In Conversation with Both Sides Records
During this week’s episode of the Comics Youth x Where are the Girlbands Safe Spaces Podcast Ella talks to Grace of Both Sides Records about the label, Grace’s experiences as both a musician and someone involved in the business side of the music scene, bridging the knowledge gap for people in the music industry and creating opportunities for musicians of marginalised genders in the North.
Hello and welcome to the Comics Youth x Where are the Girlbands Safe Spaces podcast, a space for discussions with organisations and individuals who are creating safe spaces within the North West, with a focus on Merseyside.
As Where are the Girlbands we are often asked about record labels and getting signed. While we always try and promote the value of being an independent artist and finding nourishment and community within grassroots scenes, we understand that getting signed provides support both financially and creatively, giving access to areas of expertise that you may not be able to access outside of an agency. However, there are a lot of fears associated with signing such as losing control over your image, not being sure what the working environment will be, and the fact that many of these agencies are male dominated spaces. Alongside this it can be difficult to know the steps to getting signed, if it’s right for you and having access to these sorts of contacts in the first place!
Today we have the absolute pleasure of chatting to a record label who put safety, access and inclusivity at the forefront of their organisation. Established in 2021 as a Brighter Sounds project, Both Sides Records are a label celebrating and led by woman and marginalised genders, based in the North of England. They have recently signed their first artists via an open call for artists of marginalised genders based in the North of England who are driven, focussed and serious about their craft, offering to help take their careers to the next level. This was an incredible opportunity offering paid studio time, access to distributers, work with a PR company, 1-2-1 mentoring sessions, promo material and more! Today we will be chatting about this and more with the lovely Grace from Both Sides Records, so without further ado lets hop on to the interview!
Ella:
I’m joined here today with the lovely Grace from Both Sides Records! How are you doing today?
Grace:
Yeah I’m good how are you!
Ella:
Yeah I’m great! Very excited to be chatting to you. We usually start off our interviews with a bit of an origin story, so I’d love to hear from you a bit about how Both Sides Records got started and maybe a bit about you personally and how you got involved?
Grace:
Yeah so I think the best place to start is probably where I’ve come from with all of this. I started playing drums when I was 7. No one in my family was particularly musical and even to this day I don’t actually know why I was interested in it, it was a bit of a weird thing they just sort of offered lessons in school and I just decided to take it up and I’m 18 years down the line now and I’m still playing the drums.
So I studied music at LIPA because I got to about 16/17 and was thinking you know when you have to choose options and you don’t really know what to do, and I always knew I was interested in music and it had always been like a background thing but no one had ever made it clear that it could be any kind of viable career path because I think a lot of schools don’t really push it and especially because I was getting quite good grades they wanted me to go down a more academic route. People were pushing me to do things like English Lit at university but I decided I wanted to do music so I ended up going to LIPA and specialising in drumming and percussion. And then last year I did my MA in Music Business and Industry at the University of Liverpool, so that’s sort of my a little bit of my background. And my current job at the moment along with running the label is also being a session drummer and percussionist like on the weekends as well, so that’s sort of a bit of a brief explanation about me.
And the record label it sort of came out of nowhere because I was just in the middle of finishing my Masters and Brighter Sounds which is a charity in Manchester advertised a job for a record label manager, and I’d been thinking for a little while that I’d been wanting to do a more industry focussed job but the issue is so much of it is so London based and I spent so many years building up a network of gigging musicians and friends in Northern England, I’m from Liverpool as well, and I just found it like I don’t want to have to move to London to do this type of work. So when I saw the job opportunity come up from Brighter Sounds I thought well I’m going to have to apply because I’d been a participant when I was 20 in one of their projects, their gender equality projects where we worked with the Liverpool band Stealing Sheep which was really cool, so I knew I really liked Brighter Sounds and I really liked their ethos and the ethics around the company. So I applied for the job and you basically had to say in the interview what you wanted the record label to be and mine was a real big focus on creating opportunities for women and marginalised genders which was really important from the North of England and sort of offering that career advice because I didn’t really want to be a traditional label. It was more a stepping stone, I don’t want us to be seen as a label who you’re with for the long-term it’s more that we’re here to help you onto your next steps essentially if that makes sense.
Ella:
Yeah that makes complete sense! You know I think when you get started in like most creative careers it feels like all paths lead to London for some reason and when you’ve grown up in the North and you feel so nurtured by people and organisations and the creatives who you’ve grown up around and who inspire you and it just seems like such a shame to have to like leave it all behind to like find some kind of financial stability because that seems to only exist like down south or specifically in London. So it’s fantastic that you’re dedicated to making opportunities in the North because I know a lot of people leave for that reason, out of like I guess fear in a way of not finding support here or maybe not feeling like it’s big enough or that you need to move out to find that support. So that’s fantastic what you’re doing, and you’ve answered quite a few of my questions there already in terms of you know your aims and all that sort of stuff especially that you’re focussed not only on gender equality but the issues that exist specifically in the North and the scenes that exist within the North so that’s amazing.
A question around that is maybe why do you feel like having sort of separate spaces for women and people of marginalised genders is important within creative industries and the music industry specifically?
Grace:
I think this is a bit of weird question because I was thinking about this this week and I’m like practicing what I preach in the way that the label is for women and marginalised genders and I think it’s great because I went to an all-girls school, it was just a state school in Liverpool but it was an all-girls school but I found that because of that I pursued music a lot more because I think when you’re a teenager and you’re awkward and you’re gawky and then you’re introduced to teenage boys I think there’s definitely a confidence issue for a lot of young women that I think I never really had and I think it really shows in my group of friends because I’m the only one whose doing music now but if you look at us we’re all highly ambitious and high achievers and I think it was probably the environment we were in because there was never a situation where we were told we couldn’t do it or that we weren’t suited to it so all of my friends have really varied careers doing different things. So I think that’s why a lot of women, they start instruments when they’re younger a lot of studies show, but then when they get to a teenage age, especially university, a lot of them don’t pursue it any further, and I genuinely think it’s because of that inherent confidence issue that comes across so I think that’s why all female spaces are a good idea but I also have issues with them as well. I think you’re preaching to the converted in a way if that makes sense which is a big issue now because it’s great having these all-female spaces, and these spaces for women to create, but what about the men? Because not to generalise but unfortunately a lot of the time men are the issue in this respect in terms of a lot of the issues women face in the industry in terms of a lot of gatekeeping, sexual harassment, like we literally saw yesterday Taylor Swift was accused of not writing her own songs by Damon Albarn, and the fact that co-writing is deemed as not being as like sought after, like it’s not as good, whereas this is a man who co-wrote all the songs in Blur, co-wrote all the songs in Gorillaz, so it’s like we have this inherent double standard I think in the industry where women’s contributions are often not as lorded or as important as men’s. So back to the point about like female spaces I think it’s how do we sort of reintegrate men into those spaces, because I think with events that are for like where women like you may have an all-female line-up or something, inherently your room will be full of women and marginalised genders who are there to enjoy it and feel like it’s a cool space for them. That’s fine but how do we then reintegrate? I don’t have the answer, and it’s something I’ve been thinking a lot about lately because I don’t really know what the best way is because I know most men are absolutely fine and there’s no issues there but I think it’s just the inherent culture. Like I’ve been very very lucky like I’ve never really had any issues at gigs, like I’ve had one where a man like groped me once but the security like threw them out as soon as I like said something, which was great but it’s how do we reintegrate men into that space? What do you think about it I’m curious?
Ella:
You’re honestly touching on so many things that me and Eve who run Where are the Girlbands talk about. Me and Eve met in an all-girls school in Liverpool and have a very similar experience to you where we both feel that had we not been in that environment we wouldn’t have pursued music in the way that we did because when we were in school it was like girls on the drums, girls playing bass, girls playing guitar, also loads of girls playing the flute but like girls could take on those roles because there were no lads to occupy those spaces. But also for me there are definite issues with single sex schools, of course, and I was coming into my Queerness when I was in school and in a way the single-sex environment was helpful for that because there were a lot of other Queer girls, you know it’s a stereotype in a way (laughing) but I was able to get to know myself because I wasn’t like almost dealing with the male-gaze in the same way that other people are when they go to mixed-schools when I was in those very formative years. So I would be a very different person to the person I am now because I had the chance to grow up around mainly women when I was in my formative years and that definitely impacted my relationship with music and the things that I felt I could do and was able to do. Me and Eve have had so many conversations about that, and it’s really interesting because the school we went to is now a mixed school, and it’s really interesting because my sister goes there and she plays the drums funnily enough but I still from conversations I’ve had with her and things I know about the school it’s not the same as when I was there, even if you look at their social media pages and stuff it’s like lads on the drums and lads on guitars and girls who are singing at the front of the bands and that’s like the set up and that was never what it was when I was there it was 100% girls on drums, girls on bass, all that sort of things. So I agree it’s an issue that comes from formative years and that separate space was definitely beneficial to me even though I’m aware that there are a lot of issues with that even just in you know how it excludes gender-non-conforming people and when I was in school there was a lot of homophobia and stuff from staff and you know there are always issues with these kind of spaces but there is definitely something to be said about how you weren’t encouraged to take on like a passive role to exclusively play the flute, do you know what I mean?
Grace:
What was really interesting was that when I was going into sixth form, so I was 16/17 at that point and my school, the girls school, didn’t offer a music A-Level they only had like a performance one which was focussed towards like acting and dance – I’m definitely not into that – I wanted to do music tech. But there was a boys school next door and I had to go over to their school to do my music degree, and so from the ages of about 12-16 I’d just been around girls and I knew what my identity was, but it was so interesting to then be put into that all-male environment because I remember I had to walk through the boys corridors to get to my lesson and I’d get heckled and all sorts it would be awful but then once I was in that room what was lovely is that I got so lucky it was a small class, all the boys that were in there with me were so lovely and they never treated me like I was any different, I never, there was never an issue where I felt like I was the ‘girl’ of the class if that makes sense, and I still talk to some of them now and some of them are still doing music and things. It’s interesting that I had to remove myself from that all-female environment and then move myself into an all-male environment but I was very lucky that all of the men respected me for what I did and everything, which shouldn’t be lucky it should be the norm but it was just like complete polar opposites but I was quite lucky in both situations if that makes sense. I think it’s how do we address that we’re sort of cutting of spaces because say with the label it’s not about excluding men it’s about the active inclusion of women and people still have criticisms of that which I understand because there are a lot of young men who are disenfranchised in the North of England who need support but it’s then how do we integrate those two spaces together without their being issues? I don’t know it’s still something I think about especially with the label because I’m now in a position where I am inherently creating a female and gender non-conforming space. Because obviously you put on events for all girls/Girlbands, how do you find that? Do you get a lot of men attending or is it quite?
Ella:
This is quite interesting because me and Eve have never explicitly said it’s only for women and people of marginalised genders. We’ve never said that it’s just an assumed thing. Like in our bio we say that we celebrate women in the North West which is true that’s what we do but like we don’t have any caps on like having involvement of men or people of other genders. Like you said, we’re always very aware that we are preaching to the choir, the people who follow us are people who agree with us, people who likely are seeking out a more diverse ways to experience music, but it’s important to have conversations with men. Obviously things like assault and groping are just like you shouldn’t need to explain that to people but things like microaggressions like which I think is a lot of what we hear from women in music like little things like ah shall I carry your equipment in, like oh whose girlfriend are you, like these sort of things which are just like irritants which build up over time and make music spaces uncomfortable, most people saying those things or behaving in that way don’t necessarily realise how harmful things like that are and how much they put people off and it just removes your confidence if you go into a gig to perform and someone says something to you that completely denies that you should be in that space, you know you’re not going to feel confident when you get on stage. They’re not going to feel comfortable coming back into that environment again. So having conversations with people about those smaller things is especially important we think.
Grace:
It’s sort of like that gatekeeping thing I think because I find sometimes with sound people, you know people who are doing sound a lot of the time it’s men and you’ll say like I want this in my monitor and it’s like they don’t hear you or they don’t want to listen, and if you have not a criticism but you say like I don’t or it’s too much I need this and it’s like they’re annoyed because you’ve asked for that and it’s like I don’t understand why this is an issue and I don’t know if it’s a gender thing but it’s something I’ve noticed and it’s like I’m not being demanding I’m just asking for what I need to be able to do my job properly sort of thing. And another one for me is if I’m gigging and it’s like “you’re actually really good!” and it’s like it’s a compliment but it’s not because you’re saying it as though I walked into the room and because I am female you assumed I wouldn’t be as good despite having 18 years of experience and 2 music degrees so I’ve probably got a lot more experience than a lot of men who would walk into a room so it’s a really interesting dynamic. And then another one is because I do percussion gigs in clubs, I do bongos and percussion and a lot of people come up to me and go oh can I have a go, and the women will come up to me and it will be like a fun thing but I think men come up and a lot of time they really think they can do it better than me and they’re like “oh go on I could do that!” and I just go, go on then, hand them the sticks and let them make a tit of themselves, and after they’ve had a go they kind of look at me with a newfound respect and it’s like but no the respect should have come the minute I walked into the room and this is my job. Like I don’t go down to their office and tell them how to sit on the computer and do their spreadsheets or whatever they’re doing, I would never assume. It sounds like I’m generalising because I know so many lovely men, it's not that but that’s just my experience really of people who come up to me and say thing. But I don’t want to be like men bashing at all because I know so many cool men who’ve done so much for me, especially when I think of men who’ve been there and sort of mentored me in the industry a lot of them have been male and they’ve been my biggest supporters and stuff and that’s been really cool. But it is still an issue, definitely, but it is interesting how you say people assume that your events are for women and people of marginalised genders only and it’s like how do we combat that because I think some of my male friends if they saw that something advertised as a safe space for women they’d be like ooo can I go to that? And the problem is I think we still need all-female spaces because I think until we have equality, women still need those spaces to practice and feel safe I think because if you’re creating a space like with the label, if they’ve got a song that they want to do we’ll sit down and say what do you want to do, how do you want to do it, who do you want to work with, and we’re trying to offer as much work as possible to women and marginalised genders in terms of recording, artwork, just to try and put money back into that local northern economy and women as well and just to help women create networks together as well because if I look at my general network of men I work with majoritively women and I think it’s because you just naturally gravitate towards people whose experiences you relate to and I think it’s the same of men, so it feels like a gatekeeping thing when you look at the hiring practices, but people are statistically more likely to hire people who look like them and who they can relate to, and it’s how do we break that inherent bias in the industry.
Ella:
Definitely, and that’s something which I have always thought with when you go to gigs and there’s sort of like promoters and sound people, there’s often a sense, especially with younger lads, that they get sort of taken under the wing of the people in those roles, and if you’re a young girl going on the stage I’ve had similar experiences where I’ve literally been ignored but that’s why for us it’s so important to have women off the stage as well. And one of our new year’s resolutions this year for Girlbands is to engage with people of different genders because you know we talk a lot to women, we talk a lot to Queer people as well about their experiences, but it’s important also to talk to men about like why is this happening, have you noticed that yourself or people around you behave in this way? You know. Maybe what can we do to like help that and make mixed spaces which feel more comfortable. Because for us we do get a fair amount of men at our events, like I think especially as we put more on more men start to come, but they’re like men who are involved in the work that we do and men who are integrated in the grassroots scene so you know, it’s similar to you, me and Eve have had a lot of men on the Merseyside music scene who’ve been really supportive of what we’ve done, who’ve given us really amazing opportunities, who’ve been mentors to us in a lot of ways and we often find like how you were talking before, when you’re talking about experiences and microaggressions you find yourself apologising for saying those you’re like I’m really sorry and I don’t mean this offensively and I’m not talking about you Joe I know you’d never do this and I’m really sorry about this but that is just the experience everyone has. Like we’ve spoken to so many people and like everyone has the same experiences like almost word for word so it’s not just like a one off incident it’s just the culture of those scenes and those environments so making a separate space is a way of, like we were talking before about maybe how girls school did that for us, it gives you a space where you can form yourself where you can get confidence where you can form an audience where you can practice performing on stage where you can practice doing sound for people. It’s those spaces that you know are going to be supportive, that you know are going to be safe. You know some of our events are specifically about women but some of them are just more generally about giving people a safe space to perform and anyone can come on those line-ups and I think for us it’s more about proving to people that you can have all-women line-ups and they be great, do you know what I mean, in the way that you can have all-male line-ups all the time and no-one notices. Do you know what I mean, it’s just the normalised thing it’s not advertised that way.
Grace:
You see I was curious about that, what do you think, because I was talking to someone else about this, what do you think about the all-female line-up, like the all-female stage? Because I used to think of it as a really positive idea, oh that’s really great, but the more I think about it now the more I see it as a performative thing or like here’s the ladies making their lady music, let’s put them on the lady stage and we’ll give them a shit time-slot, but if you wanna go and see the ladies doing their lady thing, go over there. And I’d never really thought of it but a lot of the time if you look at the programmes of those stages, genre-wise and stuff it makes no sense! And that’s a big issue for me now is if I see that sort of all-female line-up, if it’s marketed like that. If it’s not, it’s just all-women on a line-up and it’s just like here’s our festival, cool. But I think when you market it as that it feels a bit performative now because if you look at all the women who like even the festivals that have been coming out this year I’m getting bored now of like, are there any other people to do headline slots? When I think of all the amazing female musicians and then you see some of the festival line-ups like is it Blue Dot, or it’s one of them and like four days of programming and I think no female headliner or something like that - and it’s not to disparage what they have got, because there’s some amazing people – but it’s just like, you couldn’t find one woman? Just one woman even that? But it should be more equal than that. But it’s just interesting and I wondered what you thought and feel about that, the idea of the all-female line-up, because that’s something that you do, but I don’t think you do it in that way if that makes sense?
Ella:
We’re very careful about the people that we work with because we often have people coming to us being like “can you put on a lady event for us! Just some girls!” and me and Eve are like well if it’s one day with us, and you’re putting our name on it and ticking your diversity box then absolutely no like you should always have women in your events do you know what I mean, this shouldn’t be like the one and only a time a woman performs on your stage like on the women day. Especially like around International Women’s Day and stuff we get people like can you just give us like four women we can put on a stage, they don’t care what their genre is, they don’t care the vibe of the event, they literally don’t care as long as they can market it like we’re feminist! Look at all the stuff we’re doing! And for me and Eve we just feel like there’s no reason for that because there is an abundance of people in music who aren’t just men like for us, we put on events that are good events and we want it to be a case of you almost wouldn’t think about the fact that it’s all women on the stage you’re just thinking about how good everyone is. You know our events have themes you know we had one which was ‘A Mellow One’ which was all quite floaty ambient sort of stuff building up as the night went on, we had you know a Halloween event where it was all spooky acts who were across different genres but they all had very spooky vibes whether it was that sort of electronica or you know like sort of like an alt-rock sort of thing but singing season of the witch. You know we don’t necessarily market it being like look, there are some girls on stage, it just so happens that they’re all women, because there are enough women to fill a line-up in the same way that a lot of gigs you go to it will be an all-male line-up. Sometimes we do have men on the line-up, it will just depend on what we’re doing, especially if we do something that’s aimed around inclusivity or we do events that are aimed around people who are performing for the first time and we don’t really set bars on who can perform at those events because we think everyone deserves like a nurturing and encouraging environment. We had a conversation recently with one of our friends who works at Bloom where we do our events and we were talking to him about how he sings about very sensitive things in a very vulnerable way, he has a song where he talks about how much he loves his brother like in a really clearly emotive way and songs about mental health and how for him he went to an all-boys school and how scary it was for him the idea of getting on stage in front of loads of lads and being like I’m going to write a song about being sad and like we want to make space for that too and be like that’s great you can get on the stage too. Men have barriers to access too so in that sense we’re open, but at the same time we do like putting on all-female line-ups because it proves a point in a way. It’s like well you should sometimes have all-female line-ups in the way that often you will have all-male line-ups and that should be because they were all just so good that you wanted all of them to be on stage and most of the people in our network are women obviously because we provide certain services and we centre women so we don’t think about it, we don’t have to think about it because there’s such an abundance of people to choose from, it’s not a case of clutching at straws for women to fill up a stage, there are too many women (laughing) we don’t have enough events to put them all on so yeah. It’s definitely something we find tokenistic when it’s done by an events company especially who never usually have women on stage. If you have never seen a women there before and suddenly it’s all women and they’re like “WOMEN!! EVERYONE LOOK IT’S A WOMAN!!” then that’s like very much a red flag for us but if it’s an organisation who are centred around inclusivity, who are specifically talking about women all the time then love it, do you know what I mean. It just really depends on the context. I think you usually can tell if an all-women line-up is tokenistic and if it’s there to make the organisers look good versus if it’s a space which is genuinely meant to be an inclusive and a safe space for women if that makes sense.
Grace:
Yeah that makes sense yeah. It’s just an interesting conversation because as someone who was always like yeah an all-female line-ups great but then as you say context is everyone with that type of thing. It’s really interesting with how people perceive it especially now that I’ve grown because when I think about the feminism that I used to engage with when I was 15, my feminism is so different. But that’s fair enough because when I was younger we had like Caitlin Moran when she published ‘How To Be A Woman’ and that was like the seminal feminist text, whereas if you look back at it now, some of the views and some of the things she writes are so outdated and somethings I don’t agree with, but that’s okay because we need to evolve and grow, we aren’t just at a fixed spot are we really like we have to engage and grow and learn. Like I’ve learned so much in the past year, I was never engaged with any form of Trans* rights or anything and then just seeing the constant attack on Trans* people in the media I just I found myself getting so riled up about it, it really upsets me, and it’s like I’m not a Trans* person myself but it shouldn’t have to be that, so that’s why I was really passionate with the label that it’s not just for women it’s for marginalised genders so whenever I had any opportunity with comms I talked about the fact that it was for marginalised genders as well and what was really encouraging is we saw in the people who applied for our call-out, which was our first like thing that we put out, that it was a lovely mix of genders, and for me that felt like a nice natural step because it was like these people are feeling the confidence to apply and it’s nice that they felt like our space would be a nice one for us to engage with. Because we’re still learning I think all of us about like Trans* issues and stuff and I remember in the call out we had some wording and we showed it to someone and they were like actually that wording might not be good, you should change it to this type of wording and it’s like okay if that works better. Including Trans* people I don’t see why that should ever be an issue, allowing them into spaces, if me or some other people can make a space where they can feel like they fit in and can talk just like a normal person and have like a nice time and like that’s all I want really. So I think that’s been really nice to see that we’ve had that engagement but an issue where I think we need to do better really is race because I think a lot of feminism and these events are very white focussed and I think I’m definitely engaged with that because if you look we had a lovely mix of genders but the applications if you looked at race it wasn’t as varied which I think is something we need to work on. But I think it’s good that we’re engaged with that and it’s how do we work on that next time and I think if we do another call out then we could do the comms for the next one we can mention that we want people of different races to apply because I think it’s not true feminism or equality if it’s a room full of white women if that makes sense? And I think there’s an issue with the northern scenes of only engaging really with women from white backgrounds and stuff because that is often the majority, but it’s like there are so many diverse music scenes in Liverpool and the North and I think sometimes they don’t get the same billing.
Ella:
Definitely, and it’s great that you’re acknowledging that and you know getting feedback around the language that you use and stuff like that, it’s something that we’ve gone back and forth about with like I use she/they pronouns but it somethings where for us early on because we were speaking about experiences of women and femme presenting people especially, we didn’t want to lump the experiences of Trans* people into the things we were talking about as almost like an add-on sort of thing because it’s a whole specific experience which we can’t speak on, like as much as I’m a Queer person I am very femme presenting, I don’t experience transphobia, I don’t experience racism, like those are things that I personally can’t speak on, but I love to give the platform for those people to share their experiences, and it’s not just that I would like to do that it’s obviously really important to do that.
I think the open call is another thing I was going to ask you about and it’s something where for us, it’s very similar to how we run our page and how we run our events is we don’t really like to choose people ourselves because we are aware that even if we do have the best intentions we do have unconscious biases and those will come into play. It’s important that we give space to people whose experiences aren’t the same as ours and we don’t want to give space to just one conversation and definitely not just a white feminist conversation so I think what you’re saying is great and it’s also really important to note that even if you do an open call and it’s open to submissions, the language you use and the way you present is going to affect who applies like you were saying. So it’s definitely something we’re thinking about all the time is the language we use and the way that we present and how we can do more to reach out to more communities without tokenising those communities because we also don’t want to just go to someone and be like you’re of this specific marginalised community do you want to come and work with us? Because that as well is like completely choosing or reaching out to that person for wrong reasons, for tokenising reasons and It think yeah. I think you’re going down, at least the route that we have found to be the best way to deal with it. We’re always open for critique and whatever advice people have to how we can be more inclusive and how we can make our space more approachable, always really want to hear that feedback. But I think that’s been a really big one for us, how we talk about our page, how we talk about our events and making sure to make any changes that people suggest basically in how to make things feel more open and more approachable.
Grace:
Definitely I think it comes from positions of leadership because like with anything the people who are in leadership positions are the ones who make the ultimate decisions and I think especially with the music industry, if you look at the top leaders especially of labels it’s a majority white men from middle class backgrounds and their hiring practices are hiring people through internships a lot of the time, and a lot of working class people from the North could not afford to do an internship because I saw a few people from my old university go on and do those and that wouldn’t have been a viable choice for me ever to do something like that and it’s like how do we change that bias because I genuinely think that each of the majors could have a very small northern office and it’s like well how do you engage with these communities if you’re not based in them and you don’t have people there because even all the major A&Rs who come down they’re all based in London and it's like if you had A&Rs based in the north in a northern hub city like Manchester, Leeds, Liverpool surely that would be much more beneficial because they’re much more engaged in the local scene and they can see what’s actually happening and have those contacts because when I think of all the contacts I have from like promoters, venues owners, other musicians, you find out about so much cool music and so many things that are going on and if you’re based in London you’re so removed from that and I know that they will have contacts but it’s so London-centric and London heavy and expecting all the bands to shlog it down to London with about 10p to their name and then do a performance for free for the hopes that there might be someone in the room who likes them. It’s like well we’re never going to achieve equality in terms of class, race, gender if this is the playing field that we’re given, whereas if you have those Northern offices even if it’s small like ten people based in the north of England, surely you’d be able to find really cool bands. Do you know what I mean? I just think it’s like a no brainer in my opinion, and it baffles me that labels don’t really do that or are engaged with that.
Ella:
Whenever we’ve had an opportunity like we’ve been on a few panel discussions and stuff like that with bigger labels, the thing we always say is culture happens in grass roots communities like that’s where new genres are born, it’s where movements are born. Creative progression happens in grassroots places like you know, even like you were saying earlier you feel like you won’t be able to pursue music or most creative careers unless you move to London – moving to London is a privilege. Who can just afford to pack up and move to London without the promise of a job? Very few people can without someone to support you paying your rent, you know having somewhere to go back to if things fall through, it’s just not a leap people can make especially if when you get there you’re going to be a small fish in a big pond, it’s just not something that’s viable for people to do. And like you said when there’s no one coming here and speaking to people it’s like how, it feels like there’s a cap on how successful you can ever be. You don’t have the security or the financial flow that people and organisations can receive in London. You know I’m amazed everyday by just how many fantastic people there are here like it’s just astounding some of the people who are so young as well, like people who are 17 sending us Eps that they have mixed and mastered themselves it’s just like absolutely unbelievable and you just think like where would this person be if they had like a dad who worked for Sony do you know what I mean, how successful would that person be!
Grace:
I think there’s another issue though with wanting to get that major label support is it sounds like a good idea on paper, but once you do because they’re the ones holding the money your autonomy is then sort of severely compromised like you can go into it and be like this is my vision for this this is what I want to portray, but if you’re not the person putting down £50,000 then what say do you really have? There’s definitely that imbalance but like with the rise of the bedroom producer, people just being able to produce music in their own rooms, and the fact that you can just completely bypass a label now. A lot of people are just doing it themselves so labels really need to get a kick up the arse and think what can I offer that’s different because at the moment the major pull of a label is financial I would say, because they can put the big money into you. But then when I think of our label we’re not offering a major financial support package, like we’re helping you put stuff out, but what’s a think why people want to work with us is offering that sort of mentorship, because I think it’s another issue of inequality is the education gap in music, is like how local authorities fund music. But then also, I was talking to my old lecturer yesterday and we were talking about the fact that so many institutions just don’t teach music business as an inherent practice whereas I’ve been so lucky throughout my education at LIPA and everything that we had modules on music business and industry so I understood copyright, I understood contracts, I understood how to apply for funding which is another thing talked about, we were told about basically all the things we could do and all the funding we could apply for which gives you a leg up in that respect and so many people just aren’t thought that. I talked to a person who went to a different university and I said so did you do any work on copyright did you do any work any like accounts like being self-employed and she said no. So the issue is people are just being taught to be good musicians, but now we know that’s only 50% of the battle because being a good musician is no longer enough to succeed in this industry and people just aren’t taught how to be business people. So that’s something else I’m passionate about continuing with in the future, just sort of like bridging that knowledge gap with people because if you’re not taught it then how are you ever going to know it?
Ella:
Something me and Eve always talk about as well is how with this idea of like the narrative of getting signed and moving to London all these sort of things is like the end goal of peoples careers, it really underplays the value of grassroots and local communities because there is so much. It’s liked I was saying before it’s where creativity happens and where progressions in music and genre and all of these sort of things happen is in community and we always talk about how things like networking are always used in like really capitalist transactional ways where like networking should be about like forming relationships with people and having nourishing and formative relationships with people rather than I meet you, I shake your hand, you give me record deal, I famous, do you know what I mean? It’s quite a strange thing there’s been a lot of stuff about like influencer culture and things like that going around recently about you being a personal brand and stuff and I think because there is so much financial insecurity attached to being a creative you almost feel like you have to bypass community and go straight to like signing onto someone who can give you that big injection of cash and support you financially. But we always really try and emphasise like there is such a wealth of support and like learning and like development personally and creatively that you will find from people who live in your city, who are working in your city, who are making in your city, but it’s completely understandable why people feel they have to do these like business moves because there is fear and very real fear about not being able to support yourself. It’s a really strange one but I feel like what you’re doing is really valuable even in terms of like the access to advertise yourself, like having an understanding of distribution, having an understanding of PR, things that you just don’t know, especially if you’ve not been to uni even, if you’re not had access to higher education even or…but it’s like there isn’t just like somewhere where you can go to find this information easily online and it’s something we really would like to do like there’s a few people we’ve worked with who are happy to give out that information and we want to just give it to everyone and be like “here you go!” do you know what I mean, like look after yourself (laughing) like all of this sort of stuff. So I think it’s amazing what you’re doing so like you said even if it’s not like a huge injection of cash, giving people more agency over what they’re do and the music that they make is almost more important than money, do you know what I mean, because it gives you the foundations that you need to be able to self-produce and to be able to, even if you do go into a deal at some point in the future, to be able to know what you’re signing up to.
Grace:
That’s what I’m so passionate about, people going into a room with a base level of knowledge, I don’t want them to have to be a lawyer, that’s not what I’m after I just want them to be able to look at a contract and know what the terms are, and the conditions of it and what legal advice you should be seeking. It’s just basic things which seem like a no brainer but a lot of people aren’t taught and because music industry is not centralised in any way and it’s so informal as an industry a lot of people aren’t really given those tools and it’s just something I’m so passionate about teaching and helping young people with because I’m still learning as well, like I’m only 26 it’s not like I’ve got the world behind me and I know it all so far like I haven’t been in it for that long but I’ve realised that I’ve got a lot more knowledge than other people and it’s not through me being better than them, it’s just through the opportunities that I’ve been had, so if I can then start to help other people with the knowledge that they’ve got and then pass it on I think it will just help to create a bigger pool of more savvy musicians because I think we just have this idea as the general public of this. X-Factor has ruined the music industry in the way that people have this idea of the million pound record deal, and I think a lot of people even my Mum and Dad still had this idea that well when you got that million pound record deal they just give you a cheque for a million quid. It’s like no that’s not how it works at all. That million pound might be spent on you but you have to recoup that, and if you don’t recoup that you’re f***ed, like you’ll get dropped, and then you’ll be the nobody from X-Factor who got dropped after their first album. So there’s this inherent fairy-tale that I think we have to sort of break and I think we’re getting there I think because people have a lot more autonomy to do it themselves now, but it still goes on you still see people getting dropped everyday just for not reaching optimum sales, figures, and things like that and so it’s really interesting because I don’t think we really get as many development deals in the music industry which I think were more beneficial for younger artists. For context a development deal is where you signed, maybe younger, and a label will spend a few years building you up and helping you with your career. I think Billie Eillish is probably quite a nice example of that because she was so young and obviously she’s a global superstar she can ask for anything she wants now, she has quite a good level of autonomy, but it’s that development deal idea that’s allowing you to develop and make mistakes and the music industry now is you have to come to them half baked, half ready, basically nearly there and they just put the finishing finesse of financial injection and if it doesn’t work then you’re dropped and they move onto the next one and there’s not really that loyalty. Whereas I think a lot of people who sign onto smaller indie labels the development is there and the loyalty is there a lot more. And there are a lot more willing to work with you. That’s not to bash the work of bigger labels, there are a lot of really cool labels like I really like the work of Polydor and I like a lot of their signings but whether I morally agree with a lot of the practices is another thing really. So yeah it’s really interesting because its exactly the opposite of what we’re doing as a label. But I know there’s so many cool people who work at these labels who really do want to make a difference and put out really cool music, but the problem is the inherent structure is unequal and not weighted in the artist’s favour.
Ella:
Deffo, and like you said even if you go into those spaces with the best of intentions you’re fighting an uphill battle because things are done a certain way and there’s certain expectations.
We get so many DMs off people all the time saying “how do I make it” like stuff like that like “how do I make it big”, “how do I become successful”, “how do I do that” and it’s like what does that mean to you? Do you know what I mean? Does that just mean being famous? Does that mean having like a million streams on your song like what does it actually mean to you and why do you want those things because you know at the end of the day you could get to that point and lose all autonomy over your craft and not be able to be putting out the stuff you want to be putting out and like you said be living in a position where you’re fighting to retain being signed to that label in a way which is a lot of weight and a lot of expectation on you as the artist to meet the goals and the expectations that they put on you. Whereas like we always try to say to people like there is so much nourishment within like smaller labels, within just like your community in general like there is so much support and you can develop yourself so much and have an understanding of who you want to be as an artist and like you know if you do eventually get signed whether it’s to a smaller label or a bigger label you can go in with a clear vision of who you are and what you want to do rather than feeling like your hands are tied as soon as you enter that situation because you haven’t had the experience, you haven’t had the autonomy all this sort of stuff. It’s a really interesting one I think you’re right about all the fairy-tale idea of what it means to sort of make it big, and it’s something that we really, especially when younger people come and ask us, (I mean we’re very young ourselves me and Eve are like 22/23 but I mean people who are like 17 message us) like I’ve seen this band and they’ve gone viral and they’re successful and they have this and they have that and it’s trying to remind people there is so much within you as a musician do you know what I mean that you can get from the people around you and the organisations around you and this big like idea of success might not be necessarily all that it’s drawn up to be or all that it seems from the outside perspective.
Grace:
I think you only see the surface level of it as well like when you think of all the artists and say someone messages you and says “this persons made it so big on TikTok and this song’s got a million streams” and it’s like yeah because you’ve just got aware of them when they’ve got that success, but just think of how many years of grafting there may have been before, or the situations they may have had to have put themselves in to get there. Sometimes you do just get that one person and it’s a complete anomaly and they do just go massive out of nowhere, and it’s great but a lot of the time if you look under the surface level there’s so much going in to it. Even if it’s people doing it individually or people doing it with labels or people trying to distance themselves from like and creating this myth of the artist. You see it a lot of the time. Say me, I went to LIPA, a lot of labels would be like don’t mention that you went to LIPA because that then creates the idea of the fact that you’re an arts school child, that you went to an arts school, that you went to a music institution, that you went to fame school, it’s like that’s not authentic. Do you know what I mean? So I think we only see the surface level of what an artist really is and what they’re career is and I think the way we were talking about there’s so many different routes and so many different ideas of success and I think the biggest tip I could give to someone is define what your idea of success is not what someone else says it is because when people signing that record deal and signing to universal and just being paid to fly around the world and maybe not write your own songs and perform them, that might work for them, and I would never judge anyone for that, if you like that and that works for you then go for it, you’re having a great life. But if someone goes well I want autonomy over my music and I want to do this than I go well maybe that isn’t the best thing for you, maybe you need to do this type of work, maybe the million pound record deal (that doesn’t exist anyway) isn’t the optimum choice of you, maybe singing to a smaller indie label, maybe like Rough Trade or something where you can have more creative freedom. Or maybe just doing it yourself if you’re a cool bedroom producer or you’ve got people that you like. So I think it’s just defining your own idea of success because everyone is different. Like me and you talking, if me and you defined our ideas of success now it would be completely different, we wouldn’t agree probably. We might find some general ideas that we both agree that we both like, but we both have different things. I think for young artists especially, because I’m not an artist myself but I work with a lot of artists and young people, it’s just sort of defining that and the goalposts will change. You may define what you want and then in six months that may change but that’s fine as well. It’s accepting failure is good as well. I sound like a life coach now but it is. The music industry is not always a kind place, it’s full of failure a lot of the time but failure is not a bad thing because you tend to learn something from it, and like I said because it’s not a rigorous industry structure where you understand if you do this you get this result, it’s more based on who you know not what you know, like I said the education thing but also the networks, it’s very difficult to ever work out how to be successful, you just sort of mud along and find it out on the way to find out ways you can do and ways you can educate yourself but it’s so dependent on the person that you are and the opportunities that you’re given and the positions that you’re put in and the people that you know.
Ella:
100% and I think that’s what’s so great about what you’re doing with your label is that like you said you’re not necessarily a space where people will be signed with you forever. It’s that you’re giving people those next steps and you’re giving access to education and resources that otherwise they may not have and that’s so important especially like we’ve been saying for people in the North and marginalised people in the North. It’s so exciting what you’re doing and I’m sure you’ll genuinely change so many people’s lives because it’s those things which you just can’t get elsewhere do you know what I mean? And it will help people set the goalposts like we’re talking about now and give them an understanding of the things they want to make and how they want to make them and what audience do you want like what’s the goal with the things that you’re doing. And not only what’s the goal but just genuinely enjoying making and producing and you know all of the amazing stuff that goes into a musician so, it’s so exciting hearing about all of the stuff that you’ve been doing and it’ll be really helpful for people and it’s something we come across so often is you know how do I make it big so this has been a really good discussion and I’ve taken some stuff away so next time we get one of those DMs I’ll be able to be like I have some advice now, I have some good advice for you. But yeah thank you so much for that and my sort of final question for you is what are some things that you’re looking forward to this year with the label?
Grace:
We’ve got like three releases, two of them I can’t tell you about now but I think they’re happening and the first one is our open call out. I’m not going to say who it is yet because we haven’t announced the artist on social media and I’m not sure when this is going out so. Yeah I’m just really looking forward to seeing how it goes because the launch was so lovely and everyone was so positive about it and we got so many networks absolutely loved what we were doing and stuff and it will be so nice going to the next stage of actually putting the music out but for me that’s going to be another big challenge because for me I know it all on paper, the theory of releasing music, but then when you actually do it you realise how, deadlines, I’ll set deadlines and it changes because the mix wasn’t ready, you didn’t like that and like I said the music industry isn’t very formalised it’s very wishy-washy so it’s definitely fun and I’ve just realised how to let go a little bit, I’m really enjoying. But on a personal note I’m also really hoping to put in an application for my PHD looking at women in music and focussing on maybe leadership positions as well and looking at the experiences of women in the music industry and even a focus on motherhood which I think is really important and is something we haven’t really talked about but I think is something we need to be discussing. I’m not a mother myself, I’m only 26 and I’m not sure if it’s something I really see for my future, I don’t know it’s not something I’ve really thought about but the way that these issues come up and I think a lot of people in the creative industries find that motherhood can be a very difficult decision to make in a way that it’s not in a lot of other creative industries. Just looking at those leadership positions and like we’ve just spent an hour talking about the issues that women and marginalised genders face and just talking about that on a wider industry level I’d like to look at and do a bit of research into that and hopefully make a difference in some sort of way academically.
Ella:
It’s something we’ve had some really interesting conversations about actually. Not even just motherhood but age, for women in music specifically and like even session musicians in a sense of we’ve spoken to some session musicians who’ve been told that they no longer have like the right “look” to perform and that sort of thing. Like you have I guess the sort of the grey fox sort of like older gentleman who has his own place and his own image within music and you don’t get that so much for women which is a real shame that people feel that they sort of age out of their roles, especially for I think singers. It’s a real thing because I guess so much of gender and music gets tied up in image and you know it’s not even a kettle of fish that we’ve gone into today, all that sort of thing. But that all sounds fantastic and I could just keep chatting away for literally hours!
Grace:
Something I will say is people who are looking for some kind of industry experience or opportunities, please visit Brighter Sounds, the charity who I work for because they’ve got so many amazing programmes going on at the moment and they’re all like free and a lot of them for women and marginalised genders in the North and there’s like workshops, leadership programmes, workshops on business and it’s all free as well so I’d highly recommend anyone checking it out whose trying to make first steps into the industry or trying to meet new people who are likeminded, so I’d really recommend that.
Ella:
Amazing! Well I think that’s a really perfect place to round up on so thank you so much for chatting with me today!
Song of the Week: Lilah – Starving
Our song of the week this week is ‘Starving’ by Liverpool based artist Lilah. This song sounds straight out of a coming of age indie film as Lilah takes on topics of teenagehood through bedroom pop melodies. This song is sweet and sad, it feels familiar and comforting, like the favourite jumper you wore through your formative years that is soft on your skin but soaked with the memories of growing up.
We chose Lilah for this episode as she is outspoken on how there needs to be more labels, venues and organisations representing women and people of colour in the UK. She had never heard of a British Asian musician like herself in the indie/alternative scene and wants to be that representation for others.
Lilah’s music is gorgeously genuine, written with the honesty and vulnerability you would take to a diary entry. We hope you enjoy!
Play Lilah - Starving
We are Ella and Eve from Where are the Girlbands working in collaboration with Comics Youth to bring you interviews with local organisations and individuals who create safe spaces. You can find us on Instagram as @wherearethegirlbands where we celebrate women in music and discuss how to make local music scenes more accessible for everyone through reviews, video series, interviews and events! You can find more about Comics Youth on Instagram at @comicsyouth or via the website comicsyouth.co.uk. Comics Youth is a youth led organisation that aims to empower youth across the Liverpool City Region to flourish from the margins of society, creating safe spaces where young people can harness their own narratives and find confidence within a creative community. Comics Youth provide a range of creative services designed to support and amplify the often diminished voices of young people, from zine creation to youth led publishing hubs and projects such as this podcast which highlights the voices of those working within our community to create safe spaces!