here’s our first Knead to Know interview of 2022, with the fantastic Gideon Foster! 🤘
Gideon’s been a regular on the Manchester scene now for a year or so, frequenting our open mics and we’ve had him perform at a few gigs now – the Hebden Bridge-based songwriter is fantastic, with a real knack for lyricism conjuring lovely imagery throughout his songs and even being featured in the likes of Rolling Stone Brazil and other great publications! 😊 he’s released a bunch of singles and even an EP over the past year or two which sound fantastic. he’s able to bring these to life so well within his live performances and we’re stoked to be able to have him on this feature!
Check out our interview below! 🛣
Over the lockdowns and past few years, how’ve you been spending your time musically? (recording, writing etc)
I’ve mainly been writing and recording since the lockdown started, I’ve had a lot of time on my own and music has been my only outlet really. I feel guilty saying this when it obviously caused a lot of suffering for many but I don’t think I would have had the space to write the things I have otherwise, so it’s been a really creative time for me.
What made you want to start making music?
I came to it quite late actually, I’ve always been musical but never wrote a song until 6 years ago then I had a real change in life and discovered music really helped me, so I sat down and started writing songs. It was only really ever intended as a personal thing but a friend suggested I put them on Soundcloud and I mistakenly shared it amongst all my friends on Social Media, anyway people seemed to be complimentary so I carried on! My inspirations are too many to mention really I’ve been very lucky due to my advancing years to have lived through some great times musically but still open enough to appreciate all the new stuff being made.
How have you been readjusting to gigging and post-pandemic music over the past few months?
The main thing has been the ability to get out and do live stuff again after so long and just to be involved in life, there is obviously a lot of caution still around but fingers crossed 2022 surprises us for the right reasons and we can all regain a sense of fun.
We’ve seen a lot of you over the past few months over at open mics and gigs across Manchester – what do you enjoy most about performing live?
Yeah sorry about that! I love meeting people and being able to share the songs and to watch other musicians who have been doing things a lot longer than me, I learn from it.
In the studio what do you usually do to get ready for recording? What kinds of processes do you go through when creating your music?
Coffee, usually followed by putting the world to rights with my producer Si and then seeing what we come up with, the songs are all ideas from me just sitting down with a guitar and coming up with something, and hopefully that initial idea stands in its own right but i think what we’ve tried to do is take that initial idea and say how can we do this a bit differently for a recording. I think the more we have done you just tend to know when something starts to work.
As you can see from your releases, you’re predominantly putting out singles – are there any plans for an album at any point in the future?
Ah album yes! When I started out on this road a few years back that was the plan really just to make an album but I ended up just putting songs out as they were made and we’ve been doing that all the way through but then over the last few months I’ve written a lot of different stuff and I’ve decided to just carry on and put the whole thing out as an album, we’ve got about halfway through it and have just released a song from it called “Fatal Kiss” as a single as a taste of things to come.
When you’re writing, what inspires you the most?
Different things at different times really, observations of life, personal experience, nature, during 2020 I’d just go up the hill behind where I live and sit in the sun listening to music, I listened to Folklore a lot and developed an addiction for mint choc chip ice cream and it just puts you in a good place.
I think things have evolved for me really this all started for me with a spiritual awakening which is something I never sought it was just spontaneous and when I was initially writing stuff I never really considered that as being a subject to write about, but as time has gone on I’ve started to write more about that, “Fatal Kiss” is really about death, but the death of the old me, there’s another song on the album called “Prophecy” which is about a woman stood on a cliff looking out to sea, it’s a dream I’ve had most of my life and has started to make sense over the last few years when I discovered my Grandma used to see the same thing and even though she’s not here I feel like she’s always giving me nudges. So it’s all a bit ethereal really.
How has the past year impacted your relationship with music, creativity and releases?
The last year has been a strange time for me, very introspective for the most part but in a positive way and strangely despite everything going on in the world I’m ok with life . It’s really allowed me to concentrate on music, and getting ideas recorded.
Have you got anything planned for 2022?
Firstly the album, more promotion and hopefully getting out and playing live more, but I’d like to travel again as well, I love seeing new places when I can so fingers crossed things get a bit easier . Other than that, just to be happy really.
It’s so great to see so many different perspectives within music, the influences and experiences that carve a musician’s creativity and Gideon’s is no different! 🙌 Gideon’s drive to perform and create is super inspiring to us and we’re proper lucky to have got to known him this last year or so. We can’t wait to hear his album – each of his singles and EPs have been fantastic so far and we’re sure he’s got plenty more boss tunes on the way. ☀️ a massive shout to him for doing this for us, we love this one with so many intimate and personal details really giving you a proper insight into each of the artists. We’ll be back soon with yet another of these Knead to Know interviews, for the time being check out Gideon’s music below!
so many fantastic artists and tunes – we’re super proud to be able to have covered them all. 
they’ve spent the last six months recording this and we can’t wait to hear the full thing. 
we love the 90’s alternative influence in there, feeling like a mixture of Built To Spill with modern-day Courtney Barnett. 
great stuff and we can see them going far 
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Bread Records 