Goldwyn Thandrayen is set to release his newest full length album, called Avenue B on September 7th, a progressive rock, pop, jazzy mix of songs influenced by New York. The album was recorded in Avatar Studios in New York.
Now based in Montreal Canada, Goldwyn was born and raised on the island of Mauritius, near Madagascar. In 2016 Goldwyn released an album recorded in Brooklyn called Avenue A. It too was descriptive of life in New York and a prelude to his current release.
“This album although entitled Avenue B which is where I resided in the lower Eastside of New York City. It actually encompasses my life experience, from living in Mauritius, Glasgow Scotland, New York City, San Diego, and Montreal. The ideas, melodies, feels and riffs comes from all these places and people I met along the way, music I heard from bars and buskers. The record just happened to be narrative after the project was recorded, it’s a story told backwards from the last track up to the first”….. the artist
I spoke to Goldwyn as he escaped deep into the woods of Canada preparing to write new songs. Goldwyn is an awesome musician with very cool songs to offer the music community. He is known for his work as lead singer and guitarist of Montreal’s Rock ‘n’ roll band, Psychocide. A blast to talk to, Goldwyn spoke of his musical career and his impressive new release.
Your music is probably the coolest music I’ve ever heard. What inspires your music?
Thank you very much. Different things but, for this one I think it was more about New York because I lived there for five years. I felt like I still had a story that I didn’t tell or write about. We were lucky enough to get Power Station to record at just before they got sold off to Berkeley college. So I think all of that coming together created the direction.
Coming from such a small island, so far away, how did you get into the main stream of things in the music industry?
I moved out because had I stayed there I think it would have been a bit harder. I moved to the U.K. ….well I moved to Florida first in the US for a while. Then I moved to the U.K. and I was getting into heavy metal out there. Then I moved to New York. I guess that’s what influenced the record, moving to all those different places. What I love to do most is rock but with different elements from everywhere. I guess it was a door that opened for mainstream music.
I knew you’d be interesting by your name.
My name was given to me by my brother. He was a big fan of Tom and Jerry….you know the MGM lion. Then he told my mom that I should be named Goldwyn, and it stuck.
Who were your influences growing up?
I wasn’t really into the stuff on the radio because it was an island so over there the main stuff was reggae. I wasn’t into that stuff, I was in to rock ‘n’ roll, so Guns and Roses was a big influence for me. Then Iron Maiden, and later on I got into Pink Floyd, Eric Clapton, Led Zeppelin, and those kind of things. Then when I was in jazz school I was forced to listen to jazz. It wasn’t my choice but if I wanted to learn I had to listen, and classical music too. It’s nice to play that on guitar. I guess those were my influences.
Where would you want to be in five years musically?
I want to keep trying to add new elements. At least for the solo project I’m working on I want to add up right bass, piano, and percussion with jazz players. On top of that I want to add elements from EDM maybe or whatever turns me on during the time. I like ambient stuff, I focus mainly on the listening experience, so I think that that is the direction I will keep going for the next five years at least.
Do you play live?
I do a lot with my rock band.
If you could have your ultimate stage fantasy what would you need to happen?
That’s a good one…I guess me playing good work. We learn from all our shows. When you are playing smaller venues like theaters there’s a different approach to the audience and I think there’s a difference. I love playing in dive bars, people go wild. You can’t really do that in an arena. There is too much security and whatever, depending what country you’re in. But it’s beautiful when you have festivals.
If you could say anything to your fans and followers what would you want them to know?
Stay true to whatever it is you want to do, not to what everyone around you necessarily wants you to do. I think it will translate into music. It’s alright to stay open to opinions and take positive criticism, but I think the best thing is to stick to what you’re good at.
► Web: http://www.thegoldwynexperiment.com
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► Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/thegoldwynexperiment
► YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4WCr16fXUzKoAt_Q-58wqg
► Instagram: @goldwynt
► Twitter: https://twitter.com/goldwynth
►Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/40v4WJ4f7eraWDUtiUR1JW?si=Sf4veh9RQKqCpoBGglDvNw
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