Timing's never been my strongest trait. When I was a kid, I was always one place back in the queue just as the Ice Cream man ran out of flakes for my 99 Flake, or the last person to find out about the latest trend in bubblegum stickers, buying up the last stock the shop had just as everyone got bored and moved on to the next big thing.... It's been a bit like that ever since really. I made the decision to sell my house just as the housing market crashed, Moved jobs when I thought there was no chance of being promoted, just as the obvious promotion slot became available. Then there were girls... There'd always be this one girl that I'd fall for, only she'd be with someone else, so I'd wait and wait in the hope that she'd ditch him... eventually I'd give up and find someone else... only for her to break up with her boyfriend and be 'back on the market' a week later...
So it was no surprise to me that my attempts to break into the record industry turned out to be a catalogue of 'bad timings'.... In the first instance I left it pretty late in life to decide to try and break the industry. Bad timing in itself, as the music industry is obsessed with finding the 'hottest, youngest up and coming star'.. at 29 I was already way past the age that is considered 'cool' for the UK industry. But I'm nothing if not persistent..
Now the music industry is a strange place. There's actually very little 'industry' as such, the mechanics of producing, distributing and selling CD's is obviously fairly 'industrious' but, that's not what people mean when they talk about the industry. What they mean is the people, the hype and the grandeur associated with the search to attain a 'Record Deal'. This stands above all else as a glowing beacon that every aspiring artist hopes one day to obtain. The reality, is a world apart from this. Yes. It's true. A record deal is a sign of recognition, it's like a coming of age. It shows the world that someone (other than your closest friends and family) actually think you have what it takes to be a 'real' artist. but there's much more to it than just signing a deal. You don't go from obscurity one day to international stardom the next just because you sign a record deal. Fact: A good deal, and the right support can catapult an artist into the limelight, but that's only the start of the story. Like any business it takes hard work, vision, marketing, plugging (the act of convincing radio/tv to play your music), sacks of money in the current climate, and above all belief in you from all those around you, to turn you from an unrecognized artist to a chart success.
Long gone are the days of record labels taking risks on emerging talent... 'development deals' where labels would invest a 'smallish' amount of money in a risky artist in the hopes of turning them into some kind of success are scarce these days. No surprise really, when you stop and think about how the industry actually works. Record labels actually only make money of the sales of physical records. In other words, you have to be selling CD's for them to make money. And with CD sales plummeting, there's just a lot less money around than there used to be. Labels are looking for sure-fire hit record selling artists to sign - so if you don't turn up on their doorstep armed with 30'000 screaming fans, millions of hits on your myspace and a ready made record for them to sell, chances are, you won't get past the front desk.
Bad timing or what...i couldn't have picked a worse time to try and break into the music world.
However, and despite all of the above, there are people out there who believe in music. Who believe in songs. All it takes is the right song, placed at the right moment, heard by the right person, and everything can change.
I'd never really had much self-belief, and those of you that have met me will know that I'm a fairly self-conscious person (which makes you wonder what the hell I put myself through all this 'performance' stuff) so i also never really thought my songs were that good. For me my songs are like listening to myself talk on my voicemail message - I listen back and think 'god is that how I sound to everyone else?..' Even when I managed to blag my way through onto that Reality TV show thing I did I had no faith in my ability to sing (I won't talk about that here, that particular journey deserves a blog all of its own).... But somewhere along the way I wrote a couple of songs that I actually thought were pretty good, and songs I was quietly proud of. 'Stronger' was one of these. So I stuck it up on myspace and thought nothing of it.
Then I started getting emails.
First came Nathan. Nath's a freelance music agent. He gets artist's gigs. He believed in me. Queue lots of disbelief on my part.... Here's this guy, out of the blue offering to get me some big gigs. 'Yeah right' I thought... there's a lot of bullshit on the web, he's just another spam merchant trying to get me to sign up to something. Turns out I couldn't have been more wrong, and a month or so later I was on stage at the Ricoh Arena in Coventry, playing to 7000 people in support of Bryan Adams..... bloody hell.
Nathan really was a catalyst for the rest of the things that happened. He's a persistent bugger like me, and he got all sorts of people rallied up interested in me. I had some meetings with indie labels which didn't work out, and eventually ended up across the desk from 3 major music publishers being offered large sums of money to buy up my back catalog of songs. See how amazing is it that things start happening because one person believes in you?..
It's at this point that all sorts of people start giving you bits of advice on what you should do next. Music publishers are different from Record Labels, as they make money out of the 'songs' themselves, not out of the physical records...(e.g. every time your song gets sung, by you or anyone else, they get paid) The general advice most people who have had publishing deals is to 'take the one that offers you the most money'... and 'they're a Bank, just take the cash and forget about them'.... but Reverb were different. They were dead keen to 'grow' me a bit as an artist, and had this grand plan of sending me out to LA to record some of my songs up with Lukas Burton, one of their producers (currently responsible for 'A Fine Frenzy' - awesome) and then put me up in front of the 'Major Labels'. Some of the bigger deals I was offered were significantly more money.... I sat in front of Richard Manners at Warner Chappel, and asked him 'If I sign with you, won't I just be a small fish in a very big sea?...' to which his reply was a very straightforward 'Yes... but that's the nature of signing to a Major Publisher'
So I signed with Reverb. And headed off on a brand new adventure.
Pretty much bang at the same time as I signed my publishing deal with Reverb, Alison (A Fine Frenzy) had signed her record Deal with Virgin, so Lukas was pretty much unavailable most of the time while he got her Album recorded. (Bad Timing... ) so I spent a few months pottering around the UK getting my feet wet writing with other professional writers. I'd never written with anyone before so this was a baptism of fire for me - I had to learn pretty quick how to 'write' under a bit of pressure... the results were hit and miss. I'll probably write another blog all about the writing process, but for now I'll just mention Greg Fitzgerald. Sometimes you just hit it off with people.. Greg's one of those people....cue lots of discussions around music, films and which is better 'Star Trek The Next Gen' or 'Star Trek Voyager' (Clearly it's Voyager ;) ).. but eventually we started making some music... Greg has a knack of pulling out of me the stories I want to write about, where left to my own devices, I would write quite 'literally' about things, he manages to turn the idea round into something 'beautiful'.... thus 'Kerry Island', 'Man in a Castle', Complex Simplicity' and 'Song for Reece' were born. Each of which is a special story about me and someone in my life. Some of the songs I'm most proud of.... good times... (Greg's over in my top friends - 'Black Fras' - check him out...)
After I'd written Kerry Island with Greg, Lukas had some time available, so I jumped on a plane across the atlantic to LaLaLand....
Now before I left for tinseltown, and in my trips around the country writing with people, there had been one common view that people had given me of L.A. and that was that 'It's a lonely place'... I'd never been to a lonely place before. Not even on a business trip. but I can see why people say that. Its a huge place. One day I got in my hire car at Lukas' place in Silverlake and thought 'I'll just nip to the beach' - taking the most direct route down Sunset Boulevard. An Hour and a half later I was still driving with miles of road still stretching out in front of me. So if you don't know anyone, you're pretty much a spec on the landscape. I stayed at Lukas' house for a couple of weeks but he was up to his neck sorting stuff out for Alison, and coping with a new born baby, so other than our time in the studio during the day, I was left to my own devices for much of the time.
I've never eaten so many burgers. For a while I set myself a challenge to uncover the 'Worlds best Burger'. McDonalds in the US taste totally different to those in the UK. Wendy's burgers are ok, but seem a little underwhelmed - like they know they're the burger that 'could've been'. By far the best burger is the 'In-N-Out Double-Double burger' the only burger I've ever eaten that actually tastes like meat.
And coffee. mmmmm I'm not a big coffee fan, but yanks are spoilt for choice. By far the best is the 'Coffee Bean and Tea-Leaf' and in particular in Hollywood, where the beautiful people hang out...
But I digress. As you can see, In between recording I spent a lot of time being lonely. People say that there's something about L.A that makes people want to write songs. I found that all it made me want to do was write about coming home and missing home and flying home etc etc, but Michael Buble had already done that so I'd shit out on that front. I had a couple of memorable nights out. Alison took me out one night to a weird live music venue where strange people got up to sing very loudly. I went out for a couple (or ten) beers with Steve LeBlanc and 'Dax' (whose Dad is Rick Nielson out of 'Cheap Trick'), ending up comatosed on his sofa... and Stayed at Nanci Walkers (A&R at Universal Music) pad for a few nights where I learnt about the goldmine that is the Hollywood Thrift store, and discovered 'Entourage' on Telly... but other than those gems it was a desert of burgers and coffee.
The recording on the other hand was awesome. I spent a couple of weeks recording at a cool studio on Hollywood Boulevard called 'Egg-Chair' studios. A massive loft apartment style place right on the walk of stars in the centre of Hollywood (well I say 'centre' but there really isn't a centre.... remember, there's miles and miles and miles of L.A. so wherever you are is kinda in the centre) Various people came in and played on my records... Robert Medici kinda ran the studio and played drums on the tracks (he'd played with David Bowie in the past), Hal Cragin played bass (Lukas' buddy and bass player for Lou Reed) and some of the musos that Lukas had been working with on Alison's stuff all of whom were seriously talented and literally played the songs by ear after only hearing them a couple of times. Then there was the Gospel singers.... There's something quite incredible about Gospel singers... especially when they're singing the words to your own songs. of all the songs we recorded in L.A, 'Stronger' was the most memorable experience... it's a shame that the finished version of the song never quite lived up to the demo version (hence the demo version still up on myspace) but I'm working on that ;)...
I also had a day in Mike Lattanzi's studio in the Hollywood hills. Quite literally, one of those houses that hangs out over the hills on stilts. He has a 'wall' where people who've recorded there sign... The week or so before, he'd had Paris Hilton in there and Jessica Simpson a few weeks earlier. (if you ever get chance to go there, my sig is on the wall just to the right and slightly below Paris Hilton's..).. That guy has more recording equipment crammed into two rooms than any other studio I've been to in the UK...
So I enjoyed the recording stuff... quite inspirational. and the end results was 4 tracks that sounded pretty good. - 'Room to Breathe', 'Mama', 'Sticks and Stones' and 'Stronger'. So I jumped on a plane and headed home. I t took a couple of months to get the 'mastered' versions back from LA (Lukas' commitments with Alison slowed the process down) but once we had them back, Reverb set about punting the tracks round to the record labels.
Now as I said earlier, the record industry is a tough place. It's all about being in the right place at the right time with the right package. A number of things happened.
In the couple of years it had taken me to get to this point, a number of new 'singer-songwriter' type blokes had broken onto the scene. In the wake of Damien Rice's success - James Blunt, James Morrison, Paolo Nutini, Daniel Powter to name a few, had all had some big success. The Music scene is cyclical you see, once one artist makes it big in a new genre, very quickly multiple other artists in a 'similar' vein also start to get signed. This is short-lived however, with the industry looking for the 'next big thing' soon afterwards. Again.... bad timing... I missed the bow of this wave of success for 'Singer Songwriter' type blokes by about 6 months. Just as I was starting to tout my music to labels, Amy Winehouse and Mark Ronson had hit the scene. Singer-Songwriters had become 'yesterday' and the new wave of 'Retro Blues' sounding music had become the new big thing. (cue lots of spin off female artists breaking through - Duffy, Gabriella Cilmi, and about time - Beth Rowley finally getting a break)...
I played in front of every major label. most of them agreed I had a great voice and the songs were great, and one label in particular got pretty close to a deal, coming to see me a few times. However you could tell that they were not hearing anything that set fires alight under them... you could see that they were looking at the space I was occupying trying to work out how much they could make out of me, and how much they'd need to invest to make that happen. One of them even said words along the lines of 'Nick - to break you I'd need to spend about 2 million quid .. and I just don't think I could convince the board members that they'd make enough money out of you after spending that"..
Right in the middle of all this, my Manager, and the CEO/Owner of Reverb who'd convinced me to sign with them passed away suddenly. I said earlier, that the belief one individual person puts in you can make a massive difference to the path you tread. Well Ian passing away was a massive loss to me. Both personally and on my career... without Ian's vision, the path we were taking became unclear.. There followed a few months of uncertainty, not knowing which way to turn or what to do for the best...Reverb had some ideas about what I should do next, but the truth is, that I didn't know what to do with myself - how to progress or what to do with my music... the plan derailed quite significantly...
So I stopped.
Its very easy in this life to keep chasing something, long after its disappeared... I could have continued pitching my stuff to labels, or playing showcase gigs in the city. But in reality, I knew that I was way behind the swell, no way of catching a wave from where I'd paddled to , and the best thing to do would be to rest up on my board and hope for some better surf.... Timing after all not being my strongest trait...
Selling music has changed over the last couple of years anyway. I can get my music up into iTunes for very little cost at all. Hardly anyone buys CD's anymore anyway, and the truth is, that everyone in the industry is completely aware that the only real way to make any money now is through touring and advertising..
So I decided its about time I just let some of it go. I've been holding back all my material for the 'deal' to arrive and re-record it all in some swanky studio with a top producer. Looks like that's not the path ahead of me. So I'll be releasing everything I've ever written over the coming months. the good and the bad. as it is, with little or no editing. You can decide what you like and what you don't like. All I ask is that if you like it, you play it to someone else and get them to read this.....
I'm still going to carry on gigging, especially down at Tony Moore's venues in the city - he's an amazing guy that truly loves music, and its always an honour playing at one of his nights. But I've spent too long trying to 'make it' and now It's about time I started enjoying playing for the sake of playing and not to prove anything to anyone....
Ive also decided that there's far too much cynicism and fake truths in the industry for my liking. People don't tell you what they really think because they think it's better to be nice. Bullshit. I'd much rather be told 'look we like you, but we can't think of how to make any money out of you' or 'Nick, you've got a great voice but you suck at winning over an audience' than 'I'm not sure I like the shirt you wore on stage...'. The first gives me reason to believe and something to work with, the second just gives me reason to doubt, and I already have enough reasons to doubt myself thank you very much.