Meet Nigel Groom | Composer for media

We had the good fortune of connecting with Nigel Groom and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Nigel, where are your from? We’d love to hear about how your background has played a role in who you are today?
I was born and raised in Cheltenham, England. Growing up, my Dad was into bands like Europe, and Rainbow; my Mum liked a lot of Motown; and I used to listen to my older brother’s Madness and Depeche Mode tapes.

My Dad and brother took me to my first concert in 1995. From there I became really intrigued by live music and started to discover music for myself. I bought a bass guitar when I was 15, after going to a No Doubt concert with my best friend. From there the floodgates opened, and I started getting into everything from Hardcore, Grindcore, Punk, Classical, Metal, Dance.

Cheltenham is quite a small town with not much going on for teenagers, so I spent all day everyday teaching myself how to play music. I’d put my favourite albums on and teach myself how to play them from front to back. If there were any gigs on locally, I’d go to them no matter who was playing.

I moved to London aged 17 to join a band, but mostly spent a year there being a young lad from a small town being amazed by living so freely in such a huge city. The drinking age in England in pubs and clubs is 18, but you can usually make your way in from around 15. I was exposed to this huge alternative scene and these people who I felt were just like me. I was sofa surfing for the most part, spending a lot of my time in a student house with a group of students who took me in. Always at alternative clubs and gigs. I was exposed to a lot of great music in that house!

I moved back to Cheltenham when I was 18, and eventually formed my own band, ELLA. I moved to Bristol, England, in 2005 with my band, touring and recording. ELLA broke up right at the end of recording its first album, which was a huge shame, as we seemed to have a nice amount of press and label interest building at the time for the record.

In 2015, I moved to Los Angeles and started pursuing composing for media.

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
I was in limbo after my band broke up and poured myself into Martial Arts. I continued to write music, but with no idea of what I wanted to do with it. A director/photographer friend of mine, Chris Taylor, asked me to score his film, ‘My Father’s Side’, in England and I jumped at it. I’d never scored a film before and was excited about creating music that was going to go out into the world. I loved the process of helping to tell a story with my music, and I knew that I wanted to do more of that.

When I first moved to LA, I didn’t know the first thing about music production from an engineering point of view, so just in the same way I did as a kid learning to play an instrument, I set about teaching myself everything about producing, mixing, mastering, and scoring to picture.

With anything creative in LA, unless you know people who are going to hold doors open for you, you’re going to have to work harder than everyone else and kick those doors down. Talent only gets you so far. From there you just have to hope that your hard work meets a bit of luck at just the right time. That when someone throws you the smallest crumb of opportunity, you turn that into a fucking banquet!

I’m really into huge sounding guitars and heavy percussion. Imagine taking a piece of gum and stretching it out as far as it’ll go before it breaks; on one end of that I want sonically huge guitars and percussion, and on the other end I want the to create the saddest sounds which are on the verge of silence. The fragility in the middle is all the space to play around with dynamics. Making sense of the sadness and the violence working cohesively.

The first time I got paid as a composer was a huge achievement for me. I got paid to create some sounds for the HBO Max show, S.W.A.T. I was hired because they wanted my guitar sounds. That felt like a huge payoff because I’d stuck to my guns and had been developing my own style, and then they said, “I want what you create”. I felt like someone else recognised the value I was trying to create.

I’m rarely inspired by sound. I’m inspired by WWI poetry, toys from the 80’s, VHS, smells that remind me of growing up. These things grab me and take me into this world of imagination and I think, “how does this smell sound? How does walking into a video rental store sound? How does this poem sound?”

Feelings can be hard to articulate because they’re things we feel. I get a kick out of making the things I feel sound like something.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
Oh shit, umm…we’d definitely drive out to the desert for a few days to record some music We’d have breakfast at Swingers, hike Fryman, grab dinner at Monty’s Good Burger and/or Astro Burger. We’d grab some Margaritas at El Compadre then go and see my mate who bartends at The Phoenix. Definitely pop in to Jumbos Clown Room, Rustic Inn and Drawing Room. Don’t knock it, but I love Norm’s. You get some proper salt of the Earth characters in there.

We’d spend some time in East LA and North Hollywood. We’d go to a LAFC game and a Dodger game.

I don’t party so much these days, but when it comes to a night out I always like to pick one place to start at and then just see what happens. You could end up at a party in the Hills, a tiny gig somewhere, a friends house, a secret DJ set.

Alright, so let’s jump right in! The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there a person, group, organization, book, etc. that you want to dedicate your shoutout to? Who else deserves a little credit and recognition in your story?  
I’ve studied Martial Arts since I was 9 years old. I’ve won a few U.K. Kickboxing Championships and fought for Team GB. Martial Arts teaches you skills you can take into any scenario in life. It teaches you perseverance, that you have to work hard to achieve your goals, patience, determination, gratitude, how to be gracious in defeat, and gracious in victory. I’ve had many mentors and peers over the years whose words I still carry today into every challenge I face.

Website: www.nigelgroom.com

Instagram: @cobrani

Twitter: @NigelGroom

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FarewellSons

Youtube: Nigel Groom

Other: I have music under Nigel Groom, and Cobrani, at www.soundcloud.com/cobrani I’m one half of the band, Farewell Sons. On Instagram as @farewellsons. We have an EP out now called ‘Jaded E.P.’

Image Credits
Chris Taylor Heff Heathcote