Dig It! Magazine

Kirk Steaggles is a singer, songwriter who you might know from the band called Creeping Jean, or from now on from his upcoming solo work.

I had the pleasure to interview and see his debut gig at Paper Dress Vintage alongside many great bands such as Vieira & The Silvers and Flare Voyant. Pretty great way to introduce new music to the world!

This debut performance was absolutely phenomenal, probably the best ones I’ve seen so far. It was energetic and raw with Pink Floyd and Black Sabbath influences here and there while maintaining originality and new approaches to music itself. Kirk and the whole band absolutely owned the stage, it was just terrific (And I’m not being paid to say this, it was really entertaining) 

Hope you enjoy this short but sweet interview I did with him, there is so much more to come!

But let’s get to the interview with Kirk!

This is your debut show, on your own, You completely rocked the stage! How are you feeling?

Very Good, very good thank you! I’m just very grateful that many great musicians helped me do it and I trust these people, and asked them to do it and I feel like my initial vision for the music was carried across live so I’m very happy!

You’re also in a band called Creeping Jean and you guys are doing pretty well..

That’s right yes, I just play bass for them but they were already an established band and they needed a bass player, and I’m also in another band called Circus Cannon and another band called Suicide Generation, so like for me music has always been this sort of saviour of my life I suppose because it just elevates your mood, it has something to say for everything that could happen to you in your life so for me to try and return that gift to other people drives me to just dedicate all my free time to it.

So what made you decide on doing your solo debut now?

So my friends, Flare Voyant are headlining, and I feel like they have a certain similar vibe and atmosphere to me, so when I saw that they were playing, I was like can I please do just a 20 minute set? even though I wasn’t necessarily ready. But I wanted to prompt myself to, I need to energise myself to sort of get going with this project, because I think when you do something on your own, it’s very easy to second guess all the time and stagnate but I think this was just me forcing myself to just to not allow that to happen because I’ve done that a lot in my life with creative things

So, what does it take to be a rockstar in this day and age? 

*Laughs* Well, you know, you have to have a day job as far as I’m concerned! So as my day job I’m an electrician so I’m on building sites and the minute I’m finished I go into rehearsal or to have a gig, so it takes a lot of time and energy and it drains you but you know there’s obviously people who can make a living out of it and that would be the end goal for me but I’m willing to maintain this lifestyle for as long as it keeps me making the music that I love.

What can or should we expect from you in the upcoming future?

Well I’ve got a single that’s being recorded. I’m working on it all the time, getting it mixed, all that. It’s all recorded it just needs to be mixed really and that might take a while, I want it to be right but yeah again I don’t want to stagnate and not let it ever come out so it’s coming out hopefully soon! I’m not sure when though.

Who are your influences? Who inspires you?

Well my dad brought me and my brothers up with 60s and 70s music so like the top three: Beatles, Stones and Zeppelin. But I’m into a lot of sort of darker music from the late 70s and 80s like Nick Cave and Birthday Party, so it’s a combination of like raw 60s 70s rock and then the darker influences of the post punk movement, probably those two things.

Any last words that you’d like to end this interview with?

Well I suppose the music I’m making is, I want people to really just lose themselves and forget about their life for a minute and just be engrossed in the atmosphere so that’s just my main aim, it’s almost like a fantasy escape really, so I hope in some way I achieved that tonight and to continue to achieve it.

Thanks for reading! 

I unfortunately do not own any of the pictures seen in the article. 

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