Launching a band
Biddy here! If you've made it this far through the website then well done and a big old THANK YOU for being here.
Hecks it truly takes a lot to get a band off the ground and finally we are here and we are ready to rock! It's been no easy feat, many a times I thought about cutting my losses and leaving the industry completely I assure you. I sat back and watched other female acts out there doing their thing and I wanted to be there too- although I really didn't want to be solo. I wanted the band and I wanted to be a part of a band, not simply use them as backing. The music I initially wrote was not meant to be performed solo or even as a duo (and we did a few of those gigs!) it was always meant for a big old band. So I waited until we got it right, and we rehearsed and we gelled and we changed line ups and of course we wrote some bad ass tunes too.
Our first gig was back in November 2021 at the notorious Corporation Sheffield- definitely a baptism of fire and definitely worth waiting for. We'd found our sound, we'd found our niche, we'd found our place. People seemed to like it, hallelujah!
Now, we're under no illusions, our sound is heavy and it just about sits in the country rock genre. Whether the country music scene likes it or not, who knows, but we have opened the door to being a part of the rock scene too and I know as a female that it is not a bad thing to be seen across genres. We're also older and wiser too, we're not just going to do any old gig, we're not going to bow to the pressures of social media and give you fluff. I can't abide by it these days- my TikTok is full of cat videos. Don't get me wrong it's definitely working for some people but we'd rather see you at a live show. I sit here having just designed this website, learnt about things like SEO and mailing lists and I can't wait for a glass of wine...
So what's the point of this blog post? I'm not sure, simply a babble and a long-winded hello and once again thank you for supporting us and sticking around whilst we got our wheels in motion.
I have learnt a lot along this journey so for a giggle here's some of my findings:
'Running a band is a bit like herding cats'
- It's chaotic trying to juggle 5 diaries and pin down gig dates- we're all professional musicians, some of us travel the world performing for a living and it's a nightmare finding pockets of free dates.
- It's a golden ticket moment trying to find a rehearsal slot that you can all do and that is in a decent spot (thank you Eiger studios!) we end up rehearsing in the midst of the busiest weeks all tired and fed up- we do get our second wind quick enough though!
- It's rehearsing and recording over and over until you're all happy with the result. Then sometimes you don't even have anything useful so the stress wasn't worth it. That's the worst. It's finding out when someone is free to re-record a part as it 'wasn't quite right'.
- Sometimes you can have all your ducks in a row i.e. festival applications, then someone deletes the video link you used (yes this happened, so sorry to Eden Festival and many others who will just get a 'link not found'.)
- It's like starting over again. I manage the band, it's my baby. But I may have forgotten just how much leg work it took to get my solo work off the ground. Here I am doing it all again, from building this to socials to mailing lists to reaching out to media contacts you haven't heard from me in a while. Sure we'll be using PR for the single but this initial part? This is me in half term! Here's hoping all my friends and supporters join us on this new journey.
- Shaking off the solo career is hard. To me this was a natural progression but to other's they can't seem to grasp I am no longer a solo artist but part of a unit. Sure I got the unit together but Stu basically has a final say in most band things. I reckon I'm just the brains aha. She might be back in the future or for acoustic gigs but she is certainly taking a backseat whilst we explore where this might lead us.
I'm hoping you folks stick around for the journey and enjoy the music we have made. It's currently being mastered and we have two upcoming singles for you in the next few months. Keep those eyes and ears peeled!
