Inspirations & Influences

The album covers depicted in the image above reflect my main influences that inspire me to write music. Even though I'm always coming up with new things to play, not a lot of my guitar riffs/ideas end up becoming fully fledged songs. They can get recorded, added on to, reworked and fine-tuned to become something I like. I take certain styles of playing and composition that I hear when I listen to music and put my own twist on them when I write. For instance, in my original song, "Karma," I take some sliding and open string techniques that I learned by watching Mark Holcomb (Periphery) play guitar. His style of playing has a massive influence on mine.

While some of the things I write do heavily show signs of Prog Metal inspiration, one of my tracks, "The Critic," does not. Being the first song I had ever released, "The Critic" was written about self-doubt and how one can feel intimidated by their own conscience when big changes are on the horizon. I felt that this message needed to be conveyed clearly, in an accessible and meaningful way. Therefore, I chose to compose a relatively simple, yet emotional song that made people feel. Still, there's traces of my influences everywhere. From the odd and open chord shapes used in the chorus of the song, to more open string sliding licks in the solo, I feel that "The Critic" encompasses everything that I felt at the time (and still feel). It also helped me shape and create my unique sound as a musician, which I am still doing to this day.