Renny Carroll (Music Profile)

Bio:

Intro

Hey I'm Renny, and I am a singer/songwriter from Essex in the UK.

This is a profile for all of my musical projects past and present for anyone that might be interested. I figured I would show everyone what else I do other than the metal stuff which I'm mainly known for.

It's true there will probably be a few people quite surprised by other stuff that I like, and other stuff that I write, but variety is very much the spice of life, so I hope you will appreciate that I'm not just a metalhead. You should really know this by now that I'm not anyway.

Anyway, I'm going to put up some different stuff of what I what I do over an unspecified period. Heavy stuff, soft stuff, comical stuff, non-descript stuff.

My Story

So I have always been a musical person, since a very young age. My dad introduced me to Stevie Wonder and Terence Trent D'arby around the age of 5, and I then became the worlds biggest Michael Jackson fan a few years later. They were basically all I listened to until I got into my teens when I discovered some hip hop and rap in the form of Coolio and Snoop Doggy Dogg, and then after that I got into heavier music starting with Korn, Sepultura and Deftones. After listening to pretty much nothing but heavy stuff for several years, I went backwards and got all my Terence Trent D'arby CD's back out, and developed my passion for soul, and that's pretty much where I've been ever since (vocally anyway).

I started playing piano at the age of 5 and got to a reasonable standard. I wish I had kept it going, but changing schools etc meant that I had to give it up at the age 12. I can still put some chords together and I've got a electric piano at home which I enjoy playing around with.

I picked up acoustic guitar around the age of 13 or 14 I think it was, and got into electric guitar soon after. After a while of guitar, I thought I'd try bass, and actually picked that up a lot quicker. I tended to think I was a better bassist than a guitarist at one point, but I have to say I haven't really played bass properly in years now - and my guitar playing has certainly taking a front seat more recently what with all the writing for the 2nd FN album etc.

I am pretty much mostly self taught as a musician. Everything I've learnt has been from trial and error really. My piano education from the age of 5, definitely got me used to theory etc at an early age, and that has never really troubled me as a consequence. I never did Music for GCSE or A Level, because I never got to the required grade on piano. But after A Levels I did go to the Brighton Institute of Modern Music to study Vocals for the Modern Music HND, which I passed with distinction on all categories bar one (sight-singing was a merit! gay!). The course was cool and pretty much made me 200% better a singer, mainly due to just singing sooooo much every day, week in week out. Also having some great teachers like Roger Kain who has taught like EVERYONE, (Bono was one apparently!) made getting better, easier. My equipment list is currently as follows:

Taylor Electro Acoustic (my fav)
Yamaha Electro Acoustic
Warwick 5 String Thumb Bass
Ibanez SDGR 5 String Bass
Ibanez MMM1 Baritone Electric Guitar
Ibanez RG7620 7 String
Epiphone 7 String (selling this if anyone wants it!)
Fleetwood 6 String (my first guitar - again, selling it if anyone wants it!)
Trace Elliot Bass Head (can't remember the model number)
1x15 & 4x10 Trace Elliot Bass Cabs (Again selling these for £500 for the pair if you want them- in reasonably good condition)
Line 6 POD XT Pro (Guitar) - for recording
Line 6 POD XT Pro (Bass) - for recording
SE Electronics GEMINI Mic - this Mic is actually your DAD.
aaand... Some other random stuff that I will fill in when I can be bothered

I also have Pro Tools 7 LE along with an Mbox, which I do all of my recordings on.

As you will see from my influences - they vary quite widely. This is represented by various different projects which I am involved with which are:

..
.. Forever Never - This is obviously what a lot of you will know me as the singer for and this is my no.1 project and my main goal as a musician - and as a songwriter this is obviously what I take most pride in when it comes to songwriting. Took two years to get a whole band together for (started the search in February 2003), but has been worth all of the struggle getting it together. Have been having good times, all the time, with 4 extremely talented people ever since. Check it out at www.myspace.com/forevernever or www.forevernever.com if you like metal, but with a bit of a different melodic edge to it vocally. Keeping it as heavy and groove laden as possible, but slicing it with some cool-as vocal soul licks and catchy choruses. Lovely jubbly.

Lineup(s):
Vox: Me
Bass: Kev Yates
Drums: Mike Row--->Sam Curtis
Guitar: George Lenox
Guitar: Chris Ransom ---> Sam Machin ---> Jack Mackrill.

Bilbo Elite - Ok. So only a select few (mainly in the Billericay area) will actually know about the good old Bilbo Elite. Principally an anti-gangster rap group, made up of an unknown number of members - whose sole purpose is to preach to the world about "Puns Not Guns". A joke in itself, but on a more serious note, a parody of modern rap which glorifies gun crime etc. Bilbo Elite was a 2 man project, myself and Grant Robinson, also known as Mr G (who is a fucking awesome UK rap artist btw) - with a few bits of outside help on occasion, but all the voices you hear are done by Grant and Myself. This project has only ever been for fun, and the last completed song was a good 2 years ago now, but I have recently penned some new music for it so there might be a "return" of sorts very shortly! There is a myspace profile for this at www.myspace.com/bilboelite - Enjoy, but listen with an open mind, and remember, it's a joke for the love of God!

.... -ism (1999-2002) - This was my first band that I took pretty seriously. I'd started writing my own songs beforehand and then showed the songs to my best friend at school and we then started forming the band. The lineup changed several times - we had 3 different drummers, 3 different bass players and 2 different guitarists. haha. Although some of them never played shows - that was before we started gigging. Managed to play with some pretty awesome bands before they took off - particularly Lost Prophets, who were awesome guys (and still are incidentally). Other bands we played with were Skindred, Vacant Stare, Breed 77, Number One Son, Sugarcoma and several others who did pretty well on the UK scene. It was in -ism that I met Kev and Mike from their bands Carbon/Ill Logic and Nadir respectively. Might stick a track up on here at some point just for a giggle. It was metal, but it was very 90's - hey I was young! But it might give you an idea of how my musical creativity and songwriting has developed as I've matured (when compared to the stuff I've written in FN I mean). No one in this band has really taken their musical careers any further except one. The last drummer Tom Winch (legend and awesome drummer) is now in HEXES and ROMEO MUST DIE (with some Ex Stampin Ground boys), so check them out.

Lineup (only including gigging members):
Vox: Me
Bass: Terry Pepper---> Alex Evans
Drums: Tom Crux ---> Tom Winch
Guitar: Jovan Stojsavljevic---> Rhys Llewellyn

Slidedown (for me, from 2001-2002) - This is the band I actually poached Tom from for -ism. oops. Slidedown asked me to help them out for a few months singing because Ben didn't want to sing any more and wanted to play bass. He kept asking me to do it, and in the end I broke cos I got bored of having the same conversation on the bus everyday. haha. As it happened I did rather enjoy Slidedown, and it gave me a good opportunity to show off my voice. Slidedown was to me quite post-hardcore, Glassjaw-esque and opened up a different side of me. While I didn't do any actual songwriting for this, I did my own lyrics and melodies which was always fun. As I said drummer Tom ended up doing -ism with me, and now Romeo Must Die. Ben (bass) and Rich (guitar) now are both the musical hurricane known as PATIENCE CLEVELAND. Bloody interesting band who you should check out (they're on myspazz.)

Lineup:
Vox: Me
Bass: Ben Crudgington
Drums: Tom Winch
Guitar: Rich Willison

Angels' Cry (now known as Go&Comeback. 2002-2003 for me) - When I was at Brighton, I was basically between -ism and Forever Never (although I had already had a few jams with Kev and a few potential members by this point) but I wasn't really actively looking to start something. But I kept looking on the noticeboards at the college, but it was always indie stuff, then I saw one that said "Singer wanted....la de da... Funeral for a Friend... etc". Just seeing FFAF on there, I was like "woohoo some alternative dudes". Anyway, this turned out to be from Joolz, Kev, Alex and Kerry and Angels Cry began. It was pretty different from stuff I'd done before, so meant I was more experimental vocal wise, but I bloody enjoyed it - and while Joolz is a fucking songwriting legend and used to pretty much come in with a new song every week, vocals lyrics and melodies were left to me, which was ace. Some of my favourite melody lines that I've come up with to date, still reside in the AC back catalogue! (some were still used after I left too, which I thought was bloody cool actually!). Anyway, sadly at the end of my one year course I was back in Essex, and FN was starting to take off with a full lineup, and I had to explain that I wasn't gonna be able to do it anymore, what with them still based in Brighton too. Having done a couple of cool shows, that was it, but not for the other guys, they carried on - got a few more singers, but sadly have literally called it a day this week. Which I was quite sad about. Still, check it out athttp://www.myspace.com/goandcomeback

Pant Terror/Pant Tearer (Pantera tribute)
I have to say, this was a completely awesome laugh as it goes! Locally there was a "Stars in their Eyes" competition going down, and so myself and Ben Crudgington thought Pantera would be sweet. Rhys already knew all the stuff on guitar, and Mike looked like Vinnie Paul. GET THE FOOK IN. We came 2nd to Guns N Roses, which was a shame - but we did a few shows after this as well for fun - it definitely filled up some free time between bands for sure and other people seemed to dig it. Good fun - wouldn't rule it out ever happened again either!

Session Work
Since I was about 18, I have worked for SBI and done a load of session work for their Rock and Metal tribute cd's. Fun work, and nice pay - haven't done any for a while, but always enjoy it. Have done tribute cd's for absolutely shitloads, namely: Korn, Disturbed, Deftones, SOAD, Sum 41, Nickelback, Train, Godsmack, Mudvayne, Tool, Audioslave, Rage Against The Machine, P.O.D, Metallica, 3 Doors Down.... *breathe*... err there were more, but I can't think of any more. Oh yeah, I did the Fast Food Song I seem to remember. haha.
To be honest, I wanted to do some non metal stuff as well - would be well up for some Seal, but never got the opportunity so anyone who needs some session work in that vein buzz me.

Member Since:

September 30, 2004

Members:

Renny Carroll - Vox/Guitars/Piano/Programming.

Influences:

Vocal Influences:
Seal
Terence Trent D'arby
Lajon Witherspoon (Sevendust)
Stokley (Mint Condition)
Michael MacDonald
Michael Jackson
Mike Patton (Faith No More etc)
Stevie Wonder
Brian McKnight
Phil Collins
Layne Stayley (Alice in Chains)
The Go West Matey (Go West)



General Musical Influences:
Sevendust
Seal
Meshuggah
Massive Attack
Mint Condition
Silk
Go West
Snoop Doggy Dogg
Deftones
Aqualung
Genesis
Enigma
Fair to Midland
Faith No More
Johnny Hates Jazz

Sounds Like:

Lots of different stuff, as you will discover...