Where are you studying?
I’m at school doing A levels at QEGS
What do you play?
Guitar, fiddle, mandolin, voice. Voice and various string instruments.
What is your main thing?
I play as a solo singer-songwriter, playing my own original songs.
Do you do any covers?
A couple – only amusing covers though.
How do you make them amusing?
Sing a cheesy popsong in my own way.
Do you want to say what your idea of a cheesy popsong is?
I have played a Gym Class Heroes song before now.
I also play a Ray Charles song – that is not cheesy but it gets people.
What are your plans?
Hopefully study folk and traditional music at Newcastle, but carry on with my solo career at the same time. After that I don’t know what I’ll do, hopefully something to do with music.
Why are you going for a traditional music course and not a popular music or jazz course?
I have applied for a popular music course as well at Newcastle College, but I like playing folk music better than pop or jazz.
How does folk influence your own songwriting?
I don’t know that it does! I guess it is in there somewhere but I don’t know how. I play the guitar in a similar style to 1970 folk revival guitarists such as Nick Drake, John Renbourn, Ralph McTell, John Martyn.
Why are you only applying to Newcastle?
There is a traditional course in Sheffield called Traditional Music & folklore…
More of a musicology course then..
Yes.
I also like Newcastle as a city and I like the north.
What have you been doing in No 15? (restaurant/gallery in Penrith)
Putting on mostly acoustic music nights because I realized there was a gap in the Penrith music scene, so I started doing them monthly, now more than monthly because they are going 10 times better than I thought they would – and they are earning me 10 times more money than I thought they would.
Did you take a financial risk when you started?
Yes because I booked a series in advance and some of the artists I had to guarantee a minimum fee to. So there still is a risk.
Bands like the Weirdstrings I have to guarantee a fee for.
Do you get support from any organisations?
Yes, from mostly acoustic Cumbria, phasinghz and BlueJam of course!
Its fantastic what you’ve done at No15 everybody raves about it, you’ve managed to set up something there was a real need for. Is this something you’d like to carry on doing?
Yes, if I could promote and organise as a fulltime job it would be good, but Penrith isn’t really the place to do it full-time. But now I have established promoting and organizing at No.15 if I was to go somewhere else it would be harder.
No it wouldn’t because you’ve got the artist contacts, you have a track record and you might even have some capital behind you.
So why go to college?
That is a good question. If I don’t get in to university I might just stay and do this because it is the most fun.
What would you miss out on?
The experience of university, being able to meet lots of people, get lots of contacts, be inspired and learn a lot (you’d hope!)