This podcast episode features an interview with musician Tom Misch, exploring his artistic journey from internet-based beatmaking to a successful career as a singer-songwriter and guitarist, highlighting his creative process, evolution, and approach to collaboration.
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[Music]
what's happening welcome to wong notes
podcast season 2
episode 4. today my guest is tom mish
if you're unfamiliar with tom he's one
of the leading voices
i don't have a j thing for london
anyways tom and i have collaborated on a
couple tunes
here's a quick sample of the first tune
[Music]
and here's a sample of a tune off of my
brand new album the striped album
[Music]
all right hopefully that compelled you
enough to go listen to my album and buy
all my music whenever i put it out
and his as well so without further ado
here's my interview with tom
bish this season of the wong notes
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well tom thanks so much for being with
us it's really a treat to have you on
thank you for having me man how's it
going i'm doing good i'm chilling man
we're hanging in there how about you you
just moved
i see you in a new place that i don't recognize
recognize
yes yeah i just moved to a new house um
and i just carried a fridge up the
stairs with the help of some other people
people
and um yeah man feeling good happy to be here
here
nice well we've had the joy of meeting
each other and hanging out and
every time we've met we've just hung out
for like a couple hours and played music
and talked a little bit and uh yeah we
haven't actually spent a lot of time
just sitting down and talking music
talking concept together so i'm excited
about this
although it is always fun when we just
get together and start playing music
right away
yeah yeah but um this will be good this
is fun for me to
to pick your brain on some things that
i've been wondering about this whole time
time
i was watching some older interviews of
you i've been reading a lot about your stuff
stuff
and just trying to get an idea of how
you got your start doing what you do
it was all internet you didn't start by
having a band
and then hitting things online it was
all just starting from the internet is
that right
yeah it was all um it was like 2016 2015
and i was
making beats i i was studying music
technology at school
and i was making beats and um at this
point i played the violin
i started playing volume when i was four
i played guitar um i had
been playing guitar for a few years so
so i had that kind of musicality element
and then i was just making beats i was
i was obsessed with j dilla and and that
was um
yeah i was part of that soundcloud
community you could say the sort of the
golden age of soundcloud
and um yeah yeah man that's where it all
started and you know
and the guitar has always been a part of
that you know me making beats and stuff and
and
and then i started singing yeah man so i
go through the whole
yeah i mean so i started singing and
then and then my i guess my music became more
more
um became less beats and more song
structured stuff i guess
yeah it's interesting listening to the
catalog that you've released
beat tape 1 beat date 2 geography
your most current album what kind of
music with yousef days
was there a songwriting and recording
process that was different
in making those albums yeah they're all
they're all quite a different process
they've they've happened at different
times in my career and i've i've sort of
evolved as a
musician and stuff so i guess be take
one was purely done in my bedroom
at my parents house um and that was
that was kind of focused around uh jay
diller inspired me so finding a loop you
know that was like really finding a loop
that i love
um where you know it's chord
progressions things like that and
subtle changes and getting the swing of
the drums you know that was like
something so important on that tape and
i was obsessed with the hi-hat you know the
the
the placement of the hi-hats in relation
to the kick and snare and things like that
that
and then beat tape 2 was was like a
evolution of that but with me start
inviting people to the bedroom studio so
people would come in and we'd
i'd have productions and they'd sing
over stuff and we just vibe on that
but this had a few more influences i was
getting into i had a bit of electronic
music a bit of like
housy stuff bit of jazz and then yeah
and then geography was the next step and
but that was
me singing so me stepping up as sort of
front man
singer songwriter um was that the first
album where you felt like
i'm a lead singer now i guess so yeah
i think it was man because i i had sung
before that but that was
that was kind of like my debut album you
know with me singing and yeah
writing lyrics and stuff like that so
that was that was interesting taking
that step but it's always
i never want to just rely on my my
singing and
i i never quite want to just rely on the
songs i want to rely on production and
stuff as well
because i'm i'm into that you know i
love i love producing and that's part of my
my
sound is the production you know yeah
and how is your guitar playing
and the approach to your guitar playing
changed through the evolution
of that the evolution from that era to
where you are now
i think i've become more of a
conventional guitar player
then when i started playing guitar i
think the more music i've listened to
and the more i played in bands and stuff
i've kind of
found my role sonically as a guitarist
more than i had in previous stuff so be
take when i was using the guitar is like
it was more kind of like loads of little
textures and stuff built up right sort
of like high twinkly stuff
and then and nowadays it's more you know
i'm fitting in as
as a rhythm guitarist almost within my
own music a bit more
so yes it's kind of different different
approaches and then jamming with yusuf
is just completely different madness
i'm trying to impress him by playing
sort of like
crazy and maybe there's a bit of
vice versa you know so that's different
man yeah
that's cool i definitely recognize that
i mean it's funny because
a lot of the guitar playing on the beat
tapes feels like
either textural or like you're
simulating samples
exactly exactly i mean yeah yeah that's
it man b take one was
was that vibe of like because j dilla
obviously sampled so much
you know jazz guitar and stuff and at
the time i was studying jazz guitar so
i'd try and
play that stuff in you know that's cool
as far as
you talked about your writing process
your production process
singing the guitar playing it all
kind of depends on one another in the
whole thing
it seems like your albums and what you
do as an artist
it is a full package thing that all goes into
into
the thing yeah if you didn't have the
producing side or the singing side would
you approach your guitar playing differently
differently
i think so i think i would some
conscious it's funny i don't really think
think
i i never really think about these things
things
and i find it hard to put them into
words because i kind of just like
music's never been a intellectual or
like kind of
something i've thought about too much
but i think it's definitely influenced
the way i play guitar
often i'm kind of just jamming over
beats you know like i spend a lot of
time doing yeah just jamming
um and i guess that's that's probably
why initially i want so much of a
conventional guitar player you know i
wouldn't necessarily be playing like
the sort of conventional chords and and
licks and stuff it would be more like
just jamming over stuff
yeah i definitely noticed that in the
times that we've played together
where we'll sit and play on something
yeah and i can tell you i can i can see
your motor moving and like oh is this a
textural thing
is what kind of vibe is this thing and
then you just go for
things and it's fun to watch your
creative process as you just
figure out sound palette texture palette
and then rhythmic groove palette where
you sit in the beat
yeah you've got a really cool way that
that i've watched you
kind of pull from all those different
things it's fun
oh that's cool man yeah i guess some just
just
influenced by the stuff i listen to you
know yeah of course
of course yeah well you mentioned the
soundcloud community and the golden age
of soundcloud
and that is something that i definitely
was around for
but i was totally just not in that thing
and i think it was just one of those
platforms that while it had its golden age
age
i didn't quite understand it and i just
didn't put my energy there so i'm kind
of out of the loop on what that is
is there something that replaced that
now no
not really i mean spotify i feel like
has taken
that role as the streaming place you
know and discovering new music
spotify has amazing algorithms for like
finding related music
but um soundcloud was like that kind of diy
diy
place where you could make a name for
yourself by just
putting stuff on online uploading it
no industry links no no kind of like
connections it's literally just if
someone likes it they're going to repost it
it
and if if uh if they repost it their
fair followers see it and it's just that
kind of like
that kind of process and i just i just
um that was like the birth of me
as an artist was like being on
soundcloud getting to know
the people who followed me not literally
but just you know knowing their little
icon in their name
and then commenting on my stuff like
this is sick or something and then i do
you know i was kind of it's sort of
quite addictive that the feedback you'd
get and then i kind of just upload stuff
again and again yeah um so yeah it was
it was cool man and i discovered a lot
of new music
and a lot of people you know kedranada
came out of soundcloud um
keefer another producer that i like and
like yeah a lot of people
it's interesting man and then some
people made the jump to
to spotify and things like that whereas
some people didn't and and they're
they're kind of they kind of missed out
because they hadn't made that leap
to other platforms which is interesting
yeah in a similar way where you saw a
lot of people that were famous on vine
yeah and then vine went away and it's
like where are these people what happened
happened
yeah that's it oh well that's
unfortunate they didn't really do any long-term
long-term
career things yeah and i guess with that
in mind for you you've built an entire
career off this which is something that
not everybody who does
sound clouds or what i don't know did
soundcloud i sound like an old man i
post to the youtube
like anybody who is a quote unquote
soundcloud artist or whatever
you're one who has made a long-term career
career
out of it at what point did you feel like
like
this is my thing that i do now rather
than oh this is fun to just post to soundcloud
soundcloud
i think as as i got a manager and
i kind of started doing shows and stuff
like that and things were taking off it
was that was when i was kind of like okay
okay
it's still kind of just something that i
do it's always just been something i do but
but
yeah but um it's kind of strange that
the evolution of like
becoming who i am today like as an
artist it's kind of
i didn't plan it it kind of just
happened um and i'm still
still surprised you know yeah what about
you yeah i mean i think
i think the same thing kind of happened
with wolfpack
where it started as this kind of youtube act
act
and an internet band that didn't really
have intention like jack's the band
leader jack i don't think
had intentions of touring
and doing a bunch of festivals and
you know being like a big band or
anything it was just this internet thing
that got big on the internet and then
all of a sudden oh
i guess we gotta do shows and people are
asking us to
tour and play festivals and now there's
these expectations
and that's fine that's cool i mean what
do you expect when you do something
really well and
people latch onto it yeah yeah yeah yeah
i definitely relate to you in the sense where
where
i don't know it's just what we do we
make an album every year
and it's like the thing and we get
together and it's still in some ways feels
feels
like the same it's been for years but it
just happens to now be in front of
thousands of people
yeah it's exactly the same for me man it
really wasn't very planned
um and i don't it was only i never
dreamed of being a musician
i just loved making music and it was
something i did
and and then yeah it just grew from from that
that
i think i am i don't i don't think of
myself as very ambitious but i think
i have a hunger to make more music and i
i you know i really love doing that so
i'm always kind of
thinking about the next project you know
i'm finishing out and then i'm straight
on to the next thing
um because that's just there's always
something that's exciting me
that's new you know whether that's a new
new song or new genre or something you know
know
absolutely i'm the same way so you
mentioned having a manager pretty early on
on
i know there's a lot of people i don't
know if you get this question online a
lot or just
in person i guess but people ask all the
time oh when should i get a booking
agent when should i get a manager
when should i go and try to get a deal
with a record label
what is your approach to those things
because you've done it from
literally in your parents in your
bedroom at your parents house to now
where you're selling out
huge rooms and yeah you know charting on
on billboard and everything
um i i'm very lucky that i have an
amazing manager who
kind of just sent me an email one day
and said let's go for a coffee
i met up with him and then he kind of
just kind of steered my career and sort
of helped me
understand everything from um from then
till now and he's
he's really good because he doesn't push
me to do stuff i don't want to do but he also
also
we have a bit push and pull in terms of
me not wanting to do stuff him saying
you should do this because it's
it might be good for this and that you
know so i think it can be really
important and valuable to have a manager from
from
from an early stage actually but you
don't necessarily need one
if you if you're if you have a clear vision
vision
and you're and you're just doing your
thing i think that will that will happen
yeah man
and labels like i've never really i'm i
kind of released my projects through
label services
so they so i've got my own label right
which is called beyond the groove and
the label services um put money into the
releases help kind of
promote the albums common ideas that way so
so
so i'm i'm kind of an independent artist
but with the infrastructure to help
promote the albums and things like that
and that works for me because there's no
one telling me what kind of music to
make or what kind of
yeah i think for the people that are
listening yeah wolfpack is independent
and i'm independent and there's wolf records
records
i have my own label imprint but for
those of uh for the people that are
listening who don't quite understand
what that is basically
if you're an indie artist you're just
releasing albums yourself
the other option is you go with a record
label sometimes there's independent
record labels sometimes major labels
there's been a the sort of thing where
you put an album out the uh
the record label will give you an
advance of however many thousands of
dollars to make your album
they recoup the money and then you start
making maybe a 50 percent
royalty on that but if you go with a
label services or sometimes a
distribution deal
you still own your album but a major or
sometimes even independent label
will use their distribution arm and then
take a much smaller percentage
of that who is the label that you're
working with on that
um so cobalt okay cool yeah so
i like working with them that's great so
you've had the same manager for
since basically the beginning yeah same
manager for about
six i think maybe seven years six seven
years and he's um
that's great yeah we're we're really
good friends and um
it's yeah he's quite young as well it's
quite nice to kind of grow our careers
to grow together
have you got a manager you've got a
manager i have a manager now yes
which has been great i've had a manager
for a year and a half
yeah and i honestly didn't know
what it would do for me i mean for some
people it's really important to have a
manager early on if they don't have the
business sense the vision
yeah there's certain types of
personalities that
really need a manager yeah and certain
ones that can get away for a long time
without needing one yeah yeah
and i finally got to the point where it
was like ah i think a manager would
really help
yeah yeah and they they promised that
the percentage that they would take
yeah they're they promised that they
would help bring in more than the
percentage they will take
with my current trajectory and and
that's been great you know that's cool
that's what managers do they help you
along in your career and they help
like you're saying figure out which
things to do or not do
i think i'm the kind of personality
really benefits from having a manager
sure um like i just i'm not interested
in going to
industry meetings and things like that and
and
and do all the kind of um the club i
don't know the classic music industry
kind of talk rubbish then for an hour i
don't know
like my manager is amazing that that and
and i trust him to you know to smash that
that
yeah that's great so then you can focus
on the creative side
exactly so speaking of the creative side
and who you are and where you find your creativity
creativity
when did you feel like you found your thing
thing
your voice as a musician or even as a guitarist
guitarist
i think it's always evolving i think
it's something that i think it's
something it's weird because it's not
it's not something i didn't have it
didn't kind of arrive
one day it was like something that has
evolved over time and
it's still changing um and there's
it's funny what people because it takes
you know you up on an album
and then it gets released like seven
eight months later
often what people think is thomas sound is
is
is not where i am now so like it might
be an
outdated kind of version of what what
i'm into and there's like
i guess most people might think of me as
the geography top mish
because that's where they're at and
that's what they're listening to right
now and
but there's kind of the evolution has
has moved along and i think
i guess i guess it comes but my kind of
prime my kind of core sound comes
from all those early influences and
stuff and and being mostly being ear
trained and stuff you know
like i don't know any theory i've never
been i've always hated that that sort of
thing like the intellectual side of music
music
so i think that's kind of limited what i
can play maybe
to just using my ear at all times so
yeah i don't know
but i think using your ear has given you
a certain freedom a certain freedom yeah
like when we've played together i've
seen you raise your eyebrow and just
try sounds rather than oh well that's a
d7 or
that's a d flat nine chord so i have
these shapes to pull from
yeah it's like what's this sound what's this
this
paint color that i can just throw at
this thing exactly yeah and it's always references
references
i'm always trying to reference stuff so
stuff i'm into musically
that's i think that's where most of my
inspiration comes from is is like referencing
referencing
something that uh i heard in like an
isley brothers record like i like
to say some guitar stuff going on there
you know just throwing in these
different references and stuff
but that's subconscious you know like if
you play me something i might think oh
this is what i think could work with that
that
like a reference from something you know
that's cool and i think that's another
cool thing that you get
from working with other people is you
might play
some sort of hip-hop r b thing and i'll
immediately start thinking of
i don't know an early prince tune or you know
know
somebody else might listen to it and
think oh man there's this
thelonious monk record from 1978 that
whatever or somebody else might think of
a dr dre record or something
collaboration is so amazing because it
you do these things you kind of you
think of it you know when you're working
someone in the room their energy will
bring out something different in your playing
playing
you're like you had the reference there
and but you might not have played that
or drawn from that reference otherwise i
feel like
yeah so like me collaborating with with
yusuf on this record
has steered my journey as a musician you
know in terms of my influences
you know i've been spotted being
inspired by that project because it's
brought out something different in me
as an artist yeah all right this is some
good conversation
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what do you think are the types of
projects or songs that are best
left to collaboration and what are the
things best done by yourself
in terms of like writing a song do you
mean like in terms of
i guess as far as writing a song but
also just putting out an artistic piece
yeah i think um in terms of
collaboration i
as a producer i always want to have the
final touches
on things so whether that's the mix or
like for example with
for the music i'm working on right now
it's my next solos i think it's going to
be an ep
it's more songwriter based i'm singing
on it
and i'm working with this guy called
miles he's an amazing producer
and i'm doing the stuff at his studio
right on his computer and then i just
want to make sure i get the stems
and i kind of shape it in my world by
myself so i think that's important i
have that time
to to kind of make sure everything you
know just to kind of go through and make
sure it's cohesive with
my catalogue and the journey that i've
i've had so far
yeah so yeah that for me that's always
that that kind of final stage i want to
make sure
doing my thing so the collaboration to
kind of get the inspiration
and draw different influences but by
yourself it's good to at the end
just be able to make sure that it fits
the through line of your career
and catalog yeah exactly and generally i
want to do the vocals
by myself because i sometimes i just do
like 100 takes
i want to have that time to like come
through and you know yeah so you're not
somebody who's like i need to nail it
take one
purist of uh one take through you're
fine comp in a hundred takes
i'm fine comping man i'm fine comforting
like yeah i remember i had a session
with um
robert glasper before lockdown
and i was i was really excited about the
session because i've been a big fan for
for years and then
at the end of the session it was just he
was on piano i was on guitar we were
jamming out on something
and uh it was like a 10 minute jam i
loved it but i knew that i wanted to try
it again because like
i'd messed up a few bits and i reckon it
could like the idea was so strong and he
was like nah man i don't do like second takes
takes
that's you know that's it and i was just
like no
you know i really wanted to like do one
more but yeah some people just don't i guess
guess
such as yeah thing yeah everybody's got
a different flow
yeah different flow are you one are you
a one-take man or you're
i like to find a balance you know from
the stuff that we've done together i
like to do stuff in the room
yeah yeah and just play it straight down
make sure that there's an anchor take 85
of that take was exactly it and maybe
there's some little nudges here and
there if you know if i need to
push something around and then if it's
like okay take four had some really good
stuff in it there was a lot of magic
let's make sure we get that i'm cool
with that yeah man i feel like as
as i've progressed i'm definitely trying
to give my recordings more life
and make them more organic because so
less loot based but more like
recording a song all the way because
then you have that
it feels more alive that fully live
thing yeah yeah there's something
different about
speaking a mantra a hundred times in a
row rather than just playing the same
mantra recording back
a hundred times yeah as far as a
producer and player
you're such a producer writer you've got
a great studio flow
do you feel like you get your kicks off
still when you're on tour
or do you feel like you get completely
out of that float i get a completely
different kickoff tour i think
i think first of all it's like it just
feels so good to be
traveling be out in the world you know
out of the studio first of all that's
amazing i love that aspect of it
and seeing new places and then there's
the whole
which yeah it's amazing man it's it's
it's funny because i never
i was very much a bedroom studio person
and then i started playing shows it was
it wasn't something that was
came naturally to me but i think i've
just you know i love playing guitar and
i've and i've kind of
yeah i mean playing shows is playing
guitar so it's it's cool man yeah
i know there's there's room in my shows
to improvise and stuff so it's always
fun it's always different
yeah i've seen some videos and it looks
great it looks like a really fun show
i have yet to see you live but the
videos i've seen look awesome
likewise man likewise yours is very fun
man well you keep mentioning and
referring to yourself as a bedroom
producer which i like that
yeah that's a fun term yeah but as a
bedroom producer
who plays guitar i don't
when i think of bedroom producer and
guitar player i don't see somebody who's got
got
three boutique amps that are like 40 000
amps with all the greatest microphones
crank to 10
just because you're not doing that in
your bedroom so
what do you usually use because you know
this is a guitar podcast
what do you do as far as recording your guitar
guitar
and then when you play live how you
recreate your sound
so initially my guitar sound
up until geography has been
the logic 9 guitar amp pro which
is uh yeah i'm now on logic x which is
the the latest version of logic which
they don't actually have the logic 9 guitar
guitar
but i've managed to hack hacked logic so
i now get it
on logic x and uh it's kind of like a
very clean
i was just running my i run a strap i've
got john mayer
fender strap which i run it through an
apogee influence which influenced apogee um
um
interface which has a very clear it
doesn't add much color to the sound so
it's quite transparent
and that kind of just became my sound
it's not because uh
it's kind of how convenience that became
my sound because i couldn't
i didn't have the mics i couldn't be
asked to mic up the the amp and stuff so
so that became my sound man um and then
what kind of music i started making
stuff like was going for more of that
organic sound
so yeah man guitar and pro 9 was my
thing i like that
saves uh saves a lot of money too
because it comes free with logic
yeah exactly so did you bring that on
the road do you bring a laptop
and just plug into that when you play
live no so i
i started playing with an ant for live
shows doing the conventional way
and then uh about a year ago i wanted to
try camper because i realized i could
profile my logic 9 pro amp through
kemper so i
was trying to get that sound but it just
didn't quite sound the same as the logic amp
amp
um so i tried camper for a bit and now
i'm going back to amp so i want to i
want to have
proper amps for the live show i think
just because i'm more in headspace wise
i'm listening to more like 70s records
80s records and i love the
just like you can hear the room you know
you can hear the amp bars and you don't
really get that with the logic 9
clean yeah um so it's just different
different headspace
for many of us that have gotten our
start in the age of the internet and
in the age of digital recording or not
growing up
listening to or excuse me not growing up
starting recording on all analog gear yeah
yeah
we have a different approach because i
think many of us
are just fine using logic amps like i've
used the logic amps for a lot of stuff
i'm cool using plug-ins i love
using plug-in amps especially because
i'm a clean guitar guy so it's easy for
me to do
but the keyboard world has embraced
computers in a live setting
running ableton sessions or main stage
or that thing
but it's interesting that the guitar world
world
has not yet adopted having a laptop on
stage for sounds because you're saying
you're trying to get your digital kemper to
to
model your digital logic amp why
wouldn't you have just used your apogee
and your
laptop to use logic 9 live man i
i don't really know but i think because
it's less um
secure i guess like the laptop should
like yeah
kind of you know but um but you got a
point there man i should have just
plugged into
the podium i've done it a couple times
and it's worked amazing i've never had
issues any time i've just plugged in so
you just plug into the to the um
straight into the pa yeah so well if i'm
using in-ears
i'll do it if i if i'm on wedges or if
i'm you know if it's a throw and go
festival i would definitely like to use
an amp
but yeah if i'm on ears i will sometimes just
just
use my apollo twin just that's the
little interface that i use
right into my computer and the left and
right out of the apollo
is my guitar amp right there but yeah i guess
guess
you know there's more things to go wrong
or did i forget to plug the power cable
into the laptop and then it dies halfway
through the set
but yeah man i think it's literally just
a security thing that kemper is quite
good and
and they do have some good sounds
they've muddled some sounds that are
really um
like convincing some of their in-stock
stuff and then yeah i mean my pedalboard
kind of just became a kemper uh kemper box
box
and i had like the chemical effects but
maybe it's just a headspace thing but i
just like having
i'm just in an analog headspace right
now you know i like having
that's great just yeah okay i you
brought up you have the fender
john mayer signature strat which is dope okay
okay
i saw a freaking video of you jamming
with john mayer
at crossroads festival so i have two
things here
you play the eric clapton crossroads
guitar festival that must have been insane
insane
and then i saw john mayer sitting in on
your tiny desk concert
yeah man yeah that was that's incredible
that was one of the craziest days of my
life that
that um that day eric invited me
to uh clapton invited me to play the festival
festival
and um obviously said yes and then um
at the airport i get a message from yeah john
john
john mayer sends me a dm and he says do
you want me to jump up for your set
uh my crossroads and obviously like he's
he's a hero of mine you know
my neck clicks i clicked my neck because
i think i was just so excited about the whole
whole
whole thing that my neck clicked so i
had like a crooked neck for two days
before the show
which was really really painful man that
wasn't good yeah that whole experience
from being like being at a festival with
all those like
legendary guitarists man and then and
then john jumping up and
it was just crazy it's crazy i met eric
clapton he was he said like thanks so
much for coming down and it
it was just a mental mental day yeah i
fully had a pro like a full-on calm down
after that experience really
yeah yeah for like two days but no it's
really cool man
and it was it gave me a appreciation for
blues music
because most the festival was blues kind
of like americans
yeah blues and stuff which i've never
really listened to too much but
just being in that environment with all
these kind of like cowboys
was really cool man yeah cowboys that's funny
funny
they're from the council i was gonna say
yeah i'm trying to think like
obviously you know uk culture and
american culture influence each other
and at this point in the digital age we
all influence everything
yeah yeah did you did you feel like you
had a global mindset from the beginning
because you got to start in the internet age
age
or did you feel like local kid making
music in their bedroom
i felt like local yeah i felt very
london southeast london local kid
making me to my bedroom because i wasn't
i was just putting this stuff online
and it was just like getting big planes
i wasn't like
i wasn't really touring you know at the
start and doing any of it you know
so yeah i think i felt quite cool and i
was young then i was really young
yeah but i think the the idea of you
putting your music
out there to the world is and getting
your start that way is kind of unique
it's different than well it's not unique
anymore i guess
but it's different than a lot of people
got their start where
the first things that they do to put
themselves out there are
playing local gigs in front of 20 30
people that
literally can only be people from their hometown
hometown
yeah in your case you start and in
wolfpack's case as well is starting by
putting stuff out there for the world to
see yeah i guess so
but it wasn't big numbers at first it
didn't feel like the world was listening
at first because
because it was it was just like my mates
on soundcloud and then
it was just that process you know of
just like you know then i got a majestic
casual that youtube channel
they sort of like increased my following
and just like little things along the way
way
um and now it feels like i'm it's kind
of like a worldwide thing you know
yeah when you see other musicians on
instagram on youtube anywhere online
what is it that makes certain musicians
stand out to you
or certain artists stand out to you in today's
today's
environment i think when it comes to
singing having had just having an
original voice
i think you just hear so much of like
people with the same kind of like
they just sound a bit like this person
and i think
it feels quite saturated like voices
these day you know in terms of new music
so that's always really nice when i hear
a singer who i'm just like that that
just sounds so fresh it just sounds like
them you know
and that can be really difficult i can
be difficult because i've i've gone
through that process of trying to find
my own voice just you know
to kind of work out what do i sound like
how do i wanna sound because it's almost
a choice as well
um so yeah that's that's something and then
then
yeah interesting production man i i love
i love production and stuff like that
and then yeah just just what i'm into
right now you know 70 stuff and
and like a lot of brazilian music i love
a lot of brazilian phone console and
stuff that references from that kind of stuff
stuff
yeah yeah that's great is there anything
that you're working on right now you
said you're working on an ep
a new thing oh by the way hold on i do
have a question you have eps
you have albums and you refer to things
as beat tapes or mix tapes
how do you define those three three
things as different because i
myself am like how is a beat tape
different than an album or how is a
mixtape different than an album
yeah there's that there's no difference
really but with the beat tapes it's just like
like
i started making beats and i just thought
thought
it's not me singing on it's not songs i
was i don't really think of it as an
album you know
it's kind of almost like a less formal
approach to a project
when i'm you know when i'm making beats
it's kind of it's almost it's a
different headspace you know
um and then i just thought i've made
beat take one after you know i'll call
the next one beat take two
and it's just that and then i'll always
just have this sequel
and then and then the stuff where i'm
writing songs is more an album sort of thing
thing
but i haven't done a mixtape i've done a
mixtape i've only done beat tapes
and eps and albums okay how do you
define a mixtape different than a beat tape
tape
i don't really know i guess i feel like a
a
a rapper might do like a mixtape which
they wouldn't want to call
an album it would be like you know if
you're like playing down your album
you'll call it a mixtape
maybe sure yeah yeah
you give yourself less pressure less
pressure yeah
yeah you're down playing yeah i get it
okay that's cool yeah
nice guitar man to the left of you or
the right view
that red one that one yeah that's funny
that's a baritone guitar from this
builder in italy it's a bocce
baritone guitar it's this it's really
cool this guy bruno bocce
he hand makes all of his instruments and
he is
he's an instrument maker and a manager
for this italian artist and i was doing
a recording session for this italian artist
artist
and this bocce guy was like hey man
um how about instead of paying you your
day rate i give you
half this x amount of money plus i give
you this guitar
signal i was like yeah this thing is dope
dope
yeah and uh i actually i used that we
used that for the fearless flyers
album the first album because
was coming from somewhere and he
couldn't fly with his baritone guitar so
i just brought mine
and he ended up using this bocce
baritone guitar he fell in love with him
he's like you got to put me in touch
with this guy and then bruno
built mark another one wow looks awesome man
man
yeah what what do you tune it down to
what's the bottom note normally a
baritone is b to b
but i go a to a on this one okay
yeah so it's it's nice and low not in
the metal way
but in the it gets it's kind of that low
yeah uh left of middle c
or like couple octaves left of middle c
sort of thing it's it's nice
nice man and i only i only ever see you
play that john mayer
strat is that your only guitar no no i am
am
i've started playing a gibson um three three
three
was it gibson three three something i
literally i i'm so bad when it comes to like
like
model numbers and things like that it's
it's a hollow body hollow body gibson
that i love is it the big one
vintage 335 333 you know i've got it
here you could probably tell me what it is
is
i will be able to tell you and if not me
jason will be able to tell you
yeah it's a 335. got the bigsby i like
the sound of it acoustically
so i've been i've been instead of
plugging it in i've just been marking it up
up
and i get a really interesting sound
yeah nice
yeah i for people listening tom's
gear thing is funny to me i like this
i'm not putting you on blast here but
tom showed up at the session carrying
his guitar without a case
and the pedalboard not in a case and the
cable just
dangling down i saw you get out of the
uber in london
you set the strat on the street then
open the trunk
and grab the pedalboard i'm like bro you
didn't like
was it a case it was not in a case i
don't know what you were doing
that's weird man i i would have thought
i would have brought a case
that's not good yeah i can't remember
why i didn't have a guitar case that day
very strange it's all right you know
i've always wanted to try doing a tour
where i just carry my guitar in no case
i walk onto the airplane
put the guitar up in the overhead bin
okay it's a stratocaster it's resilient
it can happen yeah man
you just wanted to try it you get that
vintage wear and tear that people pay a
lot for it'd be
interesting man i might need to bring
some tools to adjust the neck every gig but
but
it could be fun well the last thing i
want to talk about is
when we first met people have asked me
and uh when i was
telling people that i was gonna
interview you they said
why don't you guys talk a little bit
about how you guys recorded that cosmic
sans tune when we first met yeah
and you know giving people some sense of
what happened was tom and i connected on
instagram and then you said hey i'm in
santa monica at this airbnb that happens
to have a little recording space in the back
back
i swung by with my apollo and my laptop
and we just both plugged directly in
yeah and recorded the tune it was cool
man i didn't i did i didn't know what
what we were going to do but it was
wicked yeah can you tell me a little bit
from your side what you remember
and how you what like what were you what
was your expectation and how did you
feel coming out of that
and while we were there i mean i'm a big
fan of your playing so it was firstly it
was just wicked to
to jam and just uh and i don't i don't
get a chance to actually play with
with many guitarists actually sure like
when i studied i
there was i was only guitarist in in my
year so there was no like
there's no kind of bouncing off and um
and it was cool man i think we
i think we just did i have my pedalboard
with me i think i did you did have your
pedalboard but it didn't work because
your power supply was set for uk power
and you couldn't plug into the 110.
that's it so i basically didn't have my
pedalboard with me and we were just um
i found that kind of was sound on logic
well i think we just started jamming
didn't we
yeah it came together very very
organically yeah it was cool and then
you just kind of took it away and and
finished it man
but it was fun man i love doing that
kind of thing yeah it's cool because we
each got our
our production things we were working in
logic i watched you get your guitar sound
sound
with just logic plug-ins i got my guitar
sound with just logic plug-ins
yeah man and we just went it was fun
we'll do it again
for sure yes i would love to we were
talking about doing a um a little show
weren't we we're going to do a little guitar
guitar
duet thing or something we speak about
that we did speak about that you said
man i just want to play guitar
i don't want to have to sing oh yeah i
don't have to sing man
so we got to do that maybe we should do
uh we should do a weekend in the u.s and
a weekend in london
yeah yeah yeah our own version of the g3
experience but it's uh definitely man
you me and
and like uh a drummer and a bass player
or something would be fun
yeah man we'll just do a little like
busking i just want a boss man do it
play outdoors
just get two ounces that could be pretty
that could be pretty pretty
i'm into that all right you let me know
as soon as people can start going in
public again
we'll have to do that with that great
cool well tom thanks so much for joining
us today this is really fun
stoked to have you on yeah man cheers
thanks for today
peace there you have it tom mish everybody
everybody
there are certain people whose
personality shines through in their talking
talking
and in the way that they play their
instrument slash
music tom is definitely one of those
cats as you can hear
i would say that i'm one of those cats i
think you get
a good idea of my personality when you
hear me talk
but also in my playing as well so check
out the collaborations i have with tom
cosmic sans we did that on my album
motivational music for the syncopated
soul and then also he played on my tune
smooth move off of my new album just
came out the striped album
so check it out and we'll see you next time
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