Greywind - 2000 Trees Interview

My name is Paul and I play guitar in Grey Wind. Yeah man, we're at 2000 trees. Uh, have you guys played here before? 2017. It's a long time. It's been worth the wait, like. That's wonderful. And do we catch you midway through festival season? What are you guys up to at the moment? To be honest, we've been busy, we've been in the US for the last two months. Incredible. So yeah, this year we've toured with water parks, toured the US for two months, for Tonight Alive, just announced the September. With it as it is. I'm at 2000 trees today, so it's been a great year so far. Happy days and uh looking forward to set tonight's in the forest stages, you know, I've always seen like how beautiful it looks in photos, and it's, it's hot as hell today and we're gonna be in shade. I feel like our music is cinematic and will suit a beautiful forest, so we're very excited for it. It really is, and uh yeah, you haven't played 2000 Trees till you've played that forest or you've been to that forest. Excited. It does make this festival unique. Hell yeah. Uh, what's your favourite song on the set tonight for you guys? We're playing some new songs live tonight, so this song called Make Believe Love Me. We played it in rehearsal for the first time yesterday, and it was great in rehearsal, so hopefully it's great tonight as well. So that's good, that's exciting, and for those that aren't aware, how would you describe your sound? What are you trying to put into these songs? I think it's like cinematic Irish emo. I feel like we like. We're from the south of Ireland, a small town called Killarney. There's no scene where we are from, and like we're like 4 hours from Dublin, so, so we've always been creating our own, own little world, and that's what our music does. We like to create our own little world and people get lost in it, and so we're very lucky to be building a beautiful fan base, yeah. And sometimes being a little bit isolated can lead to a lot of creativity. Definitely, like we live in a like small town surrounded by these mountains, lakes, castles. It feels like we're in an episode of Game of Thrones. So it's always, we always bring that into our lyrics as well, so yeah, we feel very lucky that we live in a beautiful place. Are there are places in the town that say, oh this was on Game of Thrones definitely, and it, it maybe wasn't, I pretend it. Maybe it wasn't. Um, so tell me, how did you get started on guitar and what was your first song you learned? I think everyone's answer will probably say good riddance. OK, that's that's a popular one, maybe not the first one, but it's yeah, Good Riddance was the first song, but I. I remember like watching, like growing up loving like Thrice and Mike Hem and Blink, and it always looked so technical. I was very overwhelmed at first, and then I remember like Thrice became one of my favourite bands, and I remember watching Dustin K play acoustic, and I was like, this man is an incredible guitarist, and he's playing basic chords doing acoustically, and it gave me so much confidence of like Dustin can do what he wants, but he's still playing these beautiful simple chords, and it made me be like, oh my God, it inspired me to write our first ever songs. First, our first ever song Afterthoughts, was written with like those 3 chords, came to life, so yeah, and now I'm playing 2000 T3s. That's exciting. I've interviewed the Thrice guys and they definitely seem to, I mean they've been going a long time, so they started off very fast, but they have this mix of heavy and cinematic. Exactly, one of our biggest inspirations. We played with Thrice a couple of years ago, like one of our first ever shows we ever played was with Thrice in London, so yeah, one of our biggest inspirations. That's wonderful. And uh how did. This start as a songwriting journey for you? It's all well being inspired by Thrice, but you gotta come up with something. When, when did you start to sound like you guys rather than just sound like your heroes? To be honest, it was like that first song like we've always, like we've always grew up like listening to these bands, but our, it's like a sad story, but our uncle committed suicide and it kind of like our dream was always to be a, be in a band, but it's just me and my sister, but we could never find any other musicians, like we're the only emo's in town. So one, when that event happened, it kind of woke. up and be like we can't wait anymore and we wrote that song like dealing grieving and then our debut album is like basically 10 songs of us grieving like that and it just brought us to life and like that dark moment has like changed everything for us from like but yeah it's been a crazy journey since. That's the power of music though, right? It is, it's therapeutic, it's healing and it gets out a lot of things that words can't express or at least just 100% it's like some people go to therapy, like some people write songs. Absolutely and perform them though the act of performing them is as cathartic. That's my favourite thing like, like we were saying like a couple of songs we're playing for the first time today and I'm like we wrote them in dark times and now we're going to sing them in the forest on a beautiful day, so we feel very grateful. So tell me about this, you're in a band with your sister, siblings, like they're a lot of the biggest bands in the world ever have a a you know, brothers connection or more often than these days it's starting to be brother and sister, but it it it was. You know, Angus and Malcolm, AC DC, so many Oasis, so many of my favourite, the sibling rivalry. How did that go with you guys, especially when it's a, so when you're in like high school, not the coolest thing to be in a band with your sister, is it? But suddenly it's cool. It feels like, like we've always loved the same bands, the same movies, so even songwriting, when I come up with something, I just know that she's gonna get it and like we're always on the same page about even like with aesthetic to artwork to music. Music videos, like it's always been, we've always been on the same page. I think that's what, why siblings and bands work, so cause like sometimes that's why lots of bands break up because they don't have that connection, like, so it gives you to, yeah, uh this kind of ruined that point, but. No, but they, they always come back, they always come back. And uh that's the family tie. When we're talking about the instrument, what challenges you've ever had on guitar and how do you overcome them? What does that bring to mind? To be honest, I just. I, I just play to my strengths, just simplify it, I think a lot of people, I don't know, when you grow up and you're like, oh my God, look how technical that person is, it doesn't mean you have to do that. Find a style of guitar that you want to do, even like songs that you love and stuff or like who's inspired you, and sometimes the most, a song that sounds technical really isn't, so. But yeah, just find your strength and just play to them and just, yeah, and learn hammer runs and flick offs. But yeah, with the cinematic sounds as well, are you using pedals, is that more a studio thing? Like I'm using a camper, but yeah, I used a dual rectifier and an orange cap and everyone laughed me out of every venue, they're like, what are you doing? I'm struggling up the stairs, but, but I've used a camper for the last 2 years and it's a game changer, especially with us, like we've been touring America a lot, so it makes sense. Flying a lot easier, so, but yeah, that's what I've been using. And what guitar are you playing? I've, Gibson has given me an SG for today's show. Gibson, thank you so much, so, so yeah, I've been using um I use it for the first time. We support Tonight Alive a month ago in London. It was my first time ever using a Gibson guitar and it felt beautiful and so yeah I'll be using it again today. Dustin Kue. Well like he's one of my guitar heroes, and I remember that cherry SG he had growing up, so, so yeah, I'm, I'm copying that, man. That's exciting, and if there was one song by your band, everyone watching this video should learn, which one would you say it would be? Waterfall. Waterfall. It's a future emo. Classic, when you hear it you'll know, you'll know. Right, so quickfire round this or that. Um, music or lyrics? Lyrics. Which is what uh I'm saying which is more important to you, why lyrics? You're the one of the few guitarists that have ever said lyrics, so I'm gonna say I think. Cos it can, you create your own world. My big, my favourite thing is when someone comes up to me it's like you trans those lyrics took me somewhere, they transported me, so that's why we pour, like I pour everything into the lyrics, so that's my favourite thing. A lot of my favourite bands now, I only got into them from learning the lyrics. I love it. I will say, it's one of those things. Um, major key or minor key? Minor. Val Vamor Aun Modler. Camper, I don't know, um, um, um, album or single? Album. What's your favourite album of all time or an important album to you that, uh, Sad Heart City by grey Wind. Ah, nice, very good. Uh, rhythm guitar or lead guitar? Rhythm guitar. Studio or live performance? Live performance. Even though you have all these cinematic sounds. It's like bringing it to, I don't like seeing people's faces sing back your song, there's no better feeling in the world. It's only finished when you perform it, when an audience hears. Exactly. A big riff or big chorus? Big chorus. A lot of big singalong chorus. practise or talent. practise. yeah, I don't, oh, that's a good. What are you thinking of? I'm thinking of myself, like I, I'm just naturally talented. No, uh, prac practise. You wish you could do it without no, the thing is, my mind's kind of torn because I'm in a band with my sister and we, cause it's just the two of us, we have no musicians where we're from, so I don't practise that much. But you must have put your hours in to be able to do what you do. And I guess the trick is not to make it feel like practise practise, even when you're listening to a lot of these bands like Thrice, like you're actually working your mind and and sometimes you listen to like I would like dedication is my answer. And you're also immensely down to music theory or ear training. Ear training, what does ear training mean to you? I just make it up as I go along. But again, I like, I listen, what's the best way to say it, I don't know music theory, like I just, like I said, just used to watch my favourite bands on YouTube, what chord is he playing and just make it up as I go along, so yeah. If I can do it, you can too. I, that's it, me too, to be fair. er best final question, be the best musician in the room or the best songwriter in the room. Best songwriter in the room. Why? Um, because it's in my, it, I don't, I feel like it's all about the song at the end of the day. It doesn't matter how fast or how good you are at guitar if no one remembers how good your song is, so you gotta have the material, right, exactly. Absolutely, great Wynn, thank you so much for chatting with us. We'll see you later on, I'm looking forward to it.