Скачать или смотреть Making Music Sustainable with Steve Lawson

This week’s guest is Steve Lawson, a musician described by Bass Guitar magazine as “Britain’s most innovative bassist, no contest”. Instead of playing in a band as part of the rhythm section, the way bass players are supposed to, Steve is a solo artist, who creates what he describes as “melodic, ambient, wonky electronica”.

If you talk to most musicians about the state of the music industry, you will hear a tale of woe - no one buys music any more, piracy and streaming are killing music, it’s impossible to get a record deal any more, and even if you did, it wouldn’t be worth it, and so on.

But talk to Steve Lawson and you’ll hear a very different story.

He experienced early career success in what now feels like the ‘good old days’ of the music business, getting regular gigs as a session musician and touring with the likes of Howard Jones and as the opening act for Level 42.

Steve has played headline sets at festivals across Europe, and recently he has also collaborated in the studio with artists including Reeves Gabrels and Jason Cooper of The Cure, and Mark Kelly of Marillion. So he knows what it’s like to play for big crowds and with big stars.

But Steve decided to take a very different path.

Most musicians bet their career on chasing the numbers - previously with the goal of having a hit record and filling stadiums, more recently getting millions of streams on Spotify and Youtube. But Steve has opted to build a strong relationship with a small but very dedicated following who really appreciate his music.

So you won’t find his music on Spotify or Tidal. Instead, he makes most of it available via an annual subscription in Bandcamp - for a one off annual fee you get all the music Steve releases in a year, which is typically several albums’ worth, plus his entire back catalogue.

He has enough subscribers to pay his rent, which frees him up to spend his time making the music he wants to make, and to enjoy teaching the bass to his students. So he has that very rare thing in the current music scene, a business model that makes his music sustainable, and where he is not beholden to labels or management.

Here at The 21st Century Creative we are all about taking an unconventional path, and I wanted to showcase a positive story about the music industry – so Steve was the obvious choice.


There is a full transcript of this interview at: https://lateralaction.com/articles/st...

The 21st Century Creative is hosted by Mark McGuinness, an award-winning poet and a coach for creative professionals since 1996. https://lateralaction.com

Sign up for Mark’s FREE creative career course – 26 lessons to help you thrive as a 21st century creative professional: https://lateralaction.com/freecourse/

#21stCenturyCreative #creativecoaching #creativity #SteveLawson #music #musicbusiness #bass