This is my artist interview. I wrote this, based around the research that I did from reading previous artist interviews. I had to make a few changes to the interview, where I'd made a couple of grammatical errors, and I had to change a few sentences to make it flow a little better, but this is the interview that I ended up writing:
CC Morgana is no stranger to music. Born and raised in South
London, she grew up in a very musical household, learning to play the guitar
since the age of eight. When she was thirteen, she got her first taste for
performing in front of people at a gig in a local club, and at the age of
sixteen, she and her family moved to Scotland, where she was signed to
Andmoresound records, an Independent music label there. Now, she is ready to
tackle the big guns, and here to talk with us in a swanky hotel room in London
about her life, love and her upcoming tour.
“I’m not used to staying in places like this,” laughs CC, as
we take our seats. She seems comfortable here though. She’s lively and bubbly,
and incredibly eager to talk to us, especially when we ask her about how she
first got into the music scene. “Both my parents were very musical when I was
growing up. My dad used to play in a band, but had to stop when my older
brother was born, but he never lost that passion. He taught us how to play;
brought me my first guitar. I definitely wouldn’t be where I am today without
him, or my mum. She was the one who pushed me to start performing, and too show
people what I could do.” And so she did. Armed only with her vocals and guitar,
CC attended a local gig night, where she performed in front of people for the
first time.
“I was so nervous,” she remembers, “I honestly didn’t think
anyone was going to like me. But I remember that the crowd responded really
well to me, and afterwards loads of people came up to me and told me how much
they’d enjoyed it. So I went back the following week, and the week after that
and it just became a regular thing. I honestly think I wouldn’t be where I am
right now had I not been encouraged by my family to go to those little club
nights.”
A huge part of launching CC’s career was her move to
Scotland. “It actually was never my intention to move to Scotland to get
signed,” she admits, “My parents got a job transfer. It was never about me or
possibly launching my career in music.” She began to perform in pub nights
doing karaoke, she tells us, when one night everything changed. “There was a
man there, who worked for a local recording studio,” she says, smiling fondly,
“He’d just come for a drink with his mates, and he saw me perform my set.
Afterwards, he came up to me and gave me a business card and told me to call.”
Incidentally, this began her career with Andmoresound. “I phoned them up, and
they told me to come in a record a demo. I went into the studio for about five
weeks- I’d already written most of the songs,” she explains, “I recorded a
seven track EP with them. I then set up a Youtube account, and posted all the
songs onto there. I posted them on Facebook and Twitter, (I) started building
up my very own fan base.” We ask her if she considers herself to be very hard
working
“Without completely blowing my own trumpet, yes,” she says,
“But I’m trying not to be big headed about it. I can’t help but feel that a lot
of where I come from today has come from me working very hard too get it, but
then again, I wouldn’t be anywhere without my family, or the recording studio,
or my producer. I try to do as much as I
can to get my music noticed out there.” This leads us to ask: How does she feel
about file sharing and illegally downloading. “I’m not totally against it,” she
shrugs. “I mean, from the perspective of an artist, yeah, it can be annoying,
if you’ve worked hard on something and people are technically stealing it from
you, but for me at the moment, it helps get my work out there shared. If people
like my work, maybe they’ll come to one of my gigs and in the long run, surely
that’s better and I’d make more of a living than I think I would trying to sell
records.”
