Iwan Gronow on Music

Independent musician Iwan Gronow, the bassist in Johnny Marr's band, has toured the world and played at festivals including Glastonbury, Coachella, and Fuji Rock, and appeared on Later with Jools Holland and The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon.  Iwan provides a perspective on his creative process and musical journey.

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Chapters

• 1:30 What inspired and attracted you to becoming a Musician?
• 2:22 Lesser Known
• 7:12 What does being a Musician mean to you?
• 30:29 On the Mind
• 34:21 How do you make the Invisible Visible through your Creative Process?
• 46:32 What are the key skills needed to be a Musician?
• 51:35 If you were 18 again and know what you do now, what would you do differently, if a tall anything?
• 55:21 What is your vision for the future?
• 58:58 Out on a Limb

Transcript

Roy Sharples: 0:07

Hello, I'm Roy Sharples, and welcome to the unknown origins podcast. Why are you listening to this podcast? Are you an industry expert looking for insights? are you growing your career? Or are you at your friend helping to spar your old pal on? I created the unknown origins podcast to have the most inspiring conversations with creative industry personalities and experts about entrepreneurship, pop culture, art, music, film and fashion. Today's topic is musicianship. I'm joined by independent musician, you and granola. The bassist and Johnny Mars bond has toured the world and played at festivals, including Glastonbury, Coachella and fusion rock and appeared on Later with Jools Holland. on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon. Hello and welcome Ewan How are you? I'm

Iwan Gronow: 0:58

Good, Thanks Roy

Roy Sharples: 0:59

What inspire and attracted you to becom ng a musician in the first p

Iwan Gronow: 1:03

I grew up in Cornwall. Around the time that I grew up. There was a lot of music around. My dad was also a musician. He was he was in a band called wolf boys. He was a singer and they were signed to rocket records. So he was he was always showing me new you know bands and I grew up with Hendrix and cream and all these bands and JJ Cale and he would he would put a lot of these vinyl records onto two cassettes for me. And then I would generally just listen to music in my room and he always had lots of guitars and around the house so I was always always intrigued by it. So I sort of took that in school really I'm

Roy Sharples: 1:52

really digging your new six track EP. This i"I went to limb" What does being a musician mean to you?

Iwan Gronow: 6:46

For me personally, it's everything. Yeah, you know, it takes it, you know, it takes over my whole life really the creative side is very important for me mentally as well to, to be able to put stuff down really to, to be able to write lyrics and put melodies down. And I think, you know, I think I'd probably be pretty lost without it and, and also the, you know, the playing side and the people I've met and who we're all you know, there's a lot of a lot of music friends that I know that we're all you know, that I'm very close to and all the people you know, obviously me john and Joe moss and all these people that have been with me for years really, and, and then meeting their people. It's always like a sort of a spider's web isn't it, as soon as you have one person that sort of goes on to other people, and they're all really close, you know, we've all we're all still close. And you have that connection as well you know, that the music connection and what you talk about and your friendship and it's just massively important. And I value those people as well and that they're very, very close to me. And same with my wife, Lauren, she's, she's close to a lot a lot of all the people have met free music and yeah, I you know, I couldn't live without it. Honestly, it's such a massive part of my life really. And it takes up takes up a lot of my time really and even even time when you're meant to be sleeping and your brains brains still thinking about a song or you know, you trying to get a lyric or trying to learn something and you know, you've not quite got got it quite right it's um Yeah, it does take take a lot of your time up

Roy Sharples: 8:53

really admirable that you discovered your creativity at a young age and you had obviously the influence of your dad and others arranger. And then you you obviously felt that passion and pursued that through the whole your life and to have so much meaning to yours is really inspiring, then took it upon yourselves to then migrate to Manchester. And I remember you mentioning before that you rocked up at your masters can adore what was the thought process behind that. And what why did you gravitate towards Joe?

Iwan Gronow: 9:23

Well, Joe, Joe used to come down to Cornwall to see a friend of his. And he, he, he would count go down, traveled down quite a lot. He loved it down. And he loved to see and he used to sit and watch the surfers and he he he just loved the whole vibe of Carmel really, and we sort of his friend said that there was a good band down there and he he slowly started to sort of introduce himself to us really and he never Really, he would come come back, and he'd come and see us and he'd have his holiday and he'd come back. And he, we, we slowly started to be be strong friends Really? Yeah, or less with him. And it was friendship first, he didn't, he didn't sort of put on the, you know, the manager side of things, you always sort of think that managers gonna say, I'm the manager of this, and I wrote themselves, you know, any younger, that seems sort of that's what you think, yeah. managers do. And he, he didn't, he didn't really do that he he sort of, we just got to got on with, you know, really well, and we'd have a drink, you know, drink wine and listen to music, and he would show us certain tracks. And he was working with a band called marine at the time, Phil Collins in Marino's who's, who's in? He's in New Order now is a good friend of mine that actually plays in the sea fever with us. So yeah, we, he, he was managing married at the time, and they were doing really well, I think they're on their second album, and it didn't, you know, didn't work out for them. But he, he never said that he, you know, he wanted to manage, he slowly built it up. And we built a friendship up. And then he started to come to gigs. And, and then he said to us, when it got to the point, he, his main thing was writing really said that, you know, you need to write as many songs as you can, and work out your sound, you know, work out what everyone did in the band, and, you know, work out everyone's strengths in the band, and then bring them all together, you know, as one Rooney. And he, he sort of nurtured it, he nurtured us as a band. And we, we started to write, at the time, we were kind of we were into our sort of heavy about, you know, like grunge into the grunge scene. So we would separate our set out, we would play some covers, and then we would start to play our own stuff as well. And it's, it was half and half, we slowly started to get rid of the covers, and then bring in a full set of our own stuff. And then when we got to that point, it was we were, it was time to sort of sort of say, you know, I wanted to make a big move. And he said, if you if you want to give it a go, you know, you want to try and, you know, make it your livelihood. He suggests you're moving to Manchester. And I think, I think at the time, he might have been a bit of a test, you know, in something to say, Well, he didn't push it on us. He just said it once he was very much like that. He would say something, not loads and loads, you say it maybe a couple of times, and then you would think about it and and one, right. Is he saying to to make that move. And he would let you leave it up to you really he wasn't. He wasn't pushy in that sense. And then it came to a point where we decided to do it. It took it took a while for us to sort of figure out how to do it. But there is a there's an opportunity, because there's a guy called Nathan Kemp. It's quite a story release code called Nathan Kevin that that. I don't know if you ever saw the saxophone in tip Street. Yes.Do you remember that? Yeah, there's like a big sculpture now from Kevin, from Cornwall. And he, he was putting that sculpture up at the time. I so he said to us, he, he knew that we were we were thinking of going to Manchester. And he said, there's a place there's a hotel called the dominion. We finished putting the saxophone up, there's a week there for you to just have that hotel room or just you just have to sneak it. So you just got to sneak in i'm not i'm i'm a bit unsure whether that was when we actually moved up or that was when I think that was when we moved up because then we got a flat after that. But we have to pretend to be the builders, sculpture. So we would create pain and there was far too many of us. You know, I don't think there was as many builders is it. And so we sneaked in. And we stayed there for a week. And then we slowly started to get a flat. But before we before we did that, we turned up at Joe's door doorstep, you know, we just knocked on his door and his family were there and I remember, you know, seeing Ivan and Ed and stellar and they were sort of hiding behind Go in. And and it was obviously they're pretty, not shocked. But they were like what's, you know what's going on there? Everything in the van and we just turned up. So even the dominium was when we were, we came up to have a look at Manchester maybe that was what we did first I think. And then we came back and then we started to figure out how to come up properly. And then the thing the second stage is when we turned up with jokes, and just not Tony's house, and he, I think he was pleased, but it was also what am I going to do with them? You know, we put everything in a van Gary's dad, Gary, the singer and dad drove us up. We put all our amps in there, we put like, do vaes pillow pillows and you know, everything that you owned, which wasn't much really for me. I think we signed off in Penzance. And then we've actually signed on in Stockport. So it was like, and that was it. We were we were sort of ready to go you know, we were ready to to make that step. And I think at first for Joe, it was a little bit a little bit of a shock but his his family as well, you know, because we stayed in in Joe's in Janet, Janet, his wife at the time we stayed stayed at the spare room right at the very top. And they were great. They were you know, we really got on well with them. And we settled in there and then we eventually I can't remember how long we stayed at Joe's for we eventually got a flat which was near in Eatonville. And we was just a lie to get into that flat because we had to lie that Gary and tell him the drummer were brothers and they were coming up to find work. So we were we there was no other way of doing it really. And we really needed the flat and we had to pretend there was only Gary and Tom in flat and then as soon as they settled in, we moved in means that not the guitarist moved in and we mean Tom stayed in one room and Gary not staying over. And we literally didn't have we had no money and there was one bed in each room so one of us would have sleep on the bed base not even have a mattress on it and the other one would have the mattress so possibly why my back so bad, I drew the short straw and got the bed base and Tom Tom got the mattress. So and eventually, when we started to get settled in, we started to you know, we were able to buy stuff that we were we were really skinny, we didn't have we didn't have anything really it was all about. It was all about music really we put everything into if it was any sort of any money made, we would we would buy recording stuff, we'd buy stuff like that. So, you know, the other stuff just didn't didn't matter to us, which, you know, not the most healthy way to live, but we kind of got through it. In the end.

Roy Sharples: 18:03

It's admirable that hustle that you can at heart and determination just to kind of make it then the perseverance and sacrifices you had to make along the way. How did Manchester itself when you move there, how did that influence your creativity?

Iwan Gronow: 18:17

Definitely because we a lot of the Manchester bands we we didn't know. We obviously heard of them, but we we didn't know much about and we weren't, we weren't really listening to to a lot of them. And we we just threw Johnny and Joe we discovered all all the Manchester scene and we loved it, you know, but we were we were kids were growing up in como that was a different sort of scene that really it was it's kind of a bit heavier. There was a lot of grunge stuff and industrial and metal stuff, really. But when we were younger that was that's what it was. It was a surf sort of skateboarding scene. So that's what everyone was sort of listening to really yeah. And so we knew of the bands, and we'd heard of them but we've not gone we've not gone into listen to you know, albums of you know, Smiths and doves and badly drawn by all these bands around time and when we when we started to go to night and day and Joe Joe was adamant that we spend a lot of time in night and day and we did we used to hang around there a lot and we started to meet these bands, you know Johnson and elbow were there and Joe would introduce us a lot a lot of these bands. So not only we we like learning about their the scene in Manchester. We were meeting some of them so you know which was which was amazing. Really, you'd be sat at the bar night and day and daymond might walk in Love a chat with you. And Joe would introduce you to guy, Garvey and all the the music, you know, do doing really well at the time. And then there was a big scene around night and day around that time, there was a lot of great live music, you know, some really, some really good bands. And we started to we were obviously we were very nervous we because it's completely different scene altogether. And we were actually quite when we first moved up, we were pretty scared at lunch just because it was we were so used to being by the sea. Yeah, you know, the city to us was, was very strange, you know, it's quite daunting. And parts of Manchester at the time. were struggling a bit as well. So we were, we were trying to sort of build a confidence out really but, but going into going into night and day and then starting to go to lots of gigs and then getting the flat and then us doing Donnie Donnelly who had the blue cat cafe. In heating more, we had a really good connection with him. We walk past the bar we used to, when we first moved in here and more we need to go to the pubs and we start meeting people and slowly started to get some friends around. And we bought fast Danny's and just looked in at that need saw that you had some bands in and we and we too. were too scared to go in there. You know, because we were quite young. And we've walked past looking in and thinking Well, there's a guide over a guitar there. So maybe we should you know, maybe we should ask him if he if he'd be up putting a bandaid on on a thing. One of us we sort of like pushed one of us to go in there because we were just so nervous. It was crazy, really to think of it now. And then eventually we we all went in there. And Danny was amazing. He immediately was like intrigued by what's this band doing in here, Morton from Cornwall. And we eventually get dinner. And we played in it all the time, you know. And then we ended up getting some work in there as well. We do split bar work and we rehearse around the back and use an agent because we've without him we would have would have had nowhere to play. And we had a really good sell thing because we could we rehearse on the back. And then we would try the songs out and slowly sort of built up before this was before we went into Manchester and Joe Joe said it was important to build up the song and build up the set and not go into Manchester too early. We were going into night and day and sort of showing the faces but we weren't. We weren't ready to get in early. We were sort of building up in heat and more. And then we eventually moved to moved into night and day and started doing a residency in

Roy Sharples: 23:04

creativity inspires urban development, which attracts Bohemians and artists, with the attraction of being exposed to innovative ideas, like minded people and innovations is more likely to happen than in rural areas. growing more creative, to these open minded modern and progressive communities and the culture and amenities that come with that by forming a social system with distinct values, attitudes, and feelings learned and transmitted from each generation. So much of it is about time, place and occasion. And then our way, the night and day coffee was your CV baby's name date, copy has always had that good reputation for pioneering live music and supporting kind of defines another call many bonds performance in the fledgling years in particular, many prominent bonds have passed through them such as Jessie J. Powell and CBN. Arctic Monkeys match with pictures, as well as providing the backdrop for joining miles Dynamo video, industrial cities with our maker and dual ethos such as Manchester, Detroit, Glasgow, have always had that industrial grit about them and an attitude and that creative aesthetic and identity that creates a certain look, feel and style the more exclusively to Manchester. It's the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution. Also, Manchester has been the main driving force behind the British independent music movement of the 1980s under Manchester scene but this point of your band's evolution, the wind is firmly in your sails. How did you engagement with Johnny Marr come upon Joe

Iwan Gronow: 24:54

money to Smith's for a period of time, and Joe and Johnny were very Very close. I think Johnny used to work for him in Joe seven, like a clothing store. And Johnny would go in a lot, a lot into the I think it was called crazy face. And they were very close. Very, very close. And Joe introduced us to Johnny really, when we when we started to get more involved, and then he started to Money, money, just I think we, we went over to Johnny's. I remember I think we were taken over a Hammond key dog and over to the left at a studio. So we, we drove it over. I think Joe drove over and we helped him take it over to Johnny's. And we we met Johnny from that really? And he he I think he might have been intrigued of us well, with the Cornish connection. Yeah. But, you know, his whole family him, Angie, and Sonny Niall, they were just great. Really, really nice. And we all clicked really we will. We will get on really well. And he, he was into he was into music we were making and we were we learn about, you know, he would show us a lot of music. And we learn more about the Smiths we sort of knew a bit more by then. And he was doing I think around that time as well. He was doing the healers stuff. Around the time of boomslang as rounds. That album, which is a brilliant album. And he we just got on really well. And I think he's we've known each other for about 20 years now. And he he's always just very inspiring. And he he did the he produced the first album when we got we eventually got a deal. We did. We I think we did six songs before we did between the senses. And and then we ventured in between the senses. And he he changed a lot of just the way we wrote and the way the way that album turned out some of the songs were completely different. And he we worked really, really well he worked really well with not who not wasting the guitarist, obviously, if they fill up connection and nuts, and that plays for Ben Howard now that and he he eventually moved back to Cornwall. But he he got me to sing he got I think Jackson's on the album. I think not even sings a bit on there. But he would he would push you he would be he would sort of bring out stuff that you didn't know that you had in the early days. That's how that's how I probably first started seeing him through doing BBs on the Haven that first day even open. And then I took that on sort of library, but he I would have probably just played bass. I mean, I wasn't. I wasn't really thinking about doing anything. It was quite strange. Really. I was just sort of, I didn't, I just didn't think I could sing really. So he really, he brought a lot out of all of us radios, there was loads of stuff. We learned about equipment, we learned about different bands, and we would go to see different bands, live bands, it it just sort of it opened, it opened us out all of us really we we around that time. Everyone was just wanting to write and we'd write together and then nothing go great together. We would do different bits. But everyone just was really inspired around that time. And that album has been writing I think there was another room where we wrote more tracks and we started to build up even more music and yeah, it was just it was an amazing time. And we were all you know, we were all really happy it was it was a great time we were starting to feel felt like I belonged in Stockport Manchester, we've started to feel more comfortable that that sort of we were getting more confident and we learn there's a there's a confidence in Manchester but we didn't really have and Jackie joined the band at this point as well. And he gave a huge confidence from being from Manchester as well so and he brought a lot to the band. So we kicked on from there. We started to change really and it was it was a great time it was just remember all those special The studio time we we'd spent late late nights recording and and the album did really well you know, we've we've still I mean, I haven't listened to it for a while I think I heard say something not too long ago and you know, I'm really proud of that album I think we're all really proud of it and it it taught us how to how to how to write and it taught us how to, to, to get involved with our instruments and singing it was it was a really good time segwaying into another song from uns WP This one is called on demand.

Roy Sharples: 34:26

The creative process, initiates and iteratively turns an idea into its final form, and brings it to life through a progression of thoughts and actions by applying creative and critical thinking and applied practical problem solving. In general, all musicians go through three phases. Dream make and do to transform their nascent ideas into music. You in how do you dream up new ideas and then develop those ideas into concepts and then turn those concepts into songs,

Iwan Gronow: 35:02

some songs will start differently. Sometimes I'll just try and try and put a beat up or Play, play around with some simple stuff or just play around with the drum machine on the laptop or, and just try and get an interesting rhythm. And you can sometimes start starts something from that. So you just got a bed of sample drums or drum machine or whatever and sometimes a bit, a mess around with the sound of it and change it. So it sounds a bit bigger. And then then or maybe start to put a guitar or a synth down. But it's generally different because some of the, some of the songs think in the mind, the first singular did started from the synth, a synth melody. And that sort of sticks all the way through really early, I think it only only got like two, two chords, or it only changes slightly in the chorus is not there's not loads of chords on it. And that was that was generally through a synth synth melody and a beat. And then then I'd sing on top of it sometimes is bare bones of chords, and then I'll get a rough melody. And then the words are usually just nonsense for the first for the staff, I think, I think in the Maya, who was in, in denial, it was loaded, loaded, it was you're in denial, or you're in the mind, we, I changed loads of words until eventually stuck on in the mire. And then once you get the sort of melody, a rough melody, I will generally resync it a few times and then change, change the melody slightly in here and there just so it's not to say me, and then then I'll probably I might even add an extra bit of music at the end, sometimes our blocks of music and then just just put them within the track or move them around or some sometimes some of the songs have like, out on a limb, which is on the EP, I mean, that was six minutes lat long. That's that is six minutes, but but it was it was nearly eight minutes, because it had so much stuff on it. But I'll put quite a lot of different, different sections and then I'll find out if it's too too much. And you have to be quite ruthless at the end, kind of delete a lot of stuff at the end, and then shrink it all down.

Roy Sharples: 37:44

Stanley Kubrick shot millions of reels of film, knowing that most of it would end up on the cutting room floor, like music making you assemble and refine different pieces to create a cohesive whole, which shows that the creative process can be half inspiration and half elimination. Other ones

Iwan Gronow: 38:06

like second guess was a guitar was an acoustic guitar part. And I just transferred it to a keyboard part. And that sort of got a full full kit on it that's just got to compete, you know, laptop like a drum machine on it. And my friend, Tom twin trembler, he does the he plays the drums, and then he mixes the songs. So what I'll do is when I get to a point that song is sort of nearly there of January, send it over to Tom and then he'll he'll work we'll look at drums or look on look on the revenue side and then we'll take it into hope mill studios. Yeah, and then do a day of drums. And sometimes we'll do five or six different rhythms. You know, we'll put a lot of stuff down and then and then we'll, we'll change it in the mix. And he's, he's brilliant. You know, he's a brilliant drummer and he and the initial start of all that music we did, we were writing bits together, we did some sort of instrumental stuff. And that's how I started really the whole like writing process. A lot of it was instrumental stuff and I would sing bV stuff on it, but I never really it's only since I'm trying to think how long it probably about three or four years, I've actually started to sing on stuff. It was all just ours and yeah, and I would never sort of, I'd never go to that next step really. I was I was too into the actual music side. So I was trying to write stuff for sync sync stuff, which is quite I mean, it's quite hard to get stuff synced. There's a lot of a lot of new musicians that are doing it. And I started off doing that. And we would do, we would do all sorts of different kinds of music, there would be like, members writing a track that was kind of like a was all classical or and it was all like I think it was called heavies, a crown named Tom put that together. And we did bits of trying to do different styles of music, we did like six tracks, and they're all completely different. One was quite cynthy, and one was stringy, and yeah, and we, we tried to get some, some sync stuff from that. And then I eventually decided to turn stuff in songs really, and started to sing and stuff. But I play the acoustic a lot I do, like, I do like playing a guitar and some of the most highest cymbals started off from a full acoustic guitar, a detuned acoustic guitar melody. And yeah, that was kind of that came quite fast, the lyrics came quite fast on that as well. But it's, it's very, it's very, you know, it's very different sometimes. And, I mean, you could, you know, you could work on a synth part, or you could work on a piano part. And then, if something clicks in your head, where you think you're thinking, it's, you can sing on it, or you can feel like something good is gonna happen, then you'll just start working on it, or sometimes you could start working on a section, it just doesn't work, and you leave it and you move on to something else. So it's all very, very rarely, it has been through throughout the EP. That was a lot of them, written quite differently. Really. Yeah, so it's the process is, it's just something that you think is going to spur you on to, to write a full song from it really

Roy Sharples: 42:03

sounds like you, you get frequently inspired by starting with a rhythm. Yeah, building building from there. And and then also, I love your point as well around, you know it like you're, you're rapidly experiment through doing or different instrumentation or applying different kind of techniques or thought processes, and then you're throwing everything into that, then you get to a point where you know, your point around the eight minute song down to the six minutes, where you've then got to start rapidly eliminating and being ruthless. Within that, yes, and being driven by being guided almost by the vision of the song. And how that then starts to play a way in dictating what should be in or what should be Oh, yeah,

Iwan Gronow: 42:47

I think sometimes. I will. Sometimes I think it always needs another section. And sometimes you don't, you know, you can I think we've lesson Oh, which was the first the focus track for the EP was very simple, I think it's actually got the same core, all the way through it. And it was the same with haven when we did say something that's got, I think that's got four chords, and it's the same all the way through sometimes. You know, you can try and over complicate things and, and if it's there, it's there. You know, you don't you don't, you know, you don't need to have two chords and stuff, but other songs is different, you know, other songs, you can go Oh, that'd be nice if it just went to this chord or, or if you can build it up, but it's all about the song Really? how well the melody works with it. Really? Yes. The stuff I've been doing recently with sea fever with Tom Chapman, Phil, Beth and Elliot has been there's been a lot of singing on top of music that's already been there which is which has been really good because it's totally different music to what I would normally not totally different but it's it's it's a different style. So your it will bring something up differently within your voice you kind of because you don't know the music as much. Yeah, you something happens something different will happen. You know, cuz you when you first like to send some stuff over and when you first hear it, your initial thing is just signal it straight away. And sometimes those initial melodies stick, you know, and sometimes you can't like sometimes because you put a bit of feeling in the first ever vocal you put down. It's hard to replicate it because you will you'll probably be singing different words. Yeah, and It'll be mumbling stuff, but there'll be something good about it. So you sometimes have to try and fit the words around your initial sort of melody. And that's, that's what's great about writing really, is divide. If, say, they told me to send something, I would listen to it, and then straight away, I'll put stuff down. And then sometimes it gets kept, you know, or I'll try and try and see if I can just attack the words and just try and get that same feeling. But with less than, or on the EP, for ages, I had had the melody, and I knew the melody, I was happy with the melody, but I just couldn't get the words it was taking. It took a long time that one because the melody I sang, I sort of live a bit too long, I think, and the word so I literally had to try and fit the words. And sometimes the words might not make sense, you know, but they're, they'll, they'll work with it, you know, the work the melody, and then the bit where it goes less than own was just a chant. And it didn't have any words. And so it, it was a bit of a struggle, that one it took, took me took me quite a while to get the match. That was the melody, I think, I think sometimes you can, when you're happy with the melody, you can sit with it, and you can listen back to it, but you can live with it for too long. Because you live with those, those nonsense words, that don't really mean anything, because you just put it down, and then you struggle is really struggle to try and fit fit words around it then. But other tracks like Chi symbol, the lyrics once I found Thai symbols about gambling. So once I found the subject, that was really those words came quicker than any of them really, they came. Because it was a subject, sometimes trying too, too hard to find the subject when it doesn't have to be a subject. It doesn't have to mean, you know, it doesn't have to make perfect sense. You know, it can just be what you're sort of feeling at the time really,

Roy Sharples: 47:18

making music is iterative and constant, encompassing idea, inception, concept development, orchestration of musical talent and instrumentation, bringing it all together and making it cohesive within a finished product. Ewan? What are the key skills required to be a musician,

Iwan Gronow: 47:38

I don't read music I learn. I did at one point when I was younger, learning piano lessons in just in Cornwall, and a sub regular piano lessons. But I didn't really take piano. I was more intrigued with the guitar. And I sort of fell away from learning. When I was going to piano, I was learning that I was learning how to read music, and I started to get into it. But I didn't, it didn't really stick with me really. I, I started, I moved on to the guitar. And I started to get more into sound really in learning. Learning stuff from cassette tapes, I said before, I think that my dad used to put these albums on audio cassettes for me, and I used to learn them, you know, I would try and work out the key and whether it was detuned or, and I did that when I was very young. And a lot of the time you get it wrong. But you'd get close to it. And my friend as well. It was the guitarist in New Haven he he was doing that as well. We were listening to some terrible stuff at the time, you know, we're listening to sort of like, metal and all sorts of stuff. But it was it was hard music, it was hard to play. So yeah, whether you liked it or not, it probably helped us to learn, you know, bass playing or guitar playing. And we would just sit and learn songs and they would be quite difficult some of them and we worked out, you know, detuned stuff. And we, yeah, we took that on to then for when we did grunge stuff. And then we did the indie side of things. It was a lot simpler because we'd already learnt this sort of technical music. So we we did it all from listening really from from listening to songs, and I mean, we weren't even I think a lot today you can do stuff on YouTube and loads of lessons on YouTube, but we would, we would listen to the music and that would be it when we sit there. To sit hours in my room, I mean, I was playing a lot of guitar around that point, but I'd be learning like Hendrix stuff, or JJ K, or all sorts of stuff, a lot of them band, you know, obviously band stuff 60s and 70s stuff and as well as all that sort of grunge scene and all that they do a bit of industrial stuff. And that's, I would, we would all know a lot of songs, and then we would then take them to the, you know, we take covers into the band, we play the covers, it'd be like, you know, ratings machine, and all that kind of stuff that was around the corner on a time raising machine pretty, we're a massive thing down there. So we would learn all this stuff, and we could play it all, you know. And it was hard, you know, a lot of it was hard to play, it was hard to, it wasn't easy stuff. And that, that in turn sort of helps you massively really you start to, you start to be able to go to your instrument and know where, you know, if you're going to wear an A No, is men, if you want to play an octave higher, or you want to, you started to know all this, this stuff without learning music, we didn't, we didn't learn any music, really, we, we did stuff with tab, guitar tablature and stuff like that, but we never got involved in, in learning music, we just, we did it all by ear, everything was by you know, we could we would be in a room and when someone started to play, you'd look at what key that are in or, and then copy it, and then start to add your own thing to it. So it was all by ears and eyes. Really it was, um, it was I think there's, I mean, there's quite a lot of musicians that have done it that way. But that was like the most enjoyable way. For me that's that's what I sort of fell in love with really fell in love with kind of being able to pick up stuff and learn songs. You know, I like

Roy Sharples: 52:10

how your points are and landing through intuition, observation and instinct. I also appreciate that by not being a C classically trained per se, probably opens you up to more experimentation on by not following a precise formula, but as one plus one equals three, and that you're finding and discovering how to how to make music at your own pace and in your own style. Looking at your rearview mirror, un, what advice would you give yourself? If you were 18 again today, and know what you do now? What would you do differently? If I told anything,

Iwan Gronow: 52:52

I wouldn't change anything that we were music wise that we were doing. I mean, there's a lot of stuff around that, you know, we were listening to stuff, probably, I might have changed my taste. You know, I might have I might have sort of maybe not listened to maybe so much heavier stuff. I mean, that some of the stuff was pretty bad. But it was like we were actually were a metal band at one point, you know, we were playing. We were playing metal songs, I probably I probably listened to some different music, perhaps. But it's hard to say because all that kind of the playing ability of that you have to be you have to know your instrument play that kind of stuff. So it didn't sound help. But it would probably be Yeah, probably changed to what I was listening to a bit I think, you know, I probably wouldn't have gone too much into that sort of side of things. But we weren't we did actually go through quite a range of music, you know, and then when we eventually moved to Manchester that it completely changed, you know, we there was all sorts of music and now even even today, I'm really just doing stuff with playing with different musicians. You know, the since the synth side of thing that I didn't really know about for a while, like it's probably only the last sort of seven years or so I've sort of been moved in to sort of learning bits about sim stuff and combining it with with the guitar side as well because I started on the guitar and then sort of fell into bass playing really when, when we were younger with the we had too many guitarist in the band. So we ended up playing bass and then I was thinking of singing at the point that I was when we were going through heavy stuff. And I stopped singing for a long while and because Gary joined the I'm with haven. And then we I just concentrate mainly on sort of bass playing and BBs. Really? Yeah. But I wouldn't, I don't think I'd change anything about the the upbringing side of growing up round in Cornwall, because I think if we didn't have that, if we weren't doing all this bands that, you know, we were obsessed with doing band stuff, you know, we were obsessed, playing all the time. And we didn't, I mean, I didn't even take music at school. But we would play assemblies at school, and we play, you know, we would play the violin, or songs or maybe heavy metal stuff in in assemblies, because our music teacher was great. I think it's called Miss forever, he would the classroom was opened, you know, you could go in there at lunchtime, and you could play the guitar or play the bass or whatever, and do that in your lunch times. But I didn't actually take music, I would just hang around the music, you know, and take it outside and mean that would play stuff in, you know, we would burn stuff in a home and stuff. And then and then take it to the practice room. And so that side of it, I wouldn't change, maybe just my taste of it.

Roy Sharples: 56:25

So looking forward, what's your vision for the future of music?

Iwan Gronow: 56:31

Well, I think I think a lot of a lot of live stuff especially is going to be more focused on on online, you know, which, obviously, because of everything that's happening at the moment, that's, that's gonna, that's going to change things quite a bit, I think until everyone can start playing live again. I think there'll be a lot of visual, more visual stuff to do music. I mean, obviously, there's, there's videos, and we'll probably do a video and stuff like that. But I think there'll be more creative sides. I think a lot of musicians will be trying to learn stuff visually as well, you know, putting videos together and putting online performances together. So I think, I think that is probably going to be the future. For the time being until everyone can start playing live. Myself, I would, you know, I've just been keeping writing really. And hopefully soon we'll be doing some Johnny's writing at the moment. So hopefully we get together to do a bit of recording the plan is next year hope to do some gigs really. But we don't know it's it's all completely up in the air. So but my plan personally is just to keep to keep writing really and to keep to keep busy. You know, you have to recently I've had a bit of a gap from it just to have a sort of break from it after the the EP Yeah, got released, we did a lot of sea fever stuff. A lot of recording. So I've had recently just had a bit of a break from it. But I'll be starting up again soon. And hopefully we'll be going back in studio Johnny at some point. But as I say it's a little bit it is it's hard to say at the moment is very unknown, but I just think a lot of stuff is going to be based around a visual aspect with bands. I think they can just be a lot of online stuff. So it turns real geeks perhaps. Well, you know, I think that sort of there's there are a lot of bands of God stuff but Tim, but I don't suppose any anyone knows to they really so that's the that's the Yeah, that's the problem. Really. It's fingers crossed that that there are you know that especially for smaller venues that there there are the venues there to play thing. The problem is, there'll be a lot of recorded music, which is great as does not, it's never a bad thing to have lots of releases. But then when the time comes for the light live scene to come back then there will also be a lot of bands wanting to play in the same places. So I think first off, it will probably be a bit of a struggle for for for a lot of musicians, but then I think it will sort of start to get back on its feet. That's the that's the big hope really

Roy Sharples: 1:00:02

guiding us into the future is the signature song from Iwan's new EP "Out o To stay in touch with you and go to his website at you and go no.co.uk and also on social this Twitter and Instagram handles our view and gone over. That is Facebook is you and grown old music You have been listening to the unknown origins podcast. Please follow subscribe, rate and review us. For more information go to unknown origins.com Thank you for listening