1. Hey Buzzkill Joy, super nice to have the chance to chat with you. What first got you into music?
Thanks for having me, sick to speak to you too. well it was actually my uncle that first got me into music. he started teaching me the drums when I was about 10 or 11 - can’t remember exactly when - and kept the lessons up til I finished my grade 8 exam and moved away to uni. so that kick-started my first foray into music if ya will. but in terms of actual songwriting that started at like 15. i used to use some cheap, tacky lil music making apps on my phone and would just relentlessly churn out electronic music - from proper cheesy 80’s esque stuff to some pretty naff EDM - because it had no acoustic instruments on it, and that’s all I did til I first move to uni in 2019. but once I moved here I just stopped all of the music totally. my drumming stopped as I said and these shitty apps could only produce really cheap sounding music, so I pretty much gave up on music as a whole. that was until the first lock-down in March 2020. god knows why but one night at like 4am I accidentally clicked onto a YouTube video that was like ‘learn 5 guitar chords and never forget them’, and I always had a guitar lying around the house for years but could never play it, so I picked up, learnt the chords, and well - I never did forget them tbf. so this unleashed a whole new wave of musical creativity for me. it finally gave me a way to write guitar based music (which is my fave) and was something I could sing and play at the same time. and boom, I created and started writing all the songs for the ‘BUZZKILL JOY’ moniker.
2. What is your creative process like?
As fluid as possible. no set process is healthy i think. it doesn’t cut off any creative possibilities. that being said the primary way I seem to write is to find some interesting chords, find a catchy lyric melody or hook through trial and error, record it on my voice notes (I’ve got about a thousand song seeds on there I swear to god), and then carefully piece lyrics to it organically over what could be a few minutes, weeks or months til I go ‘ooo fuck yeah, that’s the one’. i love meaningful lyrics. like genuinely meaningful. not the ‘i lost my bitch even tho we were hitched’ kind of modern meaning. my lyrics are always and will always be about big, hard hitting topics like money, time, death, anxiety, depression, politics, identity, philosophy etc. so I’ll try and piece together a bunch of songs that conceptually work well alongside each other to form and EP or album, then I’ll work through them meticulously with my producer and make them as diverse sounding as possible. difference is always mandatory
3. What’s your fav character?
I'm a colossal film buff - I literally collected like 1000’s of DVD’s throughout my teen years - so this is hard af to choose. but probably someone like Lester Burnham or Ricky Fitts from American beauty (one of my fave films) or William Foster from falling down. those people that say fuck you to the standard way of life and just fuck it all off and go off the rails but totally consciously. the balls that takes is insane. to throw away money and a ‘career’ to be free, happy and true to yourself is something I seriously connect with
4. What would you be doing right now, if it wasn’t for your music career?
Most likely pursuing a full time acting career. as you can see I have a knack for being attracted to industries with difficult odds. but I’ve always loved performance in all its forms, from drumming in bands to doing stand up comedy and impressions as a teenager, to now more recently having a dabble at acting and getting a wee speaking part in a HBO series. so I proper love acting and I’ll carry on dabbling into it alongside the music ambitions
5. What are your long term goals?
Now this might seem a bit ambitious (it is a goal after all), but I wanna build a community around the BUZZKILL brand that helps facilitate peoples real ambitions in life. to help give people their Lester Burnham moment. i had my moment last year. i rejected my then current trajectory into the same old 9-5, 40-year career that every sheep blindly thinks is the holy grail, and closed the door on it in favor of music and actual fulfillment. i want to encourage others to withdraw from the 9-5, mind numbing routine too and help facilitate peoples real ambitions and dreams if they feel unfulfilled. if I get big enough I wanna start a page or a website or something where people unhappy with their work life can vocalize it, and the rest of the group can help each other and work together to build something that they can all pursue instead - like a business, a band, a better suited job offer etc. i know it may sound a tad over ambitious, and it might not even work in practice, but if there’s one message I want my music to exude is that it’s healthy to dream big.
6. What do you think your role is in this world?
Aside from making hopefully sick af music, it’s to build something organic, with purpose and direction. hopefully that’ll give not just me fulfillment but others too, and what a gift that would be!
7. If you could go open a show for any artist who would it be?
Again a difficult one. well my childhood heroes are green day. it was the first music I ever actually listened to repeatedly. i was an absolute fanboy from like 10 yrs old to about 15. i had all the CD’s, posters, T-shirts, and we’re the first band I ever first saw live at the emirates stadium. they had a profound effect on my early music taste. however, as special as they are to me, if I could open for anyone, it would be without a doubt Yungblud. i first discovered him in the same 2020 lock down that I learnt guitar, and he has since influenced me more than probably all others artists I know combined. i literally wear pink bandages on my hands as Buzzkill Joy in homage to Yungblud and his pink socks because of the insane power he’s had over the direction of my music and literal life trajectory. I’ve never ever related to a musician so much. our hometowns are only about 20 miles apart, both proudly northern, have musical foundations in rock, had behavioral and hyperactivity problems at school, have been consistently misunderstood for it, and felt boxed in. not to mention his music is imo the most eclectic and melodically strong around right now. he is one of the primary reasons I fell back in love with music again, so it would be absolutely fuckin unreal to open for him.
8. What’s your favorite 60’s album?
the 60’s isn’t an era of particular influence for me if I’m honest. don’t get me wrong, it was an epic ass decade for music with the birth of the R. Stones, Bowie, Beatles, Zeppelin, etc, but I prefer songs usually as opposed to albums really, so I’ll break the rules if that’s OK and pick my fave song the 60’s. and for me that’s got to be "Space Oddity" by Bowie. Absolutely iconic song. so ahead of it’s time. throws out pretty much all the rules on musical structure and norms and rewrites them. so timeless. Honorable mentions to "Monday, Monday" (The Mamas & The Papas) and "Paint it, black" by the R. Stones too.
9. What’s your fav food?
Honestly everything. that’s why I’m such a chubster. day to day I love a good chicken mayo sarnie or a packs of instant noodles (the proper shit from Asia, not the plastic western wank). or bruschetta if I’m feelin a lil bit fancy and sophisticated. but overall my fave is KFC hot wings. i used to have a genuine addiction to those juicy lil fuckers. they had deal on in March and when I tell u I was eating there every other day I mean I knew all the staff by name. by the bucket too. no half measures. but those mfs are way better on the way in than the way out though, I can tell u that for free.
10. Do You Agree with the Pigeon?
The Pigeon added the new single to his Weekly Gems playlist on Spotify.
You can check out the released music below. If you like what you hear, make sure to follow along so you can stay on top of future releases.
Words by The Pigeon
Discovered via http://musosoup.com
This coverage was created via Musosoup
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