COME PL AY WITH WHI T E L IES NINA NESBIT T LIFE
HOW TO FUND YOUR MUSIC - ADVICE AND STORIES F RO M A R T I S T S A ND P R S F O UND AT I O N TOKYO MUSIC - LIFE ON THE FRINGES AND LOTS MORE... BEHIND THE SCENES AND UNDER THE SKIN OF ALL THINGS MUSIC
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WHAT’S INSIDE
MANAGEMENT Tony Ereira MAGAZINE Andrew Benge LABEL Scott Lewis EVENTS Sam Robinson WHITE LIES & NINA NESBITT COVER Andrew Benge To support CPWM please see www.patreon.com/CPWM
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www.cpwm.co @comeplaywith @cpwmco @comeplaywith
SPECIAL THANKS In no particular order - Steven, Stew, Mez, Burak, Frank, Geroge, Alexia, Sakura, Kimerley, Jenessa, Lindsay, Ian, JT, Maxie, Gordon, James, Steve and everyone else that helped make this happen.
SMALL PRINT
04 WHITE LIES 10 LIFE 15 NO FIXED IDENTITY 16 PHOTO BOOTH 20 NINA NESBITT 22 BAMBARA 24 TOKYO MUSIC 26 JUSTINE ‘JT’ THOMSON 27 FREE MONEY 28 FUND YOUR MUSIC 30 COME PLAY WITH US
Come Play With is printed by Mixam. Copyright © 2019 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, email the publisher at andy@cpwm.co. Printed in the UK.
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WHITE LIES 4
A decade can feel like a lifetime. Over this period fads can come and go and for a band, this can be daunting; unless you’re one of the few who possesses the ability to flow seamlessly, marching to the beat of your own figurative, and literal, drum. More often than not though, you get left behind.
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For White Lies, the last decade between the release of their debut ‘To Lose My Life, in 2009, and the upcoming release of their fifth album, ‘Five’, has offered them a wealth of insight to an industry that is as fickle as it is treasuring of its acts. Chatting to frontman Harry McGuire at home in San Francisco, he has the vigour of someone who’s more than happy to still be in the game and finding the lack of pressure refreshing - just as much as the distance between him and the cogs that are turning to get ‘Five’ ready for the world. “It’s kind of weird…I feel a little bit disconnected from all of that because I’m living over here in California.” He admits over Skype. “[Though] I think that’s probably a good thing! I kind of worry about it a little bit less…except we’ve been thinking a lot about our career - and looking back on it. We all kind of feel like it would just be nice to carry on doing this for as long as possible.” He says chuckling. The fight for longevity is often one fraught with attempts to re-define yourselves, which brings its own set of troubles; too far left and you’re alienating a hard-earned fan base (“We can’t very well go ahead and release a country album, or a death metal record!”), too down the middle and you succumb to your own self-made Groundhog Day. So, for a band such as White Lies, a major question is; where exactly do they fit into 2019? “It’s very hard to say.” He ponders. “I guess there is a moment in your career at some point where you kind of go from feeling like…you know when we started, we were nineteen. Even after signing a record deal, and releasing the first album, you assume that it’s a temporary job, and that’s it not something you’ll be able to do forever.”
Luckily for White Lies opportunity has kept on knocking, and here they are with album five - more prepared than ever to keep on keeping on. “We have an understanding now of what people want to hear from a White Lies album,” Harry starts. “We’ve also learned how to accommodate those new elements into each body of work that we release and kind of move our sound forward, [but] also you know, on the other side of the coin this album could be a complete flop and then we’ll have to think about what we’re going to do next!” He breaks laughing. “That’s always slightly terrifying. But hopefully it won’t come to that.” Thus far, White Lies have never known flop territory. They’ve always known how and where to do what they need to do. From picking the right territory’s to focus upon, such as the home of their current label, PS, Belgium, to even - partially - calling ‘Five’ such a simple name, reminding people that they aren’t exactly a ‘new’ band, their head has always been in the game. “[That] was a bit of an inside joke in the band. We’re by no means Foo Fighters, or your Mumford & Sons, things like that, so there’s a lot of people…especially over here in the states, who don’t really know of our music, or how long we’ve been going for, and the question always comes up; what album are you on now? It must be two or three?’ Since rising to prominence back in the indie halcyon days of 2008/09, they’ve managed to establish themselves without ever compromising who they are. The shadow of their past loomed for a while, but Harry and co have grown maturer, even if people are determined to pull them back; “We all felt that we’d moved on from that, but yet we were always still being dragged back to those comparisons on the first album.” 7
The saving grace for them came from being signed during a time when money was in excess and allowed labels to experiment with artists and give them room to breathe and develop. “We’ve had a pretty interesting journey. We signed our record deal in 2008, and the music industry was completely different then.” He fondly remembers. “It was still old school, and had lots of money and sold a lot of records. Over our time we’ve seen our record sales decline massively as a result of streaming, and obviously, that completely changes the industry.
“EVEN AFTER SIGNING A RECORD DEAL, AND RELEASING THE FIRST ALBUM, YOU ASSUME THAT IT’S A TEMPORARY JOB” “I think, on balance, we were very lucky with how our career has panned out. The first album was successful and sold a lot of records, and that set us up nicely, not just with our fans and public, but with the label. They felt they could justify investing a lot of money into our band, and it enabled us to tour all over the world and in places that we never really dreamed of, and we still feel that today! We are a pretty successful band in Europe; we can tour pretty much everywhere there and play reasonably sized venues, and get a return. That’s something that we wouldn’t have had without that initial investment.”
“IT’S IMPORTANT TO MAKE SURE THAT YOU’RE 100% COMMITTED BEHIND THE MUSIC THAT YOU’RE CREATING” These days it’s a different story for bands starting out. It’s often a dog-eat-dog game that’s orchestrated by numbers - on both streaming and social sites - with actual musical content not always coming to the top of the list. White Lies fortunate positioning with the initial financial investment meant that their record label stories have been far less of a worry than if they were a fresh-faced band today - and it’s also offered them an opportunity to roll with the ever-changing times. “We’ve grown as a result in the rise of streaming; like the way our deals are structured. Now with the two labels we’ve signed with since Fiction, it hands a lot more control and a lot more of the management of your finances and investment into touring to us.” He says. “You have to make a lot of those decisions as to how you’re going to make money doing what you do, and where are the right areas to invest to expose your music to as many people as possible, and that’s been great for us as well. “When we started we were so young, [and] we didn’t have a clue about any of that, so it [was] nice to be working with a label who really looked after us and understood a lot more about that than we did. These days I feel like labels understand, in some cases, less than the bands who are touring and releasing music
do. Perhaps the balance of power has shifted slightly for bands like us? We can kind of decide, and we can specify quite clearly where we think money will be best spent. “We certainly made a few missteps here and there,” he says with a sly chuckle when asked if being young and thrust with money brought its own set of issues. “Mainly accounting errors by various members of our crew or whatever, but they’ve never really affected us too badly. Being in a band is a funny thing because you have to view the different parts of your work in different ways; naturally, everything creative and how you put your music together and record it and produce it…all those creative decisions are based on gut instinct. But then the rest of your business you have to view as a real business. “You have to think about how much money you have coming in, how much money you have going out. Where you’re going to tour, what the fees are going to be like, and how much production to put on, for example, …we’ve got better at that and running our business as a business and making decisions that people would sort of make in running any business. It’s always been interesting to me to see where that line is between being a business and being creative starts and ends. There’s certainly a lot of crossover there.”
that if you release an album, there’s nothing on there that you feel will come back to haunt you. I suppose following on from that would be when you’re writing make sure you give yourself a lot of time to listen to it - like months, and months.” “Because,” he pauses, reflecting. “I feel that was a mistake we made on our second album especially. There are a few tracks on there that when I listen back to them now I feel like they weren’t fully fleshed out ideas, and they kind of grate on me a lot now - it’s a shame to feel that way about a record. If we’d taken a step back, and given ourselves some time to let what we were working on sink in, then we’d have delivered a much better album. Think about whether it’s really you and if in ten years you’re going to feel the same way about the songs that you’re working on.” And as succinctly as possible Harry wraps up precisely what it is that’s kept White Lies trucking, and just what new bands should focus on. “We’ve always landed on our feet I guess, and the reason for that is because we’ve always had faith in our fan base, and we always kind of know how to deliver for them.”
Having nailed down precisely what they need to do to survive, turning their dreams into a reality, and now a career, White Lies are a band all upstarts should look to. They’ve learned and have more than enough knowledge to impart for you new groups trying to crack into the fickle factory, which Harry’s more than happy to share; “It’s important to make sure that you’re 100% committed behind the music that you’re creating; 8
Words by Steven Loftin | Photography by Andrew Benge
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LIFE Being in a band costs a fortune; decades of self-investment or what some call pissing money up the wall, but if you believe in it, and we always believe in it (whatever ‘it’ is)... then what else can you do?
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A band is a family and the truth is we love it and to a massive extent we need that family in a world where relationships and jobs can break you over and over. If you’re asking for advice then its all about self determination, spirit, belief and ethos. I guess as a band and a unit you have to refuse to think about the money, the jobs, the relationships you’ve lost. Its damage control, but if you’re together you will always merge on the motorway in unison with the next mission fully in sight. Within the click-bait culture that we all now live, you often hear those wise tormentors talking about living a cliché but there’s nothing cliché about believing in your work. ‘If you cut us all open you hear our music!’ Is that wanky? I’m not sure? I can tell you that wanky is being told your choices have been removed and your beliefs are floating with the fatburgs down in the sewer. I jest… but being in a band is more important than that. It’s about survival, well-being, erasing blanks, creating open discussions, love and feeling a sense of belonging. Of course it was also a way to escape a council estate or the education system or pain. And it’s also a way to exist in an alternate universe.
Back in the day I worked jobs to earn money to buy shit second hand gear, I would beg, steal and borrow, get trains to gigs whilst carrying my amp in the snow. I wrote letters to promoters (our house phone was cut off cos my mam didn’t pay the bill and this was pre-internet). I did everything I could to try and play music. It was all about how much you actually wanted it, no NEEDED it in your life. Over the next decade I toured extensively and devoted my life to my first proper band. This was very much my apprenticeship as I learnt how to promote shows, design flyers, make merchandise, release records, make music videos, and most importantly survive in a 5x8 foot tin can with at least 4 other starving, stoned and mentally and physically exhausted misfits.
was steering his first band The Neat who had an impressive CV and always done their own thing. With LIFE I Immediately knew this unit had more potential than any band I had previously been in. Not only were the members some of the best players and writers I had played with, but they understood how to balance the many elements of how to hold a band together and build trajectory. This band had potential. Together we went on to tour extensively and write and record our debut album POPULAR MUSIC. The album was released in 2017 and went on to secure three playlists singles on BBC6 Music and was selected as one of the albums of the year on BBC Radio 1. The process of getting to this point wasn’t easy, but it wasn’t impossible.
We all had full time jobs and dedicated 100% of our creative efforts into this one “MUSIC IS THE project. No second bands, no other hobbies, just one ONE THING shared goal. I believe this is PEOPLE CAN why we made it work, along with sheer determination RELY ON WHEN and tenacity. I worked at EVERYONE AND The Warren Youth Project where we were able to use EVERYTHING ELSE the studio on an evening IN THEIR LIVES when it was closed. This is where we would rehearse, HAS GONE TO write and record. Mez later SHIT” joined The Warren and it became an important source The memories are messy, but of inspiration and a place I and we truly believe that priceless. Fast forward 10 that would remind us how music is the one thing people years, when you think the haul important community is. can rely on when everyone is over and you’re a few years It’s this sense of community and everything else in their clean of the punk rock touring and collaboration that lives has gone to shit. This life and you join another band. Hull has in abundance. We is one of the reasons why Only this time you are older couldn’t afford to pay for we called our debut album and wiser, and have a decent photo shoots, videos and Popular Music as music truly is job. This is when you realise, press so we found people the best form of escapism and they were right, you are mad… within our community who it’s far better than any drug. but fuck it let’s have another could do these things along go so I joined LIFE. with us doing it ourselves, We didn’t care about how we we exchanged skills and would make it work we just LIFE had something special. opportunities with each other had to make it work! I’d followed ever since Mez and made it work for us all. 11
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How did we fund the band, how did we pay for shit and stay afloat right? I guess the simple answer is we did this by working day jobs and being so hell bent on making it work. We take the shortfall, we see the value in what we’re doing, we accept the low gig fees, and we pay for the rest out of our pockets. Not mum and dads pockets. Being in a full time band means using all of your brainpower and time inside and outside of your full time job to work on it. This means answering emails while taking a shit, designing posters while on your lunch break and running social media while trying to hold a conversation. It’s a dreadful way to behave, but what can you do? Through doing this we have found ourselves in a position where our team is building, fees are rising, royalties are landing, and it’s starting to pay for itself. We sell merchandise via our own website, run pre-orders to pay for batches of t-shirts so we don’t have to lay out, we host our own branded gigs in Hull to make a good fee to put into the pot. It’s our own small industry, and it’s done the way we want. I guess when it came to recording and releasing music we self-produced and built relationships with other great producers who have offered us mates-rates. We then attacked it one single at a time. We did this for the best part of 2-3 years but didn’t really know how we would ever afford to record a full album. This is when we started to look at other options like funding. After a few failed attempts and a bit more graft we succeeded in receiving some cash from the PRS Momentum fund which we used to invest in our debut album POPULAR MUSIC. Photography by Andrew Benge
“WE ALL HAD FULL TIME JOBS AND DEDICATED 100% OF OUR CREATIVE EFFORTS INTO THIS ONE PROJECT. NO SECOND BANDS, NO OTHER HOBBIES, JUST ONE SHARED GOAL. ” I think without this investment it would have been near on impossible at that point for us to make an album. How else would we fund it? Our spare cash wouldn’t reach that far. The usual methods publishing deal, record deal, a loan, investors - this was all out of reach and would seem impossible for a band like us from Hull. Although the album was funded, we had to release it and market it with no budget at all. This was when we really had to up our game and improve our skills to design assets, use social media better, make our own videos, and become our own press agents and radio pluggers. Which we did, and it was hard, but was an essential process to fully understand what is required at the next level. You can’t expect anyone to wipe your arse or do something you wouldn’t do yourself.
a great agent, followed by a great lawyer, and finally a great management team and publisher! I think it’s important to note that all of these people came to us after witnessing what we can do on our own. So what next? First of all, for us as a band, we will always be DIY. We are still doing everything ourselves and steering where we go next, we have just grown the collective and found ways of making ends meet. I guess you could say the community is strong and we are very thankful to those who are now working with us. In terms of immediate details a lot is all hush hush, but we can reveal we are currently finishing album 2 and in April we will be hitting the road with our brothers IDLES, a band who have smashed apart the industry playing relentlessly and doing it on their own terms as well. An inspirational example of what can be achieved when you work like fuck and have nothing to lose. Artists like this don’t break through very often, not because they don’t exist, but because they struggle to survive long enough to get to this point. We’re well beyond that point now and we will keep pissing up that wall until it erodes. We have nothing to lose yet everything to gain. Long live the underdog, long live LIFE!.
On the back of the success of POPULAR MUSIC, some key radio play, international touring (that included two back to back visits to SXSW in the US), showcasing and some live BBC sessions we attracted 13
Words by Stewart Baxter and Mez Green
11 FEBRUARY BUILDING AN AUDIENCE: ONLINE 25 FEBRUARY BUILDING AN AUDIENCE: PRESS / INFLUENCERS OPORTO, 33 CALL LANE, LEEDS, LS1 7BT FREE TICKETS AVAILABLE FROM EVENTBRITE.CO.UK 14
NO FIXED IDENTITY WHO ARE YOU?
We are ‘no fixed idENTITY’ a low brow surrealist Pop art band coming out of Leeds.
WHAT DO YOU DO?
I am the songwriter, lyricist and creative brain. I take the songs and concepts to my beautifully talented band mates and Producer Liina Turtonen AKA LNA and they make them sound amazing and inspire me to keep bringing the songs of my journey to life. I am also a Reiki Practitioner and Mentor, I create safe and nurturing space for people to learn more about their own energy. Both in my Art and Healing I believe my role in society is to create a mirror of love. I have an amazing mentor Anju Handa founder of ‘Inspiring Women Changemakers.’
WHY DO YOU DO IT?
If I didn’t I’d be very unhappy and ignoring my own soul’s guidance. I have experienced a very interesting journey with my mental health and being expressive. Creating things valuable to me has a great effect on my well-being and self-esteem. If something scares me I push myself to do it. If I find something being judged I embody it. I become the thing that scares people to look at their own prejudices.
There are two sides to no fixed idENTITY. ‘No Fixed ID’ is the physical manifestation of my ego which is ever changing and adaptable and the ENTITY which is the stable core spiritual presence which comes through in my writing.
“PRETTY MUCH EVERYONE LOVES MUSIC SO WHY ARE MUSIC CREATORS NOT VALUED?” WHAT’S HAPPENING NOW?
After the wonderful experience of releasing the vinyl through CPWM and playing both Her Fest’s we are looking forward to rehearsing more, recreating the new sound as well as writing some new songs. Jemma Freese our enigma on Keys and Samantha Jade who adds an incredibly moreish dimension to the saxophone are both established and well respected musicians which I am very fortunate to have on board. LNA is the producer and multiinstrumentalist I have prayed to come into my life and I am excited to record an EP with all of these immense humans in 2019..
WHAT’S THE HOT TOPIC?
Sustainability; with the changes to the industry and streaming sites 15
sometimes its hard to see how there will be ever a sustainable route for songwriters and musicians. Organisations like Come Play With Me and Higher Rhythm where I am on artist development play an integral part but I don’t believe it should be like this. Pretty much everyone loves music so why are creators not valued? Why is the industry controlled in such a way that mainstream music is all the same artists and highly paid PR teams? There is an illusion that you can make it through social media but even now the algorithms are controlled to market to users and organic growth is harder than ever. The amount of time I put into social media compared to the gain is soul destroying, I find the more time I have to engage them the more my mental health suffers and the less creative I actually am. So I take this opportunity to present my email address entity@ nofixedidentity.com to anyone who would be interested in my Healing, Mentoring or Public Speaking work and I will not hold my breath that my passion will pay my bills or support my family. I do however appreciate its value in my personal growth so I won’t be giving it up anytime soon. Photography by Andrew Benge
PHOTO BOOTH
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01 FLORENCE AND THE MACHINE (ANDREW BENGE) 02 SHAME (BURAK CINGI) 03 THE BLINDERS (GEORGE HARRISON) 04 ANNE-MARIE (ALEXIA ARRIZABALAGA)
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05 YEARS AND YEARS (ANDREW BENGE) 06 MANESKIN (KIMBERLEY ROSS) 07 JESSIE J (ANDREW BENGE) 08 HANDS OFF GRETEL (FRANK RALPH) 09 DAVID BYRNE (SAKURA) 10 TOM GRENNAN (GEORGE HARRISON) 11 RINA SAWAYAMA (BURAK CINGI)
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NINA NESBITT On the cusp of her first album release as an indie artist, we discuss coming of age with Nina Nesbitt.
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What were you doing when you were 17? Chances are you were counting the days away to the weekend, or thinking about filling in a UCAS form. Maybe you were sat in your bedroom writing music, or maybe you had absolutely no idea what you wanted out of life. Whatever you were doing, you probably weren’t signing a record deal with Universal/Island, and you certainly weren’t embarking on a European tour in support of a little-known singer songwriter by the name of Ed Sheeran. For Nina Nesbitt, this was all part of her teenage reality. Whisked away from her family home in Balerno, Scotland, she entered the whirlwind of the music industry before she’d even properly left school, a period of her life she’s barely had distance to reflect upon until now, nearly eight years later. “It was such a mad time and I didn’t really appreciate what it meant or even how lucky I was,” she recalls. “I had my YouTube channel when I was 15, and then BBC Introducing came through for me and I started working with all these other artists. I look back now and realise how amazing it was to have all those opportunities so young. I think it’s all made me so much more in control of my career now and understanding of how the industry works, because I didn’t come from that background at all.” Having been launched in at the deep end, Nesbitt quickly found a fan base with her heart-on-sleeve folk-pop. A string of EP’s achieved chart success, followed by a John Lewis advertising campaign, and a full album, Peroxide, which narrowly missed out on the top 10. The momentum had been nearly more than the singer could keep up with, but as fast it had all begun, things began to slow, and a sense of foreboding about the direction of her career began. “Essentially, I was shelved” she admits. “For around two years, I was making music, handing it in to the guys at Island and being told ‘yeah that’s cool, keep going’, but there was no real intention of releasing another album. I put out a song called ‘Chewing Gum, and they tried to drop me the day before it came out. It was a bit like a lingering boyfriend or one of those relationships that you just can’t get out of, even though you know it’s bad for you.”
A staunchly determined musician, Nesbitt fought against the tides of her sense of loss, struggling to leave the house for a period of nearly six months. “My music was so intertwined with who I am so it did kind of feel like my life was over. But I kept doing what I loved and kept writing. I bought some home studio equipment, started teaching myself production, and put out an E.P. (2016’s Life In Colour), which was all about fans lives and specific experiences they had gone through. It really helped me get out of my own head and remember that ultimately I was in charge of anything I wanted to do. Learning production was a really freeing experience, it felt so good to know that although I love working with other producers, I never need to rely on anyone. Songwriting for other people really helped too – I started getting credits for artists such as Jessie Ware and The Shires and seeing them and those songs do well really brought back the confidence I needed.” Nearly two years after signing a new deal with indie label Cooking Vinyl, Nina has survived to tell the tale of her new found liberation. Something of a self-care mantra, “The Sun Will Come Up, the Seasons Will Change” sees her embrace the fluidity of growing up and the freedom that comes with surrounding yourself by people who truly believe in your work. “It was about a month after I got dropped that I heard from Cooking Vinyl: they just emailed my manager out of the blue and then came to a gig. It was a bit of a risk, because they’d never really had a female pop artist of my age, but I just trusted the people and the passion that they showed. They let me do all of the creative work while they take care of business. I guess sometimes you have to take a bit of a leap and it’s definitely paid off.” With this comes a whole new sound – one that is infused with glossy RnB and Pop, but still carries her trademark storytelling appeal. ‘Loyal To Me’, the album’s fuckboi-baiting lead single, was initially intended for a girlband, but ended up being the catalyst for a development in her own sound, breaking through the pressures of genre. “Because I was writing that song with a different artist singing it in mind, I 21
guess I wasn’t really thinking about it being a development for my own sound.” she explains. “But I love early noughties RnB – Lauryn Hill, Destiny’s Child, TLC with these sassy empowerment anthems, I really wanted to create my version of that. It ended up inspiring other songs on the record in a similar vein - an honest account of somebody in their early twenties and all the things you go through”
“MY ADVICE? JUST DON’T SIGN A SHIT RECORD DEAL” As somebody who has amassed more industry experience before her 25th birthday than plenty of artists have in a lifetime, it appears Nina’s new approach is set to succeed, indebted to all the lessons she has learnt along the way. Her advice for new artists? Know exactly who are you are. “The way it is now, you’re going to earn your money from streaming, so embrace it,” she says. “Focus on building your live career, your merchandise and in branding yourself as the artist you want to be. There’s so much competition and in a way your instagram and Twitter is kind of a catalogue where you have to grab people’s attention. You have to try and get your personality out there which can be really difficult online, but it’s so important and you should be able to have fun with it.” And what about the label? After all she’s been through, would she warn others off committing to a major? “There’s plenty from that time I regret, but whether it’s a big label or an indie label you’re seeking, you have to just do what’s right for you at the time.” “Pay attention to the people who are genuinely invested in you, who are willing to put the work in and invest the marketing money you need. Just don’t sign a shit deal, basically!”
Words by Jenessa Williams | Photography by Andrew Benge
BAMBARA WHO ARE YOU? We are three old friends who have been making music together since we were around 12. We started this specific project in Athens, Georgia (our home state) and then moved to Brooklyn together in 2011. We found a basement apartment where we could live and practice for cheap and have been making music there ever since. Reid is the singer, lyricist and guitarist, Blaze is the drummer and William is the bassist. After Reid broke his hand on his guitar at a show toward the end of 2016, we’ve been playing as a 5 piece live so Reid can just sing and move freely on stage. Our friends Bryan Keller and Sammy Zalta have been playing guitar with us live. WHAT DO YOU DO? We write the music we would like to hear and perform it the way we would like to see it performed. With our albums we Photography by Andrew Benge
Photography by Lindsay Melbourne
prefer to create a unified mood that gives the feeling of being in a specific place. That sense of atmosphere is very important to us and is definitely a quality running through all of our albums. We prefer our live shows be a different experience. It always seems a little dull to see an artist perform their music exactly how it is on the album; there needs to be a sense of spontaneity or danger involved, especially with our type of music.
“DRAKE SHOUTING ANGRILY COURT-SIDE AT NBA GAMES DOESN’T SEEM GENUINE. IT MAKES ME FEEL EMBARRASSED.” WHY DO YOU DO IT? It’s fulfilling. I honestly can’t even see any of us doing anything else. Creating music together and 22
touring has been such a huge part of our lives for years. If we didn’t have that outlet it would be pretty rough. WHAT’S HAPPENING NOW? We are working hard on the new album which is supposed to be out in October 2019 if all goes as planned, William is moving apartments right now, Reid finished writing a book and is looking for publishing, and Blaze is sleeping on the couch because his room is too cold and if he plugs in the space heater it shorts out the electricity to the entire apartment. WHAT’S THE HOT TOPIC? Drake shouting angrily courtside at NBA games doesn’t seem genuine. It makes me feel embarrassed.
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TOKYO MUSIC
LIFE ON THE FRINGES One of the best things about a city as vast as Tokyo is that whatever you’re into, there’s someone doing it. Depending on how you define it, Tokyo has anything from 10 million to 35 million people, drawing in freaks and weirdos of every kind, who nest in the cracks between its glittering malls, neon entertainment zones and grey, suburban sprawls.
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However, the music culture of Tokyo is also fractured and tribal. Perhaps not tribal in the way it used to be – the music scene has expanded so far since the 1970s that old tribes like the rockabilly dance groups that still congregate at the entrance to Yoyogi Park are now little more than curious novelties – but still what you might call “scene-tribal”. There are anything between around 500 and 800 live music venues of various sizes in Tokyo, with typical nights featuring between three and six live acts. Despite these thousands of live performances, there is very little information for the general public about what is going on. Tokyo continues to cultivate, chew up and spit out a diverse array of wonderful bands, despite tremendous obstacles. A pay-toplay model of live performance dominates, but bands scrape together the money for shows or eke out an existence in less established venues like rehearsal studios and rock bars. Music media is little more than an incoherent blast of unfiltered, reheated press releases. Record and CD retail is dominated by two massive chains: the more majororientated Tower Records and the more indie-styled Disk Union – into which new independent releases are typically drowned in a flood of fresh content. Perhaps because of this daunting over abundance of music and the lack of any clear, coherent guide through it, musicians tend to cluster together, like attracting like, scenes converging around small, quite introverted cliques that rarely cross over with each other. Mod bands only ever play with other mods, punks only ever play with other punks, fashionconscious twenty-somethings with pink or blue hair only ever play with other fashion-conscious twenty-somethings with pink or blue hair. I exaggerate, but at the same time I don’t. In this environment, actual commercial success is very
remote, and the routes toward it can seem opaque and random. Instead, the most immediately attainable success for an artist can often seem less about being “pop” than it is about conforming to whatever particular set of expectations their scene has. This isn’t always a bad thing: it means artists will commit themselves to one thing and learn to do it extremely well rather than half-assedly adopt only its most superficial trappings. A Tokyo garage rock band garage-rocks harder than anything you’ve seen.
that I first saw the raw, minimal, instrumental death-disco of Nisennenmondai, the scuzzed-up no wave Beefheart of Panicsmile and the trancelike new wave rockabilly bounce of Kirihito. Despite the original venue being lost after the upper floors of the same building were devastated by a fire in 2010, 20000V and its nearby successor venue Ni-man Den-atsu (literally “20,000 volts” in Japanese) were for a long time a kind of spiritual home for my own Call And Response label and misfits like Jebiotto.
The pressure towards conforming ever more towards niche expectations is probably compounded by the way social media algorithms work, and is one of the ways the whole world is becoming more and more Japanicised. If I write an article or blog post, I get immediate feedback through stats about what is popular and what isn’t (short version: idol groups are popular) and the way music is distributed online follows a similar pattern.
“ARTISTS DOING THE MOST INTERESTING MUSIC TEND TO BE FOUND CLINGING LIKE PARASITES TO THE FRINGES OF EXISTING SCENES”
So what happens when you’re doing something that doesn’t have its own pre-established niche? The artists doing the most interesting music tend to be found clinging like parasites to the fringes of existing scenes. That’s where I found Jebiotto – a synthbased indie trio who secretly want to be Bon Jovi but somehow ended up as a permanently drunk and confused oddity, pinballing between Sonic Youth and Cyndi Lauper on the edges of the punk and hardcore scenes. The place I first found them was a venue called 20000V in the grimy, cobweb-encrusted subbasement of a building in the Tokyo suburb of Koenji. The venue took its name from a fictional venue in underground filmmaker Sogo Ishii’s 1982 dystopian punk movie Burst City, and had always been a haven for the darker underground of the punk scene while at the same time being open minded about more eccentric or experimental acts. It was here 25
If there was one guiding motivation that has remained constant in my own activities in the Japanese indie scene – whether as a writer, a label owner or an event organiser – it’s been to carve out a space, however small, for these homeless oddball artists. Not that they really need it. Part of the beauty of the Tokyo music scene is the way that despite a lot of institutional factors that seem almost designed to crush creativity, so many artists take the opposite approach, say, “Fuck it!” and produce the most magnificent, off-the-wall pop/ rock/noise/other imaginable regardless of whether anyone’s listening. When it finds a way of sneaking through the gaps and emerging into the light, it’s marvellous, but there’s plenty of gems hiding underground in the darkness and having a marvellous time of it while they’re there.
Words by Ian Martin
JUSTINE ‘JT’ THOMSON WHO ARE YOU? Justine – but most people know me as JT. WHAT DO YOU DO? I am a Tour Manager and run my own business providing Tour & Event Production services. I tend to spend a lot of time in dark rooms or muddy fields getting bands on and off stage, making sure their shows run smoothly and that nobody dies or gets lost. WHY DO YOU DO IT? There’s nothing better than watching a show you have worked on and think “We’ve nailed it!”. It’s a scary process at times but can be incredibly rewarding especially when you have a great team around you. I love the family feeling you get on tour and it’s great fun travelling the world
with people who you may not have ever met had it not been for music. I also get lots of free hummus and pitta bread, what’s not to love?! WHAT’S HAPPENING NOW? I started working with a young artist called SODY last year and we are doing a small schools tour in February so I’m currently working on that. Ahead of that, I am heading on the road assisting with The Japanese House tour in Europe and am also in the planning stages for a couple of tours & events in the spring. On a personal level I am helping arrange a press exhibition match for an LGBT football group in Brighton which I help run when I’m not away on tour – I hate not being busy! 26
“IT’S A SCARY PROCESS AT TIMES BUT CAN BE INCREDIBLY REWARDING ESPECIALLY WHEN YOU HAVE A GREAT TEAM AROUND YOU” WHAT’S THE HOT TOPIC? I think all this stuff surrounding R Kelly is causing huge waves, it’s further exposure of a society where people think it’s okay to take advantage of their position of power. I’m glad that things are slowly starting to change and people aren’t afraid to make noise about it and create a united front within the industry to show it won’t be tolerated.
FREE MONEY MAXIE GEDGE GIVES YOU A GUIDE TO THE FUNDING OPTIONS AVAILABLE TO YOU
When I was making music growing up in Norwich I wish I’d have known about PRS Foundation, the organisation I now work for as Communications Coordinator. It would have stopped me from signing dodgy deals and I wish I’d known there were good people in the ‘business’ of music that were there to help! My job now is to make sure people like me do know the PRS Foundation exist.
EARLY CAREER These are for artists who need more hands-on support to help them start to carve out their path in music. The funds, such as the Lynsey de Paul Prize and the Steve Reid Innovation Award offer mentoring and relatively small amounts of money (around £1500) as they often cover single releases and small campaigns. A typical artist at this stage would have perhaps played a few shows and put some music online, but wouldn’t have a team in place or loads of press / reviews. Nubya Garcia released her first EP with help from the Steve Reid Innovation Award.
ADVERT
We are the UK’s leading funder of new music and talent development, and we have lots of initiatives that help music-makers from all backgrounds realise their full potential. Our main donor is PRS for Music so our focus is on songwriters – we also partner with a lot of other music organisations including PPL, Spotify, PledgeMusic, and other funding bodies like Arts Council England and Creative Scotland. If you are making new music we likely have an initiative that could help you get to the next stage in your career. We want to fund excellent new music and provide the support that the creators need to get to a sustainable position. The needs change drastically depending on genre, region, background etc. so it’s our job to make sure we are tuned in to the musical landscape! We do a lot of proactive work to ‘plug holes’ in the music industry and to help artists overcome barriers and/or challenges. All of our opportunities have applications forms that you fill in online… it may sound daunting but we keep them as simple as possible and we don’t judge them on grammar or ‘buzz words’! We are looking for the impact that the proposed activity will have on your career. We split our funding into five main categories:
NEXT STEPS These are for artists at crucial tipping points in their careers. You have to have a team in place to apply and the money on offer is more substantial (around £15k). Because of this the projects that we fund through our next steps initiatives tend to be bigger campaigns like recording an album, a significant promotional campaign etc. Novelist got Momentum to master his album at Abbey Road. INTERNATIONAL For artists starting to reach new territories worldwide, we have quite a few funds that support a range of international activity… The International Showcase Fund supports artists who have been invited to play at international showcases, and our Musicians in Residence programme with British Council allows artists to go on substantial (and often career changing) creative residencies. Emmy the Great went to China on this programme and has written a 27
new body of work inspired by her trip, including new edits of previous songs in Mandarin. ALL LEVELS Combined, these initiatives represent our biggest ‘pot’ of money and we call them ‘open funding’; they are open to all genres and all career levels. There’s three deadlines a year, and I usually recommend that The Open Fund or Women Make Music are the first initiatives that people check out. It’s all project funding so you’d fill in an application online for a project that you think will help you get from A to B. Marika Hackman got Women Make Music for the recording session with The Big Moon that became I’m Not Your Man. ORGANISATIONS Promoters, festivals, venues, record labels, magazines, large performance groups, radio stations… these all count as organisations to us. If you are doing work to help the development of music creators then your next project could be supported by The Open Fund for Organisations or others. Liverpool Sound City have got The Open Fund for Organisations for the new music programming strand of the festival. If you would like to talk more about what might be suitable for you email me at maxie@prsfoundation.com and I will pass you on to the relevant member of the Grants Team, or check out www.prsfoundation.com.
Words by Maxie Gedge - PRS Foundation
FUND YOUR MUSIC A COMPILATION OF INNOVATIVE AND UNEXPECTED STORIES AND IDEAS ON WAYS TO FUND YOUR MUSIC
ZUZU “I’m Zuzu, I’m from Liverpool based in Birkenhead now!
I’ve been playing in bands since I was about 16 up and down the country. I’ve driven myself and my bands to and from shows until super recently which takes out the cost of a van and TM which can be a massive expense especially in the beginning. I’ve also been lucky enough to do a lot of my recording at home with my incredible guitarist Kurran (Munkey Junkey). We have a rehearsal room and studio in the house which has proven to be invaluable to us. Having somewhere we can make noise and be creative 24hrs a day without being on the clock!” (Photo by Hollie Fernando).
BEACH RIOT “Beach riot are Rory, Cami, Jim and Jonny. We are Brighton based, except Jonny who lives in Milton Keynes. Originally we started in London, but Rory moved back home and brought Cami with him, hooking up with Jim and Jonny proper to take over the town. We make fuzzy sexy happy mosh tastic pop. I’m Cami from Beach Riot, I’m 22 years old and I’m from Argentina but based in Brighton. I grew up in a horse farm near Buenos Aires and there was not a big music scene around me. My home was very musical and I played guitar since I was a kid but joining a band as a girl was very hard as most of the bands around me were male-led. At the age of 18 I wanted to drastically change scene so I made money gambling on horses and bought a ticket to London. I’ve never been to the UK before but I grew up listening to English bands, so I chose London as my new place to start a life. I flew from the farm to the big city, where I met Rory and Beach Riot started.” (Photo by Bridie Florence). 28
FEHM “We are FEHM a 5 piece post punk /
new wave band based in Leeds.
We try and put as little of our own money into the band as humanly possible. We record at the Nave with Matt Peel for our EP’s / Singles and we wanted to do an album which we couldn’t afford ourselves as it was going to be quite a lot of money, so we were thinking of ways to be able to afford it. The idea of doing the club night was the main idea which stuck. We do a club night at Wharf Chambers in Leeds called Floodland once a month or every other month. We play a load of music which we like and the night took off. Over the past year and a half that money has funded a lot of what the band does, one being the album. It’s also gone towards our rehearsal room rent as we have a permanent room. We also get income from gigging and merchandise too.”
INDOOR PETS
MOUSES
“Hi, we’re Indoor Pets. We’re an indie/grunge/pop four piece from Kent just trying our best to make catchy songs and play them in front of as many sets of ears as possible
“We are Mouses. A lo-fi garage
Last November, we had the extreme misfortune of having the majority of our gear stolen from our van whilst on a tour of the UK. It was pretty devastating considering we had just announced our debut album (‘Be Content” out March 8th) and then had the daunting task of finding a way to start a campaign with no equipment. We didn’t really know what to do and felt uncomfortable asking for donations as we are so used to sorting things out ourselves. So we decided to design and sell a tea towel (the obvious choice right?) giving our fans the option of paying any amount for the order. The response was overwhelming. All over the world, messages of support came through and we raised thousands of pounds to go towards the gear fund. It was a stressful period, but it was hard to be upset when we we’re surrounded by so much love and positivity. We owe a great debt to our fans, one that will take our whole careers to repay.”
STEPHANIE CHEAPE “I am Stephanie Cheape. It’s always a tricky question when it comes to
funding music because it’s a grey area in the music industry. Until you’re in it and it’s like someone wipes the fog off your glasses. For me I learned a few years back some home truths, one being you can’t do it alone. So I focused less on the financial aspect and more on building MY team. I found that if you have the right people around you who believe in you then the rest is easy. I wanted to make dark pop. So I found people who believed in me & what I wanted to create. Since surrounding myself with the right people It’s been a whirlwind of a year in music. I released my debut single Blood Sweat & Fear which was produced by Sam McTrusty & Ross McNae from Twin Atlantic, toured with Barns Courtney & opened Edinburgh’s Hogmanay street party alongside Franz Ferdinand & Gerry Cinnamon.” (Photo by Stevie Kyle). 29
punk band from Billingham, in the North East of England. We’ve been a band for nearly 5 years now, put out our debut album in 2016 and are currently getting ready to release our second in the coming year. Funding is quite simple I suppose from our point of view. We just fund everything ourselves. Other than our album, which we released on a small independent label called Sister 9 (they fronted the cost of recording and manufacturing and take their cut from the vinyl sales) we either fund or do everything or ourselves. We’re a super DIY band at heart. Ste makes our music videos, designs all the logos, merch, t-shirts, posters, made the website and between him and Hana, manage the merch orders and post everything out. Our good friend, the amazing Tommings, helps us out with Mousetival. Any promo shots and photos we need, Hana does. Between us all we book the shows. We’re our own tour manager and we don’t need a van - we did Europe in Ste’s trusty Citroen Picasso and the last UK tour we did in Nath’s Ford Focus. Our friend Jack painted the artwork for our first album and Ste designed the rest of the sleeve and inner sleeve. We’ve also recorded our next album and mixed it ourselves in Ste and Hana’s house. We don’t have external funding but we are pretty much self-sufficient. The money we do make from gigging and selling merch goes towards gear maintenance and the manufacturing of stuff. It’s not so much a saving money issue, but more the fact that we love to play a part in everything we do. We like to be in total control of how we portray ourselves and we want our personality in every aspect of the band, because personality is everything. So yeah, it works.” (Photo by Gary Stafford).
COME PLAY WITH US COMING SOON 02 FEBRUARY INDEPENDENT VENUE WEEK CARO, Talboy, Household Dogs Hyde Park Book Club 11 FEBRUARY WHAT MUSICIANS WANT Building An Audience: Online Oporto 25 FEBRUARY WHAT MUSICIANS WANT Building An Audience: Press Oporto
RECENT EVENTS 26 JANUARY TALKBOY Camden Assembly 11 JANUARY CATTLE, ZoZo, Soft Issues Hyde Park Book Club 07 DECEMBER TEAM PICTURE, Cruel World Hyde Park Book Club 03 NOVEMBER HER FEST (SHEFFIELD) SHE DREW THE GUN, Dead Naked Hippies, No Fixed Identity Picture House Social
RELEASES
27 OCTOBER ANY OTHER Mabgate Bleach 20 OCTOBER HER FEST (LEEDS) STEALING SHEEP, The Tuts, Venus, Dead Naked Hippies, 50 Ft Queenie, No Fixed Identity, Park Fires & more Brudenell Social Club
CPWM012 DEAD NAKED HIPPIES “Young Male Rage” NO FIXED IDENTITY “1-2-3 Come Play With Me”
NEW RELEASE
CPWM011 THE GOLDEN AGE OF TV “Television” ENGINE “And I Say”
CPWM013 TREEBOY & ARC “PLASTIC FRONT” JEBIOTTO “GET DOWN”
CPWM010 MANSION OF SNAKES “Mating Season” BROODERS “Lie”
14 OCTOBER WOMEN IN MUSIC Leeds Music Hub 26 SEPTEMBER LGBTQ THE MUSIC 2 Hyde Park Book Club
SPOTIFY PLAYLIST
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CPWM009 PARK FIRES “Wake Me Up” THE BOXING “Circles” CPWM008 MAGICK MOUNTAIN “Zodiac” JON JONES AND THE BEATNIK MOVEMENT “No Brainer”
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COME PL AY WITH NINA NESBI T T WHITE LIES LIFE
HOW TO FUND YOUR MUSIC - ADVICE AND STORIES F RO M A R T I S T S A ND P R S F O UND AT I O N TOKYO MUSIC - LIFE ON THE FRINGES AND LOTS MORE... BEHIND THE SCENES AND UNDER THE SKIN OF ALL THINGS MUSIC
PICK ME UP FOR FREE OR BUY ONLINE / #002 / FEB2019
