Soundbites - Music Interview Snippets from 2012

Some of music's biggest names spoke to our to us throughout the course of 2012, including Mumford and Sons, Michael Kiwanuka, and many more. Below are just a selection of some of the highlights..

Michael Kiwanuka on winning the BBC Sound of 2012 award

For a professional level it was a great way to get the music out there. That can be the hardest thing. So many singers, bands and artists struggle to get heard and this was a really massive way of doing that. It allowed me to get a start and if people didn't like it, that was fine - but they could hear it. Personally, it was a great thing, a confidence booster. I was always going to make this kind of music but I didn't always know if there would be ears to listen to it.

Presidents of the United States of America on keeping it fresh after such a long time in a band together.

We're part-timers now. It's not like we're out there doing 150 gigs a year and trying something new every night. That's why we haven't been to Ireland in so long, in one way you would get there every year and a half or so if we had a normal schedule but now that we're sort of half-retired it takes a bit of a special effort.
We have so much fun playing the first record all in order. The smiles are just a mile long out there. I sort of lost touch with how dynamic some of those songs, so we really enjoyed going back into that headspace for 40 minutes.

Wilco's Nels Cline on his famous solo during their song 'Impossible Germany'

As far as the solo, there's a cue but in terms of hooking up with everybody else, and I don't want to sound like I'm dismissing your question at all, but it kind of just falls into place. There are little details that get worked on usually in terms of the 'groove', just trying to get the right feel and I just stand by and listen to everybody pick apart a groove and work on it at sound check or something to try and get the right feel. Everything else is pretty automatic. We don't really discuss it, when we're working on new songs I don't even know what instrument Pat [Sansone] is going to use - he just starts playing guitar or keyboards, or whatever he's hearing. Nobody talks about it, it just sort of happens.

Tony Wright on his post And So I Watch You From Afar career

I guess since I'd always played in bands, I thought it would be interesting to really challenge myself. I had a very bad taste in my mouth after my final months in my last band, plus, why bother doing the same thing again, y'know? I could never recreate that sound by myself and, as proud as I am of forming that band and writing some of the "hits", there was never a time when I thought it would be a good idea to repeat myself sonically. Where's the fun in that?! I had to run as far as I could in the opposite direction or die. Quite literally. I know that probably won't be a popular statement but it's the truth. My final actual gig with them I had to sit in a chair at Electric Picnic since I had two broken ribs from getting beaten up in Vienna the night before. I had to run like hell to stay alive. Literally and figuratively! Keep moving, keep growing, keep surviving. Just keep fuckin' going.

Chris Jericho on his first passion.

I started playing music when I was 12 years old. I wanted to be in a rock band and I wanted to be a wrestler - those were my two dreams. Wrestling took off first but I still continued to play music and record demos. We started Fozzy in 1999 when I was at the top of the mountain in wrestling but at the bottom of the food chain with Fozzy but I had the same amount of passion for both. Now that we've kind of gotten to a higher level with Fozzy over the last few years, I decided to put my full effort into Fozzy and build the rest of my schedule around that. Since we did that, the band has grown in leaps and bounds. I love both of my passions and I'm very fortunate that both of those dreams came true.