Good morning, evening, afternoon, wherever you may be reading, this is Talk Tonight and welcome to the honesty hour: a weekly, fortnightly or whenever we feel like it post on the industry as we see it.
This week The Skinner Brothers twitter has really been on one, most recently having a pop at people using phones at their shows. But earlier in the week, frontman Zachary Skinner posted a series of videos complaining about the money in the industry as well as support for upcoming bands, esepcially from the likes of NME and major publications.
Now, let me make this incredibly clear, I am in no way criticising a fantastic upcoming band for attempting to make a stand, start a movement or gain more popularity. At the end of the day, every band wants to make it to the top, and believes it can do exactly that. But what does frustrate me, is when bands ONLY want the recognition from those at the top.
Back in November we received an offer to speak to The Skinner Brothers on our podcast, with their PR reaching out to us. We were on a roll of great interviews and I was excited to interview the band I saw smash a support set at Kasabian.
HOWEVER, their album came out and for some reason or another, the interview never came to pass. Do I think that they thought they were too big for the podcast? No. I don’t actually think the opportunity ever got shared with them. And so lies my frustration. An upcoming band is online complaining about publications not giving them a platform or recognition, yet the one who did got flat out ignored.
This goes on and on in our industry. It is my biggest frustation. When you are attempting to build your own brand by uplifting others, who do not want to offer you the same courtesy it is an ever-growing challenge. We have quit many, many times, and only once publicly. Yet we still come back.
In another one of the twitter posts regarding the lack of money in the industry and why they are so angry, one of the final messages in the video was as follows:
“For any up n’ comers, watching this, you ain’t got nothing to look forward to, bruv.” I was quite invested in the video up to this point, I thought some valid points were made, but the one quoted above seemed to come from a seriously narcissistic point of view and gave me a glimpse into the mindset of this band.
I feel like they are a band who crave success, which all bands are, but are not happy with whatever may come to them. A winners mindset you could say. But the way I see it, a half glass empty type of band who will not make it with this mindset. Not many bands have had the opportunity to tour with Kasabian or The Sherlocks, yet these upcoming bands have nothing to look forward to. For some, that would be their dream.
Having just one person sing a song back to them is the dream of many bands, so to hear this from a fairly established upcoming band really did put me off. Do they think they’re better than they are or are they just so ungrateful for the opportunities they have been gifted? If it’s that bad, leave.
So what can I do about it? I can moan in an online blog post. But seriously, we just carry on going, doing what we need to do and because we enjoy it. If The Skinner Brothers happen to read this, you are more than welcome on the podcast. If not, I hope you’ve enjoyed the read.
Check out our interview with The Hoosiers here
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