Michael and Wayne are two teenagers in the United Kingdom hoping to make it big with their music. When you’re new to the music scene, the industry can be a pretty big and daunting place. Those fearless few that want to give it their all take advantage of the tools necessary and make the most of each opportunity. As the group Something Opus, they were able to make their first single available to fans of Rock Band all over the world. I had a chance to chat with Michael and Wayne via email to find out about themselves, their music, and their relationship with Rock Band. Check out their story!

RockBandAide: Give us a lesson in who Something Opus is… tell us about the band and your history.

Michael Coates: At the moment, we’re only a two man operation as it’s just myself Wayne (Illingworth). I play and write all the music on our recordings, while he sings and adds percussion. We started up around 2005 time and back then I was writing the music just for the sake of it while Wayne was writing his own lyrics. We’d talked about doing stuff together, but being in different parts of the country made things tricky. Eventually, in September 2008, we wrote our first song together, “The Girl Next Door,” inspired by the film of the same name, and we’ve been writing together ever since.

RBA: How did you end up deciding on the name “Something Opus” for your band?

MC: Our original name was Control. Halt. Delete as we wanted something quite geeky, but decided to change as it grew stale and sort of became synonymous with our early demo material which we’d written individually. We settled on Something Opus after deciding we wanted Opus in our band’s name so we were discussing it and something along the lines of ‘so we need ‘something’ Opus was said, and it was just born from that.

Wayne Illingworth: Well, that, and not being able to think of anything better at the time. Theres a chance the fact we were drinking may have made us too lazy to think of another clever word.

RBA: How would you describe your music to people who have never heard it?

MC: It’s a bit of a tough question as our style seems to vary from song to song. We have two songs going on Rock Band, “Circles” and “The Girl Next Door,” both of which are pop-punk/pop-rock, similar to bands like All Time Low and Jimmy Eat World, however we also have some harder, rock influenced material, such as our songs “Bite Me” and “Victory Dance” and even punk songs, such as “Alice.”

RBA: Do you remember the album that had the biggest impact on you?

MC: For me personally, I’d have to say The Offspring or Jimmy Eat World. The Offspring’s “Americana” album was the first I ever bought, but Jimmy Eat World’s “Bleed American”/self titled was the first pop punk album I truly loved. Anberlin, Alkaline Trio and Relient K are also massive influences on my song writing, but I couldn’t pick certain albums from either of them.

WI: For me, I’d have to say “Is A Real Boy” by Say Anything. I’d been listening to rock and pop punk for a good few years by the time I listened to this album, and it wasn’t even an instant impact on me, but it grew into one of my favourite records, with so many different songs – it made me realise that ‘pop punk’ doesn’t all have to sound the same. Max Bemis is a genius with the songs he writes, and you can really hear all of his ideas, frustration and anger seeping out of those songs. It changed the way I viewed song writing.

RBA: Do you come from a musical family? Who were your early musical influences?

MC: Well, my dad took a few singing lessons, and my cousin plays the guitar … But that’s it really. I was exposed to bands like Queen and Meat Loaf early on, as well as anything that was on my dad’s Ultimate 80′s CD as I listened to that almost religiously.

WI: Nothing much for me either, though I did have an ‘uncle’ John who had done the rock and roll scene in the 70s and 80s, growing up listening to stories of him and the likes Slash and Kurt Cobain was always entertaining. He was quite an influence with his music, playing alot of punk. And of course the usual ‘what ever my dad played in the car’ which for me, the bands I remember, where The Who, The Beautiful South, and Paul Weller.

RBA: I’m always intrigued about the song writing process for musicians. What’s more fun for you to write, the lyrics or the music? And when you create a song, which comes first?

MC: I find it easier to write a song around lyrics, so we’ll normally write the lyrics together, or occasionally Wayne will record a melody on my answer machine with lyrics and I’ll write the music from there, though sometimes I’ll write an entire song on my own if I get a melody in my head. The music for “Circles” was actually one of our original demos, but we never had lyrics for it so it sat on my computer for years until we actually wrote some that fit.

WI: Sometimes it can be really frustrating to get an idea for a song, and want to work on it with each other, but there’s nothing we can do for a while, sometimes even up to a month. When I send lyrics across, I will occasionally have a completely different direction for the song, to the music which is then written for it, but when you hear it together it just works which is why you’ll find some of our songs are a little bit darker lyrically but have some of our more cheerful music. Not that I’m forever writing about doom and gloom, but I think that contrast in our writing styles really does bring out some of our best work.

RBA: Where do you find inspiration for your songs? What has been the oddest source of inspiration?

MC: Most of our songs have strange inspiration but my favourite is “Bite Me.” It was written about falling in love with a zombie as we were sick of people falling in love with vampires after the release of Twilight, and I’d been playing a lot of Resident Evil.

WI: Zombies aside, I think one of the best has to be “Something To Realise,” we set off with the intention write a song about an awesome week we’d had, road tripping to gigs over the country, ended up with a cheerful drinking song, which then progressed into some sort of 7 minute anti-ballad about ex girlfriends. The final outcome sounds kind of standard, but I personally loved the route we took to get there, and as such is one of my favourites we’ve written.

RBA: I get some strong feelings based on the lyrics for “Circles.” What is the song about?

MC: “Circles” isn’t as straight forward as it sounds. It was initially written about me not wanting to learn to drive, realising that it was necessary if I wanted a job, and then my car breaking down, but we just re-worked
the lyrics to be about a girl you don’t want to date because you believe she’s no good for you, but do so because your friends talked you into it. You should be able to tell which lyrics weren’t changed if you listen close
enough (i.e, the entire chorus.)

RBA: Which one of your songs has the most meaning to you?

MC: Probably “The Girl Next Door” as it was the first one we wrote together, although songs like “Circles” and “Bite Me,” where I’d had the music for years, are special to me personally as it’s great to see them completed and
recorded.

WI: I’d have to agree with “The Girl Next Door,” simply because it was a great occasion when it got written, though mentions again to “Bite Me,” which was the first song we wrote together apart coupled with the fact it went with one of our oldest demos.

RBA: Correct me if I’m wrong, but you guys are a relatively new band, right? You have a sound that is remarkably defined considering you haven’t been around too long. Any plans for an EP or full length album in the near
future?

MC: We’re new in the sense that we have only started writing and recording together recently, though we’d been friends since we were about 15/16 and been doing individual stuff for a while too. We have what’s
called ‘The Off Key EP’ which is just our working title for everything we have recorded, but not an official release. We hope to have a full length album ready for this time next year.

RBA: How often do you perform live? What is your favourite song to perform live (originals or covers)?

MC: We’re yet to perform live due to a lack of members, though we’re approaching our first show as we’ve now rounded up a few people, so you can expect to see us rocking some small pubs along the south coast very shortly. I’m really looking forward to playing “Alice” live though as it’s just a full on punk song, and if recording it was a blast, I can’t wait to see how fun it is live. We also have a few covers we’re working on, so expect a few surprises there.

RBA: What do you hope to bring to your show when you perform live?

MC: Hopefully a performance that’s full of energy and spontaneity. We’ll see though …

RBA: Where do you envision yourself 10 years from now, musically?

MC: Ideally, I’d like to open my own recording studio, so the dream is to have that running while making enough money to live off so that I’m not spending too much time away from home. I love travelling, but I can’t bear to be away from home too long.

WI: In an ideal world, I’d love for Coatesy and I to be in a successful band, whether it be Something Opus or another project, or the possibility of running a promotions company inline with his recording studio.  The biggest goal for Something Opus, I’d have to say though, would be to be invited to play Warped Tour in America, on a main stage. I think if we ever made it there, I would feel we really made it. For me, that’s as good as it gets.

RBA: What has been your favourite memory as a band thus far?

MC: Writing “The Girl Next Door.” We stayed up till 4am drinking, eating pizza and watching films writing that, and the sense of accomplishment when we got it finished was unreal. That was the moment when I honestly felt we were a ‘real’ band.

WI: It’s so hard to beat that moment of the first song, but for me a very close second was our first day in the recording studio. After years of ideas, hashed demos and covers, we finally took a few of our songs into a studio do it ‘like the professionals.’ It was such a great feeling to know that we were going to come out with a proper sounding song.

RBA: Is there any aspect of your musical history that you would change?

MC: I just wish I’d taken piano and singing lessons as a child, and done music at GSCE, though I know if I’d done lessons at a young age I’d have hated it. I wasn’t a very keen learner…

WI: I wish I’d managed to stick it out with the lessons I’d had, for both guitar and keyboard. Currently having only very basic skills on both is a bit of a set back when trying to write songs. I was quite a keen singer when I was younger too, but sadly never followed that up with lessons.

RBA: How did the opportunity present itself for putting your music in the Rock Band Network?

MC: My brother is a complete Rock Band nerd, so was the one who brought it to my attention. He kept pestering me to get the master tracks from the studio so we could submit them. He then started charting “Circles” himself, and here we are…

RBA: How did you decide on what song you wanted to make available for Rock Band? Was it a long process, or a simple decision?

MC: We always wanted “The Girl Next Door, then we decided on “Circles” as it’s similar in style so anyone who likes TGND would have the option of downloading another similar track. It was also one of the only songs we had the individual tracks of …

RBA: Do you feel that games like Rock Band and Guitar Hero have an impact on a player’s interest in playing a real instrument at some point?

MC: I’d hope so, although my brother has a guitar which he never plays but is on Rock Band about 5 hours a day. He plays my drums occasionally though, but that’s just annoying because he’s left handed and has to rearrange the kit.

WI: I think they definitely do, you see little kids they now want to pick up a guitar and learn it, and develop and interest in rock music. Having a friend who’s a guitar teacher has said the increase kids wanting to learn, so they can ‘do Rock Band for real’ is staggering.

RBA: Being that your music will be featured in Rock Band, have you played the game? Would you play your own song in the game to see how it is?

MC: I played Guitar Hero 2, and was ok, but didn’t really get past medium. I play Rock Band occasionally, mostly on vocals or drums, but I’m terrible at reading the charts so I suck something fierce. I’d love to play the song in game, but I’d be too embarrassed to just in case I mess up.

WI: I’ll definitely play it, but probably not in front of anyone for a long, long time. There can’t be anything worse than messing up on your own song, surely?

RBA: Is there anything that you would like the Rock Band community to know about you that we haven’t touched on yet?

MC: Not especially, but you can find us on Myspace at www.myspace.com/somethingopus or Last.FM at http://www.last.fm/music/Something+Opus. We also have a Facebook page. Also, thanks to Tommy for giving us the chance to do this.

RBA: Thank YOU guys!

For more info on Something Opus, check out their Myspace and Facebook pages. Below is a sample of what to expect from their currently available RBN single “Circles.”

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