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Interview with Guy Cassidy
By Arley Owens
Guy Cassidy is a singer/songwriter on the verge of breaking through. With a huge following on MySpace and YouTube, his song "Annabelle" left the competition behind and made Guy the download winner of XFM Radio.
Though he sounds British when he sings, Guy actually grew up in Chicago. Influenced by The Beatles and David Bowie, his voice is somewhat reminiscent of Peter Noon of Herman’s Hermits and Davy Jones of The Monkees.
Guy visited London in 2006 and “fell in love with the city.” Doing his own producing as well as writing and performing, he’s currently in the process of recording his first album there. He celebrated his 24th Birthday last St. Patrick’s Day, around the time of this interview. I dig his music and have to say he’s a helluva nice guy!
AET: I was surprised to learn you grew up in Chicago rather than England. Your accent certainly doesn’t sound American, especially on Annabelle. Is your family British?
GUY: Yes, my accent is a bit strange. My family is not British but we have moved around quite a lot, so I ended up with a mish-mash of everything. It comes and goes really.
AET: You say were influenced by The Beatles. Do you agree with me they’ll never be topped?
GUY: Umm, that’s a tough one. I try not to think in these terms and not compare one artist to another. I don’t think ANYONE would disagree on the impact The Beatles STILL have on musicians today though.
AET: Is there a real Annabelle?
GUY: Yep.
AET: Do you have a band or use studio musicians?
GUY: I don’t have a band right now. A friend of mine is a bass player, and another one plays guitar. They helped me out a lot.
AET: What instruments do you play?
GUY: I play keyboard and guitar. But I have only been playing guitar for about 18 months.
AET: Do you hope to record with a major label someday or stay independent?
GUY: Yeah, that would be great.
AET: Tell us about your first trip to London and why you love it so much.
GUY: That’s a big question... Well, I have a friend that already lived in London and we hadn’t seen each other for a while at the time. He just had a couple of weeks off work and moved to a bigger apartment, so he invited me over for a couple of weeks (I wasn’t in the U.S. at the time. I was already traveling in Europe when he suggested I should come to London. I was either in France or Israel.) So I got there and things just started happening for me. A casting director I met at a party asked me if I’d be interested in going to all sorts of auditions, and in that one week that was left of my holiday I went to about 6 auditions (bands, small roles in TV shows, music videos). I got accepted to all of them but one. So at that point I thought about staying for another month and see how it goes. And I’m glad I did.
AET: What made you decide on a career in music?
GUY: I knew from a very early age that I wanted to be an artist; I just wasn’t always sure what form of art suited me best. I experimented with video art when I was 18, but when I started writing music I knew that was it.
AET: If you weren’t a musician what other vocation would you choose?
GUY: No other thing. This is it!
AET: How would you describe your musical style?
GUY: Umm... tough one. I’m influenced by so many different styles. I think what I do is a mish mash of a lot of things combined into Guy Cassidy.
AET: Thanks, Guy!
Enjoy Guy’s Music at http://www.myspace.com/guycassidy