I will be as honest as possible about this one.
I sometimes hear a song on the radio and wonder how it even made it that far and then I will encounter a busker on
the sidewalk somewhere in the CBD with all the talent in the world but sadly will probably never get discovered. I
think the music industry is changing quickly with the times, its not like how it used to be where some talented
mofo could walk into a studio an blow everyone’s mind and before you know it, he/she is a superstar. I would like
to see a come back of real music by real musicians and less auto tune and technology replacing raw artistic talent @WadeBraines
Live Interview
Episode #340 : A.V.A Live Radio Behind The Music with Jacqueline Jax : http://www.blogtalkradio.com/avaliveradio/2016/07/13/episode-340-ava-live-radio-behind-the-music-with-jacqueline-jax
GETTING TO KNOW WADE BRAINES
by Jacqueline Jax host of A.V.A Live Radio
Wade Braines
I will be as honest as possible about this one.
I sometimes hear a song on the radio and wonder how it even made it that far and then I will encounter a busker on
the sidewalk somewhere in the CBD with all the talent in the world but sadly will probably never get discovered. I
think the music industry is changing quickly with the times, its not like how it used to be where some talented
mofo could walk into a studio an blow everyone’s mind and before you know it, he/she is a superstar. I would like
to see a come back of real music by real musicians and less auto tune and technology replacing raw artistic talent.
There is a lot of talent out there wanting to be discovered,
I think the congestion is getting worse in terms of people trying to make their way in, its pretty tough. I am obviously not speaking from personal experience but rather from my observations over the years, watching things change as they have. I’m a big supporter of independent music and I think the momentum is only going to keep growing. I think overall though, the music industry maybe pretty tough but its also pretty fair in some ways considering the way the world has become today, it must take a great deal of energy and hard work to become a renowned artist and hold that status, its all really up to the individual, there were never meant to be shortcuts for anything in life, if you really want something, its up to you as an individual to make it happen no matter how you get there. Hard work, lots of practice and making smart choices is what its all about.
Since I’ve never promoted myself, I’ve never had to try jumping these hurdles.
Once again, I think it all comes down to the individual, how hard they’ve worked on their own skills and the choices they make, there are going to be hurdles with anything in life. I think the biggest hurdle for me at this time is the same one for most people out there, time and money, but that’s just the way it is. I have worked hard on improving myself as a musician over the years, I think thats really the most important thing but time will tell. I still have a long way to go and like all musicians, I will be still learning until my last breath. I really just need to focus on making smart choices from here. Either way, I’m going to have fun doing it no matter how big the challenges may be.
I think releasing a single ia pretty good place to start
although I’d much rather release an album. Obviously its not possible for everyone to just do that, studio time is expensive and time consuming. I’ve noticed many albums over the years have sold because of a “one hit wonder” People will buy an album just because of one song feature on it! Of course now we’re in the digital age, things have changed a lot. I think either way is okay, for me I plan to release my single “Frequency” and be as fast as I can to have more songs to follow up with, the album can come later. We all have different situations in life, whatever works best for the individual! I still haven’t give enough thought about how I am going to market my music, I guess that’s something I will be doing a lot more of in the near future.
Because I haven’t moved very far in that direction yet.
Obviously Facebook is one of the best ways to reach people nowadays, the power of social networking has taken the world by storm and its now an essential element in music promotion. I really love how social networking has unified people all around the world, obviously this is the way of the future and I plan on taking full advantage of it as things progress.
I would say maybe someone like José González or Tommy Emmanuel,
yeah definitely Tommy because I really look up to him and admire his work being a guitar player myself. Then again, I’ve also been inspired over the years by amazing songwriters such as Tracy Chapman and Bob Dylan to name a couple. I really can’t decide who I’d like to spend a few minutes with, I’ve been inspired by so many artists out there, I think I’d be grateful to spend 5 minutes with either of them as they’d all have invaluable insight in their own way.
I don’t think there’s too much emphasis,
you do need to keep up with the times, especially if you’re an emerging artist but I think it really depends on the kind of audience you’re targeting. Someone like Ed Sheeran is the perfect example of keeping up with the times and calving out new paths for emerging artists to walk but hey, oldschool music is still alive and well and it ain’t going anywhere anytime soon. I think it’s really up to the individual, there are plenty of new artists and bands coming out who’re aiming for that “oldschool” sound and they’re doing really well.
Life is like a piano, if the white keys are happiness and the black keys are sadness, just remember, the most
beautiful piece of music you ever heard wouldn’t exist without the black keys.
I grew up in a town around a lot of gang activity and there was always a lot of party activity going on at home as my mother and stepfather were pretty sociable and half of their friends were indigenous NZ Maori. There was always a lot of drinking at home and unfortunately a fair bit of alcohol fueled domestic violence from time to time too, but there would always be someone playing an acoustic guitar while everyone sang along to classics everyone were familiar with. There was often one guy in particular, a middle aged Maori guy we called “Joe Baz” He played amazing blues and I couldn’t take my of eyes off his fingers when he played, I would always tell him “I wish I could do that” and he would encourage me to learn and would always reassure me I will get there some day if I practice. By the age of 12 I already had my own guitar and would take it everywhere I went, I didn’t have many
friends as I wasn’t a very popular kid at school, so I would spend a lot of time picking away on my guitar.
One of the first songs I learned was “Stairway To Heaven”
by Led Zep because anyone who could play it was a really cool cat back then! “Tears In Heaven” by Eric Clapton was another popular request, I basically meddled round with learning whatever was popular at the time. Music became my escape from the world, life often wasn’t easy but music always got me through, I never planned on being a musician, it just came about naturally with life’s circumstances.
My other past time was studying and practicing Eastern martial arts
with 2 of my 3 older brothers, by the age of 16 I was pretty hooked on meditation and would sometimes spend hours in my room alone just meditating if I wasn’t being sociable with my friends and flatmates who were usually drinking and getting high.
Frequency.
This song came about when a good friend of mine “previously my drummer” asked me via Facebook “are you there bro?” To which I replied “I was always here bro, just in a different frequency” to which he then replied “Haha, that’s a good idea for a song!” Sure enough, over the next few days I was thinking about what he said and one morning at about 3:00am, the tune started materializing in my mind, so I got up and started messing around with alternative tunings and over a couple of days, I wrote Frequency and spent about another week tweaking it until I was satisfied. Really, the song was based on things I used to experience during Qi Gong meditation and conversations I’d previously had with my brothers, we always liked to theorize about a lot about things such as the possibility of other dimensions. So I guess the song naturally materialized via my friend giving me the idea and personal life experience during my days of meditation.
Frequency was recorded in an analog studio, 2 mics on a single stand, one for the acoustic guitar and one for the vocals. I also recorded it in a digital studio but the analog sounded many times better to my ears so I canned the digital recording and stuck with this one.
Frequency is still the only song I’ve recorded to date and will be released as a single, but I will be back in the studio in the near future to lay down some more original compositions for my first album, some will be solo and some will be with a band set. Within a short time of uploading Frequency for the first time, I was swiftly approached by an executive of UMG who advised me I had been placed on the 2013 UMG artist-to-watch list. This was pretty exciting for me but unfortunately a health issue was holding me back from getting back in the studio at the time and I was unable to send through any demos as requested. Really, I’m not in it for the money, I just really love music. Whether or not my music goes viral has never really been something I’ve thought about much, I’ve been gigging for years on and off and I’ve never promoted myself before, I just do it for fun and I’ve performed at a lot of shows for charity.
The frequent encouragement to share my music with the world by friends, family and fellow musicians, is what has finally pushed me in this direction. I guess like other artists out there, the one thing I would hope to achieve with my music is bring people together, inspiring other musicians and using any financial success to help people out there in need. I’m not really a materialistic person, as long as I can make a few people happy or have some kind of positive influence on people, that is enough for me but I would really love to have the power to be able to make a difference in this world where it counts, I feel my music is probably my only chance of being able to achieve that kind of status. My health isn’t holding me back so much anymore like it used to, so hopefully I can prove to people being in your 30s is no reason to give up on your dreams.
A famous celebrity musician here in NZ “Bic Runga”
visited me recently and bought one of my guitars (I trade and repair guitars from home) and she told pointed out to me that Johnny Cash was in his 60’s when he hit the charts so its never too late. Another bit of advice I’ve taken has been from my favorite guitar player, Mr Tommy Emmanuel. He said if you want to get noticed, there is only one thing you need to do, you need to get good! Get really good! Well, that made perfect sense to me because I think many aspiring artists out there spend too much time trying to promote themselves and not enough time working on their skills. In my case it might be the other way around, all I really do is practice but I don’t promote myself. I guess this is the kind of shift I need to make, I am always practicing, but its time I started promoting myself if I’m to launch a successful career, and now it’s my goal to do just that.
I currently reside in Glenfield,
its one of Auckland’s many suburbs and I’ve been here for a decade or so. I play at various smaller venues around Auckland, there always seems to be plenty of work for musicians despite what people seem to think, Auckland is a really good place. I was also a judge in The Great Kiwi talent Quest charity show so I met a lot of amazingly talented people throughout the auditions and various shows I’ve attended. This was an amazing experience for me, the talent out there nowadays is just unbelievable. I think being a judge in a talent show is one of the most fun things I’ve ever done in my life. I’ve put a bit of energy into helping young budding musicians over the last few years and I hope to continue doing so in other ways, but I guess I really need to start putting my own music first from here and get my first album released. The founder of the Great Kiwi Talent Quest (a Kiwi poet named Robert Edwards) plans on doing more shows again in the future, so I really look forward to getting back into that scene again. In terms of having fun in general, well I spend most of my spare time on my guitar, I that’s my happy place in life and I’m never going to change.
Social Media Links:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/wadebrainesnz
Twitter: https://twitter.com/WadeBraines
Myspace: https://myspace.com/wadebraines
Reverbnation: https://www.reverbnation.com/wadebraines
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC48fMI2Ru42qgKSmYqG7yVA