My name is Conor Pelan. I trained at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama. I started playing guitar at 11, when my parents bought me a cheap Yamaha beginner’s guitar. I always loved playing and found it was something cathartic about playing and singing that I could connect with that I wasn’t really finding anywhere else. I mainly just played by myself for years, writing awful songs and singing as loud as I could until I was told to please keep it down by everyone. When I was 13 years old I heard the song, ‘Subterranean Homesick Blues’ by Bob Dylan and distinctly remember it having a massive effect on me as it was the first time I really heard music. That then began my journey into listening to a range of folk such as Neil Young, Towns Van Zandt, Joni Mitchell, which took me into the other genres of those decades of music, such as Led Zeppelin, The Beatles, Pink Floyd, The Who, The Rolling Stones and Van Morrison. For years I was absolutely captivated by British and American music from those decades and still am to a huge degree. I also started playing harmonica with the guitar and singing during this time, plagiarised massively from the Bob Dylan influence. I was in a series of awful bands then for the next few years. However after about 17 though I went on playing solo guitar and writing and only doing solo concerts in bars and events. For the next three years I performed like this until I was asked to join a folk/bluegrass/blues band that was in its early stages called No Oil Paintings. It was a huge experience for me, because unlike the other times, these musicians were very serious and talented. The experience was great, realising my own faults and where I lacked skills, such as timing, dynamics and harmonies. Also looking after my own equipment and realising what it’s like to be part of an ensemble of musicians. We did concerts together for about two years, starting off in packed drunken pubs, doing open mic nights, running our own nights and playing festivals. It was a great experience of living on the road on fish and chips and cigarettes and doing small tours around the North of Ireland where I’m from and making money for our craft. Sadly I had to leave though once I got accepted into the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama to start a BA in Acting in Cardiff. While I was here I learnt that some people work professionally as an actor musician and I realised that was something I wanted to do. We were given vocal lessons once a week for the three years, the first year as part of a class and the second year as individual singing lessons. These were a fantastic opportunity for me as I had never had singing lessons before and though my teacher enjoyed my passion for singing, she wanted me to work on the technique that had been neglected for years. I was very lucky as I had a teacher who didn’t want to change my sound but just give me more control over it. For those three years I worked on my singing warm ups every day for half an hour and was able to get the control that I never had. Now I’ve graduated I work as an actor musician in Cardiff. I think working with the No Fit State ensemble will be massively beneficial to me, the next chapter of moving up to a whole new level of professional standard. A long way from that £108 acoustic guitar when I was 11.