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Welcome to the Sorrow Stories official website
Updates will be available here with news, interviews, music links, merch and other info on a regular basis.
I am gradually embedding all of my discography for you to find and buy as you wish. Including collabs.
You can also find physical formats and merch here by Sorrow Stories (where it is available elsewhere, it will always be the least cost here)
Every few months, I add free Sorrow Stories music to those who subscribe (all it requires is signing up with your email) Along the way, these will include released tracks but also rarities, demos and unreleased material. Some of which won't be available anywhere else.
If you have just signed up, you should find two tracks available for FREE for you to download and enjoy now.
Your feedback is always welcome.
Thank you for joining me and hope you enjoy!
Tina Forlorn
Sorrow Stories Interview with Mike (IEM Radio)
Where did you grow up?
My family originally comes from the East End of London. There is German and Maltese from my mom's side, as well as British from my dads side. I spent many years growing up in various places within the UK but I have been back in London for the past 20 years.
What is one of the first songs you remember liking as a kid?
There are a lot of artists and songs from different genres and eras I recall from my childhood. I spent a significant amount of time growing up, listening to a lot of albums. When I still had something that resembled a family, one of the main things shared was a love of music. So the record player or the radio was often playing. It’s difficult to choose just one song but I am probably going to go with... The Chauffeur by Duran Duran. They were just one of the artists I heard a lot of in my very early years and the music to that song in particular still haunts me today.
What were some of the influences you had that made you start making music?
Around about the time I started making songs in my early teens, I was fully getting into alternative rock so I really loved a lot of 90’s guitar bands (incl Nirvana, Alice In Chains & The Smashing Pumpkins) I also loved industrial music (incl NIN, Stabbing Westward) and some Metal, Punk, Acoustic (incl Life Of Agony, Bad Religion, Elliott Smith) and everything else between. I already had liked Synthpop/new wave (incl Depeche Mode, The Cure and New Order) previously, but I was very young (or not even born yet for some releases) when I first heard those artists so I more got back into 80’s music as I grew older. I also liked some dark trance & house music (incl Delirium and Push) along the way and a lot of movie soundtracks (incl The Terminator, Aliens, The Crow,). For the most part, my favorite artists usually end up being more alternative/darker sounding music but I really have always just been open to liking whatever I feel is good. I think you can hear a variation of different genres that have influenced me through Sorrow Stories but I never directly try to sound like any other artist and most of the time, I am not even aiming for a particular style either. Lyrics and melody were usually the main things I learnt to care about and are generally what I always start with when creating a track.
At what age did you start playing/singing?
I was always listening to music and singing (quietly) to myself, even as a young child and before writing songs, I liked writing poetry. I always paid attention to reading the lyrics and looking at the artwork so words have always been important to me. I also love films – especially scifi and horror - and have paid a lot of attention to soundtracks since I was a child.
I was about twelve when I got my first guitar and it was around about that time that I started writing songs and making a lot of demos, which was just myself singing my words and playing a tune. I didn’t really have very good equipment or much experience for quite some time and they were really just tracks I mostly shared only with myself so a lot of the recording quality on those demos are poor. Even though the songs are still there. Everything was always done by ear but I think that really taught me a certain understanding of songwriting in a way that was exclusive to myself. I took a similar approach when starting with piano/synths a bit later and that eventually led onto working more with production and mastering.
I have always played (or made) all of my music. From the melodies to drums so I am not someone that uses loops or one shots and things, even though I am not against artists doing so. Hopefully, I learn a little more every release but I have never had a music lesson from anyone else. Everything is self taught. The song itself always comes first to me, but I do really enjoy learning all sides of music production. I am not against working with engineers or other artists and sometimes I have (such as with Mitia Wexler), if I feel they could help me polish things better or simply because I respect what they do and I get the opportunity to work with them but when that has applied, I have always still been very much involved in that process. Sorrow Stories is all created, as well as mostly always mixed and mastered by myself.
If you could go back in time, what advice would you give to yourself after finishing school?
I feel like there may have been some missed opportunities along the way, incl in regards to music but I am not sure how things could have been otherwise, unless other circumstances in my life had been different. I feel I have always tried my best to be the best person I could be, even at the worst of times and if I had of advised myself to take different routes, maybe my life would of been easier but I could of ended up a much worst person for it so I can’t think of anything I would change in that respect. I try to take my life experiences -many of which have not been positive – and use them for something good and they are really the foundation of Sorrow Stories. I’ve often joked at each ‘bad’ event along the way, that this will give me another song to write about! So I am never short on material, even though the things themselves can be and often have been very hindering to my life in terms of trying to live it.
What are some of your favorite songs at the moment?
I have just recently been getting more into Bow Ever Down/The Bleak Assembly so I am listening to a lot of their music right now. I love their ‘Strangers Among Strangers’ EP (The Bleak Assembly) and ‘Goodbye’ (Bow Ever Down) EP
The ‘Critical Fault’ album by Unitcode:Machine, produced with Christopher Hall (Stabbing Westward) & mastered with Eric Oehler (Null Device, Klack) is also impressive.
Do you listen to your own music besides when making it or do you listen so much it gets tiring after it is released?
I often go back to hearing Sorrow Stories songs. I think it can be important to look back at your work. I feel as an artist that there is always more to learn. Not just from a technical aspect but in trying out new things. I have never experienced writers block or burn out in all of the years I have been making music so I think as long as that passion continues to remain, I will always be creating in one way or another for the rest of my life. However much I improve or release, I never want to think that I know it all or that I have nothing left to try because I think at that point, you get stuck and don’t really have anything new to offer. Of course, there’s certain criteria in that I must make what I like but there always must be room for thinking outside the box. That’s essential for me because music has always been a kind of release in ways that the rest of life doesn’t offer. So sometimes I can be quite hard on myself about those little imperfections or things that may not even be noticed by others but at the same time, I am also someone that has happily shared raw trks of myself with mistakes and all for everyone to hear so I can contradict myself in that way. I think there definitely can be a time when you need a break from hearing a particular song after the process of creating/producing/mastering/promoting it but overall, I have to have some kind of feeling that this is right for me to put the track out in the first place so there are no regrets.
Are there any collaborations you would like to have in the future?
I collaborated with Aiboforcen (Alfamatrix) on the EP ‘Cycle Of Life’ which came out in Dec 2023 and there is more to come from us and other artists involved in that, this year...there is a nod to the Alien movie franchise within those releases as well, which is something interesting to pay attention to.
There are a lot of artists, both independent and mainstream, who I think should we ever collaborate, we could probably do something good together.
There is one collaboration looking to be very possible and if that goes ahead, as I hope it does this year, then that would definitely be an artist I will be very pleased to work with as I am a big fan of them. I can't really say names atm but we are in talks of doing something together and they are someone that has credibility in the industrial/darkwave movement and has worked with me in some capacity before. This release would possibly be on a somewhat bigger scale….but we will see.
What is one of your favorite memories so far in your music career?
I think it would probably be... any time someone has told me one of my songs really means something to them or that it even brought them to tears because this means much more than rewards and things like that and it’s the whole point to sharing music you create; seeing who can connect to it or find their own understanding within it. Really though, every time someone supports my music, every time an artist remixes my music or wants to collab with me, every time I work on new artwork with my artist (Brainhamster Media), or a radio station plays it or wants to review or to interview me (such as yourself - IEM) or every time I learn a little more on music production and of course, just making the songs themselves – all of these things are special memories.
What advice would you give to someone that is just starting to get into music?
I would say first and foremost make sure that you are making music for the right reasons. There is a lot of time, work and cost involved in making music. Earning money or building a career from it is not impossible but it is few and far between for most artists and a similar thing applies to popularity. I always say even if nobody could hear my music or ever brought it, I would still be making songs like I always have because I just love to & I just have to create. The listener, the reach is important but shouldn’t be the sole purpose for doing it. I feel like in our society, it’s really easy to get swept up in things like social media, streaming numbers and followers because of course, they can boost your confidence and make your hard work feel worthwhile but in the end, a lot of that is superficial and doesn’t last. So basically, I’d say no matter how far you get, always remember why you love music in the first place. Then you can appreciate any bonuses that may come your way but regardless of the ups and downs of which there will be both, it won’t define what you get out of songwriting.
Thank you for the interview, Mike
All the best,
Tina Forlorn
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