Back before we launched this music blog, someone recommended Stuart Revnell to me. Stuart is a singer/songwriter living in London. Prior to his current solo career, Stuart was the frontman for now-defunct Utopia Station.

These days, Stuart’s working on building up his own material with a view to getting a recording deal. When he’s not writing cracking tunes, he spends his time cultivating weird moustache configurations (only joking).

Anyway, I visited Stuart’s MySpace page and checked out some of his songs. What I discovered was a sample of some very chart-worthy pop-rock songs of an exceptionally high standard. Listen to Chain Reaction (one of my favourites) – a simple but effective love song with a crystal clear guitar sound and distinctive, memorable chorus.

Chasing Miracles is another outstanding tune – there’s a slight American tinge to the instrumentation, but that’s not a bad thing. Revnell’s vocals are gritty, but without being annoying or over the top. It’s amazing that he writes and produces this stuff himself.

I won’t comment on Stuart’s pin-up qualities. Ladies, check out the photos and share your thoughts in the comments. My interview with Stuart begins after the picture…

Who do you count as songwriting influences?

That’s a tricky one to answer – it’s probably not so much “who” as “what” I count as my influences. I’ve been inspired by a lot of music over the years, and can generally find something that inspires me in most songs, be it a hook, melody, chorus, production or whatever, but I don’t really have any one artist or songwriter that is a main influence. To me, if it’s a good song, then I would count it as an influence – that can range from the Spice Girls to Santana!

The first bands that I got into in a big way were The Police and Dire Straits, when I was about 17. I then got heavily into guitarists like Joe Satriani and Steve Vai, and was listening to a lot bands like Van Halen and Extreme, and practising in my bedroom – I was never what you would call “cool” or part of any scene – if it was radio-friendly and big-sounding, it would tend to get my vote!

After that, I started my first band when I was 22, and got turned on a lot of new music that I’d never heard much of before, ranging from Led Zeppelin to Bruce Springsteen, Tom Petty and our bass player’s punk collection! This was at the time of Britpop, so I was pretty into Oasis, the Verve, Radiohead, etc. too.

I suppose the band I admire the most, though, whether they’re an influence or not (you can judge that when you hear the record!) is U2. When I put on ‘ The Joshua Tree‘, I’m still hugely inspired by the album – tracks like ‘With Or Without You‘ transcend any genre or scene, and sound as fresh today as they did 20 years ago when the album came out. When you consider that this is a band that’s still at the top of their game, and still creates music that’s relevant to so many people throughout the world – that’s the bar to aspire to, in my eyes.

Do you get compared to other artists? If so, who?

To be honest, people find it quite hard to compare my sound to anyone else, and so do I – it’s a question I’ve been asked a lot. I do often get told by people that my songs have a certain familiarity to them, almost like they should have heard it before, but actually never have – I guess that’s good! I get told I have a very unique vocal style too – that’s probably down to the fact that I’m not the world’s best singer by any means, so have had to develop an individual way of writing and singing to allow me to make the most of what I have!

Your songs are all currently self-produced. Do you play all the instruments or do you have other musicians help out?

The way I work is that I play all the instruments up to a point when I’m getting the rough demos together – I use Logic Pro as a toolkit to rapidly assemble ideas as and when inspiration hits me, and over a period of several weeks, build up a composite demo from lots of little bits that have been added on as I refine and rewrite original ideas. So at the end of the demo phase, I have a track where I’ve played everything to get the vibe and structure sufficiently there – I’ve programmed drums, done bass, keyboards, all guitars, vocals and synths.

Then I get the real professionals in – my fantastic band! My drummer, Elliot Henshaw will listen to the MP3 demo online, then come over to the studio to lay down the drums using the Roland V-Drum kit I have set up there – once this is done, Dave Williamson comes over to put the bass down, and at this point, I’ll usually scrap all other tracks and build up from the drums and bass. I’ll then put down the acoustic guitars and some rhythm electrics, and then Adryan Cresswell, my keyboard player, comes over to put down any piano and organ parts.

After that, I’ll finalise all guitars, then do the lead vocal, backing vocals and synths, mixing as much as possible as I go so that by the time the final parts are down, the mix is actually more of a case of adjusting levels then a ground up mix. Once this is done, I’ll master the tracks myself, although the next one I produce will probably go to a mastering house to see what they can do with it.

How are you getting on finding a recording deal?

I’m concentrating on publishing at the moment, and on getting a live set together so there’s a full product there for a label to take on. I’ve got interest from a publishing company in Nashville, and have been in talks with a major publishing company in the UK for a couple of years now, where I have an unofficial mentor there in a very respected songwriter and industry figure who’s given me a lot of guidance and feedback. We’ve been building a relationship over the last couple of years, he’s been watching to see how my songwriting develops, and is now beginning to promote me to a number of senior label staff – watch this space!

I’m also subscribed to a leading industry publication called Songlink – it’s a targeted song placement service for songwriters to get their material to publishers and label who are looking, and I have a few irons in the fire there.

Finally, where do you see your musical career going?

You know, the one thing that I’ve learnt over the last few years is that I can never predict anything – the biggest changes that have happened in my life have been unplanned and largely unexpected. What I’m working on is becoming the best songwriter and producer that I can, with enough material for a killer album, backed up by a great live set with the guys. The dreams of music stardom are still there, but aren’t the the same as they were 10 years ago – I just wanted to be a rock star back then…now I want to be a great songwriter, and to leave behind a legacy of songs that I’m proud of, and sold a hell of a lot!