FROM UGANDA TO THE INSTITUTE OF CONTEMPORARY MUSIC IN LONDON, SYDNEY'S GUARD IS ON QUITE A JOURNEY....
Sydney’s Guard, a.k.a Stephen Lubega Balyejjusa, is a Ugandan born artist who trained at The Institute of Contemporary Music Performance in London for a Diploma in Pop Music Performance (Vocals). His genre-hopping and carefully curated music is making quite a splash around the globe with influences drawn from every aspect of dance music. Intrigued, we hopped on a flight to Uganda (you did not – Ed) to track the multi-instrumentalist down…
How are you?
I am very fine Paul, I hope you are too.
Where do you call home?
Kampala, Uganda, East Africa is where I call home.
You trained at the Institute of Contemporary Music Performance in London. What was that experience like?Wwell, both sweet and hard! First of all I fell out of an Institute back here where I had been offered a Diploma in Art & Design with Education. I didn’t feel like that was the right path for me-and I was right. On my spiritual self searching and discovery journey I got to learn that my call was to become a musician whether I liked it or not. I remember making a vow at the age of 14 when I was asked in class what I wanted to become. I said that I had to end up as a musician whichever direction I would take and wherever I would pass. Neither did I know nor understand it by that time but it followed me on.
What stuck on my mind was becoming a professional musician. But back here was no Institute to offer me that training I desired. It took me seven years from that time of falling out of the teacher’s training Institute to getting to the ICMP. Getting there was jumping one of the hardest huddles in my life. And that was sweet. But the hard part was facing the winter seasons. I was experiencing the musical environment I wanted but that stressful pressure of winter exerted on my head and skin was a pain. Then the taste of salty water was another one. You know we had to keep drinking water because of the vocal practising most of the time. Otherwise, the staff at the Institute were friendly and helpful to me. So overall I didn’t have a bad time there.
What roads/avenues did that open up for your musical journey?
I will say that it opened up several avenues especially on the professional level. The ICMP had a slogan that they will help you to burn what you understand instead of burning what you don’t understand. What they meant by that was equipping students with the knowledge they need to use to create and play what they understand instead of cramming and playing what they don’t understand. Which to me was to do with the theory of music. For sure the music theory I learned there helped me a great deal in my learning to play guitar and write songs on the instrument plus the production side of it. Much has to be personal initiative but when they have saved you years of trying to tweak around things you don’t know if right or wrong. If it is to break rules you break them with understanding. As for the way you relate with peers that is personal. But myself I am outgoing and like to mingle with fellow extroverts.
Was anyone we’d know there with you?
Ah, most people got jobs inside or outside the music industry and were absorbed away from showbiz but I would mention my class mate friend, Bruce Game, who is a Freddie Mercury tribute act(Google search him).
Your first album, ‘Prophet of Trouble’ has a diverse musical landscape. How would you describe your ‘sound’ to our readers?
I would describe the sound as house in the electronic dance music genre. But you know much of this EDM music can have electronic instruments and samples here and there from other genres fused together. This sometimes makes one fail to make a proper description.
Your songs are tinged with dance, house and trance rhythms, when did you first get into the dance vibe?
I got into the dance vibe in 2014 after meeting with Jeff Thompson of Unconventionhub.org. He introduced me to Luke Melville, an EDM producer, from Manchester. When Luke produced the two tracks, “Run-Extended Final” and “Sense Of Direction” for me, I liked them. So I went on to work also with Peter Mills from Germany and Paul Rogers, from Wales, creating “Prophet Of Trouble” which lead to the making of the rest of the tracks on the album. All this we did remotely.
How much would you say the culture of Uganda has influenced your musical style and outlook on life?
I can’t say that the culture of Uganda influences much of my musical style apart from the lyrics. But again my lyrics are ambiguous and universal. Most of the people who get to listen to my music here just tell me that it is not African. Much of what they do here is danceable tunes. In many cases I fail to identify their genres. To them it is about dancing and partying music. I am not into those styles though. My primary is guitar hard rock music with its related genres.
Who are your musical influences?
My musical influences include Brian Adams, Rod Stewart, Rolling Stones, Aerosmith, Led Zeppelin, Bon Jovi, Tracy Chapman, U2, Poison, Guns N’ Roses, Nirvana, the Foo Fighters and many more in such hard rock guitar lead categories.
Do you play all the instruments on the album or did you have collaborators for the project?
I will say that the only instrument I played on the album is the voice. The rest is electronic done by Luke Melville, Paul Rogers and Peter Mills on their computers.
Is there anyone that you’d like to work with (producers or other artists)?
Well, I would mention Dave Grohl, on the rock music side of it, but I just enjoy working with anyone as long as they are ethical and have human etiquettes. I am not rigid at all. It’s about being able to fulfil my creative duty in the collaboration and in whichever genre they wish.
What do you hope listeners will take from your music?
I can say that they will have found some new vibes to enjoy for their summer craze plus “Prophet Of Trouble” gives them a thumping vibe to dance to in the Halloween season.
Is there any deeper messages that you’re trying to get across?
Each track has got a message but for the title album track, “Prophet Of Trouble”, I refer to a spiritual being that will give a warning signal of any event to happen but is less likely to be predicated by humans not at a higher spiritual realm. In many cases when the good events are foretold and happen people are happy forgetting there was any foreteller of the same. But once the bad events unfold that is when everyone will quote and label the foreteller as a prophet of trouble.
Being a spiritually gifted and aware person, here is when I’ve received dreams of negative events to occur and after revealing them they happened later. That is when I was labelled a prophet of trouble by friends thereafter.
So as a way of getting rid of that trauma I decided to write, “Prophet Of Trouble”, a song depicting what I have been labelled to be. It was kind of a way to try laughing it off. The song caught the attention of Paul Rogers, from Wales, who recreated it in the EDM style it sounds today.
Again when I was trying out the best way to make it visually match the theme, I decided to apply the Halloween video clips with the help of, Hills Morgan, my long time film/music producer at Hi-City Studios. He synchronized the music and video clips very well to depict what you can watch now.
What’s the contemporary music scene like in Uganda?
Ah, the contemporary music scene here is very vibrant with all sorts of danceable styles in the Luganda language. It used to be Congolese music but on the appearance of affordable recording gear, software and more the youth started creating their own stuff which is again helped by the available cheaper social media channels. So the business people had to go by the flow of what was trending amongst their would be customers-the youth. And the vibe had to take control. Now an Artist not singing in Luganda here can find it hard to gain ground.
Who else should we listen out for from your homeland?
Here I will mention one artist doing what I can enjoy, that is Kaz Kasozi.
What’s on the horizon for you? A new album/tour?
I have just released a single, “Rejuvenated” under a band name “Elevate My Elation”. Now this showcases my songwriting and real vocal abilities. The full album will be coming in the future still under “Elevate My Elation”. But on the horizon is an ebook and audiobook for my Memoir “Luwero Triangle-The Hot Bullet Zone”. I am currently working on it at Hi-City Studios with Hills Morgan as my producer. This is a true story about how I experienced terror, as a child, during the Museveni/Obote war in the 1980s in my home village Makokoto. It was part of the Luwero triangle as zoned(Google search can easily show you that). I have also featured, in there, some tracks on the album “Prophet Of Trouble”, lyrics and my a cappella to some not yet recorded songs.
When could we expect that?
We are working hard to see that it is out soonest. I have to forward the necessary parts, as fast as possible, to the publishing platforms to give them time for their approval and distribution. By that I mean earlier than July. Because I have a promotion scheduled for July and October when the animated music videos for “Sense Of Direction” and “Prophet Of Trouble” respectively, will be appearing in a syndicated TV Show series(The Bongo Boy Rock n Roll TV Show series, in its 13th Season). This is to 72+ Terrestrial TV channels in the USA. So I expect this to give a cross promotion at least and this is the reason why everything has to be in place earlier on.