Diving At Dawn
... is a one-man band comprising of Pete Hobbs, better known as the music-providing half of indie-pop duo The Boy Least Likely To. Pete grew up in Aylesbury but moved to London to seek his musical good fortune. He is influenced by Milan Kundera, Van Halen, Wings, Garth Merenghi, Battlestar Galactica and re runs of Rising Damp.
Pete, thanks for your time and here we go with our first question, who is the artist behind the project "Diving At Dawn"?
The artist behind Diving At Dawn is me, Pete Hobbs. I’ve been making records for 20 years, mainly with my other band The Boy Least Likely To but I’ve also produced and written with other artists along the way.
Diving At Dawn is a solo project in the truest sense, I make the records by myself- singing, playing, recording and mixing everything. It’s an experiment to see how far I can go creatively on my own.
"Playing your records" sounds amazing and creates a very impressive 60's atmosphere, who or what was your inspiration and what's the story?
Thanks! I think the inspiration came from my childhood. My Dad is a huge music fan and a bit of an audiophile and he always had a great sounding record deck. He never liked cds or tapes so it was vinyl all the way. In the evenings he would play these amazing sounding albums by Wings, George Harrison, Pink Floyd, Kate Bush and Tomita. I would lie in bed listening to this beautiful soothing music and fall asleep.
When recording Playing Your Records it took me a longtime to get the tempo/groove right, I was self conscious about doing something that slow but I eventually managed to recreate something close to that hazy dreamlike state I experienced as a kid.
My Dad’s record collection obviously influenced me massively. He was never keen for me to make music my life, too insecure and transient an industry for his liking but he just didn’t realise how much his passion for music, sounds and records rubbed off on me. It’s basically all his fault!
How would you describe your songwriting process in general?
My songwriting process is cathartic and frustrating in equal measures. Nothing gives me greater satisfaction than coming up with the bare bones of a new song, all of the melodic ideas come pretty quickly and I get really excited with the potential of what I’ve just created. The frustration comes in finishing it off. Lyrics always take me a long time, and so does some of the musical arrangement subtleties. I’m untrained musically so everything is trial and error which leads to many a crisis in confidence!
What do you prefer, stage or studio?
I always used to prefer being onstage but as I’ve got older I definitely prefer the studio. The creative possibilities are endless and making a record that could potentially connect with people all over the world is so inspiring.
If you take a look back on music history, what would you call the last "big turning point"?
The digital revolution. Being able to produce and record music on a laptop at home has been hugely empowering. Added to the fact that you can release and promote your music digitally without a huge budget or even a label, I don’t think there’s ever been a better time to be an artist.
What can we expect from "Diving at dawn" in the near future?
For the rest of 2023 I’m going to be releasing a new single every couple of months. I’m enjoying doing it one song at a time and not having to worry about delivering a full album. Having said that, next year I will definitely put all the tracks together and put them out on vinyl, got to keep up the vinyl tradition that my Dad started!
