodic but also very fast which is where I get most of my influences for solo’s. One song which I took a lot of the lead playing from is “since i’ve been loving you”. The verse is very melodic and when it gets to the solo its very fast, trebly, but still manages to keep some sense of melody. When improvising guitar solo’s, Jimmy Page s where I get most of my inspiration from.

Singers

As a vocalist I find Liam Gallagher to be my biggest influence as I like how he sings with different technique (potentially harming his voice) but has adopted that sound as his own. I feel like no singer will be able to get near what he achieved in the 90’s especially with the first two oasis albums. Even now his solo record has got the next generation into Rock n Roll and Britpop. I also feel like his attitude off of the stage has made him largely respected, and somewhat hated by some, but that “i dont care” persona has won over the hearts of many as he isn’t afraid to say it as it is.