Shine!

It was Robert Fripp who said that “Music is the wine that fills the cup of silence.”

The first time I was bitten by the songwriting bug was back in 1992 when I was 12 years old.

A friend of mine from primary school, with whom we parted ways due to being enrolled in different high schools, had formed a black metal band back in 1992 with some of his school buddies. They were performing covers of popular metal songs. My friend was the lead singer and drummer (although his first drum kit consisted of various cookware items, pots, frying pans and other kitchen items used for their percussive qualities).

I’ve always had an affinity with words, puns, rhymes and generally the creative use of language. So, being inspired by my friends’ musical endeavours and without having a clue as to what I was doing, I wrote the lyrics to two songs for fun and I showed it to them. They loved them, wrote music for them and used them in two of their songs! Although I admit that I am not a black metal fan, I felt really proud that my friends chose my lyrics for their music! That was the one and only time I got involved in any form of songwriting until much later in my life.

I continued to write poetry but it never occurred to me that writing music was something I might ever be good at although I loved music and I even begun playing piano on my own at the age of 24 (I am self-taught in music and in songwriting) after falling in love with a very old piano in the lounge of the private halls I was staying (Vincent House) in Notting Hill Gate during my bar vocational course as a lawyer..

Flash forward to the autumn of 2015. I attempted for the first time to write both the lyrics and the music to a song! The name of that song is Shine. I really had no idea as to how the song would sound so I produced a very basic demo track on my laptop with piano, drums and some strings and I paid a professional singer to record vocals so as to “hear” how it would sound. When I received the recording I thought that it sounded good… but when I played it to my wife, my mother in law and a few other very close friends, they thought that it sounded absolutely inspiring, uplifting and amazing! Not bad for a first timer I thought! I had no idea what to do with the song and besides I knew absolutely no one in the music industry. So I kept it in the drawer…

That was until I watched the Greek X-Factor in 2016 when my jaw literally dropped after listening to a newly formed male band called Stereo Soul for the first time.

Their warm, harmonic and expressive performances were truly exceptional, mesmerising and amazing.

They made it all the way to the final and came third (although in my personal view they were the best by far). In the process they already won over a very loyal fan club and a contract with a major record label company. I admit that it did cross my humble mind at the time that Stereo Soul would be THE BEST FIT for my song Shine. But I never had the courage and the audacity to even think of approaching their managers and their record label as nobody knew me in the music world.

That was until January 2018 after I released Daisy, a song whose music and lyrics I wrote for the extremely talented Cypriot performer and songwriter (and Berkley graduate) Alex Economou. Daisy caught the attention of some people in Greece and the next thing I did was to approach Stereo Soul.

I sent to them the demo of my song Shine – yes the rough demo produced back in 2015 on my laptop. They really liked it!

Everything else is history. On 17 June 2018 my song Shine was released as the third single (first original song) of Stereo Soul along with a really beautiful atmospheric music video. I could not have imagined a better result and a better fate for this song. To say that I am proud of this song would be an understatement.

Definitely a dream come true…..

Watch the music video here:-