SEM student releases new album
Alternative four-minute pop from North West England. Stories of reflection, contentment, politics, mistakes, assisted dying, arranged marriage, optimism, loss – they’re all here
We spoke to Vincent Priest about his career so far and asked him about his plans for 2019.
Congratulations on completing the album! Can you tell us a bit about the ideas behind it and whether anyone in particular inspired the recordings?
Thank you. There’s nothing particularly conceptual here. The songs are a collection of stories and ramblings based on personal experience, and also the experience of others, from a third-person perspective. I’d read and heard some interesting real-life, and sometimes heart-rending stories that really intrigued me and inspired me to get in character with them.
Your songs feature a variety of instruments. Do you record them live? Can you tell us a bit about your recording process.
Many of my songs seem to lean towards orchestral instruments. I try not to use them incongruously, or for the sake of it though. On this record I play all the guitars, bass and do all the vocals live, as it were. One of the most satisfying parts for me is arranging vocal harmonies and them actually working! I composed and played the piano/keys parts on it too, but most are tightened and tidied up accordingly via MIDI. The process is quite simple. Dream up a tune. Get the idea down before it’s forgotten. Embellish and lavish it with appropriate sounds. Spend days, weeks and months mixing it!
What were your initial reasons for choosing to study Complete Music Production at SEM?
I’d recorded a couple of albums previously, in a recording studio. After the first one, the engineer helped me with a home set-up, so that I could record ideas. The second one was then recorded half at home using Logic, half in the studio. After that, I wanted to know more about how DAWs work, how to use compression, EQ, other effects etc. more effectively, and just how to get more out of the software with a view to doing everything myself from start to finish.
I wanted to know more about electronic instruments and the way they work as I love the sounds they can make, and I felt I could incorporate them in some of my songs and compositions.
A music production course seemed the way forward. I was a little wary of doing the course at first, me being a more mature student, shall we say, but it worked out well, I learned a lot from it and I met some cool people on both sides of the desk. Age should never be an obstacle.
Were you doing music before you studied the course?
Music has been in my blood from a very early age.
I remember being in a pram listening to Penny Lane by The Beatles and Dedicated To The One I Love by Mamas & Papas on the radio and thinking, ‘wow, this feels good on my ears’. I went through the 70s & 80s listening to the likes of 10CC, ELO, XTC, Prefab Sprout and The Waterboys, all real masters in the art of songwriting. I had, and still have, a decent day job and that probably stifled me from taking the plunge into trying to be a serious writer/performer myself. Do I regret it? Yeah, a little. Well, quite a lot actually!
I’ve written a lot of songs but recorded only around forty or so. When ‘Vee P’ reaches cult-classic status, I’m going to release the rest all at once!
Future plans for the Vee P project?
I narrowed this album down to ten songs and around forty minutes intentionally. I think that’s the right amount of songs and time to entice people to have a listen. It could’ve been twice as long, realistically.
I have another ten or so songs that I recorded, or part-recorded during this phase, and I could polish them and put them out too. Closure, in a way. I think they’re up to a similar standard as the ten on the album, but then I would, I guess!
Will you be performing live?
I’d love to play the songs live, but it’s finding the time and the people to do it.
It’d be good to get some musicians together and make some kind of short film featuring live performance of some of the stuff, along with a narrative. Apply here, film-makers!
It would be a shame to leave them behind before I move on to pastures new. Those pastures will probably involve an alter-ego and some instrumental, abstract, ambient stuff before Vee P returns with some more alternative, four-minute pop.
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