Interview With 'Dan Pearce'

Firstly, introduce yourselves and tell us a little bit about the band and how you came to be?

My name is Dan Pearce and I’m a musician from North Wales. I began playing music at the age of 10 when I started to learn the piano. After a good few weeks at it I decided it wasn’t for me and instead started playing bass; I really wish I had stuck at piano. A few months into playing bass I decided to try and play the guitar and picked it up straight away, I was loving it. Being able to play along to all my favourite Green Day and Sum 41 songs. When I was about 13, I realised I had all the elements to becoming a semi-decent one-man band. There was just one-part missing, DRUMS. I’ve always loved to sing so that was never an issue, I’ve been to different singing tutors but never felt as though I could extend to what I wanted to do, they were all set in their own ways so I decided to leave the singing lessons and practice by myself.

What were you all up too prior to the band, was this always the chosen path or did you have other dreams and aspirations?

As I said, I’ve always sang and music has been a big part of my life. I was in my first year of high school, which I believe is always the most difficult year when you’re trying to find groups to fit in to. It was difficult for me because I was never good at socialising so as my friends ventured off and met new people, I was occasionally left by myself in the music room. I wouldn’t want this to be perceived as a sob story, this is just how I came to write my own music and further develop songs.

Tell us about your latest EP and why our readers should check it out.

I released my debut EP 'Something You Left Behind' on May 6th 2016. For me, so far in my career, this has definitely been the main starting point, the defining moment of who I am. I have been playing opening mic nights and small acoustic shows for 5 years and have always had a nice response but I never had anything of my own to give back to the people supporting me. I never wrote the right songs to fit with my audience; they were always very stereotypically ‘teen wrote’, what I mean by this is they were always about love, losing love or something along those lines. This EP has been reviewed, already, by 3 Songs & Out (read the review here) and they were some lovely words about the whole thing by Sean Friswell.

Where do you draw your inspiration lyrically and musically from?

My EP is not a generic bunch of songs, they are all very honest and nothing is held back. I wrote how I felt at the time and I hoped that the lyrics would be able to help people who listen. Who would you say is the bands main song writer or is it a group effort and where do you draw your inspiration lyrically and musically from? I’ve loved writing my own songs, have done for about 3-4 years now. I always look back and see what has changed and how much I have improved; I re-read and play my old songs and I remember how I felt, no matter how rubbish and terrible my older songs were, I wrote them because I was a new artist trying to find my sound. I tend not to find inspiration from other artists lyrically, I try to keep the lyrics coming from myself, even though my friend pointed out that, on one of my newly written songs, I may have taken a line from Sleeping with Sirens! I must point out this was completely unintentional! It’s only when it comes to the composition side of things where in the studio I would say "I like Blink 182’s fill here and it would go nicely with Panic! at the disco’s beat here". I love going to Amp Recording Studios in Wrexham and I work with Nino, the engineer, and Steff, the session drummer. As I still have much to learn about composition and arrangements, they help point me in the right direction so I don’t make overly generic songs which you will hear on the radio 10 times a day.

What do you believe is your greatest achievement to date?

My greatest achievement is performing live, I don’t have a specific date or venue that I am most proud of. Anywhere I perform and can get the crowd singing back to me is an achievement in itself; especially when they sing back to MY songs, now that gives me an enormous feeling of pride.

Have you ever come face to face with someone within the music scene who has left you awestruck and why?

I have played Chester Live for 2 years now and each time I watch all the amazing artists who perform and I am struck by awe, I find it sad as well. You can see how much time these people put into being an artist/band and how little they get back from it. The music industry, I believe, is the hardest it has ever been to get into but when I go and see these amazing artists and follow them on Facebook or Twitter and see something good happen for them, it gives me hope, it keeps me going and to anyone starting out who is finding it difficult to get anywhere, they need to just keep going with their music, they need to support other local artists but most importantly, they need to find who they are so that they can WOW the audience.

If we were to head out to one of your live shows what can ourselves and others expect?

When I perform live, I am nothing much; just a guy with an acoustic guitar and a voice. I try to have a laugh when I’m on stage, if there is a cheeky lyric I will wink at someone in the audience. It could be you. I get everyone involved by singing with me, there was one time, a couple of months ago, I debuted one of my singles live and when I had people singing back to me the lyrics that I had written on a night when I struggled to cope with life and everything around me, well it brought tears to my eyes, I had to stop and thank the audience.

If you had one artist/band that you could go on tour with tomorrow who would it be and why?

Just one band?! Oh my. I would have to choose Panic! At The Disco. I have seen them live 3 times and have loved them each time more and more; Brendon is an amazing artist and the lyrics he writes are phenomenal, I could learn so much from him.

You can spend an hour with a musical icon living or dead, who would you pick, why and what would you speak about?

Freddie Mercury. Hands down… Not literally. I would want to spend an hour talking to him about his writing and producing procedure, I would want to know how he went about writing and how he would start to record, was there anything in there that everyone has missed, hidden techniques, etc. He was an icon to many and this would be something I would hope to achieve.

And finally and most importantly is Die Hard a Christmas Movie?

Die Hard is most definitely a Christmas movie; for the past 6 years I have sat my family down and told them we can’t have Christmas until we watch it.

Check out his video for 'Can't Help Falling In Love (Elvis Cover)'