When I was seventeen I had dreams bigger than I could understand. I would obsess over Q magazine, the double-page features with their interviews and observations – and become infatuated with thinking how cool it would be to have that kind of admiration from strangers, simply for singing a few songs that you wrote.
I’d written songs since I was about ten years old – the Windows 95 PC debut had let me record a multitude of 30 second snippets of original tunes, (privately of course). They were just ideas, unfinished and unaccompanied, but for me, they were amazing.
On the reading front, it didn’t matter who an article was about, I would still lose myself within it – fascinated by the writer’s own perception and relaying of these intimate encounters with creative global stars.
I later spent three years studying Creative Writing and English for my first degree. I had no musical talent or knowledge at this point, besides my quietly self-assured belief in my unheard melodies and lyrics, and I’d been mildly celebrated throughout school and college for my writing – poems, stories, think-pieces. It seemed the logical choice, the writing BA, and in hindsight, it really was. However, the other dream remained at every step.
Eventually, I went down the path of songwriting – teaching myself guitar, singing quietly in my room, and ultimately – at age 23 – embarking upon a year long Master’s course in Songwriting, at Bath Spa University.
It was a transformative year, within which I not only exceeded my own expectations of myself, but made friends with a group of people who remain some of the most unforgettable characters and kindnesses of my whole life. Things were finally on the right track.
The problem was, when it came to it, I hated performing. I didn’t want to be looked at, I didn’t want anyone’s opinion – I was precious about my songs. I wanted people to hear them, but without having to listen. A bizarre oxymoron that somehow took me through a decade of performances across Bristol and beyond – sometimes with bands, often as a duo, but mostly alone.
It never got easier, nor more enjoyable. In fact, the opposite occurred. The more experience I acquired, the more prestigious the opportunities – the bigger the crowds; the greater the burden. I was not born to perform, not in this vulnerable way, and my perhaps pleasant but often weak voice was far too unreliable for regular gigs.
I cancelled a huge opportunity at a festival in Liverpool, around the time of my 30th birthday, and I psychologically blacklisted myself from any further opportunities that may have lay ahead.
It was too hard, too out of character for me, and I wanted something else from life – something I knew I was good at, that felt natural, and that I could enjoy and continue to excel at for many years to come.
Shortly afterwards, given my still-standing love for authentic music writing – I realised that it wasn’t the musicians I admired way back when, atleast not exclusively. It was the journalism. The framing of lives into these neat little boxes or pages, which smelt like fresh glue and were so pristine you wouldn’t dare bend a corner over. As a writer, a musician, and a diagnosed endurer of OCD – music journalism was the perfect indulgence.
And so I began.
