Exclusive Interview with 'STEPHEN CAULFIELD'

Since he can remember, musician and composer STEPHEN CAULFIELD has been creating music. He has five albums under his belt, several film soundtracks, and has appeared on BBC Introducing and BBC 6 Music. The sixth album he is currently working on is called Signal Fire.

The song Beacon Hill is about a nighttime relationship between two lovers who are separated by a battlefield and their attempts to stay in touch and protect one another. Acoustic piano and guitar are used sparingly to begin, and as the song progresses, electric guitar, drums, and synthesizers are added. As the instrumentation fades away, the song then ends with cut-up and manipulated audio and samples. The second release from his upcoming sixth album, Signal Fire, is this one.

He enjoys traveling and photography in addition to making music, and is frequently seen editing pictures and organizing future trips to Iceland. Check out his song ‘Beacon Hill’ and the exclusive interview below:

1. Can you tell us a bit about where you come from and how it all got started?

STEPHEN CAULFIELD: I grew up in a large musical family with what felt like music all around me all the time. Despite this I’ve always preferred writing and working on my own and following my own passions. I got a little acoustic guitar for Christmas as a kid and learnt to play it, then I taught myself to play the piano and eventually got into music technology like synths, sequencers and computers, which meant I could start recording my own music myself and since then I’ve never looked back. Over the years I have released five albums and worked on several film soundtracks.

2. Did you have any formal training or are you self-taught?

STEPHEN CAULFIELD: No formal training and pretty much completely self-taught. I had a few piano lessons when I was a kid but I didn’t learn much, possibly because I hardly ever did any practice! Growing up there were lots of family and friends that played guitar and show how to play a few chords and so on, but I learnt most of what I can play by teaching myself to play songs I liked and wanted to play and perform myself. As I got older I got more and more interested in music technology, synths, drum machines and so on as well as how to record and mix music. Bringing this together with my vocals, guitars and piano meant that I could essentially be self-sufficient when it comes to making my own music.

3. Who were your first and strongest musical influences and why the name ‘STEPHEN CAULFIELD’?

STEPHEN CAULFIELD: I’ve collaborated with various artists and been part of a few groups over the years, but I release all my music under my own (slightly tricky to spell) name, Stephen Caulfield. I do produce a few different genres of music – singer-songwriter, indie and alternative as well as instrumental ambient, contemporary classic and electronica – but rather than juggle various names for each I feel that releasing everything under my own name actually reflects what I am producing as an artist.

I grew up listening to music constantly, I still do to be honest. My first real musical love and one that continues to inspire me today was listening to Queen. My mum used to sing me Queen songs to send me to sleep when I was a baby, so something certainly seemed to stick. Their records gave me a real love for multi-layered harmony vocals, great songwriting, not to mention incredible lead vocals and guitar playing. I loved how they seemed to write songs that weren’t like anyone else and they were so versatile too.

4. What do you feel are the key elements in your music that should resonate with listeners, and how would you personally describe your sound?

STEPHEN CAULFIELD: I like to make music that takes organic sounds and instruments and places them with electronic and digital instruments in a way that feels cohesive and coherent. I love each piece of music to be atmospheric so that it transports the listener to someplace else or to feel a particular way. When making music I am always looking for anything I can lay my hands on that makes some kind of interesting music or noise which means that I never become too locked into any particular music style or genre, something that is still reflected in the music that I listen to as well as the music I make. Essentially I love music that moves me emotionally in some way whether I am the one making it or not.

5. For most artists, originality is first preceded by a phase of learning and, often, emulating others. What was this like for you? How would you describe your own development as an artist and music maker, and the transition towards your own style, which is known as Alternative?
**STEPHEN CAULFIELD**:
Yes indeed. Starting off it is very much about listening to music you like and then trying to work out how to play it yourself, this helps enormously when it comes to understanding how music can work. By covering songs and I learnt all about chords sequences, keys, scales and so on. In fact one of the most useful thing to helping me developing my guitar playing was the first few albums by the band Blur. They had the guitar chords for all the songs included with the lyrics on each other album, so they essentially inviting you to pick up a guitar and play the songs for yourself – and I did! They really stuck in my head too, I’m sure I could pick up a guitar and play a half-decent version on “Sunday Sunday” even now.

6. What’s your view on the role and function of music as political, cultural, spiritual, and/or social vehicles – and do you try and affront any of these themes in your work, or are you purely interested in music as an expression of technical artistry, personal narrative and entertainment?

STEPHEN CAULFIELD:

That’s a great question! I think music absolutely has a crucial role in those issues, whether being specifically referenced or in a more subliminal way, whether intentional or not. Art acts as a reflection of what is happening in the world in any place or time, even if it is simply providing entertainment as a welcome escape from those issues. Currently In my own work I am interested in looking at environmental issues and understanding our relationship with the natural world and the impact we have upon it and the impact it has on us.

7. Do you feel that your music is giving you back just as much fulfilment as the amount of work you are putting into it, or are you expecting something more, or different in the future?

STEPHEN CAULFIELD:

I love making music so much, if I could I think it would be all I would do all day, every day. To be able to create something out of thin air that didn’t exist until you did it is a wonderful feeling, even more so if it’s any good! The initial creation of music often happens very quickly and I often end up with lots of things on the go at the same time. Everything that happens after this are the time-consuming parts of the process and bringing a project together and to completion can often become all-encompassing and take a long time, particularly if like me you find it difficult to suppress perfectionist control-freak like tendencies as I frequently do myself.

8. Could you describe your creative processes? How do usually start, and go about shaping ideas into a completed song? Do you usually start with a tune, a beat, or a narrative in your head? And do you collaborate with others in this process?

STEPHEN CAULFIELD:

Music often comes in lots of different ways, sometimes a melody comes into my head and I just have to try and get it out, sometimes a lyric will occur to me and I try and extrapolate out from that point. However I would say that the majority of the time I start by just improvising – playing chords or a melody. I find it quite easy to get inspired by particular sounds or instruments, but what I am looking for some kind of spark whereby I can start to feel some kind of atmosphere or mood developing in which I can imagine the music within and then build up from that point. I think the best music, or art in general, works because it makes the listener feel something, so as long as the music I’m making is making me feel something emotionally, hopefully it means I’m on to something.

9. What has been the most difficult thing you’ve had to endure in your life or music career so far?

STEPHEN CAULFIELD: I think the most difficult thing is simply trying to make yourself heard and find your audience. Music is an incredible crowded field, which is a good thing – the more good music, the better – but it does mean that in such a busy space it can be difficult to break through so that people will hear your music at all. I don’t really think there is a simple easy solution to this, you just need to keep plugging away, keep making music and take the opportunities where they come.

10. On the contrary, what would you consider a successful, proud or significant point in your life or music career so far?

STEPHEN CAULFIELD: The first time I heard my music being played on the radio with BBC 6 Music was a really special moment. I grew up listening to the radio a great deal, I still listen all the time now in fact, so when I heard my own song coming through the speaker was wonderful. It still has such a great reach as well, I remember I bought something from eBay a while later and the buyer messaged me to say he had heard me on the radio which was very cool.