Please tell our readers who you are and what you do?

Adam Brookes, singer songwriter guitarist from San Francisco, CA. My bands are Dangermaker, Nites, as well as some solo work and composition.

How would you describe your style and genre?

I listen to a lot of different styles of music, and go through periods where I kind of binge, burnout and move on to something else. What comes out in my own music tends to fall into either pop alternative rock in Dangermaker, some americana retro guitar rock solo, and more recently hip-hop and r&b in a project called Nites. A long answer to say that I don’t like to be boxed into one narrow genre all the time, that’s boring, I’ve grown up with all kinds of music and like different outlets for different ideas.

Who are your biggest influences and idols … and why? Do you have any idols? Are you a super fan of anyone? (Dead or alive, musician or non-musician)

I hate this question, again it’s ever-changing, but I’ll give it a shot. When I was really young it was Beatles & Elvis, together with my parents love of jazz & standards, which probably introduced me to pop songwriting. At the same time I started playing violin in the grade school orchestra which introduced me to music theory and arrangement whether I liked it or not. A few years later I got into really loud rock, punk, early hip-hop and electronica, so I put down the violin and picked up a guitar and haven’t looked back. Few influences from back then remain relevant to me honestly, if anything they’ve served as a path to go back and discover the real innovators, Bowie, Miles Davis, Joe Strummer, Parliament and so on. Lately I’ve been influenced by artists from Tame Impala, M83, The 1975, and Glass Animals to The Weeknd, Bryson Tiller and 6lack, with an ear always out for good dance tracks, so it can be all over the place you see.

What´s new right now? What should our readers know about that is coming up from you?

Lot’s coming soon, just finishing up a full length LP with Dangermaker here in the Bay Area which is turning out better than we had hoped, excited to get that out, just putting the final touches on it and shopping it around. Through the writing process I have a whole bunch of other rock ‘n’ roll based songs that I’ve been recording solo in my home studio, just me, so I may start releasing some singles for that soon too. Also Nites came about after I was hired to compose some electronic music for The North Face a while ago, I probably have a whole album’s worth of songs there too including a couple featuring Enon Gaines from Unlikely Heroes, Najee Amaranth from Oakland Mind, and others guests. I guess you could say I’m following my muses, we’ll see where they go…

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What was the biggest mistake you made when you started making music and what would be the number one tip you could give to a newcomer musician?

Don’t be afraid to just start. Just do it, right? Don’t overthink everything because you are going to make some mistakes, that’s how it works. Write and record the best songs you can, play the best shows you can, get out there and earn your reputation and show everyone that you’re for real and worthy of their time. Eventually you’ll learn what you are capable of and what you need help with, and build your team around that. And the number one thing, keep going.

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How do you get gigs? Can you share any tips?

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What has been your biggest challenge right now? Have you been able to overcome that challenge? If so, how?
Huh, good question. There’s no shortage ha. I’ll spare you my personal drama… Biggest challenge for any band I know is how to tour, especially living in a city as expensive as SF. It’s not so easy to just drop everything and go, I don’t have the answer to that one yet, working on it. I’ve also been struggling with a way to do a little more for the music community here in SF, give back support in some way. Do more than what’s expected, that being make music, release music, play music live, repeat. I’m working with a small venue to curate some special intimate performances, it’s too soon to give details yet. But something like that, do something on the other side of things to ensure there’s a future for it here.
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How do you promote yourself? Do you have any specific promotion tips for other musicians?

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We meet again in one year. What has changed?

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http://www.twitter.com/adam__brookes