Chris "Woody" Wood

Chris “woody” Wood from the Hardcore/Metal band ‘Drowned with Oceans’ is a talented guitarist from Southampton Solent University. He is in his first year reading a Sound Technician degree where he has made great use of the studios and live sound equipment but finds a few of the units irrelevant to him as a musician as he said despite how “I can see why its useful but I'd rather focus more on the music side of the degree”. He’s been playing guitar for about five years now and has been learning drums as a side project but until he gets a contract of some sort Woody says most of the funding for his equipment and touring comes in the form of a loan from his family, which he promises to pay back when his band makes it big.

‘Drowned with Oceans’ is his third band, having previously played guitar in two successful bands with possibly the most famous band being ‘Crestfallen’, who have just recently booked a European tour and are managed by Enterprise Music MGMT. Having asked why he didn’t stay with the last band, baring in mind they were getting interest when he was still an active member, he replied “I'd say Uni is more important because I dropped out of my previous band Crestfallen who are now booked to tour Europe but after succeeding with a band for a year or two you need something to fall back on like a degree”. Despite clearly being very devoted to music, Chris has a sensible head on his shoulders and is clearly thinking of the future and can see that it is impractical to base all of his future on the success of his band and wants to have a job that can provide a regular, guaranteed income whilst still satisfying his passion for music.

It seems that while his current band is doing very well, it is also a chance for Chris to release some of the stresses that University life inevitably causes. When talking about rehearsals with the band he says that “[They] are more about hanging out as mates but now and then we jam out the songs, mostly just relax and practice *laughs*.” The guys in ‘Drowned with Oceans’ have been together for over a year now and have one EP and are currently working on their second named ‘Jackknife’. Having been likened to bands such as ‘Confession’ and ‘The Acacia Strain’ they have played all over the country with several big names including ‘Break Even’ from Australia ‘A Textbook Tragedy’ from Canada and ‘Awaken Demons’ from Italy. An average show will include a mixture of tracks from both albums with "integrity" "foundations" and "baby one more time" off 'foundations' and "beyond the pale" and "the pain machine" off "jackknife" being the favorites. They have a large fan base in and outside of the Uni and make good use of the contacts they have in order to get themselves gigs at some of the top venues in Southampton.

There is a chance for any music fans to see ‘Drowned with Oceans’ at an upcoming show at 'Joiners' on 2nd December when they support ‘The Ghost Inside’ and ‘For the Fallen Dreams’ both from the USA. Their 2nd EP is out in the New Year.

questions bout surrogate bands article.

There’s no real beating around the bush with this intro, it goes straight into the article, describing the success of Coldplay and already making comparisons between the band and its ‘surrogates’ Keane and Athlete.

Several characters were interviewed but they were all very much of the same bias as Dave Simpson, there wasn’t really anyone from the music industry that was included to back up their side.

There were a few figures at the beginning with regard to sales etc. but throughout the rest of the article it was very must based on the opinions of the author and his interviewees.

The articles news angle seems to be more of an awareness piece to get the audience thinking about the issues covered. The author has his opinion of the way the music industry works with regard to copycat bands and he is telling others. He leaves it up to the audience to draw their own conclusions from the statements he has made.