Boom! Turn on the radio and within a few minutes you are guaranteed to hear one of Sigala’s tropical, summery bangers. Norwich born and bred, he’s had a most excellent 2016, not only having chart topping megahits coming out of his 24 year old ears, but working with some of the hottest acts and producers around. I had a good old natter with Sigala (aka Bruce) about the talent show at Reepham High School, how it feels to get to number one with your debut single and making happy music for people on their way to work.
Y
ou’re from Norwich! You studied music at City College – do you feel that they gave you
a good grounding for your music career? City College was really good for the people that I met there, and the lecturers who went out of their way to get me actual work in the industry. I knew I wanted to do something in music but at that point I wasn’t really sure what, and the course I did, which I think was a BTEC Music, was broad so it gave me the opportunity to try out all sorts of different things. It was exactly what I needed at that point. You also did a degree in commercial music at the University of Westminster – would you recommend this for young people who want to follow the same sort of career
path as you? Definitely. It was a similar thing to City College – I chose it because it was a broad course, and I still didn’t know at that point if I wanted to be a performer, or play keyboards in a band or be a songwriter or a producer, but that course allowed me to try all those different avenues. Tey have so many modules that you can just choose which path you want to take. I’d definitely recommend it. You grew up experimenting with lots of different instruments and software – were you in bands in your teenage years? Yeah I was in a band called Circus with a few friends from Reepham High School when I was about 13, and that lasted for four or five years. We were experimenting and didn’t really think about what people
INFORMATION Sigala plays the LCR at UEA on 15th February. Tickets available from ueatickets.
ticketabc.com
might want to hear which probably wasn’t a good idea! We were really into Prince, Queen, glam rock and funk and just mashed everything together. It was so much fun for us but I don‘t think people really understood what we were doing. I don’t think we really did either! Did you go to many gigs in Norwich that have stuck with you in terms of inspirations? My parents used to take me to UEA for gigs quite a lot, and there are a couple I remember very well. Motorhead when I was about 12 or 13 was one, and we went to see Tunder about three times there as well! I’ve got some great memories of that place and to be able to come back and play there myself will be brilliant. One of our volunteer writers went to school with you and remembers you playing at the school talent show to a great response! Yeah! I did Rock Around Te Clock on this really crappy old keyboard and kept turning the tempo up so it got faster and faster and faster, til it was literally as fast as the keyboard would go. Ten I put my fleece over my head. I don’t know what I was thinking – I think it was my mum’s idea! I was known as Te Keyboard Kid for some time after that!
What was the turning point for you that got you out of the bedroom and into a professional studio working with people like Ella Eyre? Since I was about 12 I’d been playing around with music software making joke songs and trying to record bands that I was in, probably very badly! I never really took it that seriously at the time. Tere were loads of rappers and MC’s on my university course so when I mentioned that I could produce they asked me if I could make beats, and I ended up making loads of hip hop stuff for the first year which was something I’d never done before. Suddenly I realised there was a need for me – beforehand I was just making music for myself and the people were asking me to do stuff for them and so I thought perhaps this could be a viable career. I didn’t say no to anything – any opportunity that came up I’d do my best to try to get involved, do lots of different types of music, that kind of thing. I don’t think there was one specific point where I decided that this was what I want to do, I was always happy making music and I was in bands all the way through uni as well. After I left I did two years grafting and trying to
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