ON THE RISE
ORLANDO, Fla. — Artists can find inspiration anywhere — sometimes art inspires art.
In the case of Florida songwriter Adam DeGraide, electronic art, in the form of video games, has inspired him to gather more than two dozen independent singers and musicians to create great music based on characters in those video games.
DeGraide is the organizer behind the A.D.A.M. Music Project. A.D.A.M. stands for Artists Developing Astonishing Music.
“We’ve used over 25 different independent artists who have appeared on these first 20 songs that will be released by May 5,” DeGraide said. “Right now there’s 15 songs out. It’s been amazing, from all walks of life, all different genres they come from. I have a passion for hard rock, I always have. I’m also a gamer, I play tons of games. I play everything from Horizon Zero Dawn to Mario Brothers. So I really wanted to do a project writing songs about video game characters and I decided on the game Apex Legends because I play it a ton.”
The latest album, released in February, is called “Apex Rising - Part 2,” a seven-track album featuring five different artists and sounds based on 90s hard rock with a modern twist.
“We have a ton of variety and musical experience and musical preferences and it’s a really cool project to be a part of because we’re just trying to make the best music,” DeGraide said. “So we want to make songs in the classic sense of metal, like the way I knew it, the early 1990s but with a modern twist. If you listened to ‘Motherlode,’ we produced that track the way that Mutt Lange would. We approached it as if it was Motley Crue met Def Leppard and then with a modern twist on top of it.”
The first song on the album, a track called ‘I Bring Death,’ has a sound based on some of the heavy metal sound of groups like Avenged Sevenfold and Shinedown from the late 1990s and early 2000s.
“I Bring Death” was written by DeGraide and his friend, Dameon Aranda, from Oklahoma City, and was inspired by the character “Revenant” from the game Apex Legends.
“‘I Bring Death’ in particular is a cool song because I've always loved the Vincent Price, old scary kind of sound,” DeGraide said. “And then I love what Prince did, he said ‘Dearly beloved, we are gathered here to celebrate this life.’ So it just made sense to have a play on that in the beginning with ‘I Bring Death.’ And the character we wrote about, he’s very much like the devil, so when we were doing the song, I told Dameon when you’re singing this awesome, cool, seductive melody, I'm going to mirror you in a whispered demon sounding voice as if it’s in these two demons on your shoulder whispering the lyrics to you. And I feel like we nailed it, I feel like we nailed the feel, nailed the approach. It’s just catchy enough to be liked by people who don’t like heavy metal and it’s heavy enough to be appreciated by those who like the classic sound.”
Damon Aranda’s brother, Gabe Aranda, also contributed to the album as did singers such as Hartleigh Buwick, an actress who is currently working with Sylvester Stallone in the Paramount Plus show “Tulsa King.”
Buwick sings the track “Wrecking Ball” on “Apex Rising - Part 2.”
This EP also features Chris Jackson and Tyler Anderson from a “Lion Named Roar,” Neil DeGraide from “Dirt Poor Robins,” Lacy Saunders from Tulsa, Okla., David LaChance Jr, James Conner and many others who made this music possible.
DeGraide called the A.D.A.M Music Project the “ultimate fan art project,” and said the most important thing for people to know is that they're not stopping with just the Apex video game.
“I’m already recording a new album and I've got songs about Bowser, Yoshi from Mario Brothers, Resident Evil, the Last of Us, Donkey Kong and others,” he said. “The A.D.A.M Music Project is committed to making a massive amount of music about the things we all love to do for fun, which is gaming. The most important thing for people to know is these are serious songs with serious melodies and serious musicians and the music has to stand on its own regardless of the subject matter.”
Follow the A.D.A.M. Music Project on these social media and streaming sites:
Websites:
A.D.A.M. Music Project
Spotify
Youtube
Apple Music
ON THE RISE
Blossoms caught up with NME to discuss competing with The Beatles and Johnny Marr for this week’s Number One album. With ‘Songs From The Wedding Cake’ in the running, the band also explained why making things themselves remains such an important part of their work as AI becomes more common.
The Stockport group put out their sixth album last Friday, October 2. By the midweek update, it was sitting at Number Two, between The Beatles’ expanded edition of ‘Rubber Soul’ and Johnny Marr’s latest solo album, ‘The Age Of Everything’.
“It’s mad, to be honest,” singer Tom Ogden said to NME about the chart race. “Liverpool on one side, Manchester on the other and Stockport in the middle. If you’d told us this 10 years ago, when we were releasing our debut, I wouldn’t have believed you. But I mean, we’re in good company aren’t we?”
Discussing the stories behind the album, Ogden described ‘Songs From The Wedding Cake’ as “about being married and all the everyday stuff that comes with it”. He married Katie Donovan, the sister of Blossoms drummer Joe, in 2021. Married life has since given him a new appreciation for what he describes as “the extraordinary ordinary”.
“Saying the wrong thing in an argument, losing your wife’s no claims bonus, crying at the Kardashians, it’s all in there,” he explained. “The album is named after Stockport Town Hall, which everyone round where we live calls the Wedding Cake, and it’s where I got married, so it couldn’t be much closer to home.
“The last album [‘Gary’, 2024] had a song about a stolen fibreglass gorilla, which everyone loved, and that gave us the confidence to bring the same playfulness to this one, just with more personal subject matter this time.”
Alongside tracks that came out of writing sessions with Declan McKenna in a hot tub, the album reflects the band’s desire to stay involved in every part of the creative process.
“It started with the recording,” Ogden explained. “We made the album with Shawn Lee, playing live straight to tape, and once you’ve done it that way you can’t really go and fake everything else. We sat down as a band and picked the colour palette, and everything visual followed from that. We had body scans taken of ourselves and cake toppers of the five of us 3D printed, put them on a real cake and photographed it. I’ve directed and edited the videos, and the sets are all built by hand, no green screen. For the pop-up shop on launch weekend, a local artist hand-painted the album cover for the sign outside.
“It’s more work, but you end up with a world that’s yours, and I think people can tell when a band’s had its hands on everything.”
With AI tools and digital effects becoming increasingly widespread, that approach feels particularly relevant. For Blossoms, though, the motivation is simple: “the fun is in the making”.
“Tape doesn’t let you cheat and neither does a real cake,” Ogden said. “If a set’s a bit wonky, it’s because one of us or our mates built it. I think the more stuff gets generated, the more people want to know a human being actually did it. We’ve been in this band together for over 10 years, five lads from Stockport, and that isn’t something you can ‘prompt’.”
Maya Jama also appeared in the video for the album’s first single, ‘Meet Me In Love’. Her appearance came shortly before the UK launch of Celebrity Traitors, where she took on the role of a traitor alongside a cast that included Richard E Grant and James Acaster.
“She was brilliant,” Ogden recalled of working with Jama. “We’d met her at the MTV EMAs in Manchester a couple of years ago, so we took a chance and sent her a DM …and she said yes. Next thing she’s in a theatre in Cheadle miming my vocals while a load of people dressed as me serenade her. She got the idea straight away and was a proper laugh about it.”
The conversation then turned to whether he thought Jama could take home the win on Celebrity Traitors.
Ogden joked: “As for Traitors, she spent a whole day pretending to sing my song and I almost believed her, so I’d say she’s got every chance.”
Fans can listen to ‘Songs From The Wedding Cake’ now. In November, Blossoms head out on a UK arena tour with The Royston Club. Tickets and further details are available here.
Before the tour begins, the group is also scheduled to appear on SNL UK on Saturday, October 24.
