Thursday 23rd June, 2022
Lately I’ve been misbehaving….
At least in relation to this journal. My excuse for last week? I’ve forgotten… but my excuse for this week? Work! Tuesday & yesterday, I was working on the Harry Styles gig. I was involved with handling the VIP early access fans, making sure they were all taken care of, that they got everything they paid for, yadda yadda… All 2000 of them. It was a whole thing. Really happy with the money, really happy with the people I got to work with, & even some of the fans I got to chat to. The work came at a really handy time too… I just bought the VT-4 roland vocal transformer, & these two long days of work have paid for it. (music gear is expensive)
Let’s chat for a moment about how I got the job… because I’m sure that a lot of you reading have some yearning to get into the music industry… work your way up… & make a career out of music. Getting this job was a complicated accident that came from hard work & readiness. Throughout my first year at BIMM I’ve been throwing myself at the lecturers, & other staff to get to know them, & make sure that they know me. My goal is to be front of mind for anything they have to offer. “I’ve a support slot to fill… oh Nathan!” etc, etc…
From this, I got to know the people hiring students to work at the BIMM events. As soon as they put the call out for students to work, I threw my hand up (digitally speaking) & leapt on every opportunity I could. At each event I worked my butt off, applied some hard-won common sense, took some initiative, & quickly became a go-to student for each show, or graduation, etc… hence, becoming the front of mind person like I had diabolically planned to do.
Event after event gave me chance after chance to prove myself & familiarise myself with whomever was in charge. From simply getting on well with them, it increased my chances of the next job, & the next one, until the moment came for me to be recommended by these people, to other gig & event organisers. This is how I got introduced to the person(s) who gave me the job at the Harry Styles gig… at which, I applied the same tactic: work my butt off, take some initiative, & get on with the bosses. Now I’m on my way to becoming front of mind for the next set of opportunity givers.
An odd combination of who you know & how you act with what they give you. Without BIMM, I wouldn’t have wound up working a massive show & seeing behind the superstar operation that is a Harry Styles gig. It was definitely an eye opening experience. Not only the physical force from the screams of 65,000 fans, not only the 2000 vip hopefuls that waited for hours in the rain & sun, but the few thousand of staff (including myself) that were all working 14 hour shifts to make sure that Harry could do his thing in front of that crowd. It was definitely a humbling experience. Here I am trying to fill a room with 300 people, & this guy (roughly my age if not younger) is paying about 10 times that amount to help him fill a stadium with an obscene number of fans… in every major city of the world to boot.
One can’t help but ask the question… could I ever reach that level? Is that in the cards for me? There’s no question as to wether or not I want to… but the realistic thinking reminds you of what’s impossible, not what could be. That’s the realm of pragmatic imagination. Utopian thinking is not about reaching the horizon, but merely trying to. I’ll end up where I end up. There are too many factors, beyond my control, that will dictate the degree of success I can achieve, & that can’t be helped… but there are things I can do to increase my chances… which in reality, is all the best of us can do.
So what am I doing to increase my chances???
First thing I did (that was productive & smart) was rewriting my songs & really considering the quality of them. The ‘song’ is your core as an artist. Without a good song, you’ll get nowhere. You don’t need to be the best writer, but need to have the best songs.
Secondly, I found a bitchin producer to help me bring these songs into the world. You can record yourself onto your phone & put that out… but listening is an experience. The songs need to be delivered in a way that emphasises their meaning, or accentuates their curves.
Thirdly, I began figuring out who I am, who I want to be, & what I want to say. (for now, all this will change over time)
Fourthly, I learned about the beast of marketing & distribution… how am I getting these songs to people? How do I give these songs the best chance to fly off into the ears of someone who cares?
Fifthly, kind of now-ly, I’m working on the live show to play these songs. I’m building a show that I can sell. That I can take with me anywhere. That’s flexible technically, financially, & logistically (travelling around).
There’s a bunch of other stuff that I’ve done in between, like making a short circus musical film to swing my big C-word around… garnering interest from the music industry & others alike. There’s also a lifetime of stuff that I haven’t done, like properly building relationships with radio, newspapers, playlisters, labels, etc, etc, etc…
What I’m trying to get at here is the important, & the incidental work that needs to be done to weight the wheel of fate in your wedge. (probably an overly colourful metaphor, but whatever…) You need to have work for people to enjoy. You need a show for people to enjoy. You need to know who you are & what you want to keep yourself focused when everyone is trying to dilute you. You need to connect to people & have them want to support you. Without the fans, nothing else will work, no label or manager will touch you. There are exceptions to these rules… & we tend to exalt them as the ‘wikihow’ article to success.
Billie Eilish is an exception, they’re not the rule.
Kanye is an exception, they’re not the rule
Harry Styles is an exception, they’re not the rule.
Don’t compare your career or your success to them. (the boy says, just after comparing himself above) They have been born into a lucky situation, or elbowed their way into success with a unique personality, or got cherrypicked into the guidance of a star making machine. You probably won’t be any of those things… so you’ll need to work that little bit harder, & stumble your way through… the odds are stacked against you, but we all need to bet on ourselves. (as artists… if you’re a manager, bet on your artist…)
Anyways, rant over… go sell some tickets… go change some lives… go make music & fill the air with some symmetrical vibrations.
Nathan
