This Weeks Artist Interview: Dave Oakes
This weeks artist interview is with a theatrical inspired acoustic singer from Oxford called Dave Oakes, who finds his inspiration from the likes of Florence and The Machine, Ben Harper, Nina Simone, Jeff Buckley, Powderfinger, The Living End, The Violent Femmes, and many more. We found out that Dave has a background in theatre, so we decided to focus our interview on how this has affected his music career.
Q. Hi Dave, we want to know about your involvement in theatre, and what roles have you played?
A. Well I’ve tried both sides of the boards so to speak, I did a three year course in performing arts which helped refine the natural performer in me, I’ve played quite a few roles in Shakespeare plays, but I think my favourite was Oscar from a musical called Sweet Charity, he was quite mad, and it was nice to have that creative freedom over a character.
Q. Would you say your involvement in theatre has benefited your ability to perform, or write better music, or both?
A. I think any experience influences you - positively or negatively, I’ve had a fare amount of really amazing ones and some utterly soul destroying ones too, so I think theatre taught me how to entertain an audience, and it gave me much more of broader appreciation of all types of music which has heavily influenced my experimental attitude to writing new music.
Q. We see evidence of a theatrical theme in your pictures, do you plan to involve this theme in any music videos or artwork in the future?
A. I love things to be dramatic and alive, I would love to record an album in an old theatre (and dress up in different costume themes for each day of recording), I wanted to use the concept of the album art as if it were a play, and take the different songs, as if they were scenes and link the photography to them. With music videos, I think there is so much art and creativity you can pour into them, i’d love to shoot short films for the videos, or something along those lines, I am always open to ideas, as I think there are so many great unexplored ideas out there.
Q. Where do you find your inspiration to write new music, and what are some of your current songs about?
A. I find inspiration in everything really. A lot of my songs come from poems I write about situations i’ve been in or people i’ve met, I always try to tell the story as it comes in my mind. Inspiration usually comes when i’m sleep deprived or at an emotional high or low, or if i’m drunk or hungover as bad as that may sound, my mind works better when its out of its usual state!
Thanks Dave, finally, as an owner of The Musicians Guide To World Domination, can you tell us which bit you found most useful?
One of my favourite sections was the internet marketing guide - I never realised there were so many areas of promoting music on the internet! It has made me realise that I can follow the footsteps of many succesful unsigned artists by creating my own powerful online marketing campaign – I look forward to implementing this!
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