Barbara Pugliese: “The world needs more community work and collectives”

This year, ArtsTrain is offering a unique opportunity to some of our music leaders to develop and expand their skills in leading music workshops with our professional development bursary. Barbara Pugliese took up this opportunity and decided to hone her music production skills. Here we chat about her experience so far.

Barbara Pugliese is an Italian born musical artist who has long had an interest in peforming arts. As a child, she trained as a dancer, citing ballet as her first passion. She then went on to have what she describes as her “rebel teenage phase”, shaving her head and setting her heart on becoming a singer. Moving to the UK at the age of 18, Barbara enrolled on the performing arts foundation degree course at The Trinity College, London thinking that musical theatre “was my thing”. The training she received taught her invaluable skills; such as vocal techniques and stage presence, but after being rejected from the third year, to make it a full degree, she realised it wasn’t what she wanted to pursue.

This rejection became the catalyst for Barbara to follow her dream of writing, performing and having her own band. After pushing herself to sing and perform at various open mic nights across London, she gathered together some fellow musicians and Barbarella’s Bang Bang was born. The musical project was formed of southern and Eastern European members, whose sound encompassed gypsy folk-rock, and later on garage rock. The band peformed at Glastonbury in 2013, where they were scouted by the people behind Fuji Rock Festival in Japan, which led to them playing there the following year and undertaking a little tour of Japan. As well this they played countless lives shows together and festivals throughout the UK and Europe. Since then Barbara has been focussing on her solo music, as well as collaborating with other musicians.

Here ArtsTrain sits down with the singer so find out what led her to work with us as a music leader and her experience of the bursary so far.

ArtsTrain: Why did you decide to work with a company such as ArtsTrain?

Barbara Pugliese: I wanted to find community work where I could share my artistic skills to co-create with people. I was looking online for co-creating workshops and wondered if there was something in Bromley. I did some research and then found ArtsTrain, sent an email and they got back to me. It’s very beautiful to be in a room where you assist and witness people dropping ideas, coming out of their shells and expressing their state of mind and emotions through lyrics and music. It’s magic and it’s therapeutic. I love the community element of it. The world needs more of this - community work and collectives.

AT: What’s been the biggest challenge that you’ve faced doing this work?

BP: Knowing what I can give. It’s new to me, assisting workshops and leading them, so trying to figure out what I can offer has been a challenge. Assisting Damien (Cooke) has been a blessing. He is an amazing music leader and mentor. The way he approaches his work, and those he works with, is quite mentor-like. People look up to him and feel comfortable with him. He’s able to spot the potential in you, what your gift is.

AT: What has your experience of the professional development bursary been so far?

BP: It has taught me about the Logic software and how to record myself. I feel it has opened up some doors for me. There were some options on the interface that I was unfamiliar with, but now I finally know and I can have fun in creating effects to add to my voice, which is very useful to be able to navigate. Having a deeper knowledge has made it easier to use. I need to make sure I put everything into practice. That’s the whole purpose, isn’t it? That you practice what you learn. 

AT: Why did you choose to learn more about music production? Is it so you could have more control over the music you create?

BP: Yeah, that for sure. So that I can have more independence. Also in the music world , which is very male-driven, front women and vocalists are often seen as ‘ just singers’ and we can get looked down upon and under-estimated. Many times I had the chords I had written for my own songs totally changed or dismissed because they weren’t complex and ‘sophisticated’ enough, and considered ‘too plain’, or even ‘primitive’. ‘Primitive’ was a word that was given to my chosen chords a couple of times. So through these frustrating and toxic experiences, which made me angry and led to self doubt and anxiety, I decided to expand my knowledge and also get a better grasp of the technical vocabulary so that when I am working with producers I can feel more confident in ‘speaking the language’. I would also like to lead the workshops soon and be able to record the people I work with, as Damien does. I am gaining more clarity on how I would like to structure my workshops, and recording and producing is going to be a part of them.

AT: Any tips for young people wanting to break into the music industry?

BP: If you have a vision - be strong in your vision. Believe in it. If you see the people that you’re working with are slowing you down, that’s not a good sign. You don’t want to be slowed down when you’re destined to thrive. Learn an instrument, especially if you’re a singer or a rapper. It helps you to have more independence. Gain knowledge of the music business - PRS, PPL - learn about protecting your music when you’re making it. So do courses, attend conferences where they talk about how to protect your music. Welcome and also push yourself to do collaborations with different artists. This broadens your mind and creativity, as well as your audience. Also, we need more unity in this world and collaborations are a great way to embrace the spirit of togetherness.

AT: Any stand-out collaborations that you’ve done?

BP: One was with my friend, an amazing grime artist called Choze. I was invited to sing on his track and it was the first time I sang on a grime track. So it was a totally new field for me. I really enjoyed it and from that collaboration an amazing friendship grew. That was one of the gems from two years ago. The album (that I’m on) will come out soon!

AT: Anything coming up?

BP: Hopefully I will have my first solo single coming out for the autumn and by the end of the year an EP or an album out under a new alias. But I’m not going to share what that alias is yet. 

If you want to be the first to know about Barbara’s next release under her new alias, follow her on Instagram.