Rachel: Hi and welcome I’m Rachel and I’m going to be interviewing Panchiko today. How are you today?
Owain: I’m alright I’m just one of them, it's teamwork as well, I’m Owain and I’m doing ok. We’re gearing up for a tour and been practicing this week and doing all of the other stuff you do in a band that’s really exciting.
Rachel: So how did it actually feel when your music went viral?
Owain: I guess you could say viral, it's not viral viral, like millions of plays but we’re in the case of years and years ago and I used to think, well I still think its got something to it I like it but I also go wow that's not as good as stuff I listen to, but it was wonderful. The moment I found out, I found out over Facebook and people contacted me from America and said ‘are you in this band?’ I said ‘maybe’. I thought why would anyone want to listen to this stuff? And they said ‘well your music was found on the internet, it's all rotted, have you got a clean version of it’ and I spoke to them for a little bit. They initially said ‘type Panchiko into the internet’ and I had no clue, I spent about ten minutes hovering over the keyboard waiting to press the button, I was hovering over like do I want to know or do I not want to know. I looked at it and it was very interesting. It was a wonderful feeling, it was a beautiful thing to realise that something I made years ago, that I wanted to do years ago, and had given up on pretty much, well not given up on, still did but didn’t believe that it would connect with people, that it had connected with people. It was a beautiful, beautiful thing. On the flip side, the internet is full of everybody’s opinion, so what happened was there were plenty of people who liked it and there were plenty of people who were like I’m going to tell you my opinion, I don’t like it, I think it's terrible, its mediocre, its mid. That was an interesting thing to get used to because I think that built a thick skin about stuff and it helps you progress. Generally, its a wonderful feeling and its still a wonderful feeling now. When you make a piece of work, whether thats something you write, you might break a story or you might talk about a subject you like and if that connects to people and people start writing back to you, emailing you and saying what you said or what you did summed up how I felt or an experience I went through, thats amazing, and it doesn’t just apply to music. Its a wonderful thing when stuff connects to people and you realise you made their day at least one day of the year.
Rachel: What is your favorite song that went viral?
Owain: There’s one called death metal that is the popular one. That one is quite naive, how we made it, but maybe thats the special part of it. I personally, there’s a song called untitled acoustics song that we do, that I think is one of my favourites because thats probably the best written or its go this key change in it thats interesting. But in a way, I’m proud of my work and I’m proud of what I’ve achieved but in a way its hard to really like your own songs, because maybe that makes you a bit full of yourself. Thats the one I like because people like it and musically, when we go and play shows, people go ‘oh wow, that key change is amazing’ and the reason why that is because I don’t read music and I don’t know music theory, so I kind of make it up as I go along, so its nice to get that nod from people who know how to make music.
Rachel: How do you actually write your songs, what inspiration do you get to help you write your songs?
Owain: So I’m in a weird position that I perform music that I wrote when I was between seventeen and nineteen, so back then I was a kid in the late nineties and I loved playing video games, i loved my playstation, I think I played final fantasy seven, it blew my mind. I loved playing rpgs , the kind of games that weren’t as popular and I liked anime. Whilst anime was pretty big in the nineties, the accessibility to anime now is quite huge, you can watch whatever you want, back in the nineties, when i was younger, I would have to get my mum to ring up a shop in Banger in Wales and order a video online and so I’d get hold of anything I’d want. I’d write about weird things because I don’t think i knew about life and love and all these other things, so I’d write about anime and being a miserable teenager. I’d write about sci-fi themes and anime and videogames and make those references, which I’m not saying wasn’t happening in the late nintees, but its definitely something, when I listen to pop music today, i really love pop music today and music today nad young artist and what they’re doing because they’ll write about all sorts of things and i think that’s brilliant and as long as you can relate to it then thats something good. So often it starts out with a beat or it might start out with a guitar riff and then singing comes later. I tend to write a lot of my stuff with my other bandmate, Andy, who produces it well and he also writes some elements, so its a collaborative process, where we bring something along and adjust it until we think its good enough.
Rachel: What is the most important thing you’ve learnt from meeting people who like your music?
Owain: Don’t forget that they’re the reason you’re here and they’re you’re equals. Never think you’re better than them because they’re the reason you are there and I still can’t quite believe that people like it because there is so much great music out there. Be friendly, try and make as much time for as many people as possible, you can’t always do that but try to give everybody a piece, if they want to talk to you, if they want to say hello, try and make them feel like you do care, and I do care because I do know that for everyone who listens I wouldn’t be doing this and i’m very very grateful to everyone who’s bothered to do that, when there’s so much good music on the internet, they’ve got so much choice so I think why are you listening to our stuff. There must be a reason but I think there’s loads of great stuff out, so the fact that they’ve made that choice is brilliant.
Rachel: Are you enjoying going to these different venues, seeing these different crowds? Is it a really enjoyable experience?
Owain: I love it! I think one of the things is if your job can take you places and if you can travel on your job and A) it pays for it, and you’re doing it as part of your job then it feels a bit less of a job. That’s a wonderful experience! It’s a great experience, but its very busy. You go to all these places but you don’t see much of it. Sometimes you will probably have about 2 hours in a city to see what its about. Whats nice about playing in a band or doing anything in a big city is you touch down in a nice area of the town often, so often where the venues are there is a lot of cool stuff around there so you can hang out and that’s brilliant. I’ve loved meeting people from all around the world. I guess the main thing is if you’re in music what you realise, what travel will make you realise is we are so much, human beings are much more alike than we are different and those differences are brilliant and you learn from those differences, when you meet people from different cultures and all around the world, you realise that we’ve all got common goals and most people in the world are pretty decent people really, and that’s a beautiful thing. Its lots of fun, love doing it and its an honour to do it.
Rachel: Where was your first gig?
Owain: First ever gig? Our first ever gigs were in village halls, pubs or leisure centres. We were talking about this the other day, I was in other bands. Actually my very first gig with a different band was at my school and it was something I organised with a bunch of friends and we had a band night. We organised it ourselves, charged tickets and ended up putting on a nice little show, which was really good because I did’nt stand out to teachers as maybe being academically good or a particularly good student but what was interesting is that teachers found that very interesting after doing it, and they were like ‘good on you for doing that’. It was in school then in local pubs.
Rachel: What is your favourite lyric?
Owain: I don’t know if there’s any favourite lyric. I look back at them and go ‘what’s that about’. The weird thing is that I sing it on stage and I might sound like I like it but you get quite shy about it and I think they’re all quite ambiguous. I do think the lyrics to deathmetal are quite interesting they’re a bit all over the place and maybe they are not what we call pc nowadays. I guess the ‘holding on to someone special’ and all that kind of stuff that flows nicely and its good. I’ve got to be honest I think that’s something I need to improve all the time because I listen to other artist and I think they’re amazing basically and I think I don’t really write stuff like that or thing like that. Its a difficult one because a lot of people who make stuff, you make a thing and then afterwards you live with it and sometimes its hard to look at it again because you’re like ‘oh god, i did that’. I think i like deathmetal because its referencing all these old anime shows. I put in characters like this guy called Roy Focker he’s in a show called Macross an anime show and i quite like that in lyrics because then people pick out your lyrics and go ‘what are you talking about this’ and I go ‘yeah i am’ or talking about a video game or something. I get a bit cringy about it sometimes.
Rachel: Lastly, is there any other artists you look up to and aspire to be like?
Owain: I don’t think I could ever be like some of the artists I really like. People who listen to our music, i grew up listening to Radiohead, i’ve always really liked Radiohead, but i like so much different kind of music, i really like classical, neo-classical music, i like the soundscores of Ryuichi Sakamoto, that really influenced the song we wrote the other day. Older artists, like we used to like a band called Super Furry Animals back in the day from the 90s that were really impressive, we really liked a band called Pulp, not that we sound like any of these bands but maybe we like some of the ideas of it. I like listening to old and new music at the moment, so this morning, especially going to America and because our audience is quite young they switch us on to a lot of music from America, that I think, i’ve never listened to, i’ve never heard of Alex G, an artist called Alex G, and loads of our fans were like ‘have you heard of Alex G‘ and I went ‘no’ and i listened to him and i thought ‘wow he’s really cool’. I really like Alex G , recently i’ve got into a lot of american bands actually like Big Thief and this morning i’ve only just heard about an artist called Remi Wolf and i’ve been listening to her loads because she’s amazing and stuff like that. I always feel like i cant be like these people because i feel like they’re amazing but you can give it a go and give it a try and see what happens. At the moment i guess i like, my personal taste is hiphop a lot and i like jazzy stuff, and like putting that in the music but that doesn’t always come out in the music because its kind of indie and we play differently live. Keep going doing stuff like that, i’d love to write tunes like Remi Wolf, like i was listening to that this morning, but she’s like 27, 28 and i’m an old man, 42, and i just love seeing young people doing good stuff because you can get to my age and be quite cynical and go ‘all music is rubbish’ or ’any young music, is all terrible, don’t listen to Radio 1, don’t listen to that’ and there’s absolute gems out there and there are people still doing a great job and i think that’s amazing. I guess what I'm saying is like to be influenced by whats always happening around me, whether its from the 70s, the 80s, the 90s or whether its from now, there is always something good ongoing now. Just try and be yourself a little bit, listen to a lot of stuff but you’ve also got to be yourself you can’t try and be like someone else if its not working, you’ve got to make the music that fits in your skillset really. Definitely just listen far and wide between. I don’t think its just for music as well, if you like literature, you like film, definitely go with your faves, go for your comfort things, the things you know will be good, but always challenge yourself to experience things that you might not have thought were going to be your thing and then you grow to love them and then you become a more knowledgeable person and become more versed in a wider set of influences and tools for you to do the thing you want to do
Rachel: Thank you so much
Owain: No worries, I appreciate it
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