Band Interview: Liam Naughton and The Educators
Games, Brrraaains & A Head-Banging Life are pleased to bring you an interview with guitar rock artist, Liam Naughton.
1. How did you get started as a band?
I’d been wasting my time for years, enjoying my time but not being very productive. Just doing the work hard (not really) play hard thing. Musically, my get of my arse moment was when Danny Murphy hit the play button on Harvest Moon in the background at work. When it finished I asked “Can you play that again?”. I thought it was brilliant, the way Neil Young put down his lyrics. After years of bullshitting myself I bought a guitar and practised 4 hours a night, 6 hours on weekends for 6 months straight (No I’m not going out tonight), very disciplined. I started writing soon after I moved from Ireland to Perth Australia in 2004 and things developed from there, recording and then getting a band together to support releases. Now I’m feeling very lucky to have great musicians to work with in Australia and Europe
2. How would you describe your sound?
The general sound of the band is 90’s guitar rock. My Cornerstone EP was a bit softer with some orchestral instruments playing a part but Leaning In and Cut On A Cut have a straight up rockier guitar sound. I don’t want to pigeon hole myself into a particular sound though. It just so happened that the songs I chose for Leaning In and Cut On A Cut leant themselves to that type of sound. Other songs we tried didn’t seem to fit that rockier sound; I left them out or else the records would have sounded a bit staggered. It’s all about the flow man!!!
3. What bands/artists would you say have influenced your style of music?
Mmmmh…. I have a wide spectrum of interests. We’re products of our environment right. My dad was big into classical and opera, my mum more the mainstream radio so I grew up with those. As I got older I went more for the rock / alternative genre but I’ll take any snippet from any genre that’s good. I’m open to anything that sounds good. Am I going off the point? OK, bands that I thought were great and set themselves apart from the crowd; unique acts like The Beatles (from ’66 on), The Doors, Neil Young, Johnny Cash, Nirvana, Radiohead have influenced me to do what I like rather than what I think people will like to listen to.
4. Has the rise of YouTube & music streaming helped or hindered you as a band?
I would say hindered because A&R reps, radio reps and that were once upon a time very active in the local scenes and all the buzz was around whats on and where tonight. With the rise of digital platforms, everyone seems more inclined to stay in. They’re peppered with the mainstream. I mean, you can’t watch anything now without being distracted by pop-ups of the hottest mainstream acts. So it like the live scene isn’t what it once was and it’s dying. People often say to me, “Ahh you can get yourself on utube”…yeah that’s great, but anyone can, anyone can get on Spotify so whether you’re good or you’re shit you’re on there and a very small needle in a very big hay stack. Lost in the crowd a bit I’d say.
5. What do you enjoy doing when you’re not making music?
My 3 big interests in life are music, sports and science. If I’m not writing, actually I’ll drop that too to go watch a good game of rugby. I grew being a big sporty head but I’m more of a watcher these days cause my ankles are shot from old sporting injuries. They don’t even look like ankles anymore. I‘ve got 4 knees. I can also spend hours thinking about the wonders of the universe, looking into Einstein’s theories or how they developed from the great thinkers that went before him. I find all that fascinating. Outside the box thinkers. Darwin’s evolution of life all that stuff. I think if people stopped to think that we’re only floating thru space we’d all be more chilled. We don’t even know where we’re going.
6. What are your future plans musically? Tours?
I had taken a year off my day job to move to the bright lights of London, hook up with Cameron (our lead guitarist) and launch an assault on the Irish and UK music scene. I mean, what better place to test your wares against all of the up and coming acts in one of the main centres for music. I wasn’t fazed either, I felt that I had some good horses in my stable and was ready to bang some doors down. I’d a bunch of shows lined up so what could possibly go wrong????
Holy Fuck, for once I didn’t derail my own train, Covid-19 did it for me. The pandemic showed me though that you could get good work done without being in the same country. To finish off the Cut On A Cut EP it was an international collaboration with Cameron Hayes (our lead guitarist) in a London studio, me in a Perth studio (returned to Perth cause of the pandemic), producing and mixing in London with The Animal Farm and mastering in Sydney. So touring now is a bit hard to plan with this virus still flying around, border closures and God knows what’s next.
I have another album ready to go so I’ll get a home recording studio and get some quality demos done. Not sure if I’m going to get a producer involved this time or not but could be good to go in a different musical direction.
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