Andy Sergeant played in the background. It was a small moment of serendipity that comes about once in a lifetime. You listen to a song and you either like it or not. Sometimes after you hear it enough you get used to it. However, there are times that you hear a song once and the first thing you want to do is purchase it from iTunes. You do your research and find who the songwriter is.
That happened to me. I heard “What I Want,” and I immediately dropped what I was doing. The music captured my attention, the lyrics made me cry, and for a moment I realized that my life has changed in a manner that I didn’t expect. I searched and found Andy Sergeant. I had to know more about him. Here are the questions that I asked him.
- Tell us about yourself as a gay man and your background in music.
I’m not sure if there’s so much to say about me as a gay man. I’m just a man, in love, engaged. I’ve been writing and composing original music since I was 13 and three years ago I decided I wanted to do something with that. No more playing the piano, swaying in the background, but finding my own way to the front of the stage. My partner and I write songs together now, so that definitely changed the way we look at music. It’s no longer something I do to pass the time, but it’s intense writer’s sessions, give and take, working together to create something neither of us could do alone.
- You have a few songs, I’ve listened to them. I’m quite impressed. My personal favorite is ‘What I Want.’ I can identify with it. I actually cried thinking of my lost love. Can you tell us about how you came to write this song? What happened or what was the catalyst for it.
When we started working on the album, I listened back to more than 300 songs I’d written over the years. We put them in different categories: ‘rubbish’, ‘maybe’ and ‘yeah’. Six of those songs ended up on the album, some as they were, some totally rewritten. ‘What I Want’ was one of the new songs I wrote at the time. There were some major changes going on in my life and I wanted to write about them. I just moved in with my boyfriend, and that was quite a big deal for me as this was my first steady relationship. Moving out of my parent’s house, having to help keep the place clean, doing dishes, … But that’s all worth it, it’s what I wanted, and that’s what the song is about. About waking up in the morning and the only thing you can think of is your boyfriend and how you want to wake up next to him every morning, for the rest of your life.
- Your songs are about relationships. How he was there, how he wasn’t there, and how you miss him. Are they about the same man or different men that have made an impact in your life?
Some of the songs are autobiographical, some are just written with a specific emotion in mind. For example, ‘Taking Control’ is a song I wrote when I spent the first night at my boyfriend’s. It’s about feeling connected to one another and saying that you trust the person completely and want to surrender to him all the way.
‘Once Upon A Time’ is a song my boyfriend and I wrote together. It’s about the fact that people don’t say “I love you” often enough, and that we all can write our own fairytales, just by saying that little sentence a little bit more. Most of the time when I’m performing that song on stage, we end up looking at each other in the last part, gives me a warm feeling over and over.
- Are you afraid of being compared to Tyler Swift, on how she sings about each one of her exes?
Ha-ha, no, not really. I try to keep my exes in my past and not look back to them. Way too much negative energy. I do tend to get inspiration from people I meet though, whether they put me off, or inspire me. It’s a good way to convey a universal message in your music, some kind of base layer everybody understands. We recently wrote a new song called ‘Until The Battle Is Over’, a true battle song. Imagine an epic battle scene from your favorite movie, right before the fight starts and you say: “beware, for I am here and I will not stop until victory is ours!” You don’t even have to listen to the lyrics to understand what it’s about, the feeling is just there when you hear the music.
- Is Pop music what you’ve always sung? Or are there other genre’s that you might do in the future?
Over the years, I’ve listened to all kinds of music really. I even had a trance music period when I was younger, where Armin van Buuren picked one of my songs and broadcast it worldwide. However, I love music that you suddenly start singing after you’ve heard it once or twice on the radio. I don’t care if it’s pop, rock, dance, country. I can enjoy Adam Lambert just as much as Carrie Underwood (who I recently discovered through Apple Music Festival) or Within Temptation and Fall Out Boy…
I believe you can hear that diversity on the album as well. I was still searching what kind of genre I wanted to do. Next, to the pop music, there are also some tracks on it that have some more dance influences an even some funky soul tracks. For now, I feel most at home in the pop-rock genre. That’s where I can express myself the most on stage.
- How has writing and singing these songs changed your life and how you live as a gay man? Or what do you want to change in others and how they live.
I never made a big secret out of me being gay. A lot of artists try to come over as straight because they don’t want to jeopardize their career or fan base. But how can people love you and your work if you can’t even be yourself? So far I don’t feel like I’ve missed out on anything because of that. I do try to keep my own lyrics gender-neutral because I don’t want to limit my songs to either ‘for men’ or ‘for women’. However, during my live performances I sing cover songs as well and if Whitney wants to sing about, “A boy she knows and dreams of”, why should I change her lines? One time when I was singing that song, I suddenly saw a group of guys smiling and I could tell they were saying “He didn’t change the lines!”. It’s these small things that can make gay people well accepted in society.
- Do you have any plans to tour in the US in 2016?
There are no plans to tour in the US just yet. However, my boyfriend and I are getting married next summer and we’ll be doing a United Stated road trip as our honeymoon between half of July and half of August. We’ll be visiting New York City, Philadelphia, Washington D.C., Las Vegas, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Chicago, so if there would be any venues interested in having me, they can obviously contact me to see what’s possible.
I can honestly say that Andy Sergeant has a wonderful voice, is an awesome lyricist, and a great performer. I’m looking forward to listening to him live in July. I hope to see you there.
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