What Do Kwabs, Pat Sharp & Nirvana Have In Common? Royce Wood Junior

We're sitting in the courtyard of Strongroom Studios in Shoreditch, the sun's beating down and cooly sitting opposite us is electronic soul producer Royce Wood Junior.

A songwriter stepping into the limelight, Royce, who's credits include co-writing Kwabs' 'Perfect Ruin', has been releasing his chameleonic brand of wonky soul for the last year and a bit and it's going down pretty darn well. 

His 'Rover' EP got love from Zane Lowe, Annie Mac and more and now he's releasing his debut album The Ashen Tang next month.

Read on to hear all about hitting those high notes, children's TV favourite Pat Sharp and what his parents really think of his music...

MTV UK: How would you describe your music to the MTV audience?

Royce: "Well I guess it’s most firmly rooted in soul music. It’s got some electronica, it’s got some guitars in it, the odd squealing guitar solo… I dunno, I wanna steer clear of ‘soul’ – yeah I guess it’s electronic soul music."

MTV UK: How would your parents describe it?

R: "Dog sh*t! Yeah, they’re not massively into it. – my old man’s into [Led] Zeppelin so anytime that a guitar appears on any of my records he really likes it but any of the sort of glitchy, kind of wonky stuff he just doesn’t understand. My mum; she’s into the Rufus Wainwright kind of strain of songwriting you know, she likes a ballad!"

MTV UK: Who/what pushed you to make music?

R: "I suppose it’s part apathy. I like the lifestyle of being a musician, sort of bumbling around in your bedroom learning tunes. The thing that really got me into it was Nirvana basically. Just playing guitar, learning Nirvana tunes - so that’s where it all began.

"I write for other people as well, I do some production for others, a lot of songwriting. I signed up predominantly as a songwriter first, so I’ve been doing that for a couple of years and it’s only the last little bit that I decided to do some artist business myself."

MTV UK: Which artists/influences have gone into the making of Royce Wood Jr?

R: "I would say Stevie Wonder is No.1, he’s a big influence. Stevie, Rufus Wainwright, Radiohead. I’m a big Jonny Greenwood fan like, I copy his guitar playing style, and you know the sort of West Coast hip hop stuff. It’s a mish mash or all sorts, man!"

MTV UK: Who's footsteps would you like to follow in?

R: "I would say Stevie Wonder but he kind of fell off a cliff a little bit with the quality, it sort of dipped, but maybe I don’t know I guess Prince, man. He’s so prolific, he can play everything and everyone thinks he’s awesome."

MTV UK: You're a bit of a vocal chameleon - is there a note you can't hit?

R: "Almost all of them yeah! Yeah it’s really weird ‘cause I sort of have a high sounding voice but actually I’m not capable of hitting very high notes. I do a lot of trickery I pitch it quite a lot so I mean if it ever sounds high it’s for that reason, it’s pretend! But yeah all of the notes I can’t hit basically."

MTV UK: How does that work in a live situation?

R: "Well that’s something I’m sort of figuring out now! All of the songs on my record, none of them are really pitched, they’re all just my actual singing voice so I’m gonna try and do those ones ‘cause they’re actually attainable. I wanna know how to pitch my voice live!"

MTV UK: What about rapping?

R: "I’ve done some rapping in the past…comedic rapping. I’ve got a bunch of lads and we had this little rap side project called 'Bubble Sh*t' and it's just terrible provincial, English rapping basically. Not cool at all."

MTV UK: The video for 'Rover' is very Frank Sidebottom-esque - fan of 90s kids show hosts?

R: "Very much so yeah! I think that’s got Pat Sharp in it hasn’t it. Me and the guy who directed it, Johnny, kind of share a passion for that sort of 90s, provincial Englishness and I thought it was quite funny ‘cause you know the twins on Fun House, I just like the way he put up a shot of each of them individually I though that was a nice touch!"

MTV UK: How did you and Kwabs end up working together?

R: "I was going around doing the songwriting thing and I think he was right at the beginning of his career then. So we wrote about seven or eight tunes over about kind of six or seven months. We quite frequently worked together and we just did a few things and one or two came out of it that he wanted to persevere with but it was just like through publishers and stuff."

MTV UK: How does it feel to have someone like Annie Mac or Zane Lowe watching your every move?

R: "It’s cool man. It’s always weird when you hear your tune on the radio, you never get used to that but I guess it’s good. I mean it’s just good that people actually listen and seem to actually dig it, you know, and especially people like that who are interested in music."

MTV UK: What's on your iPod that people wouldn't expect?

R: "Ooh guilty pleasures. I really like Simply Red! The occasional one I think is brilliant."

MTV UK: What's the road up to here been like? Any tear your hair out moments?

R: "Yeah absolutely it’s been mainly the vibe to be honest, I’m pretty sure everyone kind of thinks that though but I was playing guitar for a lot of years with Jamie Woon so I was like a touring musician for ages doing my thing on the side and that was cool but yeah =loads of tear your hair out moments man."

MTV UK: The worst gig?

R: "Bloody hell. I had a gig in Scotland a few years ago with my former band and we were third support... I think we were supporting Reverend & The Makers. So it was in Glasgow and basically the whole front row was like shirtless Glaswegian men with a pint of special brew or whatever and they all just flipped us the bird for the entirety of the show. We tried to get them on board by giving them a tambourine to try and get them involved but they just threw the tambourines at us! So, littered with a lot of moments like that really!"

MTV UK: Is your album done?

R: "Yeah it’s all done. It took a while actually ‘cause I was dipping into it and dipping out of it and I actually at one point I threw it in the bin ‘cause I thought “f**k it there’s no point doing this sh*t’ but then Nick from 37 just inspired me to finish it, he was like ‘just get it done’ and we’ll put it out. So I did, put some new songs in it, kind of whipped it up to date a little bit  - yeah it’s done."

'The Ashen Tang' is released on 8th June.