Kerrang!’s 21 September issue features Sleeping with Sirens, an American post-hard core band who will have a concert in O2 Academy Brixton in three weeks’ time. This suggests that the target audience for this particular section of the magazine are the fans and devotees of the band. The audience might be also those who are interested in rock and may want to listen to the music of the featured band. Since the band’s frontman, Kellin Quinn is the one being interviewed, along with a few words from his band members, this shows that target audience may want to know about some revelations about the vocalist.
The article uses informative language wherein it notifies the audiences about the band’s controversies and plans in their upcoming concert. The language used is also chatty and quite comfortable because the interviewee – Kellin Quinn is talking about his personal life and his family affairs with the magazine such as about his daughter, his father and the bands the he has rivalry with. This is evident in the lexis such as “… and poppy diapers, man”, “My dad was annoyed about it at first.” And “I don’t have anything against Oli Sykes.” These languages used by Quinn are very personal which conveys that he feels comfortable and intimate in doing the interview between the magazine and their fans.
The colours that are used are purple, bright pink, white and yellow. This is because Sleeping with Sirens fans are mostly female. The colours that were used adhere to the dominant target audience of the featured band. Purple and yellow are contrasting colours which makes one stand out that the other. It also makes the page complimentary and pleasant. The use of a neutral colour like white simplifies the contrasting colours and makes it more enticing and attractive to the readers, especially for the dominant female audience. However, it doesn’t disrupt the magazine’s house style as it also uses one of the magazine’s main colours which is yellow. This shows the connectivity between the magazine and the featured article. Also, by using purple, which is not adherent to magazine’s colour house style; this shows emphasis to the featured article because it’s different from the rest of the given article highlighted in the magazine.
The double page is laid out in such a way that the image of the featured band is located at centre and the description and title at the upper right and left corner of the featured image. The article is situated in the lower right hand side of the page. This shows that the emphasis is on the image of the featured person or band – in this featured article’s case, it is an image of Sleeping with Sirens’ frontman Kellin Quinn. On the other pages which are a continuation of the article, the images that were featured was Quinn and the rest of the band. This is so because the interviewee is the frontman, Quinn. In the six-page featured article, the pictures are dominating the articles itself. The fonts that the article used are quite small and white in colour which might not show emphasis but is still noticeable. There is an enormous image of the band in each page which creates emphasis to the band appearance.
The tone that the magazine used in this particular interview is that of a ‘close friend’. This is because of the use of swear words such as “f*cking* without any sensors. This conveys that the interview is set in the tone a very close friend because if it was formal, the interviewee would not use such vulgar words and the interviewer would not tolerate it as well.
Relevant to the image, the band is presented to the audience as strong and noise bunch of people because of the mise en scene. For example, the prop used is mostly megaphones which connote attention and loudness. Also, all of the band members are wearing tattoos which represent them as strong and confident people. Shown in their facial expression is that of a person who is shouting or yelling comprehends that the band wants attention from the audience and from the rest of the band members as well. In short, the band is represented as people are confident and loud which catches people’s attention.
The article demand prior knowledge when reading the featured article. For example, the bands mentioned such as “My Chemical Romance” (currently disbanded) and Fall Out Boy which have taken a mainstream position in the rock-genre world. Quinn refers to his band as not a “MCR” or not a “FOB” which conveys that his band is not mainstream yet but he just wants to make “awesome music”. Another example is his rivalry with Oli Sykes, a member of the Bring me to Horizon which is a UK based band. In the article, it doesn’t specify who Oli Sykes is, only that he is a member of a band and he is a musician as well.
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