Look mum, I made it / half a life
Well, the cat’s out of the bag now. And it’s a big cat. Guess this really has been the year of the tiger. I am now a signed artist with one of the dopest indie labels in the world, and before I go any further I want to extend some gratitude to a handful of the people who made it happen. From Andres Dahl in management, to the entire team at V2, and Rezal, without whose support I would never have made it this far. All of you made this possible.
Truth be told this is something I’ve been working towards for half my life - from a dream that started in my bedroom, to signing a piece of paper that was essentially a physical manifestation of many peoples’ belief in me - and it feels pretty surreal to have it all come to pass. I had always written songs for me, songs about my journey in life, my emotions, my observations, and for the first couple of years I definitely felt like my goal was within reach.
As I built my gargantuan band at Berklee I felt it come closer still, but I realise that what I needed most at that time was mentorship, someone to guide me, guide the gift I had into something I could actually make a career out of. God knows I felt like I came close so many times, and so many times it felt like it slipped away from me. But with every taste I sensed that it was almost like an appetizer, a teaser, a voice saying “you can do this, it is all possible, just keep moving forward - it is coming”.
After I left the relative safety of Berklee and realised that I had no idea what the hell I was doing, I sort of fell apart. The idea of writing for other people seemed more attainable, so I began to step back a bit and try that out. Cue several years of flipping back and forth, including conversations with managers who always told me that I had to choose one direction or another. Stubborn as I am I thought, “nope, gonna do it all”.
Who knew all it took was massive crisis - a pandemic, a total collapse of career - to set the record straight. Had to burn the whole forest down to make way for new growth. I was devastated. All my income, all my connections, the shows I was booking for another artist project that felt like maybe it was a good outlet, it all just folded in on itself. Survival forced my hand, and I wrote what is to be my first single - Walk Over My Friends.
I’m not going to sugarcoat this in my usual restrained, semi-poetic language: I was absolutely freaking devastated. I’d burned myself up for this soulless, crappy industry, simply to try and write music that meant something to someone, to communicate empathy through songs, to find nothing - no support network, nothing. All my creative friends who weren’t financially able to take a timeout were reeling, all the corporate connections I had who were in the same boat were honestly like, “we have no idea what’s happening, good look figuring it out”.
So I sat on my wee red second-hand IKEA couch, stared at my MIDI keyboard, and said into the room around me, “I don’t really care if I make it at this point …”. And I just poured out all my anger, sadness, frustration. I had worked so hard for an industry I wasn’t even sure cared about me anyway, and had to resign myself to the idea that not only might all of that effort have gone to waste - but that music, one of the few things I live and breathe for, the only thing I’m really good at - might not actually be for me in the end. It was just going to be taken away from me.
Turns out that it became one of the best songs I’d ever written. And it just so happens that V2 Benelux felt the same. So on January 27th you’ll be able to hear the song that started my life anew. I can’t wait. Pre-save ‘Walk Over My Friends’ here.