Thread by @TashCrump, I’m going to break my silence about something and even if no [...]

I’m going to break my silence about something and even if no one reads this or people scroll past it. Im just going to be happy to have finally spoken my truth and a reasoning behind certain things

My experience with the music industry and the current female festival debates

It all started when I was 14. I had always sung and knew I wanted to be a singer. I had listened to Taking Back Sunday, All American Rejects etc and finally got introduced to Paramore and knew I wanted to front a band that played alt music.
I chose music at GCSE...

Then did a BTEC Music performance course where I met my band mates and we started Forever Can Wait (I had sung with a couple of bands at school too - mainly 80s or rock covers)

During my time at college we were raising some money one day by busking in the city centre

I got approached by a man who said he liked my voice and wanted to meet with me, I found it really odd but then he gave me his card and he was from Sony Publishing...

I was shocked and ecstatic at the same time... was this me getting discovered! - I was 17 so rather naive

I organised a meeting and my music tech teacher at the time who was a massive support (and now friend) came with me to meet him at his studio. He showed me some of the artists he was working with and then he asked me about what I like to sing, this is where it went downhill...

I explained that I love singing Paramore, constantly trying to develop my vocal range to hit those high notes and how I mainly listened to pop punk/rock. All the guy kept saying was that they mainly work with female vocalists who are more pop princess style like the next Britney

We ended our meeting and me being naive, I thought it had gone amazing and he was really interested in recording with me. He requested I send him a playlist of my sound... so I sent him songs I connected with from the bands I was listening to... I never heard from him again

So I was gutted, but thought this isn’t the end, my band is starting and this is the music I want to play, I enjoy it!

But I think this no turned me into devil woman. Over time becoming more pushy when we weren’t getting big etc losing my love for it

Then while we were in the band, we had some supporters, we had some more no’s, we played many empty venues, but we kept going, eventually getting to play download thanks to a red bull comp. So when we toured post festival and once again mainly empty venues. You just get fed up

All while this is happening, some decent shows, some empty shows trying to stay positive. Holding on to 2 jobs plus some work experience in a venue and then moving into one full time job at costa for years. We were also having to deal with the NOs from record/publishing companies

The worst part of the big NOs, a lot of the time they were because we were a female fronted band and they already had a female front band or a female on their roster. GOD FORBID!! You can’t have more than one female musician on a roster, it’s blasphemy!!!

Then being told “you need to lose weight and get a better dress sense” by people, “you need to decide how far you’ll go when it comes to nudity for press shots” etc

It was madness!!

(People wonder why I have self confidence issues now)

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