Speaker 1What is up? Welcome back to the James Kennedy podcast for this another bonus episode. I don't know why I don't just start the second season already given that I am on my third bonus episode right now. But there is just so many interesting awesome dudes that I want to talk to and when the opportunity arises I just have to fucking do it and share it with you guys. Today is a case in point and we're just going to jump straight into it today guys. Normally you know I fill you guys in about what I've been up to with my week and that sort of thing but to be honest since the last time we spoke I haven't really done anything at all other than sit in my pajamas and work on book number two. Writing a book is a thoroughly and eventful and interesting activity so there's literally not much I can tell you guys about my week other than I've been sitting in my office in my studio just fucking hammering away man. Haven't seen sunlight, haven't shaved, haven't seen anybody, haven't gone anywhere or done anything. I've just been fucking going for it man you know and it's like... Writing a book is no small task man you know certainly for a dumbass guitar player like me so given that I lost six months of the year you know to being ill and stuff I've got to play serious catch-up now so the writing the book is the priority but still having said that when diaries align and there's an opportunity to chat with someone I think is super interesting and insightful then I just have to do it. And we got a good one for you guys today because today's guest has lived a lot of life he's got a lot of stories a lot of opinions a lot of insights and he does not hold back. Exactly the type of person I like to talk to. So without further ado we are joined today by the singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and most recent member of the Levelers Mr Dan Donnelly. Dan
Speaker 2thanks so much for doing this brother how you doing man? Hi James good great great to be here and good to meet you again sort of in a in a in a bit more of a chilled and more expected setting.
Speaker 1Yes what Dan is referring to is the last time that we were in a conversation together was on stage at the Beautiful Days Festival in London. We were at the Beautiful Days Festival in London and we were at the Beautiful Days Festival most recently when we were doing a talk with Mark Chadwick and Tom Gray about uh the music industry and streaming and and Dan was like dude you were really fucking like right on very opinionated very direct and you spoke a lot of truth that really resonated with me and of course the audience as well. So I'm really looking forward to uh continuing that chat
Speaker 2today. Well it's similar to you like when when you decide to make music your main thing you have to know what's going on and you've got you've got a lot of things going on and you've got a lot of sort of know how how you're going to navigate you know making money which is is a really important thing to live you know that that's why I know about it and the lockdown the lockdown essentially whenever I stopped playing I had to really start looking into where where all the money was going
Speaker 1from all the music that had made it. Yeah didn't we all well before we dive into that because we got a load of stuff I want to get into today um can you give the listeners a brief tour of who is obviously we know you now as the most recent addition to the mighty levelers yeah you've done fucking loads of stuff before that man super interesting journey so can you give us the
Speaker 2brief bio of who is Dan Donnelly? My parents didn't want me to be a musician so they told me not under their roof so I moved out and kind of became a busker and I was living on my mate's couch and him and I would go busking in town and then we saw that there was a battle of the bands in a local pub and the prize was 150 quid and that was the first time I'd ever been to a local pub was more money than either of us like he was on the dole and I just lived off busking it was more money than we'd ever seen in our lives so we essentially got a third guy who played double bass he played acoustic guitar I played mandolin and we got a double bass player and we entered this battle of the bands and won it and then one of the judges became our manager when we started gigging and then we put out a few records and got like uncharted and then started selling out bigger and then we recorded the levelers in like 1994 wow that's when I met those guys so I've known them for right oh a long time um and then that band split up and I moved to America and like sort of did a lot of mad indie rock so I was in an indie rock band called Joyzipper and we played with the darkness no way in the Paradiso in Amsterdam uh it was one of the most insane nights I've ever had in my life I've heard to that and I've heard to that then um then moved back here played a little bit on and off of the levelers then joined a band called the Oyster Band that like folk thing then I joined the Wonder Stuff for five years wow and then I joined a French band called the Celtic Social Club for about three years which was just stupid being in a band in another country and then uh then Simon like had was pretty much done with touring and I was I was gonna get divorced if I spent any more time in France than than I than I like and I just Mark was playing in my town and I went down to see him and said I think I'm gonna jack in this French band I just can't like all the traveling post COVID was doing my head and he was he was like right you need to join my band because Simon just doesn't want to tour anymore and I've been playing with the levelers now but that was the third beautiful days I've done with them
Speaker 1oh shit I thought you so how long you've been with those guys and I thought it was much more recent than that
Speaker 2like well the first thing it did was beautiful days 2021 so two years right okay cool and and how's it been you know they're they looking after you uh well they're like I've known them since I was a kid as I say like 1994 well I've known them since I was about like 18 19 years old right and we supported them in Ireland and um got on really well with them we were sort of of a similar ilk I like came up through the sort of punk crusty thing we we all lived in a van right and then they invited us over to England because we didn't really play in England that much and they put us on one of their tours um and we just drove around in our little van after their tour bus and like uh and we became really good friends then and stayed just stayed mates with them so it's almost like haven't been in a load of other other bands and other successful bands it's like some of your oldest mates going like do you want to join our band now yeah nice and they just happen to be you know the fucking levelers yeah but they know me and I know them so it's a it's like a it's not like oh right who's the what's this new guitarist gonna be like they know exactly what they're gonna get right they know my limitations they know my foibles and I know theirs yeah so it's like it it was it was a perfect sort
Speaker 1of match really and they're they're they're my like my best mates you know that's a beautiful thing and what a fucking band to have joined as well I mean like with such an amazing back catalog of awesome music yeah it's a fucking great gig bro you know what I mean and I love the fact that one thing I talked to Mark about when he was on the podcast was like their model they're independent they do things 100% their way and on their terms and they've had fucking loads of success doing it as well which is like you know it's a beautiful thing it's just like to see them with the message they've got and the music that they've got doing it their way and I'm seeing so much success through it as well as uh yeah it's fucking it's a beautiful thing it's a beautiful thing it's a beautiful thing it's
Speaker 2a great thing to see it is yeah yeah and the thing about their success is they're not like they are they are true anarchists yeah like they don't actually you know like I'm a bit of a confirmed socialist but they're they're like they really do believe that there should be like there's no boss in the band and there's no which is a bit mental because nobody really makes decisions but because of their sort of DIY punk attitude they've ended up being really successful so like instead of hiring a studio they're like they've got an advance from a record company bought bought a building and put a studio in it and it wasn't like they're anarcho-capitalists like let's gather all the shit together but they just sort of it kind of all just fell their DIY attitude just behooved them really well because they now have a massive building in Brighton with a great studio in it and you know they own their own label they they you know they built their own brand themselves and it's just all happened really well for them yeah and I find it doubly
Speaker 1impressive that they were kind of doing what has become the mainstream standard model now for artists I mean artists such as myself and all of my friends and peers you know we're all doing things independently making our own records at home releasing them independently through our own little labels and yeah distributing them digitally and things like that that is now very much the established model but they were doing that kind of back in the day of the physical era you know when it was a lot more expensive and logistically difficult to pull off yeah so the fact that they the fact that they had the foresight and the good sense to actually do that and pull it off successfully back in the bad old days when it was nigh on impossible to do that um I think yeah
Speaker 2it deserves a lot of respect my band went and hired studios I had like an eight track machine like I lived in a farmhouse and we used to demo stuff in my house but whenever we wanted to make a record we'd hire a prop we'd spend thousands higher in a proper studio and like a producer that would kind of tell us what to do until like we didn't really like the record anymore because yeah because it wasn't as good as the demos because this guy I just shouted at us we were too young to shout back and um and then all the money was gone and then the band was gone and that was it you know whereas they stayed really stayed true to their principles and like artistically and finance financially just were like no we're not we're not doing that you know which which has stood them stood them really well and they're
Speaker 1still like that they're still like that you know I think it's great I think it's a real testament to it's a real example others as well just stick by your guns stick by your values keep doing your fucking thing and i you know it'll work out you'll certainly still be able to keep doing your thing like like you said then which happens to most bands is you give a little here and a little there and you start following by you start following the the system's rules the established path and so many bands it's the cause of their fucking death you know i mean you fizzle out because of money or arguments or you've lost your songs to the label or whatever and uh you know it's the death of so many fucking great bands i find but like like the level is like even if you don't get to their level of success following their their strict model of sticking to your guns and just doing your thing your way at least you're still gonna be able to keep fucking doing your thing you know yeah yeah
Speaker 2yeah um and i've i've been in bands and seen a lot of contemporary bands that just ever decrease in circles that just went by this sort of put out an album go around all the o2s uh wait a year put out an album go around all the o2s to slightly less people wait a year put out an album go around all the o2s to slightly less people and then you know slip down the bill at all the festivals and get yeah get bitter and tired and sad and hate hate what you're doing and your life is yeah you'd you'd rather be doing a nine to five do you know
Speaker 1what i mean oh 100 among that fucking calls for all of us it didn't at some point you're gonna fucking make a choice between you know like faking it till you make it or am i gonna put food at the
Speaker 2table and put the fucking heating on you know what i mean well i always do i always have at least three things going on for my mental health right so even now like you know i'm really really happy being in the levelers like i'm really happy um but i've been in bands where i don't particularly like it but so i usually like i've got my solo thing which has been going on all my life and then i'll have something that i do like i've tour managed i've driven bands right i've like uh i teach like i do all that type of stuff so that if the teaching's doing my head and i'll go i can say to myself in my head like this is not the only thing this is not the only thing that i do like don't worry like and i've left but i've left i've left bands you know i've left big bands i've just gone like i don't i don't i don't want to do this this is you know and when you've got multiple things that you do you can go you know what like i don't you know i don't i don't want to do this thing right now i'm going to focus on on my other thing and that's a lot more difficult to do when you're
Speaker 1tied into a label deal as well especially like a major label deal you know it's it's literally impossible to say look you know i want to take a bit of time out to focus on my teaching or my mental health or i you know i've got this other project i'm going on tour with i mean you know if you'll sign into a a deal with a label of any kind of clout the very thing you're describing is not a fucking option for you you can't yeah major labels are or well if you're in like a big
Speaker 2big machine thing yeah um i think i made the major label things just it's a it's a different world i've been signed like i've been in a band that's been signed to mercury and it was stupid and we just racked up so much debt like we were flying from la to london and getting put up in bell size park like for a month right to do like one one gig um things like that and then the band old mercury millions so like just so much money that the album could never recoup and then we'd
Speaker 1we just got dropped that was the end of it yeah yeah classic story man i mean it happened to a band literally last year from around the corner from where i'm sat right now with a major label and it's mental to me that given how much everything has changed in this industry that the major label model is still very much exactly the same as it's always been you know throw money at something throw shit at the wall and whatever sticks go with more of that and just you know drop
Speaker 2the rest yeah yeah absolutely because when you when you do it yourself as well you can't go you know what i'm taking a month off for my mental health or like yeah i'm not i'm not doing this for a while like i'm gonna become a window cleaner for a bit or whatever whatever you know whatever makes you happy like you you said that you've been through periods where you're you're like
Speaker 1you know you were bedridden for a while yeah i mean that was kind of a different thing i was that was a special case really i mean i had a lot of trauma last year coming out of the lockdown my father was uh diagnosed with terminal brain cancer which was quite a slow and cruel journey that i was very close to he passed away last year and then a few months after that i was um assaulted by organized crime squad while sitting in my car you know they kind of like roughed me up a bit and stripped me naked and fucked up my hand and everything and um i think just as a result of like the lockdown my dad that i think my nervous system just kind of went nah kind of gave up on me for a few months i had like migraines and vertigo and exhaustion and um all sorts of fucking problems maybe in and out hospital more times this past year than ever before in my entire life but i'm kind of out the other side of that now i've done a lot of work and i feel like you know things are kind of coming back to normal but yeah in terms of what you're describing and 100 i can i've totally had periods like that in fact you know i spoke very openly about that in my book noise damage about how i had the opposite experience to what you're describing where you've been able to maintain balance by being an independent artist i actually had the opposite problem in the sense that i just became completely addicted and obsessed i would never take it time off i was like my own boss and i was the worst boss to myself in the world you know i wouldn't sleep i would work around the clock i would just be completely so overly driven and motivated all of the time juggling all the different components to being an independent artist that i just completely trashed my mental health you know i i was underweight i was an insomniac i was drinking every night for 10 years you know i was incredibly depressed and socially isolated um it was yeah it was like an addiction and like all addictions you know it was like an addiction you know it takes everything from you you know it takes your money it takes your girlfriend it takes your house it takes your stuff it takes your fucking it takes your life you know i mean it takes your health so um i've kind of learned the hard way now as an independent artist still you know moving forward the the importance of exactly what you're describing in maintaining balance and i have that now you know so music for me now is a beautiful and essential part of my life but it's not all of my life anymore you know it fits in amongst a variety of other things which which keep me sane keep me grounded and keep me happy not things to do with
Speaker 2music like your podcast kind of to do with music like i teach i teach music yeah you know and i i like to be in the music world and deal with musical people like i don't want to go and work in a fat toothpaste factory or something you know what i mean but uh i would hate to be a touring musician just a touring musician because it's like anything when you do one thing too much it yeah but um i've been i've been jumped and held at gunpoint by by the police you know as well what uh what happened to us was do you remember um the ira blew up canary wharf yeah right well it was phil linnet's birthday and they have an and it was it was around st patrick's day and they had a they had a like a this thing called vibe for philo which is like a thin lizzy um sort of tribute evening and um we were like a sort of popular irish band so this guy smiley bulger who ran it got us over to play in brixton academy and um so everyone we knew who lived in london like everybody who we knew that lived in london came to the show and it was a big thing for us to be playing in brixton academy and it was sold out and like scott gorham was there and you know it was all it was it was cool so our mates lived in walthamstow and there were a punk band called the skinflints so there was all sorts of reprobates it must have been about 30 people in our van all carrying various different bits of this and that like there was some people carrying weed people with ease people with mushrooms right like in various stages of drunkenness our drummer rab was driving i was in the back with about 15 people sitting on top of all our gear like uh like maybe like probably smoking weed etc etc and rab got lost and drove a big white van full of northern irish people into the financial district of london that had just been blown up about like three weeks ago so like van stopped and we're in the back because it's like black in the in the back and it's like oh stop maybe something for piss might be the garage no no hold on a second uh and then we could hear like something up in the front it's like okay keep quiet i keep quiet and i was like then we were sat in there for ages and nothing was happening and then all of a sudden the back door opened and there was like a SWAT team full-on like police with like police with baseball caps and like machine guns and 16s and jesus christ yeah so they essentially thought they'd caught the ira like because like there's people from belfast people from derry people from fermana oh my god they all look like dickheads like everyone had long hair and like you As you can imagine, the people in actually the local police, I think, thought that they thought that there were there were like the caught the IRA. Wow. The SWAT team guys knew that we were just dickheads. Right. And I was wearing like lime green flares, a dark green shirt and a lime green waistcoat. And I had like fluffy like like an eye fro and given like it was it was my band and I was the only one from the band in the back. We were like a bunch of refugees, like about 15 people in the back of a splitter van. I thought I better like speak up first. I came out with my hands up like loads of guns to. of me don't shoot don't shoot we're just musicians we're just musicians and this like SWAT team guy like down the end of like an m16 pointed into my face said you're lucky we're not a fashion police mate so they like they searched us all lined us all up against the wall and kept us till about 6 a.m stood against the wall in London till they phoned every local police station in Ireland and managed to ascertain because some of us didn't have id right till they ascertained who every single one of us was like with guns with guns trained on us the whole time like I had to go for a piss and he's like right just go around go around the back here I had to go for a piss with like an m16 pointed at the back of my head oh my god man what what year was that again must have been uh it's the 90s at some point it was whenever the canary wharf bombing was like a week after that or the
Speaker 1day after that they were not messing around at that point either they were fucking well
Speaker 2but the thing is for us coming from Northern Ireland I was used to that shit because it happens all the time at home you know when you're from Northern Ireland you just expect that stuff and being in a band in Northern Ireland we were driving around late at night all the time yeah we had you know we had like an ice cream van burnt out in front of our our van we had to like turn around in the street we had army jump out of like the bushes like just and stop us like these like a 19 year old like British kids with with a gun like and you can you can see like he's looking at you like and he's shaking and he's got a gun pointing in your face and you're going listen man calm down man we're a band we're a band don't worry don't worry you can see like and his fingers on the trigger and he's shitting himself you know and it's pointed right in in the driver's window at your face oh my god I was kind of used to used to that sort of stuff happening right they've been in an armed robbery before as well when I worked in a bar so like
Speaker 1I don't think we can have enough time for all this I gotta hear about this that was all what
Speaker 2happened then what's well I was just working in a bar and um these guys came down with guns and robbed the bar I've got everyone on the ground and took all the money but then we but we were paying protection money to the IRA so we got it all back the next day but that's just Northern Ireland which is why I left um I right I came out I was doing a gig in a place called the Duke of York and I came out and I'd borrowed my mum's car and I had this cassette that someone had made me like it was a comp you don't remember you used to get made compilation tapes and I had a compilation tape and it was my favorite compilation tape but I'd like loads of sonic youth on it and stuff that was really into at the time and um someone had broken into my mum's car smashed the windows ripped the cassette player out and ripped taking this cassette and like spooled it all out down the road so I was pretty bummed about that got into the car and I was like oh my god I'm gonna have a car drove to the end of the road the army came out and said you can't you can't drive out of here there's a sniper over there on the roof of that church Jesus and we're like so they were having a shootout with a guy at the end of at the end of the street so I had to sit like in this little sort of area where where my car had just been broken into for about an hour and wait for this sniper to like go away to like a drive home from this gig I am leaving Northern Ireland I am getting out of this place I do not care and that's when I moved to New York ah right
Speaker 1and how did that fare up to uh to life in Northern Ireland you know many similarities or
Speaker 2completely different oh it was brilliant New York was great like I arrived there with nothing to do and the first I booked myself we'd done gigs in New York so the first thing I did was I booked myself a solo show supporting Shane McGowan and the popes oh nice and um the promoter gave me a dollar for every poster I put up so I had nothing really else to do so I just walked like I walked all over New York up and down Manhattan and every time I saw an Irish bar I went in and said uh I'm a musician I'm doing this gig can you put a poster in the window so I kind of got to know the whole Irish community and then um booked myself some solo gigs and just started playing but I had no bank account I'd know nothing but I was making like wow the amount of money you could make just being Irish and playing in Irish bars was insane at some point I would make like two grand in a week back then as well yeah and out of nowhere well that's right they were they were worth about 60p right um and I was like hiding money all over the house and just living like a king and just spending yeah it was crazy it was great times but um yeah crazy times but good oh man I bet bro you should be writing a fucking book man I will do one day I'll have to wait till like I'll have to wait till I think till my parents pass away because if they read it they'd probably be very ashamed of some of the things that I've done there is that
Speaker 1there is that I didn't know I was writing a book when I did mine because if I'd known that it was going to get published and be on the shelves of my local waterstones I wouldn't have put half the shit in there that I put in I name everybody by name I'm slagging off bands we used to play with and promoters and labels to fuck this over and stuff so I've got a few kick-ins waiting for me around the place now but you know maybe that was part of the appeal you know I'll have to make it
Speaker 2sort of semi uh fictional and base a few characters on things or I'd be I'd be seriously defaming some famous people
Speaker 1yeah no no mine were all just bottom feeding cunts basically so I'm happy that I named them shamed them right you know just labels managers and agents that just existed to screw small bands out of every fucking thing they could you know those guys but that notwithstanding yeah there's probably a few uh kick-ins waiting for me around the place right you just need to get a bigger
Speaker 2psycho than their psycho really that's true right that's how it works right yeah speaking from
Speaker 1experience now from the from your background yeah yeah yeah oh man what a fucking life you've had for me like I feel like like we got so many troubles in our industry and we have had for a long time you know with regards to getting paid and you know fucking stability and mental health and all that sort of stuff and substance abuse and things um for me one of the few rewards that we get outside of the fact that we get to you know do the thing that we love making music and things like that and being around our mates and travel is these fucking stories man you know I mean like if you've gotten a job when you were 17 straight out of school and you and you stayed in in the fucking account accountancy firm now until you retire you're not going to get a job in the tight you wouldn't have any of this fucking stuff to talk who else can say these stories you know
Speaker 2I mean yeah yeah like you you retire at 65 and someone goes like well what have you done oh well you know I went into this office every day and like pressed a button on a computer yeah um but yeah the amount of story I mean like I could sit here telling stories from now till next week and the thing is the beautiful thing about what's kind of good like joining what like me joining the levelers they've all got a bunch of their stories that I haven't heard right and I can tell them stories that they don't know so because when you're in a bad they've been in a band together for nearly 40 years so they know what they know all all the stories everybody else's stories but when someone new comes in they can they can retell all the stories to me and then I'll be like no way something like that we're so it's like we're all buzzing to be sharing new stories and gossiping about like it's great when bands get together as well like or or I made a like a tour manager and he worked with a load of different bands and I love telling all the stories
Speaker 1oh we've all got loads of them man the conversations just go for fucking hours then they'd be like oh yeah I got to this one time I was in Italy and that happened to me you know it's like for me that's part of the love of it I mean it's so much bad shit's happened you know and it is difficult you know if you're just focusing on music to stay afloat like I say you've got to do a lot of other things like a bit of teaching or a bit of this or a bit of that to kind of bump it up um but I mean yeah I would I wouldn't change it for the world man you know it's the memories it's the life experience it's the things you've got to overcome within yourself as well you know I mean to have the balls to put yourself and your creations out there and and take the rejections
Speaker 2and the doubts and stuff you know it's all good stuff it's like electing to be bipolar yes it's like do you want to be like 75 percent of the time clinically depressed and then the other 25 percent of the time elated beyond beyond belief yeah you you electively go I'll take the 75 percent shit for the 25 percent of absolute joy I'll do it I'll do it yeah um because and like sometimes like if you want every movie like you know you watch a movie and it's like some dweeb at school or whatever like like fucking even like back to the future right there's a thing but what does he do what's the big finale at the end he gets up at the school dance and plays like Johnny be good on the guitar yeah I get to do that every night yeah I get the end of back to the future every night or like school of rock the end of the movie the big finale is they do a concert and it's like it's been the Hollywood movie ending for loads of movies and you're like well that's my fucking job yeah yeah and and it is like it's a blessing to be able to do that bit but the rest of it's fairly grim 100 even even the being on tour like you know you're hanging out like I always say I do the gigs for free but it's all hanging around I get paid for that's yeah that's
Speaker 1a great way of looking at it yeah and I must add as well you know in badass clothing I mean you know what are the jobs do you get to fucking dress up like a rock star you know I mean and speaking of which I just discovered last night as a result of your Instagram post the amazing red mother clothing which you were sporting at beautiful days festival looking fucking badass I might add I mean that that stuff man like that clothing that's right up my street and I've messaged him already because I got to get my
Speaker 2hands on some of that shit he's great Dan he'll work with you as well that that thing I bought I bought him up so he lives near here so I just came to his house with a load of shit a boiler suit and a clash t-shirt like some nice and look pat like a socialist patch a load of things that I was interested in and like just basically threw them at him and said can you make this into something for me to wear and he's like yeah and he just he just did it that's so cool man and it's just it's like bespoke you know bespoke bandwear but he does he like he does all captain sensible's clothes for him he does right so you can kind of go to him with an aesthetic and go like i want to look like because what i said was like right the levelers have their thing they've got that like they've got that look but i said i
Speaker 1want to look like more like the clash oh 100 yeah i mean that's totally my thing as well man i mean like you know i fucking spray paint my tops but slogans on them and stencils and you know just that fucking punk rock diy gritty graffitied kind of aesthetic that is totally my thing and then when i when i saw uh red mother's clothing particularly the one he did for you i was like fuck man that is that is my that's my fucking vibe so we've definitely got to connect you know yeah i can
Speaker 2put you in touch with him you might want to talk to him he's probably an interesting talk like he's probably an interesting person i don't know if he's an interesting person i don't know if he's an interesting podcast in him because he does the clothes for loads of people and he knows loads of like musicians and and he's you know he that's what he does he goes around festivals selling cool clothes that he makes i mean the thing is i could i could stencil something but i'm i'm never i'm not going to sew i'm not never going to do that i'm out of sewing no like that's always amazing me when i go to biker festivals like i've played loads of biker festivals you've got all really tough guys and you look at their clothing and you're like somebody either you sew or some or you live with your mom and she sews loads of you you know someone who sews or you sew because there's a lot of needlework on you on your jacket that's so true dan's the kind of guy that will sew stuff on a on a jacket which is like something i just don't have the patience to do
Speaker 1same yeah no well another big shout out for dan at red mother clothing check check him out on gram and check out his stuff because you know yeah and hopefully you'll see me sport in one of those bad boy creations really shortly because uh i gotta get my hands on some of that stuff so yeah big shout out to dan at red mother um so one of the things i wanted to take a deep dive on i think now is the time to do it is uh the last time we spoke on stage together was obviously talking about music streaming specifically and the music industry so i think let's just fucking kick the hornet's nest and jump into it man because you were very well informed and articulate and outspoken on the subject and i think you've got a lot to offer the listeners on that subject so let's get into it what are your thoughts on the current state of the music industry digital music and music streaming
Speaker 2and all that stuff haven't started i started off when there was no such thing as an mp3 so you know and you had to spend money in a studio and you couldn't record at home there was no such thing really as like pro tools or it didn't exist um so there was like almost like there was a gate kind of factor was you had to be good enough to be able to afford to go into a studio and make a record that sounded like a record um because like i said i had a real to really attract him in my house but i couldn't make anything that was releasable at that time on it because like i mean i guess sebato had done something that was really lo-fi but it just wasn't generally accepted that you could release stuff with loads of tape hiss on it and like your cat meowing in the back and stuff like that yeah so you had the you had the get together a couple of grand to go to the studio and make make a disc and get it pressed and you know get an isrc code made by the label and all this kind of stuff um and then it was i think it was just when i first moved to new york they removed music from the product i.e they made the mp3 so you were able to compress music once people started getting into computers and recording computers i thought this is amazing this is the future um but once they once you were able to separate the mp3 from the physical thing that it was in music became like half a product yeah and limewire started and everyone just started stealing music because you could just send them over the internet um which which i i thought was brilliant at start as well i had limewire and i was like getting like listening to everything and thought this is really cool and then i thought hang on and i was like oh my god i'm going to do this and i'm going to do this and i'm going to do this when i when i finished my album i was like hang on everyone people are stealing my stuff as well not just like famous people stuff no no one's and then i thought oh no um but it was still all right for a while people still bought stuff physical stuff but i mean recently in the last what 10 years pretty much everyone's just stopped and sometimes they don't even bother like bringing cds to shows anymore because it's just like what's the point just just music's become like a loss leader for live shows for me right essentially i'll make it and record it because it's what i do it's like keeping a diary for me like i i write songs just even if the music industry didn't exist i would write songs for myself like just for my own mental health yeah because um but uh like it's not it's nothing i don't make money from recorded music much i've had a song taken up by a film that i did with the french band that i was in and it's on general release in france so i might see something from that on the prs my prs is sometimes pretty good um so but uh i don't make i don't make enough to live on certainly so how do you feel about the
Speaker 1the new model now that the dust has kind of settled because the period that you're talking about you know the the the 10-year transition adjustment period you know um that was kind of like a no man's land wasn't it where like nobody knew that the old model was actually done and dying and nobody knew what the new model yet was there was just kind of like this weird no man's land in the middle of the you know cnn called music's last decade yeah which is kind of when i arrived on the scene to be honest so i didn't know any different but i've seen the change now because i've lived through it and i can see that there very much is now an established model and it's one that i've kind of learned to embrace and it's one that i do like because you know in the previous incarnation of the music business you know if you couldn't get a deal as i've said many times before you know it was fucking over for me and i've been doing it for a long time and i've been doing it for you the door was closed you couldn't make your own record so i'm a big a big fan of so much of what the new model gives us in terms of independent empowerment and freedom and the ability to be your own boss and carve out your own truth and your own path but streaming is an interesting one and i do think it's here to stay so we have just kind of got to find ways to work with what we've got but it is it's exactly what you described as soon as you separate the music from the sheet music or whatever it is the physical host that you were actually paying for when you paid for music we have to then ask ourselves what value does music have and so far the only people who've been part of that conversation have been major labels and huge fucking tech companies and the value they put on music for the artist is essentially fuck all so how do you understand the streaming world what are your thoughts on it most of us think it's terrible
Speaker 2because we don't like we don't know how to do it we don't know how to do it we don't know how to do it but smaller people like us don't recoup that quickly right and that's the main problem and i think that that tom who's like massively obviously studied in this um his his main problem is is the how slowly the money comes in it like drip feeds in right so it kind of it it disincentivizes you unless you're independently wealthy because what used to happen was you press up a thousand cds when i did a load of gigs then i was like oh my god i'm not gonna be able to do it again got a thousand teners giving back to you so you got 10 grand and then you were able to spend that 10 grand hiring musicians going into a studio making another album and then you press a thousand of those went out on tour and you got a thousand teners back now you you do the same well hopefully the same process it's probably it's a bit cheaper now because everyone no one expects to be paid that much anymore and studios don't really expect to be paid that much anymore and and it just drip feeds you like like a little bit of money every now and then and then and then and then and then again but technically and what i was saying when i was trying to be devil's advocate if you write the next like you know merry christmas everybody or the next shoe like i think baby shark was the thing that i used something that people will stream all day every day every day in the past model you got your tenor for it and that was it and then people took it away and owned it forever but now with the streaming model if people listen to your song a hundred times a day every day you could potentially from a really good song make more money do you know what i mean eventually but it just takes you a longer amount of time you'd probably be dead by the time you'd make the amount of money you would from from the old model so in theory you know if you were daniel leck or whatever you could just say you're the songs you aren't good enough to make enough money because people aren't streaming them enough so you need to write more songs and then you just become a slave to an algorithm till it's like it's like if you want to win the lottery buy more lottery tickets yes you know what i mean and so essentially you know it maybe if you are if you're paul mccartney or if you're the weekend or something you may be quite like streaming because people rather than buying your album once are essentially in it very cheaply buying it again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again um so for those guys the top five percent it's probably really really good but for us guys that need to sort of generate income music is essentially a loss leader for live shows right so that people will go on and stream your stuff and you make you know a little bit of money from it not enough to live on but people will when you go to wherever you know narberth people in narberth will know like your music because it's free to listen to or like or people you know someone someone you know someone who knows my music might go and stream your band now like from listening to this podcast or someone who likes your music might go and stream whereas beforehand they'd have to go and physically find it or order a copy and they mightn't have bothered doing that so music's much more accessible and with the the model that is there now people are spending more on music than they ever had before because every even people who don't like music have a subscription to one of these things but my main gripe is with spotify because they've right don't create anything they don't create like apple create stuff there's apple tv so apple gives a vehicle for for musicians to get their music um onto films onto television you know amazon does the same right amazon music there's amazon tv amazon fulfilled but spotify does nothing except take money from musicians it needs to start it needs to start doing so they need to start a label they need to start an artist development scheme or they need to start making films or doing something but all they do is take take take they're the ones i hate they're the ones i hate the most that's a very good point yeah very good point the only thing they do well is data like spotify for artists gives you a really good idea of where your stuff's being listened to and how much you're downloading and all that kind of stuff and you can go on an artist page and see how many streams they get how many things they they do a month or whatever but but that's all they do they're sort of like data jobs and stuff like that
Speaker 1generators and and music vultures a bit like uh social media platforms you know the biggest content providers in the world like facebook don't create any content no they they provide the platform and we filter our shit into it and then an algorithm decides what the other person
Speaker 2gets to hear and and as musicians we realize that we are the product people using facebook and twitter and instagram think it's a product and you're like no man you're the product you're away for free you're taking pictures of yourself in a bikini on holiday and you think that like it's part of like this you're adding to this product no you're the product people like you don't know we're looking at your holiday snaps and maybe laughing at you you're the product like uh yeah 100 what i was saying at the top was like mtv was the first thing to do it like and we were all like in the killing ourselves to try to get our videos on mtv but show other people's hard-earned like product that they'd spent ages making and the thing is at least if you got on mtv when you got tv plays when you got radio plays you got a decent return but you it's just the return from from streams is so low it's just so low and if you get that lucky
Speaker 1like lottery that you were talking about i think the lottery is a great analogy because i had simon raymond on the podcast from belly union records from the cocteau twins um and he said they had a oh yeah i remember b choice and they got lucky uh i think they got playlisted or i think it was tiktok i think somebody on tiktok and influencer used one of their ballads as like backing music and it went fucking crazy on tiktok and then they i think they had something like 600 million streams on spotify made a fucking more money than they'd ever made it like combined before and uh and made a shitload of fans and then sold out their next you know record and tour or whatever but i mean that that is essentially it was possible and it's amazing that that's now possible these
Speaker 2days and that's why i think that's why i think that's why i think that's why i think that's why and that became it was it just became massive and again it just takes that one thing and then they just both went interstellar like and um you know snow patrol became huge yeah and then everyone wanted to co-write with ian so he and then co-wrote jake bug stuff he co-wrote james bay stuff he just co-wrote stuff with liam gallagher um because everyone noticed that when he became a co-writer with snow patrol they became huge wow so people went who do we get into co-write so now ian's got a beautiful big big studio in brighton right and just co-writes that's what he does um and you know as a as a singer songwriter in northern ireland he would play to like 30 people you know um and snow patrol as an indie band would have played to like 100 people 200 people until that one thing happened so the music industry was always like that you sort of somebody would get plucked from obscurity and then suddenly be famous and it was it was always like a lottery right and the top five percent of people in the world always earn more than the rate than the other 95 percent put together yeah and the music industry was kind of was always like that anyway and people like us always struggled like you know when when whenever there was um whenever there was a physical sales i wasn't i wasn't doing much better so i so like i do get i do get it and during the when we weren't able to play live during the pandemic it was a big deal for me um and i sat down and sorted out loads of my copyright you know the stuff that you can never be bothered doing the only thing i couldn't sort out was around 2002 i made an album when i was living in america and i didn't have a bank account and i got it distributed by a company called the orchard yeah and got them and they used to send me physical paper checks to my house wow for the royalties um and then i moved out of that house and probably there's like checks still being sent there for this one album that like it got got released sort of on the digital physical cusp there's probably a load of checks for like 22 dollars you know that my old landlady has to keep throwing out and i haven't still haven't managed to sort that out that's fucking awesome but i found a that i knew there was loads of songs i'd written that i that i knew were getting played that i wasn't getting any of the money they were getting sent to this guy that was a dj called dan donnelly what that lived in america um and then and then so i really found out the whole process what happens so once the money doesn't get claimed because like a mate of mine's pretty like pretty high up in the prs so i had a sort of off the record conversation with him once the money doesn't get and then if you leave it there like paul mccartney gets it all or bono takes it or whatever the people with with a team of lawyers that search down royalties it'll all just go to them yeah but luckily this other dan donnelly was he was like a dance producer but he hadn't updated his bank details so like all this money was sat in his name and my prs i made my prs i like joined the prs when i was 16 and i made it as daniel donnelly and i made it as daniel donnelly and i joined a couple of bands and i was in a band that was signed to sony sony publishing and they sent all the publishing to this to dan donnelly so it bypassed me and went to this other guy right um but but during lockdown i was able to trace it all back and then go to sony bmg and go and create myself an alias on prs as dan donnelly right and then made a phone call and eventually got all that money back and and now all the money from those songs is coming to me so like i don't know if i would never have done that was a tour it's still doing gigs yes because it's the stuff that you
Speaker 1just don't want to do nobody wants to do admin well publishing is fucking boring as well isn't it like i set up my own publishing company and it's fucking grim man it's so boring but it's the it was the one thing that actually brings money in ironically you know apart from touring
Speaker 2well i i had a i made a band i made a band as a as like out of an argument called the wooden faces and we got signed to a label that and everything was going really well until lockdown and then the guys the guys who were running the label from london once they stopped going to like to shows and weren't hanging out with bands in denmark street and like drinking cocktails and sniffing coke realized that the other side of running a label was just the most boring thing that you could possibly ever do and they said yeah we don't want to be we don't want to be a record label anymore we're folding the label sorry too fucking boring boring and it is but for me that that part that i got massively into like where are all my royalties going at that point because i literally thought i was going to starve if it wasn't digging right so i learned a load about it um and and look which is probably why i sounded um uh knowledgeable about it when we were doing that right right right right where's all my money gone like how come i'm not getting paid for this how come we're not getting paid for that but yeah um
Speaker 1lockdown was good for that i guess but you're making me think now man because there's a reality tv douche in america called james kennedy right who i always get mixed up with online despite the blonde hair he's a tv douche um we look nothing alike and uh we exist in polar opposite worlds you know uh but i still get mixed up with him all the time on social media you know us weekly even did a feature on how ridiculous it is uh but he's a dj so he's got a music channel as well on spotify and stuff like that so if that motherfucker gets any of my
Speaker 2royalties i'm gonna be really pissed you know who got some of my royalties deckland only from anton deck what deckland only yeah yeah and but i got it back uh prs corrected it automatically man because they he he'll the pj and duncan did did like pop songs i think in like the 1990s but i mean it's not even the same fucking name no no it's not at all but the weird thing was it was for this really boring song that i wrote that i didn't think would generate any money and it wasn't that much money but it just got auto corrected right and deckland donald donnelly of the money but i mean you know if you if you do start to look into it i'm sure you'll find there's money being misdirected somewhere right because it's just a huge quagmire of of of people that are probably 21 like trying to do like a boring
Speaker 1admin day job do you know what i mean yes going down a click down menu yeah so it's not as it's not as airtight as we might think then so yeah i mean that's that's a great example for like any musicians listening as boring as it is go through and do the fucking admin man i did the same thing in lockdown i had a spreadsheet i had all my song codes i fucking went through and re-registered everything and got rid of all the duplications and stuff like that and i was like oh my god fucking boring but i think it needs to be done you know but that's why i will sign a i guess i've
Speaker 2signed a 50 50 publishing deal with um the levs publishing company right because they have a guy that will sit literally sit and do all that stuff right and i can have 50 of like a lot of money or 100 of a lot less money yeah because i won't i know yeah i know i won't do it i know i won't do it and i know it'll be on my list of things to do but i'll be i'll be like i'll need to cut the grass instead or like yeah like you know anything i'm gonna sit and write a song instead or i'm gonna like yeah i will not do it yeah no i signed
Speaker 1a sub-publishing deal with cobalt for that exact reason i was like no they're great they're great rather give like fucking 20 away or whatever on the sub-publishing deal you never have to do this
Speaker 2ever again yeah like do you want 80 you want 80 of 10 grand or do you want 100 of two grand like i'll take the 80 never have to do a spreadsheet ever again yeah and yeah you don't yeah it's so so it's soul destroying and that's why i feel really sorry for kids coming up because they've got to do all this
Speaker 1oh it's so hard man they've got to do everything i mean it's the same for create content yeah content constantly you know and you've got you've got to be a graphic designer you've got to be a
Speaker 2fucking secretary you've got a video editor photographer publisher uh everything you record your own audio you mix it you master it it's like i don't think i'd do it now i'd rather just be a postman yeah and all you mean i mean for me it's
Speaker 1a bit different because it's all i know like my first record was done where i did everything myself you know i like literally nobody was involved in it apart from me i wrote everything played all the instruments produced it myself released it myself and i you know it was done out of necessity rather than anything else you know i lived in a little village i didn't know any musicians uh had no money you know so i just had to uh i just that was the only option available to me at that point and like now that's that's how i started so now that's kind of just the way that i've always done things because that's all i know you know but it's incredibly like insular isn't it you know i mean like luckily for me i'm an anti-social motherfucker so i like you know and i'm able on enough sort of instruments to be able to be able to do that whereas i know that for you know most musicians that's not the case and also most people you know they prefer the collaborative aspect of it they prefer the social aspect of it so i mean it's great for weirdos like me but i mean you know most people are just not going to do that it's doable but it's like boring
Speaker 2do you know what i mean like you know you could you could never have a girlfriend and buy a sex doll if you wanted but you it would be terrifically boring do you know what i mean your life would be like you know simplified but extremely boring right yeah like it for me i just like interactors there's certain musicians that just love it and i just like it and i just like it and i just like it right you know and certain instruments that like i just don't play that well like i'm a crap drummer i can program drums but then i don't nobody wants program drums and then there's a double bass player i always play with it just sounds so good and a fiddle player that when i make my solo albums that i always play with it i just love the sound of it sometimes we're really we're not in the same room we just send each other files but um you know it's nice to just have somebody else involved you can talk to about it yeah like and touring on your own as well i remember like you know being in bristol on a sunday and you the venue doesn't open till six o'clock and you're hanging around you were playing in taunton the night before so it only took you an hour to drive there and you can't drink because you're driving the amount of crap movies i've been to see just because i've been on tour on my own like you've nobody to talk to you're lonely um like i think a lot i kind of realized i haven't really i don't do so many solo gigs anymore because i'm kind of enjoying being in different bands and working with other people and music's more of a social event for me right that's why i really didn't do any of the online lockdown gigs because it was like i'm not i am not sitting in my attic playing a gig into my laptop i'm just not gonna do it a few it was fucking weird i didn't do any it's the most crackless thing i could imagine doing i actually did one for a festival that i was booked to play down there um but i i didn't do it because i was like i'm not gonna do it i'm not gonna do it because i'm not gonna do it because i'm not gonna do it because i'm not gonna do it because i'm not gonna do it all beforehand and and recorded it and and edited it and and sent them a 45 minute video right right so that like i wasn't staring at like finishing a song and then just staring into the laptop and then going right this next song is uh thanks guys you've been awesome yeah yeah i i mean some people did really well at it my mate in prize like made a fortune and he turned his whole house into like a variety show sort of thing every every you should talk to him lockdown really improved his career uh he did a weekly thing that um that every he sold a load of merch and okay and he did really well he played the festival actually as well but um it wasn't for me like for me it's about human interaction really i think it is for most people i think i mean you
Speaker 1know some some genres lend themselves to the to the to the to the lone wolf thing electronic genres perhaps you know or um yeah solo artists and things to me it's kind of all i know when i am a bit of a fucking control freak anyway so we're kind of talking about that but i think it's really works out well because i'm quite fast at it now so i can just do it all quite fast and put it out but um yeah i think most people you know they get into music because yeah it's the human connection sort of thing isn't it it's a kind of a social sport you know um so what kind of given that and given the situation that we're in now the way things the way that music is made and the way it's consumed and the way that it's distributed what would you say then to bands coming up now that kind of want to you know they want they want the same dream that we had they want to play in a band they want to get out do some shows with their fucking mates and see a bit of the world and have about the police and shit like that you know i mean how do they do it i still think you get in a
Speaker 2fucking van or your your drummer's car and you gig swap with other bands and you go and play you play the 10 people then you play the 20 people then you play the 30 people i still think that that's the best way to make there's so much noise on the internet like yeah you know a hundred thousand singles get released every day um there's people will move people have so much power and agency they will move on to the next thing really quickly but you drive down to the local pub the dog and duck and like play they will they will remember you and they'll stream your songs more and and and you keep a genuine connection like you know we my first band used to like we used to make a like a little magazine that we put like ourselves like we photocopied and we would mail it out to a mailing list every month but like make a genuine connection with people and i think a part of that needs to be going out and doing gigs you know and i know that like some people say oh you can just get famous on tiktok or whatever i'm old school you know just because it's on the world wide web doesn't mean everyone in the world is going to listen to it or want to listen to it like yeah um one one thing i did when i was a particularly low ebb in my life and had nothing to do was i just did house concerts and i went around in people's houses i've done some of them they're awesome yeah you make a lot of money and you lifelong fans because you've met their mom yes you've played with their kids you've like struck the dog they've fed you some dinner you slept on the floor you're hanging out as well like you know
Speaker 1i mean that's what i did when i did my solo tour before the lockdown i had the same experience as yourself you know i mean like sitting around in a fucking airport by yourself sleeping on the bench for hours just bored out of your mind you know by yourself but um that gave me the opportunity because i was sleeping in the van you know uh gave me the opportunity to actually just do the show instead of fucking having to burn off you know pack a ton of gear into the van and then head off you know it was like i just hung out and got to spend time with people and it's a wonderful fucking experience because you know it's not only the show then you're deepening that connection with you know i hate the term fans but like they become lifelong friends almost and it deepens the connection for both sides you know
Speaker 2yeah the thing is right it's like it's like a pyramid you've got like at the top of the pyramid there's people that just love everything you do and will listen to everything that you do and come to all your shows right and you probably know them by name and if they got in touch with you you'd probably put them on the guest list they wouldn't even have to pay in you know that they're the they're like they go between fans, and mates, then a level down the pyramid, you've got like fans. I know you hate the word fans, but people that are fanatical about what you do. And then further down the pyramid, you've got a wider sort of strata of people that know who you are, that like would stream your stuff every now and again and might go to your show if they are free on the night and it's a reasonable venue and price. And then the internet, I think is only good for the bottom bit, the really wide bit. Which is funneling a load of people in to that bottom space. And once you have stuff out there that's there, it's like putting a ticket link up, like saying that you exist, like that they're able to buy tickets. The only way you move them up the pyramid is by getting in a van, going to their town, like getting your picture taken with them, you know, accepting a pint that they buy you, like, you know, and then they've got a story that they can tell about you or they say they met you or, you know, whatever. And I think nothing, nothing drives people up the pyramid of, of like fandom, like going and doing it, like going and gigging. But that's, that's the model. That's the model I came from, you know, and me, you know, if you got someone on who's 20 years younger than me, they might say I'm talking total shit, that I should be making more content. And I can't even go on TikTok. That's way too difficult, Dan. What, you know, it's a piece of piss me. Just shoot a video on your phone. Just put it out on TikTok. You're fucking done. You're going to leave the house. I can't open TikTok. I can go on Instagram, right? I quite like Instagram because it's, it's slowly paced. When I open up TikTok, it brings me straight to a load of stuff of people that I don't know for a start, like that I'm not following. And it's usually people either having a fight or like a scantily clad girl that looks like really close to being underage or just something that I just feel like I shouldn't be looking at. Uh, so I usually open it up. I open it up and go, Whoa, close it down again. Fuck this.
Speaker 1100%. Yeah. I can't even look at it. 100%. You're not missing anything. You're not missing anything. Trust me. I I've, I've delved into that world, you know, posted a bit and got, I've tried to get a feel for it, you know, but, um, no, I, I, I, I don't think you're missing anything at all. And it's very much what you described. I think, you know, unless you go fucking viral, which speaking of skin dredge, you know, they, they had a viral dance blow up on TikTok a couple of weeks ago from a song they did 20 years ago, um, which helped them get to number two in the charts last week. Right. I mean, but that, that wasn't through design. That was just through fucking randomness, you know what I mean? So, um, unless that happens, you know, then, you know, TikTok is awesome. But I mean, outside of that, it's like fucking literally just a fucking waste of time.
Speaker 2But I think to a certain extent, you and I are talking about a, an area of the music industry where there's actual, it's actual industry, you know, like the, the, the TikTok success thing is like, it's lottery ticket shit, isn't it? It's the, it's the, that's the like, again, you know, a golden hand coming down from the sky and plucking you up into the, into the clouds and making you a superstar thing that which was, you know, the equivalent of like what we would think in our day was like Richard Branson walking into your show and the dog and duck and going, Oh my God, here's a million quid. Let me, yeah, let's go to Hawaii and make a record, you know, that, that, that type of thing. But there's, there is an actual whole industry there of people that nobody ever finds out that exists unless they, they're in the know. You know, and we're in that area of the industry where people do actually work and they don't win their career off the telly in a competition or, you know, people and, and my advice to those real musicians and real sort of people like us that are sitting, writing, writing songs and earnestly have something to say is get in your car, book yourself some gigs, get a support slot with some people, go to gigs and just go do physical stuff like, you know, if you don't have an internet, fuck the, fuck the internet really. It's a useful tool, but it's not the, it's not, it's, it's only 50% of the world and the other 50% actually is really rewarding if you get out and get into it. So turned off the laptop, get into your car, go down to the, like the dog and partridge and go, can I come to the open mic on Monday and sing my songs? Start there. Like do physical shit. Like the internet isn't everything. Love it.
Speaker 1Love it. I totally agree as well, man. Totally. Totally agree. And you can, I mean, I know it is expensive these days, you know, to, to get out and gig if you want to do some gigs in London or something like that. But I think stay local, man. You know, you can fucking all drive there in one car. You can sleep in your own bed at the end of the night. Then you haven't got to worry about where you're going to sleep or something like that.
Speaker 2Fuck London. No, the more obscure a place that you can find, the more grateful they are that there's something going on. Like, you know, like drive to like Narberth or drive to like, you know, go to like Skipton in Yorkshire and everyone will go like, Oh, there's something like that. There's, you know, there'll be like, there's a Welsh guy playing in the local pub on, on like, you know, on Saturday, it's only a five or inch. We go and see it, you know, or whatever you like. And then you meet him and then they go, Oh, and then they're able to go home. And then this is where the internet becomes useful. They go, Oh, let's listen to go listen to his records. You know, I quite like these. And then, you know, next time you come back and it's the tenor, they'll come and they'll buy a t-shirt this time because they've been listening to your stuff on the more obscure place. Like obscure places are always just happy that you're there, you know? Cause no one ever goes there. You go to London, nobody gives a shit. They're like, Ooh, we saw the cave last night. I'm not going to buy that. Like, or they'll come to your show and stand there and wait for you to impress them. They're not, they're not, you know, they're not at all grateful that you've driven a hundred miles and paid 40 quid for your van to get into the ULS and you're like, and they're staying in a hundred and fifty pound hotel that night. Like they're just like, Ooh, you know, I saw Tom Waits last week. That was much better.
Speaker 1Do you know what I mean? That's great advice. It makes a lot of sense as well. Yeah. Definitely. It's true. With my own experience, it was always like, oh, don't get this. They're posh down there. At least they got money though. Yeah. Oh yeah.
Speaker 2Just like we said, for people with disposable income, they'll buy a t-shirt just, just to
Speaker 1give to their children to make themselves look cool. Look cool. Yeah. But that was always my experience. It's like, well, we'll be on a tour or something like that. And then you always have those couple of dates where you'd be like, I don't know what the fuck that is, but Hey, it's on route to the thing on Tuesday. So you do it. And it's always those ones where you're going down a little lane and you're like, there's no way there could be a fucking rock club down here and you find this little pub that's been, you know, got a stage in the back or something like that. And fuck this, there's nothing for miles around and you're like, this is going to be a fucking washout, you know? And then everyone turns up because there's nothing else going on. And it turns out to be like the best gig you fucking did, you know? Have you ever heard of a bar called Tan Hill?
Speaker 2No. It's the highest pub in England, right? It's a gig and you can book yourself a gig there, right? And the first time I ever went there, I thought someone had played a prank on me because you literally drive into the Yorkshire deals into the middle of nowhere and there's nothing, there's nothing there. And I didn't think the pub was there. And I was like, someone's like, someone's playing a really elaborate practical joke on me. And then I drove over the crest of a hill and it's the, do you know what it is? It's the pub that they use in an American world with in London. Ah, right.
Speaker 1Fucking played there.
Speaker 2It's that pub. Wow. And like you go to it and you go, oh my God, this is a mistake. And like you go in in the afternoon and there's nobody there. But what it is, is there's like loads of satellite town. Or like, or like villages with feck all going on in them and people all show up and they all sleep in the car park and pitch tents outside and then you go from thinking like it's the biggest mistake you've ever made to it being packed full of lunatics that have all, that have all just come there and they all go mad and they're all staying in tents outside. So they get hammered and they, it, it, it gets snowed in every, every December. There's a band gets in there last year. It was an Oasis tribute band though. So like you, you went to see an Oasis tribute band and you end up having to stay three days with them. Just stuck with the fuckers. Until a snowplough can come and get you out. Oh, that's hell. Yeah, that's hell. What's that place called? It's an interesting gig. What's it called? Tannhill. Tannhill. Right. It changes, it changes management though about every, because everyone who takes it over goes crazy because it's literally in the middle of nowhere. So every time I've played there about maybe five times and every time it's been a different manager. Right. Because the last time I've played there, it's been a different manager. The last one's gone nuts. That's fucking awesome. It's like the Overlook Hotel. Like the Overlook Hotel from The Shining, you know? Right, right, right.
Speaker 1If you take it over, you slowly go crazy. Oh, that's fucking brilliant, man. Yeah. I feel like that needs to be definitely the next itinerary for the next tour that we do. Yeah. People show up. That's fucking wicked, man. Well, man, like I said, I don't want to keep you all day. I mean, you're dropping a lot of fucking great insights and wisdom here and advice for any like, you know, up and coming bands, whatever, who listen to the podcast. And you did mention, I think, that you do a bit of teaching. Is that right?
Speaker 2Yeah, I do. I do. I had a degree level for the University of Sunderland. It's like music industry. I wrote a degree for the University of Sunderland. Okay. Essentially, like all the stuff that I wish I'd been told, like that you can actually get funding to make an album from the Arts Council. Right. Or you can get funding to like develop your practice from the Arts Council or how to pay your taxes, how to register with the PRS. You get all these degrees that sort of tell you how to play. You can play Sex on Fire and you're like, I don't want to play Sex on Fire or they tell you how to play like a piece on the guitar. But like no one, no one tells Bob Dylan, he has to be a better singer or like, you know, tells like, do you know, it tells Woody Guthrie, he's got to learn more chords on the guitar. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. It's sort of just, it's, it's called the modern music industries and it tells people, oh, that's a, I'm actually working with one of our students who's from Newport. No, no way. Uh, Ruby Kelly. Okay. And she's just released a single called. Home time. about missing Newport wow and it's getting some play down there in Wales she's been on the BBC introducing down in Wales Adam Walton has played her and she's getting played in I think it's Glamorgan Radio Glamorgan has played her a few times and she played the festival that we've just played I think it was one of her first festivals she's starting to do really well she's one of our students that are starting to take off
Speaker 1that's wicked man what's her name Ruby Kelly yeah Ruby Kelly wicked man right well that's on my listening list for later on little shout out to Ruby Kelly there from Newport yeah go and check her out right well I'm going to rapidly switch gears here now Dan because I know that you've got a ghost here and I've already kept you over time but we haven't done any politics yet man and you referred to yourself earlier as the big bad S word so I'd like to ask you how are you feeling as a socialist in Britain in 2023
Speaker 2politically homeless I'm politically homeless to me Jeremy Corbyn was like a sort of left of centre kind of character and to everybody else in the country they thought he was like a raging communist because he's like suggested that some people should have free wifi or whatever yeah I think that the working class in this country have been sedated by like you know hot tubs and like credit cards fake tans and like you know Range Rovers on credit cards and whenever a politician like Jeremy Corbyn comes along and talks about helping working people they all go he's not talking about me right I'm not working class I'm alright so the country's full of like all these I'm alright jack people that don't realise that they're being ripped off and nobody wants to admit that like they're not doing so well so Corbyn well meaning as he was came across accidentally as slightly patronising to a lot of working class people by going like I want to help I want to help you know it's like someone coming up to you and going like are you ok you'd be like yeah I'm fine like what you know and that's what Britain was like with Jeremy Corbyn so I think Keir Starmer when I met you I was dressed as Keir Starmer that's right that's right you'd get sponges throwing at me I was Starmer because I bear a resemblance to him but Keir Starmer is essentially a placeholder for the establishment that's the way I see it um he'll build up a bit of public goodwill everyone will forget like how terrible the Tories are they'll get back in in five or ten years the Labour Party just like under Blair will have built up a bit of like public confidence a bit of public money and um they'll have put a little bit of money back into the NHS into education everyone will start to feel oh this is alright again then the Tories will get in for another twenty years and just steal it all again essentially and everyone's just sleepwalking into this again and I'm being told that I should vote Labour because we need to get the Tories out so it's kind of like saying to your mate that's on heroin like you just go on the methadone just just so you stop doing the heroin rather than going do we just let him bottom up bottom out on heroin maybe this country needs to bottom out on capitalism till the I mean it almost has bottomed out on capitalism the rivers and the seas full of shit like companies are just like like raping everybody like the gas companies the water companies the banks this is just a paradise for large corporations to prey on normal people and nobody realises it maybe we just need to take it as far as we can till everyone says you know what maybe this is not a good idea maybe maybe putting in a different version of the Tories that is still saying like we need to privatise the NHS and you're not allowed to strike it and we're not going to revert maybe it's not a good idea like maybe maybe we just need the Tories to get back in to realise that that that trickle down economics don't work doesn't work and that capitalism doesn't work like I'm not saying communism works or like we should be like like I don't even I think we should just have a benevolent dictatorship that's right just like because democracy doesn't work because people in this country are stupid they're stupid they're too stupid to vote we should just get like you know the way they pick the Dalai Lama in Tibet we should just go to Stephen Fry like right you run the country
Speaker 3we'll do anything
Speaker 2you say and whenever you die you get to pick who runs the country for the next till they die I'm down with that and sort of like and anything they say like you know Turkmenbashi in Turkmenistan he made it illegal to lip sync he made it illegal to have facial hair he had a heart attack so he banned smoking he replaced the word for bread with his mother's name but he was like he was a benevolent dictator of Turkmenistan and he called the country after himself because he was called Turkmenbashi love it and they all and it was fine he's an incredibly interesting character but we should have like a Turkmenbashi just pick somebody like that's that's intelligent and say you run the country like you know like Sandy Toksvig or something like that
Speaker 1I'm actually down dude you've converted me mate yeah because I don't think we're ever ever going to bottom out and have a revolution rise up in this country I don't think it's a British thing you know the French are setting fire to the fucking town you know when they just want to like change a bus lane or something they beheaded their monarchy how fucking cool is that
Speaker 2I know yeah yeah but we're no you're right we're too gutless to do that we're too gutless to do that
Speaker 1never going to happen I don't know if the politicians that we've got are kind of reflective of the values in our society right now this kind of I'm alright Jack mentality which is the only thing the only reason I can think of that we keep electing the fucking Tories for 13 years in a fucking row you know what I mean when they've done nothing but wreak havoc on the lives of everybody apart from the fucking 1% and their mates
Speaker 2we haven't even elected the last couple of them exactly yeah nobody voted for Sunak nope do you know what I mean nope but I mean weirdly he's better than like you know it's an improvement it's an improvement nobody's voted for him but he's an improvement on the last two like Liz Truss like for fuck's sake the woman who was outlasted by a lettuce and then Boris Johnson that just is incapable
Speaker 1of telling the truth yes like yeah yeah and it's not even like they don't even have to hide it anymore it's kind of like the Trump era you know what I mean the era of the strong man where you can just overtly laugh about it and lie on camera in public and no one gives a shit anymore it doesn't matter
Speaker 2we live in a post-truth society now but we also live and this is the so you know like I am a confirmed socialist right but I find myself sometimes politically aligned to like libertarian right-wing people where things are concerned so we're not so we almost live in a post-ideology post-truth society right for example Brexit right like whenever we were going into the European Union me and all my mates were anti because it was big business because it was like globalisation it was Reagan it was Thatcher we were totally against it and then when we when we first went to come out of it I thought it was a good idea because it really turned Ireland into a different country than it had before than it had been but then I looked I looked at like Boris Johnson and Rhys Maug and I was thinking why have they got the same why are they why have they got why have they got the same sort of beliefs that I do that the European Union's like big business and it's bad like and then but I realised I voted to remain because once I saw like people like Rhys Maug were into it I realised there was something wrong with it but like almost it used to be like a line where one end you had like sort of left wing socialist anarchists and at the other at the other side you had like libertarian right wing people that like don't believe the government should interfere in your affairs at all that's like bent into a circle now almost where like there's the lines are blurred but it's like you know certain things like on Covid on Brexit you almost find yourself aligning with like right wing libertarians on certain issues and it's like so it's the line has become blurred ideologies have become blurred and I know that this country will never accept so what's going to happen is probably Labour are going to get in and Keir Starmer that is going to be seen as centre left and then the right gets the ability to lurch further to the right and then the left becomes you know like Tony Blair became the centre left whereas he was like in comparison to like Michael Foot or Tony Benn he wasn't you know he was quite right wing and then you know the Daily Mail and the Sun say those are left those are like lefty policies and then I don't know how far the right can go it'll be they'll just want it to be legal to hunt the poor or something I don't know how much worse it can get
Speaker 1like really and we'll probably fucking go with it if that happens because the Daily Mail and the Sun will tell people you know if we don't do that the fucking small boats are going to come and invade us and we'll go okay we better go and hunt the poor then
Speaker 2yeah yeah yeah yeah people are thick most people in this country are thick like it's you know like if you know when you go to a gig and you'll go like if you ask the crowd to request songs it's a bad move you'll be on like your second last song and they'll ask you for like some some ballad that you did like about breaking up with someone when you were like 16 and you'll be like oh they'll say Wonderwall yeah oh yeah do you know yeah Freebird or whatever you're like You know what? I write the set list because you guys are fantastic. thick yeah you can't be trusted like i know i know how to make sure you guys are stupid that's the way it goes that's why i think we should have a benevolent dictator there we go someone that's intelligent and get rid of democracy because like either that or you have to have an iq test to get into vote you know i mean some sort of exam you got to fill in like a like historical exam about things that have happened and you know love it like you know who actually won won the world war
Speaker 1like and stuff like stuff like that well there we go you just fucking yeah what a place to fucking round off man you've just solved it we have enough of this fucking left and right fucking
Speaker 2bullshit let's just find our guy you know yeah i've inadvertently called everyone who's listening an idiot well if they listen to this podcast they probably are dude to be fair i've just called everyone in britain an idiot there you go my shows will empty out pretty quickly i'm dan donnelly you're all idiots good night you
Speaker 1oh dan man i really love this chat mate there's so much more i feel like we could talk about so many things i want to ask you about but i know i can't keep you forever but hopefully we can do it again sometime and thanks for coming on man i've really enjoyed the chat thank you it's been great fun cheers thank you man best wishes with everything and let's make that newport thing happen and we'll see you down the other dog and duck oh let's do it yeah brilliant thank you dan take care mate speak soon see you bro bye all the best bye dan donnelly ladies and gentlemen put it together for him what a cool dude that was a really fun chat that i'm so glad we could like make that happen man that guy was just knocking the truth bombs out man on a range of subjects you know he was dropping the fucking truth bombs quicker than tony blair in iraq there's tons of really good advice there for any bands and musicians listening that you know want to know how to navigate the new the new world that we're in and i think that everything he said is sound man you know he's got a really good outlook on these things he knows what he's talking about and he even managed to convert me a lifelong democrat socialist that uh actually yeah fuck that let's just get let's just get steven fried around the place i'm done with democracy man i'm done with the british voting public they're fucking idiots masochistic gullible idiots i mean it's the only way i can explain it at this point you know we we must like the pain and no matter how obvious the evidence is to the contrary if the daily mail or the sun says anything at all we just mindlessly fucking lap it up regardless of the fucking the what you're seeing outside your own fucking window meanwhile over the other side of the channel not so far away the french are burning shit down and that's why they got better transport than us better health care than us better food than us fucking better life than us whereas we'd just rather moan about it and go to the pub well i think mr dan donnelly is right time to get a benevolent dictator i'd throw my hat into the ring but i could not be trusted to be benevolent i'm far too impatient but let us know in the comments who you would choose as this country's benevolent dictator and if the owners of tan hill pub in new york are not going to be able to do that then should dales are listening i want a gig that sounds fucking mental so dan donnelly can be found on instagram at dan son of a gun he's on twitter at dan dinner lady on facebook at dan donnelly music and of course anything related to the mighty levelers he's got an awesome back catalogue of music do go and check it out and give him a follow on his pages and whilst you're there what else can you do you can give this podcast a follow as well because i know that most people that listen to this podcast are not yet following it i do know this shit spotify has grasped on all of you okay so i know that more people listen to this thing than are actually subscribing and following you know it's free to do that right you know it's free to follow and subscribe and takes nothing more than a mere click of a button on your part so get on it and help a brother out man will i be back next week with another episode who the hell knows i don't know should you hold your breath for it most definitely not but who knows what's gonna land in my inbox i don't know over the next week you know so we'll see in the meantime go and blast the entire back catalogue dan donnelly and i will see you when i see you thanks for all the support thanks for listening thanks for sticking around have a great week look after yourself take care of each other fight the power spread the love catch you soon take it easy
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