Sean Giddings rekindles passion in UK

Sometimes a bad situation can lead to a better one, one that fulfills an original dream – at least it did for Sean Giddings.

“It’s a completely new phase in my life,” said 2009 Belmont alumnus Giddings.

Giddings came to Belmont as a commercial voice major, but changed to English writing a year and a half later.

“I think I got scared away,” he said. “and there were a couple of things about the music major that I wasn’t crazy about.”

He gave up on music as a career until his life hit a drastic turning point: a month before he and his girlfriend of three years were to marry, they split up.

“That was pretty devastating,” he said. “But the cool thing that came out of that

was that I had spent the last year saving for our wedding and so I had basically an opportunity to go wherever I wanted and do whatever I wanted, so I decided to take a trip to London.”

He spent two weeks in England and Scotland alone, an experience that made him once again decide to play music.

“Now that it’s back at my life focus I’ve got all this music that I’ve been doing for years and it’s just a matter of developing [it]. I like to kind of practice that sound,” he said.

Giddings plays indie folk music, with a noticeable United Kingdom flair.

“I’ve been compared to Mumford and Sons a bit which makes me smile because,

you know, English,” he said. “But they influence me; actually a lot of British bands influence me.”

Giddings promotes his EP, “The Morning Greys,” by putting it in local music stores and playing at coffee shops and pizza joints around his home in Bowling Green, Ky., where Belmont helped give him the job.

After three years as an RA at Belmont, Giddings now works in Residence Life at Western Kentucky University.

“I don’t think I’d have the flexibility to do music like I’ve been doing if I wasn’t in this particular job,” he said.

Even though he wasn’t a music major, his experience at Belmont helped foster his appreciation for music.

“It really opened my eyes to some different kinds of music I might not have listened to, particularly classical,” he said.

English writing, too, helped his songwriting abilities.

Giddings’ plan now is to move to Los Angeles to live with his brother and boost his music career; the coffee shop shows and online songs aren’t enough to spread his music to people.

“I think the next step is figuring out how to get it in as many people’s hands as I can,” he said.

In the meantime, Giddings has “The Morning Greys” EP at seangiddings.bandcamp.com and digstation.com. The EP is also coming to iTunes and Amazon soon.

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