Hailing from a town in South West London, Luke Sital Singh is an emerging talent singer songwriter, his music was featured on Grey’s Anatomy and he was also featured on the BBC’s Sound of 2014 longlist, his debut album is released in August 2014.
Music News met up with him at Irish music festival, Bushmills Live for a chat.
Are you excited about to today, have you ever performed in a venue like this before?I am excited, I’ve never played in anything like this, I’ve done a few kind of odd venue type things, like museums and cinemas. It’s quite cool when there’s an extra little thing going on, rather than going to a dirty, dank club again where there’s no window light. Coming out to Northern Ireland is always fun! It should be a really cool show, I’m a fan of Bushmills whiskey…
Are you nervous about today, being in a different kind of venue?Not yet, I tend to get nervous at all gigs, about half an hour before. It’s when I want to get going and then things get delayed. I’m not very nice to be around the half an hour beforehand, and then I go up and everything’s perfect, because that’s the place I feel most alive and then immediately afterwards I’ll be criticising myself.
Do you do any rituals before you go on stage?My ritual is to forget to warm up my voice that seems to be it!
The name Luke Sital Singh, is unusual, is it your name or a stage name?It’s my name! My actual weird surname, don’t ask me too much about it! My Dad’s side is Indian origins but back a few generations from India, via Jamica via…London and my Mum’s sort of Welsh…
You’ve been compared to the likes of Bon Iver and Ben Howard, how does that make you feel?I dunno, it’s nice in a sense to be compared with them, with people I like. Especially Bon Iver, I mean a Bon Iver comparison kind of starts and ends with the song ‘Fail for You’ which I wrote. I was heavily into Bon Iver’s first record at the time, the layering of the vocals and the harmonies, so I was playing and practising with that kind of thing in my bedroom. I quickly wrote the song and started playing about. The original recording is thirty different tracks of me singing along and that was literally me trying to copy him, just for my own enjoyment. But actually it was kind of a good song, and that was the one that kicked me off! The version that I recorded, in my bedroom, is the version that’s going to appear on the album.
English singer/songwriter LUKE SITAL-SINGH delights the crowd at Bushmills Live 2014, the festival of handcrafted whiskey and music that took place on Thursday 12th June at the Old Bushmills Distillery on Ireland’s north coast.
Being here at Bushmills Live, is this your first time on the festival circuit?No, it isn’t, last year was my first time, when I was doing festival's most weekends and stuff and then this year, everything has kicked up a gear with Glastonbury, Latitude and things like that. This year it’s definintely more, festivals every weekend, sometimes even two or three! It’s good fun, when you’re on a normal tour as great as it is. The venues are often dark and dank and they can be quite ominous. Lots of the festivals are on really nice sites, all outdoors and you can enjoy the sunshine.
In September you have your upcoming tour in the UK, where are you looking forward to performing most?I don’t think I’m going anywhere for the first time, London will always be the big one, they’re always very memorable. Scotland is always good, they’re really into it. I did a festival in Nottingham a few weekends back, they were amazing. They were singing back the words, more than I’ve ever had, it threw me a bit.
You’ve got your album coming out ‘The Fire Inside’ on August 18th, is it finished? Yeah it’s finished! I can’t really tweak it anymore, once it’s gone up on iTunes for pre-order, I can’t do much! I’m really excited that it’s there and actually coming out. You hear horrible stories of people who make records and for some reason it never actually comes out, it’s been announced and it’s there, so I think right, it’s going to come out. I can’t wait, I feel like I’ve been walking up to this point for a long time.
Is there a particular song on the album you’re most proud of? Are there many new tracks that fans won’t have heard before? Well the album is half and half, part new stuff and part old from the three EPs that I’ve released. So that is already 12 songs, which is also the length of the album, it was important to me to approach the album as an album. It seems that some people just seem to put out all their EPs smudged together with two new songs and call it an album but that just feels a bit cheap and not great for the fans. Then the album doesn’t really say anything. With the album it’s a good balance, there are some great songs that I’m really proud of and strong songs froms the previous EPs.
There’s a song called ‘21st Century Heartbeat’ which I’ve started to play in my live shows, it was a very late addition. We didn’t really capture the definitive recording and it was very late in the day we decided to give it another try, that’s one that I’m really proud of. Then there’s ‘Nearly Morning’ which people will have heard, it was on the last EP, that was a sort of demo version. We’ve really cleaned it up a bit and done it again for the album. I’m really proud of those. It’s like picking your favourite pet!
I think it’s good, I think it’s all good! (Nervous laugh)
Luke’s album ‘The Fire Inside’ is released 18th August on Parlophone Records.www.lukesitalsingh.comFacebook.com/LukeSitalSinghMusicTwitter.com/LukeSitalSinghMusicBusmills Live is an intimate festival attended by 700 music and whiskey fans from around the globe and was headlined by breakthrough British band THE 1975 with artists including Gary Lightbody and Peter Buck’s supergroup TIRED PONY also on the bill. Bands more used to playing to crowds of thousands performed a series of small gigs in centuries-old buildings at the Old Bushmills Distillery where the art of whiskey-making, perfected over generations, is practised every day. Share Bushmills responsibly.
www.drinkiq.com
