Azrock & Pogo

When it comes to genre defying music, fantastical imagery and enchanted storytelling, Azrock & Pogo offer an undeniably unique experience.  Throw into the mix the fact that Azrock and Pogo are themselves illustrated characters  in a story yet to be told and the musical recipe becomes all the more wonderous and delightful.  A firm favourite with the Piewatch Team, we talked to the mind behind the A&P  project, known only as ‘The Architect’. 

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Piewatch - Hi, thanks for talking to us!  To start the ball rolling, who are A&P?

The Architect - Azrock & Pogo is basically myself.  I am a songwriter, multi-instrumentalist & producer but also a bit of an all round creative nut in that I also write stories, build websites and produce artwork/graphic design.  A&P is really an excuse for me to practice every area of that all at once.  One thing I cannot do, however, is sing, so I’ve teamed up with a fantastic singer who has the sublime voice you hear on the songs as ‘Pogo’. Others are involved as well (artists, animators … etc).

Although I imagine I may be the most interesting and inspiring person on the planet I’m prepared to accept that I’m just as dull as everyone else.  That’s why I don’t want A&P to be about me, or anyone else involved.  It is about Azrock and Pogo – their characters and story will be infinitely more interesting, inspiring and entertaining than any real life artist.  If you want a real life story then watch the X-Factor or Big Brother.  But if you want artistic escapism then watch Harry Potter, Star Wars, Lord of the Rings – and now you can get it with a band; Azrock & Pogo.

Piewatch - You are currently showcased on Slicethepie, giving you a platform in which to raise money to finance your album.  How did you come across Slicethepie?

The Architect - The idea of fan-funded music was something that appeared in the back of my mind when the industry first started losing sales with the internet revolution. I found STP while researching that idea.

Piewatch - The A&P concept is very original, with a somewhat dark and mysterious edge. Where do you draw your influences from?  Who do you compare yourselves to?

The Architect - Conceptually the nearest thing is Gorillaz, but the style and mood of Azrock & Pogo is very different.  The Azrock & Pogo world has a bit of Dickens & Tolkien but also a strong Frankenstein macabre vibe.  A London pub called “Ben Crouches Tavern” (sadly closed now I believe) was actually a big inspiration.  If you ever went there when it was at its most ‘decorated’ you’ll know why!

Musically strong influences are Led Zeppelin and Portishead – hence the dark and mysterious sound, but there will also be a lot of light-hearted funky stuff and some serious rocking out too (Beastie Boys are also a life long favourite of mine and I’ve got a lot of love for Queen for their range, artistic and theatrical merit and complete lack of interest in being fashionable).  Vocally it’s like the best parts of Kate Bush, Sarah Brightman and Christina Aguilera all rolled into one – unbeatable!

Piewatch - You have recently surpassed 50% of your £15,000 target through Slicethepie!  What do you do to attract outside investments?

The Architect - Friends and family are obviously a good starting point and a few of those are well connected with people in the media or people with a few bob.  I try to not beg for money, more just introduce people to the project and let them judge whether it’s worth investing in for themselves.  Often my commitment and enthusiasm for it will be enough.

Further than that it’s a simple case of introducing as many people as possible to the music or the website and if it tickles their imagination then investing a bit makes sense, once they’re comfortable with it.  At the moment I’m trying to get as many features or reviews as possible, however small or local the publication, just to get people introduced to it.  I have a few marketing tricks up my sleeve but I’m hoping to get away with saving them for the album release.  I have a healthy warchest ready for marketing (on top of the STP funds) but the less I need to spend now, the more there is for album release.

Piewatch - Without wishing to preempt fate, it is very likely that you will soon be joining the ranks of other artists financed via Slicethepie! How does it feel knowing fans and investors have such confidence in you and the project?

The Architect - It feels great, especially to know that other people like what you’re doing and believe it can do well.  I think the progress so far is fantastic and I’m very excited about the prospect of raising Azrock & Pogo to the next level.  But I’m not taking it for granted – I am under no illusion about the amount of work I still have to do, achieving the financing being only the beginning.
 

Piewatch - What are your biggest achievements to date (both musically and personally)?

The Architect - Personally it has to be finding the love of my life, marrying her and having three kids (1, 3 and 4!).  Musically I’ve played my share of gigs in other bands (a highlight was perhaps playing on BBC1 on Casualty as the band who’s gig saw someone get stamped on!) but most of the stuff I’m really proud of is what I’m doing now.  “I’ll Wait Here” has won a few awards including making the finals of the Uk Songwriting Contest and the top five in its category of the worldwide “Song of the Year” contest for September 09.  Getting to where we are now in STP is also a great achievement, but I’m in no doubt that musically my greatest achievements are yet to come!
 

Piewatch - You are offering an interesting 50/50 profit split with investors.  What led you to decide on this direction and do you see it as something other artists may choose to offer in the future?

The Architect - The 50/50 split is basically to carry on where STP stops.  I could write pages explaining all the reasons for it (in fact I have – somewhere in the FAQs of our website), but the most important thing it achieves that the standard STP deal doesn’t is a 360 deal for investors (which means share of all revenue including sales, gigs, books, publishing, merchandising, licensing … etc).  I believe that is essential for a fully scalable fan funded model simply because these days no-one knows where the money will come from, if at all.  Most likely it will be a bit of everything so investors need a slice of everything for it to be a true partnership.  Azrock & Pogo is being setup this way to make sure that the people who took the first risk and believed in it early on will benefit from it the most, whatever shape of form commercial success may take.  50% seems like a lot for an artist to forfeit but it’s just the same as having a band with twice as many members – and for A&P that isn’t too bad.  In fact that’s how we want the supporters to feel – collectively like another member of the band.

As for other bands doing it, good luck to them (it’s not simple!), but it suits Azrock & Pogo particularly well because the whole concept is a bit ‘out there’ anyway and people either don’t like it, don’t get it, or they really, really love it.  As the story of the characters develops the people who love it will only get more enthralled and so our fan-base could be a particularly loyal and long-term one.  It also works for us as the story mirrors the reality to some extent.  One side of the story is about Azrock and Pogo trying to reach people with their music to make the world a better place, and as the story develops Azrock and Pogo become anti-heroes of the people, challenging the corrupt power all around.  Although in reality ‘making the world a better place’ is questionable, we will genuinely be a band of the people rather than the (corrupt and soul-less) industry.
 

Piewatch - How many tracks do you have ready for the album?

The Architect - At the last count I’ve got about 12 tracks earmarked for the album, which are all at varying stages.  It’s impossible to know which will work until they are finished but on the other hand there’s always the tracks that just come from nowhere and are born, written and recorded in a day.  With this album there is the added complication of tying all the songs in with the story, but one way or another I’ll make that work and it’s pretty much thought out already.  If there’s one area of Azrock & Pogo that I’m most confident in it’s that the music on the album will be awesome.
 

Piewatch - Would you be a bird or a fish and why?

The Architect - Fish don’t eat birds (… well not as much as birds eat fish!)  Call me old fashioned but in my mind higher up the food chain is better.  There’s also the flying thing, plus I’ve not envied being a fish ever since Kurt told us ‘… they don’t have any feelings’, so there’s no contest really.
 

Piewatch - Where do you see yourselves in 5 years time?

The Architect - Making music, continuing to write the story of Azrock & Pogo and working with others to take it to exciting new levels.  Hopefully I will have outsourced all the tedious stuff like pr, website maintenance, industry management etc and can just concentrate on the creative stuff.  For that to happen it would mean the Azrock & Pogo fanbase will have grown to a size that at least allows me to make a healthy living for my family from doing it.

Piewatch - Any outrageous requests when gigging?

The Architect - “Turn the volume down!” (don’t play Rage Against The Machine on a bandstand in a secluded French seaside village – I’m pretty sure it was ‘le Mayor’ himself who literally pulled the plug, but not before we played out ‘Killing in the Name Of’!)
 

Piewatch - One of the things we love about A&P is the added visual dimension.  The  illustrations are truly amazing!  Who creates them?

The Architect - Artwork credits are on the last page of the book.  All of the current ones are either done by myself or a wonderful mythical/fantasy artist in the USA called Meredith Dillman.  I spent ages looking for an artist who I thought had the right style and she was my first choice so it’s great that she’s on board.  There will be other artists involved though – specifically for the animated video(s) and T-Shirt designs – both of which we are working on now.
 

Piewatch - Your website is designed as an interactive book with turning pages.   How did this come about and does it make it harder to maintain?

The Architect - It came about because I was trying to get to grips with programming in ActionScript 3 (the language of Flash) and I was really inspired by a newish technology called Papervision 3d – which lets you create interactive 3D environments and objects.  The book was an obvious project considering I wanted my music to be accompanied by a story.

Maintenance isn’t too bad.  The tedious part was getting all the details to move and appear like a real book and the hard part was streamlining the coding and graphics to get it to run smoothly on an average browser.  All I do now is add content to it when needed.  The paging, sectioning and functionality of new content is all automatic – assuming I mark it up with the correct XML.

It is due for an overhaul though and I’ll probably end up taking a lot of the non-story content out of the book and having a more traditional front end.  I’m currently getting to grips with asp.net with the aim of developing the site with full member privileges and areas for discussion.  Easy collection of fan’s emails is a pretty crucial step.

Piewatch -  Best of luck with the album! Any last words?

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