OOC: Thought I'd try something a little different here. It was quite fun to write. If anyone else wants to do one, we could continue this thread and I can just change the title as and when we need to :)
Kerrang! Presents: The Songs That Saved My Life! With Mark Talley (Blood of Wecz/Mark Talley)Mark Talley is a strange sort of star. After spending years in the background with Blood of Wecz, playing second fiddle to the enigmatic ego that is Scott Rose-Hilton, the guitarist showed everyone what he could do when his debut solo single (Silver Linings) hit number one in the charts. After a successful headlining tour with PURE, the 25-year-old has now returned to his day job as the guitarist with one of the biggest success stories in the history of metal. With the end of 2013 marking the end of that chapter of his life, however, and drawing "a very definitive line" under the Blood of Wecz story, Talley is set to fly solo once more in 2014. With a new found style and swagger, and his rock star image, which has only been enhanced by his newly-announced relationship with pop star girlfriend Nadia Berry, Mark Talley could be the name on everyone's lips in the new year. Kerrang! spoke to the future from the past about his favourite tracks from different moments in his life, songs that have influenced him and those that have brought him to the point in his life where he sits today.
Vital statisticsName: Mark Talley
Age: 25Band: Blood of Wecz/solo artist
Instrument(s): Guitar, bass guitar, piano, vocals
Genre(s): Death metal, indie rock
Quote: "I learned the hard way that I was worth a whole lot more than I thought. It's sort of typical for me to do things in reverse like that. I'm like the politest rebel you've ever met."
The first song I remember hearing was....Johnny Cash - Ring of FireSeems like a bit of a cliché to choose a Johnny Cash song for this one, but it has real memories for me. My grandfather was a fantastic singer. Really great, and I remember he would always put his records on on a Sunday when we would visit. It's between this and some Rat Pack stuff for the first song I can remember. The memories are a bit, well hazy, it was a few years ago after all. But I think the one I remember my grandfather singing more than anything was this one. It still brings those memories back for me, and I still love it because of that, even though it's far from being the best Cash song. Other things from around that time I recall - bear in mind my grandfather had quite an eclectic music taste - includes the likes of Status Quo, Pat Boone, Dean Martin and even ABBA. My grandfather loved ABBA to the extent I can't hear them much these days without tearing up. Yeah.
My favourite song at school was....Blink 182 - The Rock ShowOooooh...tough one, because I went through a lot of different phases at school. I think I need to choose Blink, though, because they were like the soundtrack to early teenage life living on the west coast of America. I mean, the American Pie movies were packed with their tracks, and I think songs like Rock Show and What's My Age Again just gave kids of my age like an identity and a bit of a pseudo-rebellious cult, if you will, to grab onto. We thought we were punks, headed out with our baggy pants and our skateboards. None of us could skate, but we'd sit on them and, you know, dream of one day playing at Warped Tour. I don't think this was what influenced me to get into music, but it certainly led me towards some of the heavier and more alternative music that I got into later. I think we all need that sort of transition band, and Blink were that for me. I feel like I should try listening to them again sometime. I haven't in years (laughs).
The first song I ever learned to play was....The Verve - Lucky ManI think in reality it was Smells Like Teen Spirit, but if everyone you ask that question to answers truthfully, we'd most likely all say Smells Like Teen Spirit, so I'm jumping to the next one. This wasn't a personal choice for me to learn this track. When I started guitar, I think I was about 8 or 9. It's a bit of a strange notion to be learning to play music when you have no real love for it. What I mean by that is that there are none of us who were massive music fans when we were 8/9 years old, we just listen to what our parents like. This one was a song chosen by my guitar tutor, Mark, though. He was a good tutor - he would leave sports on in the background (I guess he had some misconception I liked sports) and he let me go at my own pace. I think that's an important part of the reason I never burned out and got fed up of playing guitar. Lucky Man was a perfect starter though. There are like.....four chords in it - G,D,A,E,Am, five actually then. It's still a really cool song, though, and I still catch myself mindlessly strumming along to it these days. Good tune.
The saddest song I've ever heard is...Ugly Kid Joe - Cat's in the CradleNot the original version of this song by any means, is it, but this is a song I grew up with, and as I got older, I found it getting sadder and sadder. I am and always have been insanely close to my dad, and I grew up hearing a lot of Ugly Kid Joe, he loves them. I used to count this as my favourite song, because to me, it was a song about a guy whose dad is proud of him, and my dad was always telling me how proud he is of me. He still does as well (laughs). As I got older though, and I started to leave for tour and stuff, I would hear the song differently, and it reflected the relationship I had with my dad as well. The part where it sings...give me a second..(sings) "I've long since retired and my son's moved away, I called him up just the other day. I'd like to see you if you don't mind, he said I'd love to dad if I could find the time." That hits me right in the old strings every time, it reminds me of the time I first left home to tour, realising I couldn't see my dad as often as I did growing up. We still talk on the phone often, but obviously this song is something really reflective of relationships over time. If I need a good cry, this is what I'm spinning, for real. It will never fail to get to me.
The song that makes me want to dance is...Arctic Monkeys - I Bet You Look Good on the DancefloorI'm quite a reserved guy as people know, and because I don't drink, my curiosity about the world of dance has never really been explored. Were I to ever dance, though, this would definitely be the track I would dance to. I love that guitar intro, and if I was at a wedding where a DJ played it, you could look out for a trail of chairs strewn everywhere in my wake. Arctic Monkeys are normally my chill out band, the ones I turn to when I want to just sit back with a cigarette and a coffee and shut out the world, but there's something about the energy, the youthful energy (I think they were teenagers when they wrote this) that just makes the extrovert in me want to burst out and start dropping some shapes on the dancefloor. I also forever love the fact that Alex Turner, at the start of the video for this song, says "don't believe the hype," talking about the way everyone was talking about his band. Looking back, turns out the hype was right. Aside from this one, I think generally anything by the Smiths would get me dancing. Who doesn't love This Charming Man? Again, just let me hear that steely guitar intro and I'm off. If I ever danced, I feel like I'd dance like a geeky Elvis. Buddy Holly.
The song I first fell in love to was...The Cure - Friday I'm in LoveI'm going to lay the blame for this one firmly at the door of my mom. I was shy and retiring when I was a teenager, so speaking to girls was something of a no-no...in fact it was the same until I was about 22, but that's a side issue. In the lead up to my senior prom, my mom set me up with this girl who lived on our block. I was shit nervous to go out with her, but my mom forced me, and she would lend me her car to make it go more smoothly. Girls like a dude with a car apparently. She had this old Corvette...1984 I think...and because I was a bit too nervous to talk, I would put the music on too loud. The only single she had in the car was this song by the Cure. Anyway, I gradually got closer to this girl and it was vomit-inducingly poetic that after prom we kissed for the first time in my mom's Corvette with Robert Smith's haunting tones serenading us. Aside from that, I just love the tune. It's not your typical love song, but it has a timeless sort of edge to it, and it really still makes me tap my foot. I'm sure I have it somewhere in my house on vinyl as well. Great song. I want to listen to it now.
The song I wish I had written is....The 1975 - The CityUltra-modern eh? Not like me. This album only came out earlier this year, but it has blown me the hell away. I had heard a few snippets of this band here and there, and I wasn't all that impressed, but then someone got me a ticket for their show when I was over in London. Naturally I bought the album, and the first time I heard this song, I was just freaking out. From the first time those drums kick in, the electro influences, the throbbing of that bass line, and the kid's voice. Man, that song. It's influenced by the 80s, obviously, which I love. Lyrically it's quite clever as well. I met them, recently, and they were the most down to earth kids as well, just out of the same sort of area in England where Scott rose up from (laughs). I shook this guy's hand, and I said to him: "Enjoy the norm for as long as you can, kid, because you are going to skyrocket in the next couple of years. I honestly wish I had written something like this. So retro, innovative and unique. It manages to be straight out of the 80s without ripping off anything that happened then. Future classic for sure.
The song I've written I'm most proud of is...Mark Talley - Silver LiningsIt might seem like a strange choice for me to pick my solo single for this interview, especially given that it's an indie single and you guys are producing a magazine for metal fans. As I wrote in my blog (shameless plug) earlier this year, though, the moment I wrote Silver Linings was the moment I realised I had the potential to make it on my own. I'm a bag of clichés this afternoon, I'm sorry. Anyway, yeah, this is one of, and definitely the biggest, defining moment of my career. I was always just Mark, the dude that plays guitar, but then I released this song, everything in it was a reflection of me, and it helped me grow as a person. All of the confidence, style and swagger I've developed over the last few months has all been a result of this one song, so I think I need to be very very proud of it. It also makes me feel good to have this as my reminder that when Blood of Wecz is finally laid to rest this winter that I'll have something to go off and blossom into. It's a new challenge, a new dawn, and I never would have had any of that if I didn't write this one song.
The song I want played at my funeral is...Jeff Buckley - HallelujahThis one is really quite straightforward and simple. There isn't a song in the world quite like this. When I listen to Jeff's version of Hallelujah, it not only makes me feel sad and emotional (this was the second choice for the saddest song ever, by the way), but it has such a reflective and uplifting vibe as well. I've never listened to it and not sat there just thinking about something deep and meaningful. I want everyone to be able to have something to listen to as they sit there and remember me. Is it (again) something of a cliché? Probably, but I would never have any other song at my funeral. I told my mom that when I was 15. It made her follow me for a week because she thought I was suicidal. Other than that, I think this was a track that helped me through stuff when my grandfather passed when I was....23 I think I was. I'd like other people to be able to experience the same sort of calming nature of that song that I got from it.
The most important song ever written is....Funeral for a Friend - Bend Your Arms to Look Like WingsI'm taking this question to mean like 'the most influential song in my life' or something like that? Ok. Well this is the track I associate with getting me into alternative music, and following the career path that I later would. I was about 15 when this came out, and until that point I had been mostly listening to punk rock and pop-punk. Then I went to the store and I got a free sample CD with something else I bought, and it had this track on it. First time I heard it, I was in love with this genre that was brand new to me at the time - post hardcore. To hear 5 guys do something with their guitars that was so much heavier than anything I had liked in the past, but also so much more powerful, deep and emotional.....this changed my life, seriously. I remember running to get my guitar and learning everything I could from this band. They remain one of my favourite bands to this day, but this is the song that I credit with shaping my musical tastes to the level they're at now. Without Funeral for a Friend and the influence their sound gave to my own playing, although what I do solo and in Blood of Wecz is nothing like them, made me into what I am now. This song makes me cry still as well. Nearly every time.
