By Ashlea Hilton-Williams - When you are a musician one of the most challenging things is finding an image to fit your music genre. While few just naturally fall in to it as they are comfortable with themselves and their identity, others- particularly artists first starting out from a young age- are often influenced by other artists who are already on the music scene. Different genres tend to have different fashion styles which is how us fans can differentiate between artists just by looking at
By Ashlea Hilton-Williams
When you are a musician one of the most challenging things is finding an image to fit your music genre. While few just naturally fall in to it as they are comfortable with themselves and their identity, others- particularly artists first starting out from a young age- are often influenced by other artists who are already on the music scene. Different genres tend to have different fashion styles which is how us fans can differentiate between artists just by looking at them.
These seem to be stereotypes formed on the music genre itself, we expect them to conform to these styles so we know who they are and what they stand for. Rock and roll bands wear black, are plastered in tattoos and have a face full of piercings whereas pop princess girl groups wear co-ordinated bright print tees with skater skirts or disco pants and pretty bows in their hair. There are three lingering questions when new artists first come to establish themselves: Who are they? How do they want the rest of the world to see them and the representation of their music? And, how do they get this message across?
I met up with Rhian May Rees who is a fresh faced indie acoustic artist trying to make a name for her self in the big city of Cardiff. She wears studded biker boots, dark grey skinny jeans, a baggy dark green sweater and leather infinity bracelets. I can’t help but notice the enhanced smoky eye make up and her tiny cross tattoo on her left wrist. When I asked her whether her tattoo had anything to do with her music she replied “Oh no, I just got this for personal reasons! But if I were to get a way in to the music industry, I would get some music related ones. I think that it’s more accepted if you are more well-known. Ed Sheeran for example, his whole left arm is dedicated to his music career. One of them is his Puss in Boots tattoo which is because in his song ‘Wake Me Up’ he mentions Shrek. I’d like to do something like that.”
The singer looks up to Paramore, particularly Hayley Williams as “her success as a female artist on the rock scene is really inspiring as it’s quite rare to make it in that field as a woman. She has a sick vocal range as well which she has worked hard for”. The pressures of forming her own identity as an artist for Rhian doesn’t seem too daunting for the nineteen year old. She’s quite at ease with herself, and is not afraid to wear what she wants stating: “The last gig I played at I wore a Hollister top and a beany hat which isn’t exactly a punk/indie thing to wear.” Admittedly, she later adds that “If I were going to an audition to be in a band like Paramore though, I would go all out.” which shows that fashion is linked with fitting in to a musical genre.
Lead guitarist and backing vocalist of Traffic Light City, Max Webborn, also believes there are certain pressures involved with fashion and music “If you showed up to a punk/rock gig wearing shorts and a t-shirt, people would find it weird. Although, some people would find it pretty cool because it would be ironic that you turned up like that. But, you become part of that whole thing, part of the experience of that culture. It would also be weird if you were the front man of a band and the rest had tattoos and you didn’t. You’d feel like you’d need to have them in order to be part of that with them. Our lead singer, Trystan, has been slowly converted to come away from the G-Star and actually wore a pretty cool leather jacket in our last gig”.
The scruffy, surfy style five man band have already released two albums: ‘Deception’ and ‘Time To Forget’, along with a four song EP called ‘Paleblue’. They have played at the Ty Coyd festival in Wales which is set near their home town, Swansea. Max believes that it’s these roots that have created their sound as a group: “Our influences change every week, every day even, but from our roots we want to sound like Kings Of Leon, Foo Fighters, Red Hot Chili Peppers, all the obvious bands.” He later added: “It’s always the smaller bands such as the 1975 and Tribes that we get the most inspiration from. They show us hope in that we could make it. They are living the dream, touring every week and playing. Tribes wore baggy shirts, diamante waistcoats and skinny jeans, which is not something I would consider wearing – but that was there style and that’s what you relate them to in your head when you listen to their music”. The artist also stated that it’s things that go against what you’d expect of the music genre fashion that you remember: “ When Nirvana dressed up like The Beatles in the video ‘In Bloom’ it was awesome because they were there singing this heavy rock song in proper suits, it was epic”.
The Effect, which is a successful alternative rock band who have toured around the UK and have had frequent radio play on Radio 1, have recently recorded a new extended play called ‘Running with the Wolves’ with producer Romesh Dodangoda. They have also just released a new track called ‘Souvenir’ and have already planned their January tour. Their climb in to the music industry has left them with the opinion that: “I guess we do dress a certain way but that has never been a conscious decision, we have always just tried to be ourselves in everything we do”.
Their main influences have been the likes of Arctic Monkeys and Foals as they feel that they have “reinvented themselves with every album they have released, we think it is important for there to be a natural progression not only as musicians but as people and this can be seen looking at our past releases to the present”. The four man band also added: “The indie circuit is huge and just from playing gigs around the country you can see that the bands seem to conform to the same dress sense and style. I suppose this is the case with most genres these days as certain styles of music have certain looks. I don’t think it was something that was a conscious decision for people but if the bands you take influence from and love dress a certain way, I suppose you fall into the same style accidentally as that’s what you like.”
Our own style is a work of art, it’s what we choose to show people on the outside what we are like inside - or what we want them to think we are like on the inside. Style and music go hand-in-hand in order for musicians to brand themselves and form an audience. The ways in which they go about this seems to be that they just naturally fall in to it because of the influences they have from other people. Nothing is original these days, everything is copied from something or someone else. Maybe different fragments, maybe different parts of certain things or people but, we are influenced by things we see or hear every day. It’s those things that inspire us that make us who we are. It is the same with music and style, not only do we hear the music but we get a feel from them, and their fashion sense usually goes with the music itself because that’s what we associate it with, and what the artist was influenced by.