From classic car sales to featuring artists, Rory Hope started writing and recording toplines through the lockdown. With 'Back To You' reaching over 1,000,000 streams and ‘Hideaway’ just shy, Rory has decided to start finalising and releasing his solo music. As well as music, he enjoys playing video games. 

Hi Rory, lovely to speak to you, you have released your new single which came out on the 8th April ‘Breathe’, can you tell us a bit behind the new single? 

Hey Amy, likewise! This was written about a certain someone holding back and being hesitant. They were telling me everything I wanted to hear but not showing me with actions. Maybe because of how they’d been treated previously by someone? I honestly couldn’t tell you as I still don’t know the answer! 

When you were growing up, were you always surrounded by music and who were your influences growing up? 

I haven’t to be honest with you… My family weren’t really ‘musical’ but my mum can hold a tune and my dad was in the choir as a lad and dabbled on keys but we just loved to listen to music more than anything and talk about different songs/tracks we like. It was high school where my taste changed and continued to change quite rapidly though.. I started listening to Rap (Xzibit/50 Cent/Eminem) when I got my first ‘cheap’ USB MP3 player after my CD Walkman had stopped being important. Then R&B (Usher/Ne-Yo/Chris Brown), to Rock (Thirty Seconds to Mars/Paramore/Linkin Park), to Indie music (The Futurehead/The Kooks/Arctic Monkeys). I get free tickets to Creamfields every year so you could say that played quite a big part in why I feature in the ‘House Music’ realm these days! 

The new single sounds like it’s going to be a BIG one, tell me a bit about the recording and writing process for this? 

This track is actually one that came around so quickly. I tend to note down in my phone everything from lyrical content to stories that I think could make good songs/titles etc. So when I get to writing I have something I can reflect on and write to. I did however, write this  for a client but based on the vibe, it really suited my style for a main artist release and decided to take the topline and use it as one of my own. Fired the topline over to my good friend Gab Hydes, and together we created and finalised the new ‘Breathe’!

How do you think your music has changed since your last releases? 

Well I have been writing for quite a while for my own solo project and like my journey through discovering music, that has changed A LOT!! But my featured stuff is very much how I feel about the instrumental. If I feel inspired when I hear it 9 times out of 10 I could write a hooky topline to it. I struggle more with lyrics but always get there in the end. 

What do you want listeners to take away from this single? 

Not much to take away from it I don’t think! If you like it please enjoy it! If it makes you want to dance, then dance! It’s more a late night driving or gaming song for me though!!

What is next for you? Any live shows? Album perhaps? 

More and more features this year, a few gigs dotted about and my solo project to be finalised with a plan to go full steam ahead! I have finished 6 of my songs which is SO EXCITING! Honestly, feel like I have been writing and re-recording these tracks for years, but I am finally in a happy position with them thanks to working SOAP. Have been apprehensive about releasing my solo stuff but have come to realise that it is only myself holding me back.