A Quick Chat with Mister Chorister

‘Spark’ follows your debut single ‘Brave’ - how does this new track build on what you started there?

Both songs are reflective conversations with an inner voice, just at different moments. Brave is about taking action despite uncertainty. Spark is about searching when the well runs dry.

Brave introduced the Mister Chorister alter ego as a way of giving that inner voice a presence. Spark picks up where that leaves off, exploring what happens when that inner voice goes quiet. It’s about the frustration of losing inspiration, and the search to reconnect with it in order to create again.

You stepped away from music for nearly three decades - what was the moment that pulled you back in?

I stepped away from music quite early on because I chose a more stable path. I grew up in a military family where security and structure were important, so I felt compelled to follow a stable career in IT, build a life, and focus on a direction that would lead to stability and comfort. Music became a hobby.

Over time, that sense of stability began to unravel. There were redundancies, relationships ending, and moments where I realised I hadn’t really avoided failure as I’d intended, maybe I’d just delayed it by choosing the safer path.

Coming back to songwriting became a way of processing all of that. I wrote three songs in six months, and then something clicked. It stopped feeling like a hobby and started to feel like a necessity.

There’s a certain irony in stepping away from something out of fear of failure, only to return to it as a way of making sense of where you are. Kind of like going down the wrong tunnel to a dead end only to realise you must turn back and try another route. Looking back on that time, I’ve realised that stepping away for so long has made the return feel even more necessary.

The idea of an ‘inner voice’ is central to your music - how would you describe that in your own words?

For me, the inner voice is that quiet, persistent part of you that sits underneath everything else. It’s not always loud or clear, but it’s always there.

Sometimes it pushes you forward, sometimes it questions you, and sometimes it disappears altogether. A lot of my songs are really conversations with that voice, trying to understand it, follow it, or find it again when it fades.

I believe this inner voice is what sits at the heart of my spark, the source of my creative ideas. It also feels like a kind of guiding presence, something that helps me make sense of the world and my place in it.

If you had to sum up ‘Spark’ in one sentence, what would it be?

Spark is about searching for inspiration and realising it often returns when you pause and look within.

Your sound blends influences like The Killers and Coldplay with a nostalgic edge - what draws you to that style?

I’ve always been drawn to artists like The Killers and Coldplay because they combine scale with emotion. There’s a sense of uplift, but it’s grounded in something personal and reflective.

That balance really resonates with me. I’ve always been drawn to expansive, anthemic songs, and music that creates shared emotional lift. People tend to remember how you make them feel. And songs from these artists stay with you a long time after the final note. That’s the space I’m aiming to explore with Mister Chorister.

What do you hope listeners take away from hearing ‘Spark’ for the first time?

I think if people take anything from Spark, it’s the idea that losing direction or inspiration is part of the process, not the end of it.

There’s a repetitive motif in the track that reflects the sense of rumination when you’re stuck, which then opens up into the chorus. That contrast mirrors the tension in the lyrics between frustration and the need to create space to reconnect with that source of inspiration.

For me, the spark isn’t something you chase, it’s something you reconnect with.