Your new favorite left-of-Pop artist, TITUS BANK can take you from Indie Pop anthem to alternative singer-songwriter ballad seamlessly allowing his prolific songwriting and pristine vocals to shine as the recognizable thread throughout the full range of his sound.
His awe-inspiring voice was the cornerstone of Titus’s wildly ambitious 2017 project when he aimed to write, record and release 365 songs throughout the year. He called it the 365 Songwriting Challenge — but by the end of the year, he had only written 185, barely half of his original goal. Even though he fell short of his original goal, 185 songs is still a hell of a lot — that’s a lifetime worth of material for many artists.
Titus has now entered the next phase of an already prolific music career. With two singles out that have garnered praise from the likes of BBC Radio 1’s Jack Saunders and massive support from editorial playlist curators internationally, it is evident that Titus has tapped into something special as a result of refining his prolific songwriting ability into a clear and impressive artistic vision.
Stream “The Way You Love” here: https://soundcloud.com/titus-bank/the-way-you-love/s-VV2w2LvJ6fI?si=2aa4e63f68f840489a670c8d687dd542&utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing
What’s your story as an artist?
Well, I’m the youngest of five, all musicians or artists in some way, so naturally, I pursued that for myself as well. It was something that became really serious for me in about 10th grade and so I had this plan to move out to Vancouver and join the scene and become an artist. Naturally, I had no freakin ‘idea what I was actually doing so I did whatever I had been doing as a high schooler which was posting YouTube covers, busking, and writing disgusting amounts of music. Eventually, because I had tried to write, record and post a song every day for the whole year of 2017 it was enough for me to get noticed, it’s how I met my amazing management team and I’ve been putting out singles ever since then and have just been trying to discover myself as an artist and I can’t wait for what the future holds!
What do you want your music to communicate?
I want to be as honest and as personal as I can in my songwriting and I think I’m slowly getting to that point. I almost want my music to be a sort of journal entry of my life, through highs and lows I want to be able to look back on the songs and remember the point I was at. I also want to be able to speak to people who are going to the same stuff as I am, that’s why it’s important for me to be as honest as possible instead of sugar-coating everything.
What are some sources of inspiration for your storytelling?
Some of my songs are exact parallels to my life and the problems and situations I’m in but sometimes life can be boring, so I have written from small spark ideas about situations that I’m not necessarily dealing with but I can relate to in some way, there are times I will create a character that is just an offshoot of a piece of my personality. There are also times when I will just go and look up some art or a painting and dive deep into the meaning of the piece and write from that!
Who is an artist that you look up to more than others today?
I think I naturally look up to artists who have a sense of tenacity and drive regardless of success in the immediate moment. It makes me think of ‘Mother Mother’ who I had the incredible chance to open for back in December. I had been listening to them since I was a kid and although they had great successes back in the day they just kept going and eventually had a wild Tik Tok blow-up story recently, with the same songs that I had been listening to as a kid. I want to be the kind of person that will pursue something no matter what material successes occur, I want to do this because I love it, not because of what people say about it. Although it sure is hard to ignore the desire for validation, I will admit.
What’s the record or artist that made you realize you wanted to be an artist?
I grew up listening to all the Vancouver bands during the ‘Vancouver Indie Boom” (just coined the term right now 😉 ) I think I romanticized these bands so much and I had this idea locked in my head that if I simply moved to this city then I could have this artist/musician life that was dreamed out of binging all these artists like We Are The City, Said The Whale, Mother Mother etc…
Tell us about your latest release and how it came about
I wrote this song almost on a whim, just to ease the urge in me to write big, loud, overemphatic love ballads. Like I think it is a bit of a problem I have as a songwriter, it’s the only kind of song that comes out and though I try to break the mould, this stuff is just what flows out of me on a casual Tuesday afternoon. I love “love”, so this song is simply me standing on a mountaintop screaming to my wife that I love the way she loves me.
What inspires your sound?
Early on in my journey as a songwriter, I ended up writing with the band Valley, I am definitely inspired by their sound. But lately, I’ve been obsessed with people like Troye Sivan, ROLE MODEL and more recently Hippo Campus. Since I was raised quite religious I think my songwriting is sort of influenced by the simplicity of the songs that are written and sung in a group setting, so my songs end up being sort of simple but quite accessible.
Where are some things you really want to accomplish as an artist?
To be honest my favourite thing about being an artist is that I also get to be a songwriter so my dream is to get the opportunity to write with and for other artists, write for movies and tv and maybe even start composing. I think if I can show my honesty through my own songs and build trust through these songs about my own life and struggles maybe I can help other artists find their own honest voice!
Was there ever a moment when you felt like giving up?
For sure, many… One that stands out was when I had just moved out to Vancouver and I had been grinding for what felt like a long time and I got to this point of trying to convince myself I should go back to school for computer science or some kind of software gig that pays good and that I would do music on the side or after school. I had my application all filled out and then by chance I had met someone who was just graduating high school and they were highly passionate about not going to school but pursuing music. This young drive kinda sparked this wake-up call moment and I realized if I follow through with going back to school then ‘this is it’ and I wouldn’t actually ever truly pursue being an artist again, so I didn’t send in my application and the rest is history.. 🙂
