June 2007 | Rock

Public Symphony

Public Symphony are We7's first featured artist and I spent some time with front-man Dobs getting the latest on where they are, where they are going and what they really think about the world of music downloads!

The interview

You started out in music management so how does it feel to be on the other side of the fence as an artist?

The industry is changing so fast! To be honest it's a completely different world now, I mean we had one computer in the office then, we wrote letters and we spent all day on the phone. Now everyone emails and does everything online. The model for Public Symphony has come to be because of what's possible now not only in terms of promotion and sales via the internet but also in terms of the technology. We effectively made this album on a MAC with a few toys and a decent space but you don't need a lot now to create works of art.

Advances in technology enable a lot more people to experiment with music production but there must be pro's and cons to that?

The cons are that there is a lot less money in the industry and what I mean by that is there are fewer things being signed on the record company side. The internet has democratised music in a fantastic way for the consumer but it's much harder for the creator to make a living. We have to look at our project much more long term because you have to now. We have no quick fixes or massive influxes of money to spend on advertising.

People have used words like innovative and inspiring to describe your sound - what five words would you use to capture the album?

I would say HI-FI, journey, uplifting, conceptual and atmospheric. James and I are production-philes or studio-philes and we love creating a feeling with layered sound. We treated the making of our album like a craft. I'm also a thoughtful person and the lyrics of our songs are very conceptual so we ended up making a concept album. It's important to say that the first track we made was Stronger which kind of set the tone for the album. That song was about endurance in the face of hardship and it sort of set a theme for what became Public Symphony. It was a sort of journey towards enlightenment and reflected things that were going on in my life and discoveries that I was making as I moved into more mature years - things that I just didn't know when I was younger.

You talked about the album being a journey...

It starts at the end in a way, Wings is the first track and it is not the track you might expect to be at the start of the album, it's slow and orchestral and expresses being lost and the end if you like. It was inspired by watching my grandparents lose hope when they were alone and just waiting really, and that didn't square with my outlook on life which is about always having hope, something to look forward to, and Wings was an expression of calling for an end but at the same time calling for a beginning. It happened with me when I came from management to making music; I went through a period where I wasn't happy about what had happened to me. I was actually becoming a victim to fate as opposed to creating my own path and that is not a powerful place to be. I started to have insights to where I wanted to go and Wings sort of reflects that full stop and recognition that something has got to change. Then it goes into Stronger which is more picking up the pieces and deciding that I am going this way and then Breakthrough which is up-tempo, uplifting and suddenly you are realising that you can shape your World and have a breakthrough. Breakthrough was written when I had split up with my girlfriend who is actually now my wife, and James told me to go and write some break-up lyrics. When I started these lyrics I didn't want to express misery or bitterness so it turned into a question of what positive things can come from this? In the process of writing the song we had a reconciliation, got engaged and now she is my wife so it goes to show what changing a perspective can do.

With so many different styles of music on the album what genre would you put PS into?

There is a category in the US called triple A which stands for Adult Album Alternative and I think that is a good description of us. I think that anyone can appreciate our sound but there is a certain grown-upness to our album and we are definitely an album orientated act because that is what defined us. The first thing we did was make an album and then tried to work out how to sell it and promote it. We didn't come from being a band. We came from two blokes in a studio making an album. We didn't gig before we made album, in fact it's totally arse about tit from the usual way that bands go. I think that's why people in the industry find it hard because we have essentially made what sounds like a fourth album from a normal band but we have done it first and without actually having a band.

So how do you promote PS?

Well we are about to remix the album with a more HI-FI sound, I mean with more bollocks actually. We thought we could make the current album sound better. Then we will probably go to radio with those tracks and if we can find enough resources we will try and release some singles but that iis a very expensive process. First of all you need lots of stock because to do it properly you need to send the album to the whole radio network. You need to pay pluggers for regional and national radio. You need a PR agent for press and that is all without any advertising at all. Unlike a record company who have a promotion budget we have to do this ourselves.

But sites like We7 offer a platform for self-promotion that you didn't have ten years ago.

Absolutely! I spend most of my days looking for PS opportunities on the net and dealing with We7 and myspace or whatever site and it can be time consuming but you really need to put the hours in. There are a lot of sites out there that get no traffic at all like a shop window that no-one passes. You can waste a lot of time putting information on there but if no-one seeks you or wants you or knows you are there then you are just a bit of data out in the ether. You just have to take advantage of opportunities like We7 and get noticed. This is the challenge for everybody and the future is probably that most people won't make any money.

I watched the videos on your site - where does the animation connection stem from?

We started thinking that we needed a video and I thought with animation that anything is possible. I am not very keen on the culture of personality, it is a very pop thing, and I don't feel comfortable with the idea of it all being about me for example. What's great about animation is that you can do anything you like. I came across an animation of a stick man by an artist called Theodore Ushev and I played Stronger next to the video and it fitted incredibly well. So I called the guy and asked him if we could edit his film to our song and he said yeah. Then another animator in the US saw the video and contacted us and he said that it had really moved him. So we agreed to a collaboration and after a few months he delivered a CGI animation for Breakthrough that was a very conceptual film about the evolution of the earth - its a fascinating video. We then got in contact with the creators of Mr Benn and asked their permission to edit their original film from 1970's for the song Anything is Possible where he walks through the doorway to another land depending on the costume and that kind of went along with the song. So that's now done.

So what is next for PS?

These days we have a great full band line-up for live shows and recently did some gigs at the London Forum as guests of Marillion, who are now a successful DIY band and were finishing a European tour promoting their 9th album! A really receptive audience. We want to do more live work now, along with our animated visuals which play throughout the set making Public Symphony a multimedia experience.

We have entered Rise and Shine for the Radar Festival which is a video competition which anyone can enter with a video for one of the featured songs. There are some good acts and labels, I mean we are the only DIY band on there and we are the first in fact. Its great exposure for us and they will tour those videos in a year and we will be able to do press calls with the video when it is done and although it's cost us and we will pay the prize to the winning creator the trade off is that we will get some exposure and promotion. But it costs to make an impact, it really does unless you get support from sites like We7.

And the album?

The remix, repackage and re- launch of the album and then just continue with the exposure.

Discover more about Public Symphony at www.publicsymphony.com

Listen to Public Symphony for free on WE7