Acid House Interview - Week 10 - Connor McGuire

Hey everyone, welcome to AH Interviews! I've been interviewing friends and colleagues for the past 10 weeks, and starting now, I'll be posting the Can Con interviews up here and the others on the Rave On Blog site. You can also catch up on past interviews there as well. Enjoy!

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Time is a funny thing. It seems like only yesterday that I was at a Trooper concert or talking to this artist's Grandpa as he sketched in Stanley Park. Fast forward and here I am today talking with one of the lower mainland's greatest new talents and a helluva photographer, Connor McGuire.

Connor McGuire

ja ~ Hi Connor! Thanks for participating in these interviews!

To start off, can you tell us a bit about your background, your accomplishments and where you are now in your career?

cm ~ My name's Connor McGuire. I'm a Singer/Songwriter from White Rock BC. I've been writing and playing music in one form or another since I was 12. I put out a solo acoustic album when I was 19 called "Different After Dawn" and after a year of playing solo, I started a band called Connor McGuire + The Lives of Others. In the process of writing my new album, I decided to start forcing myself to write a song a week and film it. The result of the three-month process, dubbed "The Song a Week Project", is now up on Youtube.

ja ~ And they're great by the way, I've loved watching the evolution, and that is one of the reasons I wanted to interview you, you're fearless and I love clever ideas!

In these interviews, I have been speaking with artists a bit about how in today's industry, you really need to be a businessperson, marketing expert, social media pro and jack/jill-of-all-trades.

Having said that you seem to have a good grasp of all of those things! Can you talk a bit more about the project and maybe tell me, how and/or why you came up with this project ie: was this a clever marketing strategy, or was it the challenge or?

cm ~ There was no sense of impending doom before the project started. My songwriting deadlines tended to shift with how preoccupied I was doing other things. I find that if you throw the threat of public embarrassment into the mix, things tend to get done a lot quicker.

(ja~ hahaha)

When I started the whole video part of it I was just trying to make sure I followed through. I’ve never really thought about the ‘market impact’ of it all. If people are stoked on watching it unfold then that’s an awesome byproduct. The original purpose was to scare the crap out of myself…. It worked.

ja ~ How is the project going, what have been some of the ups and downs?

cm ~ I've gotten stupidly frustrated with the whole thing a few times, but overall it's gone great. I’ve always had a tendency to throw songs out before they’d actually had a chance to become anything good – my censor is always going full force. Trying to ignore the fact that I’d love to throw out most of the stuff I write made up most of the downs, but it's always really rewarding when the song comes out good in the end.

ja ~ It's funny some of the stuff I've seen thrown out, or have rescued before it hits the bin! Songwriters can be their own worst enemies I think.

Have you learned anything about yourself and/or your talents during this process? Has it given you any ideas?

cm ~ I’ve learned that I’m a lot better under pressure than I thought. I’ve been thinking about doing a “Music Video a Month” project… It just doesn’t have the same ring to it.

ja ~ Has this project brought you more hits/fans - how have your overall stats reacted?

cm ~ It's definitely helped me connect with the fans I already had. People are opening up to me a lot lately. People are more willing to talk to me about the things they do and how it relates something they saw in one of the weeks. I think the project has let people know that I’m not doing anything that unusual, just working really hard doing what I love. Anyone can relate to that, songwriter or not.

ja ~ I know you told me that you have no 'end date' in mind for this project, how will you know or decide when it's over?

cm ~ I’m officially done this week, week 12. I set out to get a collection of songs that I was really happy about putting on an album. I hit week 9 last week and started to feel really close. I feel like after three months of writing a song a week I’ll have explored what I needed to explore and my effort can move on to recording the album.

ja ~ Connor, from your experience so far, can you name three things you feel it is important for every 'emerging' artist to know, and three things that you think they should not worry so much about?

cm ~ I don’t really think I’m entirely qualified to give advice, seeing as I’m still working through it all myself, but there’s a golden rule I’ve picked up from some people who are much smarter than I am:

Believe what you do. Always. I listen to some pretty questionable music based solely on the fact that it’s passionate. With so much music to choose from, nobody has time for liars. Oh yeah, and don’t spam your mailing list, fuck that’s annoying.

ja ~ Hahaha, thanks so much Connor, can't wait for the album! (Week 5 was my favorite).

www.connor-mcguire.com