Q: Can you tell us a bit about yourself and how your childhood impacted your musical direction?
A: I grew up in a small village in Gwynedd, North Wales, which is a very rural and predominantly Welsh-speaking part of the country, on the west coast of the United Kingdom.
Singing and music are a huge part of Welsh life and culture; it’s almost become a cliché by now. We sang every day in school and every Sunday in the chapel, as far as I can remember. I started playing the violin when I was six years old; it was the only instrument lesson offered at our primary school at the time. I found music instantly compelling, and it seemed to come quite naturally and easily to me, which is always a nice feeling.
In secondary school, I hated music as a subject because the lessons back then were quite rigid and not very creative. So, I never chose music as a subject in school after that.
I remember one day in particular: I think I must’ve been misbehaving in IT class, and the teacher sent me out, which didn’t happen very often because I was a relatively quiet teenager, but on this day it did. The music classroom was on the opposite side of the corridor, and the door was open. The class inside were having a guitar lesson of sorts. I could hear about thirty out-of-tune nylon-string guitars being strummed to death in desperate attempts to play G, C, and A chords. At the end of the lesson, after everyone had walked out, I peered around the door and saw sheets on the tables with guitar chord fingering diagrams on them. The teacher was nowhere to be seen, so I quickly sneaked in and pinched one of the sheets from the closest table to take home. After that, I somehow got my hands on a second-hand Tanglewood Telecaster copy and started teaching myself when I was about twelve, with the guidance of this stolen guitar chord worksheet from school. That was the beginning for me. What a rebel, eh?
Q: How are you planning on growing your fan base and sharing your music with the world? What message do you have for anyone who is about to discover “Gwaed”?
A: Well, we’ve just released our first single ‘Iselder’ on the 27/02/26, and this will be the first of many. We’ll be releasing a single roughly every month for the next year, and then releasing the album as a whole afterwards. 2026 will be focused on releasing new music, and then in 2027, we will focus on playing live shows. You can discover more about us on socials, Instagram being the best place for updates and info (@gwaedband), and all streaming platforms for the music.
Q: Who is the most inspiring artist for you right now? And where do you find inspiration for making music?
A: There’s an incredible scene of Welsh language artists at the moment, which inspires me a lot. For decades, Welsh-language music was often categorised as a genre in itself, which was unfair, because there is such a rich and varied history of artists that have sung original, contemporary songs in Welsh since the 1960s. But nowadays, Welsh music is much more widely appreciated and accepted outside of the country, and the scene is healthier and more diverse than ever. It’s really difficult to name specific artists, as there are so many. But for anyone interested, look into some Welsh music, old and new; you won’t be disappointed. There’s an independent radio station in Cardiff called ‘Radio Sudd’ that showcases all the best of Welsh music. You can find them on Instagram.
In terms of inspiration for the music itself, it can appear at anytime, like a rare bird, and I find that the creative process comes in cycles. It’s almost like the process of collecting and pressing wild flowers. There’s a ‘collecting stage’, where you pick flowers from the woodlands and the fields, you then select the best flowers and prepare them. After that comes the ‘pressing stage’ when you press the prepared flowers flat onto paper under heavy books, and after that comes the ‘framing stage’, where you frame and display your creation to the world. By then it’s winter, so you have to wait until the following spring for the flowers to grow back in the fields and meadows once again. It’s hard to know when these stages start and finish, though. So, rather than waiting around for divine inspiration, you have to be ready with a guitar or biro in hand, like a twitcher in the bush. That’s when you get rewarded by the songwriting gods, I think.
Q: Can you tell us about the story or message behind the song, “Iselder.”?
A: ‘Iselder’ means ‘Depression’ in Welsh and is the first single off our upcoming album. The album will be a concept album with each song as a chapter in the story. Iselder will be the fourth song on the album, where the protagonist is really struggling, and the song aims to capture that weird, ghostly, spaced-out feeling of depression that can come over you when things get dark. I was always drawn to songs that address heavy themes but are paired with lighter, reassuring, almost uplifting music. I think that contrast really works.
Q: How would you describe your sound in one word for potential listeners?
A: One word? Wow, what a question. Well, there are two ways to answer this, aren’t there? I could give a serious, moody answer like ‘Breddwydiol’, which means ‘Dreamy’ in Welsh, or lean a little more into absurdity and say ‘Bresych’, which means ‘Cabbage’… so can I have two words and say ‘Bresych Breddwydiol’ or ‘Dreamy Cabbage’?
Q: Did you face any challenges while writing or recording “Iselder”?
A: I think the biggest challenge was just finishing it. I engineered and mixed it all myself, which was a new experience for me and a bit of a steep learning curve. During the mixing stage especially, it’s always that mental battle of second-guessing yourself when making decisions. That’s the biggest challenge with making your own music outside of a professional studio: you can save money, but you have to learn to be disciplined if you want to finish projects and move forward.
Q: What is the message of your music? And what are your goals as an artist?
A: We don’t have a singular, explicit message, really, but we sing in Welsh because it’s the most natural thing for us, and hopefully we can inspire more people to sing in their native tongue. I don’t want to live in a world where everyone speaks and sings in English or any one language, for that matter. I want a world filled with different languages and cultures, so it’s imperative that we protect them, particularly smaller ones, because so many are being destroyed and neglected daily. A language is more than words. It’s an understanding of culture, history, humour, community and a sense of place and belonging.
Q: Who is your dream artist to collaborate with? (dead or alive)
A: Honestly, I find successful collaborations very rare and difficult, so the last thing I would want to do is work with any of my heroes. Sure, I like their music, but as people, I have no idea how we’d get on. I could list hundreds of artists that I love and admire, but probably wouldn’t want to collaborate with. It took us a long time with Gwaed to truly trust each other to the point where collaboration became easy and fruitful. At first, it was a struggle, and we regularly disagreed as we all tried to get our views across. It’s like any relationship, really: they take time and work to succeed, and some just aren’t meant to be.
Q: What is your advice for people interested in pursuing music as a career or for those trying to enter the industry?
A: The hardest things to achieve as an artist, and in life, in my view, are to understand yourself fully and express yourself authentically. The first step is to accept and embrace your own individuality. In Wales, we are blessed with our own language, which has its own nuances, melodies and history. So, by singing in Welsh, I feel like myself. If I tried to sing in an American accent like Kurt Cobain or rap in a London accent like Stormzy, it would look and sound ridiculous. But so many artists do this. You see artists nowadays throwing gang signs and rapping in a thick London accent, even though they actually come from a quaint town in ‘Middle England’. Be yourself, write from your own experiences and sing in your own accent and language, and you’ll come across as genuine at the very least. I don’t have all the answers, but that’s a good place to start.
Q: If you could go back in time and give a younger you some words of wisdom, what would they be?
A: This is starting to feel like a therapy session. Hmmm… that’s a difficult one. Right, I’m going to stick to music and not get too philosophical. As a songwriter, I would tell him about the importance of good lyrics. When you’re young, you just want to play cool music with your mates, and lyrics are usually an afterthought. It’s hard to write good lyrics when you’re young, too, as you often don’t have the life experience or perspective to put things down in words, succinctly. So, the advice would be: to realise the importance of good lyrics in songs, read and listen to lyrics by other artists, and write down lyric ideas every day in a little book or notes in your phone. Have fun with words. I think that’s how you become better, and once it becomes a little easier, you start enjoying the process. Secondly, I would tell him the importance of finishing things. Most songs you write are terrible, but you have to finish them to move on to the next. One song can’t achieve all your creative ideas and endeavours, so let it be what it needs to be, finish it and move on. You only get better by writing and finishing many, many songs. And you only truly learn how to reflect on your own work when you present it to the world. There’s no point having all your half-baked ideas stagnant on a dusty hard drive in your bedroom. Write a song, finish it, release it to the world and worry about the quality later.
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