Simon Patterson interview

Written by Remco on 10 February 2017 in Interviews
Simon Patterson interview
It's been nearly 10 years since we've done our last exclusive interview with Simon Patterson, so a few months ago, our guest interviewer Genie sat down with him for a new, exclusive interview for TrancePodium.

Hi Simon, this is Genie from Trance Podium, how are you today?

Very good, thank you.

Thank you for taking time to do this with us!

No problem at all.

On your website you’ve mentioned that you were inspired by songwriters, like Coldplay and Jon Hopkins, and to me this was evident because listening to Vapour Trails it instantly gave me the “feel-good vibes” –  there’s an instant connection like when listening to the tracks from Coldplay, so can you share with me where does the idea for the track come from?

Well obviously, I’ve been a big fan of Coldplay or band music in general for many years. I grew up listening to them throughout whole teenage life. I had the Dogzilla project maybe 10 years ago or longer which was a pretty similar sound; using guitar or live rock bands or drums and stuff, so I wanted to do something like that again and writing with Dave Wright who’s incredible and has got an incredible voice. I just thought that Vapour Trails was the perfect moment and the perfect song to start doing a sound like that, and to be honest with you, there is nothing really different than the actual structure or the arrangement to Vapour Trails than there is, to say, The One (feat. Lucy Pullin). This is exactly the same formula; the only difference is, there is a female vocalist - that’s the only difference so I’ve been using this sound for quite a while and this just so happen that it’s got more of a Rock/Guitar-ish breakdown. That’s the idea.

Share with me on working with Dave Wright for this track. How did you guys work together?

Well I’ve worked with Dave for years. I have known him for a long time, we did Northern Lights together, he wrote The One and he wrote Now I Can Breathe Again. You know, he’s an incredible songwriter; I’ve known him for years. He had sent me this track; Vapour Trails that he had wrote and I just took his vocals and made it my own track around it trying to capture the essence of making it as Coldplay/Jon Hopkins as possible.

Coming to the title of this track, why Vapour Trails?

Well I mean obviously the lyrics of the chorus is “We are like Vapour Trails” so that made sense to call it Vapour Trails, and the track title and the name is already within the chorus so I thought I’d just use that.

I understand that the official video of Vapour Trails was being shot in Bulgaria and is really incredible-it is like the perfect fit for the track! Can you share with me how did you come up with the idea for the video?

Paul Oakenfold who was already shooting for Redbull and Monster (Energy Drinks) who happened to be in that area about a year ago doing some other shoots. He had this piece of footage, which was free and was ready to be used for something. Redbull was going to use it for some of their stuff and didn’t end up using it so we just thought it would be a great fit for Vapour Trails.

I understand you mentioned it took half a year to finish Vapour Trails, why did you take so long?

I always take quite a long time doing my tracks, because you know I want to make sure that I’m 110% perfect; whether it’s gone into production whether it’s gone into the actual mix downs. It took so long to get this right because you know when we put Dave Wright’s vocals in there I thought maybe it would sound better with a female vocalist, so we tried a female vocalist and it didn’t quite work and I went back in to do Dave Wright’s vocals again, got him to re-sync them and that whole process alone took 3 months and then just the whole process of getting signed by the label and which label to go for; whether this was going to be a right move, trying to be as ‘Poppy’ almost, just to change elements of the track a little bit to make it more Techno-ish. It just took a long time. My next track coming up after this took the same amount of time. My tracks just take time because they’re never ever going to out unless they are, in my opinion, nothing short of 110% so it is just a long whole process.

Having that duration as a timeframe to complete this track, were there any pressure or worries on your end towards how this track will be accepted?

To be honest with you, this track for me is my favourite track I have ever made. I have absolutely no care in the world what anybody says about it. You know I feel it in my heart and everyone’s entitled to their opinions as they are with Coldplay, Madonna, Lady Gaga with whatever and whoever their fans are… I simply just don’t care about the positivity or the negativity. I love it and that is it, so it doesn’t matter to me as I have no concerns at all.

Yes and coming one thing that you’ve mentioned on your website, “Come January the canvas will be getting a substantial addition of your Favourite Flavours.” Simon, I have to share with you- I am a total sucker for 140 stuffs so I’m going to make use of this opportunity to ask you this: Can you share with us in detail what we can expect in January?

Well, just put this way- it’s going to be a complete opposite of what Vapour Trails is, so you know everybody that’s maybe not too keen on Vapour Trails is going to get a big punch to their faces - that’s all I’ll say.

Where can we see you play in 2017?

Umm a lot of places in Europe, obviously in the USA where I’m currently living, I guess the same old places. Just dying to get back to Asia more, not play there much as I liked to so concentrating more on being in the UK and being in Asia because I’ve been playing in the states and living here for 3 years now.

So you have not been playing in Asia for a while so is there going to be a plan in 2017 that you might or there is a chance that you’d come to Asia?

Yeah, I want to try to get back to Malaysia, Singapore and those sort of places, ideally in either April or maybe an Asia tour towards the end of summer but it really depends, because I want to do Open Up in Australia and you know it would make sense to do an Asia tour just off the back of that. It’s just somewhere I really want to do this year because, again, I just never really played there that much and it’s a market that I really want to play.

Because I’m from Singapore and I definitely look forward to seeing you play live again!

Yeah it would be great to get back there - I haven’t been there for so long

Ok so one last, very important question Simon: you’ve recently joined VII Records. I understand that it's being run by John Askew- what made you join that label?

I’ve been with John for years. He’s been managing me for 4-5 years now. He started this company and it just made sense for me to continue going with what he is doing because he’s such a good guy, so good what he does. He’s brought some great people on board at VII. This is the future for me so I think it’s a good thing to do.

Alrighty thank you once again for your time and I definitely hope to see you play soon, in the near future!

Thanks so much.

 



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