Listen to the live interview
Episode #444 Behind The Music with Jacqueline Jax : http://tobtr.com/9887613
GETTING TO KNOW QuANTHEM
by Jacqueline Jax host of A.V.A Live Radio
Today’s music marketing is amazing with social media allowing us to reach people all over the world with our music. It’s very exciting also to be able to work with a team member across the world by working with a system like pro-tools and building your own studio.
The music…
I get so passionate & serious when it comes to music. I always try new different challenging elements from various genres ranging from ballads, electro rock, to jazz, blues, psychedelic, prog, or even heavy rock. As a solo musician, it makes it fun and dynamic for me & the listeners. I wrote, played, and sang so many songs over the years. My friends and some cool fans pushed me into publishing my work, which now I enjoy it a lot as an amazing experimental musical puzzle made up of musical experience, innovation, & complexity or sometimes simplicity and yet still following classical structure in rock Genre. With new setup and platform, QuAnthem will be a solid music machine! And essential role of the lyrics! Each one should convey a message or feeling from different angels. New songs & lyrics are written to touch more on our human feeling level. About how to live the moment, value the precious life, beloved ones, look forward, and even raises some paradoxes and serious questions.
Right now, working on promoting and creating more media for two new single releases in January: “Mirrored Minds” and “Gently, Truly, INSANE!”. Within first few weeks of these 2 new releases, I see a very positive and unexpected feedback and trends on radios and views. Number of radio airplays passed thousands by listeners & fans, from so many different parts of the world. It’s amazing how technology can get us connected to one another. Overwhelming! Rock on!
I’m in final stages of pre-production for the next two to three songs. I love the complexity and honesty of music creation. “If we have tools, why not create something new. It can be anything that only you can do!” So yes, why not experiencing and creating something meant to be new at least to us and few other fans and folks around the globe while we can?! Right? I technically learned it step by step and each step was with lots of practice and learning, each opening up so many new possibilities in music creation, aiming to be unique in its own way: from creating precise rhythms, breaks and backbone of the song to unconventional sound creation, complex technical recording and workstation user manuals and guidelines, adjusting the lyrics, tones, solos, and sound recording and engineering and so on and so on. Keeps it challenging that way.
In next releases, after suggestions by professionals in industry, I’m planning to produce and release more singles from my home studio with great Hi-Fi equipment and instruments.
Gently, Truly, INSANE!
I wrote the core structure, piano riff, and drafted the lyrics of this song years ago. I was a teenage came to some level of realization and fed up with what was going on in politics and society at that time. Original drafts of the lyrics were much more insane! I’m a solo artist & musician. Every piece of my songs is written, played, and sung by me. It creates more flexibility and challenges at the same time. But full of joy and a memorable sense of fulfillment! This song is meant to be an inspiration to bright individuals with similar concerns and a taste for rock music, and aimed to be an authentic experience in this musical journey of QuAnthem! I passionately listened to classic rock music since I was as little as 5, and then tried different instruments and finally landed up on keyboard and piano. Since then, I always had a very strong urge inside me to compose, play, and sing in my own way, following classic rock pioneers and legends as my inspiration. I also learned and included elements from many other types of music and sub-genres, music is all about a collective approach to me. For instance, the sound of Jazz, Blues, and heavy rock can be clearly heard in “Gently, Truly INSANE!”.
Practice to a flawless point and dare to Improvise in Music Production, to get the best out of it! “Experience the flow of music creation”: Then, in 2015 I improved and rearrange the song again with major changes. I mean like transforming the whole structure, lyrics, back vocal, chorus, rhythm, and solos. It all ended up with adding many new pieces and layers during recording and production sessions. Some musical layers were all improvised during limited production time! But I always kept very high expectation from the end result, yet unpredictable till the very last seconds! With the coaching of a great well-known production engineering @ BTownSound here in GTA Canada, we took around 10-12 different tracks on all the back vocals and I was trying to cover more various frequency ranges within the chorus to create more visual atmosphere. Production was also happy about such unorthodox method, on the fly. Musically speaking! Always being very obsessed with quality of the whole project from the very beginning, Wow I practiced and worked on the song so many times in my home studio to technically prepare for final short production sessions.
I improvised & finalized the whole thing in quick hours of studio. It was such a fun experience all about creativity in making a final unpredictable product in form of music art, yet meant to be in precise structure. “Lyrics” should carry authentic meanings, from a new angle! There’s only one set of true facts about any matter. It all comes down to which perspective we chose to perceive the same topic. I personally love to try different new angles, and at least learn from them. From lyrics point of view, look how world, from any direction, is getting divided, instead of creating more bonds and unity to tackle the real and factual issues, everyone and all together! There are still few insanes trying to deny and out-market topics like people’s human rights, Global warming, hunger, Women’s Rights and so many other real challenges around the world! And if it all goes so “Gently”, step by step, as it did, they don’t feel any pain by getting so “gently, truly insane”. It’s all about humanity, science, technology, and doing the math right now. People are getting more connected with less barriers to one another, but still, long way to go. Few years back, this interactive interview could have never happened in such a relevant way.
Music Industry..
Technology made it quite possible for individuals to create relevant and authentic content and connect you with people around the world. I believe it’s just as the matter of finding the right niche audience and deliver
The Music…
It’s all about creating something new that only you can do and others may love! There are definitely people out there who may like the same idea/product or would become fans and followers or even collaborators. I manage complex high-tech projects and portfolios for years, artists like me should start to utilize big data and going digital with much less barriers, but by trying our very best to stay high quality and unique. Cons would be short timespan that average users spend over each finished product. These days mostly in social media posts on different platforms. It means you have few seconds to make an impression or showcase. Another point, there’s probably a gap between indie artists’ community and music stores and platforms. I’m sure if well-shortlisted indie artists are played in popular playlists, it will be a win win scenario for those platforms and artists. They’ll grow their fan base over there.
I would love to have 5 minutes alone with….
Each individual and culture contributed to the world and history as we know it, in one way or another. But in the context of music and art, Pink Floyd in 70s, the best mature years for rock genre. Solid underground indie progressive pioneers emerged into the mainstream theme. All around was new ideas and start of postindustrial era. Too much freedom to handle in so many parts of the world. I would love to experience the flow of music creation by those legends in that period, by having full commercial success, so authentic, and new! It still is and so relevant from my opinion! Manfred Mann is another legend I always admired who inspired me as a keyboardist, composer, and the music project of a solo artist.
Creating New Relevant MUSIC is the Mission!
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/4mVOmzjuYvVxTyZqpcmDqL
GooglePlay: https://play.google.com/store/music/artist/QuAnthem?id=Akuxjljwl4smmmu6jzyeigatw4i
iTunes : https://itunes.apple.com/us/artist/QuAnthem/id1199334110
Website: www.QuAnthem.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/QuAnthemBand/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/QuAnthem/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Qu_Anthem
Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/quanthem/gently-truly-insane-radio-version