Why Some Festival Headliners Still Need Part-Time Jobs (Part 1)

0:00Giles Bidder:Why do people start podcasts and how do they sustain them? And not just sustain them for a few episodes or a couple of seasons, but over 500 episodes. That's exactly what this week's guest has done with the brilliant 101 part-time jobs. I was thrilled to sit down with Giles Bidder as a listener to the pod and as a previous guest on the podcast. It was just really great to find out a bit more about him, what makes him tick, his advice if you want to start a podcast, which if you stay to part two is one of the best bits of advice. It's so clear, there's so much clarity to it. We talk a little bit about hanging out with Matt Berringer from The National.

0:37Giles Bidder:We talk about kind of human discovery and human curation, which is a recurring theme on this podcast. we dig in a little bit to his past his first ever gig in a scouts hut or a youth club um opening for a band who went on to much much bigger things than his band but charles is someone who loves audio who loves radio shortly after we recorded this episode he got to host the radio one rock show which if you go on the pbc sounds app you can bookmark and save and have a listen to that later because what a thrill to host the show on Radio 1. And yeah, there's like a 20-year gap between that first gig and hosting that rock show.

1:17Giles Bidder:And I think you'll be able to tell from listening to Giles that he isn't someone that's just drifted along and made things happen. He's someone that's really dug in, done the work, and done, I think he mentioned at one point, over 50 jobs. So speaking to musicians about their part-time jobs is obviously something he's very qualified to do. I love that at one point in this episode he just lights up talking about Thrasher magazine and I find it quite interesting that we've begun this chat by talking about some of the punk bands that we were both into when we were in our teens there is also a few moments in here where we both talk about our love of radio and whilst this is a podcast about podcasts which is a bit meta it is also a little bit of our love for a man called Sean Keaveney who I was very lucky and fortunate to work with and I worked at BBC Six Music and Giles now produces his weekly radio show, the Community Garden Radio Show.

2:12Giles Bidder:So there's a little bit of radio love which is quite meta on a podcast about podcasting and really it's a podcast about music, humanity, listening, caring and the dignity that artists deserve and that creativity deserves in a world that's going slightly mad. This is the the Drowning Sound podcast, brought to you in partnership with Cobuzz. And if you head to drowningsound.org forward slash playlist, you can hear a selection of songs by artists which featured on the 101 Part-Time Jobs podcast. There are tunes from Peaches, The National, I forgot what else we put on there, The Beths. There's some really great stuff on that playlist.

2:53Giles Bidder:So yeah, over to me at the Shaw Studios just before Christmas in 2025, talking to Giles Bidder, the host, and producer or co-producer with his co-producer, Olivia, who he gives a lovely shout out to in this episode of the 101 Part-Time Jobs podcast.

3:21Giles Bidder:How often have you been a guest on a podcast? Maybe two or three times. So is it weird to sit in the other chair? Yeah. You were like offering to get me water and stuff.

3:31Sean Adams:You're so used to being the host. I like it. I like being, I think there's something about doing a show that's mine that I like. I at least contribute probably the most in the room to the vibe.

3:43Giles Bidder:Yeah.

3:46Sean Adams:Which I enjoy. I like hosting. I like when people come around. It wasn't meant to be my first question. No, but it is your first question.

3:51Giles Bidder:But maybe we just roll, maybe just rumble in.

3:53Sean Adams:This is it. You know, yeah, I like it because also how many times, so many times in my life, playing music or as like a junior journalist or and i've done so many jobs i mean which is why i started the show i've done like 52 or three jobs wow every job i've done i've been like a junior position and i don't mind following actually that's not true i do mind following the rules a lot of time but i prefer being like oh this is a space that is positive and you can do your own thing and you know i just don't i think in so many environments people try and tell you what you are and try and put you uh put you down or like have a thumb on your forehead figuratively uh and i really enjoy hosting the room where i'm like none of that bs you know and enjoy that i don't want

4:43Giles Bidder:to psychologically analyze you right from the start but you think there's a reason why you've had so many different roles like is it just you haven't really found like quite clearly you've been very consistent and done over 500 podcasts. Yes. So the role of being podcast host definitely suits you and your brain and your way of working.

5:00Sean Adams:It was, I had, I could only work this out kind of like 15 years later, but as soon as I got paid 50 pounds as a 15 year old playing music, nothing could compare to that. Like no job that paid me minimum wage I was ever going to take seriously. I had the problem like in my mid to late twenties, I was like, why can't I take anything seriously? And I think that's because of it. like i was playing music in a ska band and then like later on i've kind of like more indie rock punk rock band um that was the transition that lots of people made

5:31Giles Bidder:there's a lot there was a lot of like late 90s early 2000s ska bands that post arctic monkeys

5:39Sean Adams:got a bit more jangly i don't really trust anyone in a punk rock band today who wasn't in a ska punk band 20 years ago you know the menzingers are a good example they were in a a ska punk band. Tiger's Jaw were in a ska punk band. Yeah, ska punk really, I mean, all roads lead back to ska punk.

5:57Giles Bidder:Did you ever listen to the Bravery ska punk band before they were the Bravery? No. That was one of the weird - Is it also like, was it one of Interpol or someone? There's like lots of these quite cool bands and you like dig out like what their band they were in before.

6:09Sean Adams:Yeah, this is where people learn and where people like have a bad gig or a good gig and then work out what to do next. I've been thinking a lot recently about how I grew up in an area with youth centers. Yeah. Like I'm going to be on Radio 1 over Christmas, covering the rock show. I saw.

6:27Giles Bidder:I was going to ask you about that.

6:28Sean Adams:I'm buzzing about it. And when I got the call, it was the 13th of November this year. It was 20 years to the day that I played my first gig in a post-hardcore band opening for Enter Shikari at Amersham Scout Hut. and that was a youth center a scout hut where like a promoter who's now quite a big manager was putting on shows diy you didn't call it diy no you call it putting on a show you called it happened and someone made it happen you called someone printed someone used their school printer to print some flyers and then gave it to like every gave it to someone from every high school in the area in in bucks and kind of uh Hertfordshire and if you're lucky you got introduced to it as a teenager i was super lucky you know i remember the day someone gave me a flyer i'm like look at it like you know i was a blink 182 fan pennywise fan got this flyer never heard any of the bands but it was like this is happening next friday it's five pounds in yes i'm going did we talk about our shared love of pennywise when i was on no one part-time job i'm actually i do like land of the free but i'm not like a huge no i loved it when i was like the same age like same

7:33Giles Bidder:as you like 15 16 like went for register machine into pennywise yeah i always found no effects a bit cringe but i quite like the silly songs it's interesting the way we draw these lines and we

7:43Sean Adams:have our like micro prejudices against particular bands like i didn't like mxpx yeah uh i didn't

7:49Giles Bidder:love lag wagon uh we're definitely losing a whole generation of people with this bit of the chat um so just going back then so you've done over 500 episodes of 101 part-time jobs yeah i think i was on about episode 110 or 20 or so i did try and look but i think you've taken the numbers off they were all numbered up until 500 weren't they?

8:10Sean Adams:I mean I have got them wrong I mean I've like numbered things wrong

8:14Giles Bidder:I did a quick, I'd used AI to see how many because I was like I'm sure 500 was recently and it thinks you've done nearly 600

8:21Sean Adams:Yeah well so I would go through I'd basically change my mind when we went to Reading and Leeds for example and we did the miniature episodes I didn't put the episode number on them so I have done more than over 500 which is zoomed up and i like now's a great time for reflection because the 500 episode was just a few weeks ago doing radio one over christmas things are changing you know it's becoming more of a business and so i've been reflecting a lot on it and i do come back to like why do i do it and it is because i didn't have anything else better to do um but also i in my late 20s and i'd worked so many jobs that weren't as good as writing for the enemy or playing in bands and getting paid 50 quid which i'd done really early on in life at like 15 16.

9:20Sean Adams:um that i'm like oh actually i can put all of those experiences into one i can put the bad and the good experiences into this one project and that's 101 part-time jobs and i just feel relieved that it came at a time where i was on universal credit i had time i'd gotten into a fresh relationship so my home life for the first time ever was good and i could stay at home and enjoy it rather than kind of run around all the time and like trying to chase something

9:50Giles Bidder:and then lockdown hit yeah so between those factors it's like because it looks like scrolling right back in the feed you started a few episodes at 20 end of 2018 yeah you in 2019 and then you just seem to like bosh through lockdown yeah like like now you're doing like two or three episodes a week like and the names of the people on there you've got all the top of the festival lineup artists but then you've got like whoa you've got all these like small acts and i'm like and i skimmed back and i'm like i'm sure six months ago i hadn't heard of that band

10:23Sean Adams:and now they're like all over the place yeah well that's a massive part of the show is that we've got to introduce people to music because there's so much music out there good music that you don't know of but you need to find out about it from somewhere um human creators human people and that's part of our job to the music discovery if you were writing some kind of application form but you know we're introducing people to good music like naima bach we had on this week or last amazing songwriter uh like what from your eyes well we we had them on fairly recently but a lot of people don't know that band um i mean it happens all the time junior brother we just had on today's episode to some people he's been going for a long time has released three albums i think the end is his third album a lot of people haven't heard of him so that's the other thing as though is that when we're introducing people to bands that band or artist might have been going 10 years yeah um that's music isn't it there's always something around the corner and our remit is to put on artists that are good and interesting and some of them are headliners others are not and kind of within those not headliners they will have their core audience but there'll also be lots of

11:36Giles Bidder:people that have never heard of them before so we're 10 minutes in and someone might be listening to this thinking i've never heard this podcast yeah what's it all about what where did the idea start and has it evolved a little bit since you started it yeah so first of all the show is about all the mad stuff that people do in life to do what they're trying to do yeah ultimately which

11:59Sean Adams:is obviously quite that sounds quite vague doesn't it but we live in a time of like work reform quiet quitting realizing that actually we can't people used to get a job and then pay for things they need yeah that's what my parents did you know they worked 45 years and a job and got a house and had kids like that's not the same for our generation and we need to i think it's important to reflect that as a bigger picture but also on an individual level

12:31Sean Adams:um the way it started is because when i was playing in a band and i'd get home from tour and we had a booking agent i remember getting a booking agent and then moving my stuff back my mum's house and being like oh well i'm gonna but i'm very thankful that my mum let me live there as well um and i was like oh what happens now quiet silence and then i just worked loads of different part-time jobs and you know music doesn't really pay like for most people ever no

12:57Giles Bidder:like any like there's bands that play the roundhouse and they've got other jobs yeah like i remember is it always always i don't know always did you pronounce it always i'll say always with a double v yeah double v um like when they played the roundhouse and some pretty big dates around europe they are i wrote they were touring when they weren't some of them were teachers and things and they were yeah i think one of them's just like research scientist or something and then like grizzly bear spoke quite a lot about the economics being in a band some of them producers like ed was like a photographer for national geographic or something at one point it's like yeah and they're a band that for most artists growing up they think well they're selling out the roundhouse it must be like minted and it's like no there is this perceived wisdom that and i understand it when you're physically looking up at a band

13:49Sean Adams:you're like what else do they do in life you know how could they do anything else yeah um but the economics and music isn't there for people to have full careers outside you know unless they're really smart and i think that's what we're seeing now and also you know we are living in a time where we learn more and more about how an artist operates like we know that billy eilish directs our music videos we know that charlie xcx is like pivotal to her creative vision uh that we didn't have as much of that before like whatever 15 years ago and so the times are changing what we learn about artists and with that is like well how do people afford it because you know who does it benefit to say that who does it benefit for artists to lie and be like yeah this is our full-time job when it's not well also doesn't benefit them like i think i remember reading self-esteem talking

14:40Giles Bidder:about social media and burnout but her main job at one point was being the social media producer for her own music right on top because and then it's like you speak to other artists and basically their main job is selling their merch yeah like yeah that's the bit that's like making them the money they can live off of because the tour is covering its own costs and the the records are going to make money eventually you've got other people whose job when you zoom out a bit is making music for sync it just happens to be that the music that they make is the music that gets synced and it's the economics of music and the number of different roles like being a manager like i pick up some of the slack for some of the artists i work with like that's part of the collaborative process of working with artists but there's no way most of this stuff's sustainable for

15:32Sean Adams:being a manager is not sustainable is it i mean you must have worked for years for free yeah it's the same thing and the thing that i being a manager is my part-time job yeah it's the thing i was always fascinated before um this was a show and like the thing i was confused about ultimately was like how could it feel so good to make something that's meaningful to people putting out records that people sing along to and have tattoos of themselves on and come to your live show and then the other side of it is like almost basically um being penalized for that in regular day-to-day life how do you reconcile how do you make sense of those two things i don't know and so that's why i started the show because that happens all the time you know i've got tattoos of bands that i love and those bands definitely didn't make any cash but they changed my life yeah they changed the way i think about the world like music is so powerful um for social change for to bring people together to make people less lonely in the in the time where people have been the most lonely they've ever been people feel seen make people feel

16:42Giles Bidder:seen it like go for a breakup you're listening to jeff buckley like whoa someone can feel how intense all the emotions running my body are right now for sure and like how does how does our country

16:51Sean Adams:not value that that's messed up

17:02Giles Bidder:hi there it's emma here i'm gay crashing the podcast to quickly tell you about the drowned in sound newsletter every wednesday i invite myself into your inbox with permission of course to share opinion writing and resources tell you about cool things that you should be involved in within the world of music, activism, etc. I also bring track of the week and a little bit of hopeful news for you because we all know that the news cycle can be grim at the best of times. Drowned in Sound newsletter every Wednesday in your inbox. Sign up now.

17:42Giles Bidder:One of the sub-premises of this podcast is I think the value of music is priceless. and how we price and value music is not anywhere near what music's worth like if you're syncing a song for a catwalk show you're going to pay thousands of pounds to use that song for a few seconds on in front of loads of people but that's what it's worth in that moment if i want to play a song right now the artist is going to get a grain of a penny if you were to shave the penny up it's like it's like where's the impetus to make the art but in that moment that's going to mean everything to me yeah and i think like i mean i once had an argument maybe as overstating it i wrote a sunday times column saying this the best albums of all time shouldn't be three for five three for ten pounds in the front of hmv because the greatest pieces of art of all time yeah are worth a priceless and are worth like millions yeah so why is it that you can buy the records that we're told are the greatest albums of all time three for ten pounds in the front of hmv yeah and it's like not that they should be priced out of people being able to afford them but music that's meant to be the best which i don't always believe in that concept there was air quotes there for anyone listening um like it should be i don't know it's like it feels like we've turned music into something that the people making it the impact it has isn't valued in the the way and it's also it's like sometimes i feel like i'm paying it forward like when i've released records and lost like a couple of thousand pounds i'm like i don't care that record meant the world to me like there was a band called jenny forever from sweden that made this like beautiful emo shoegazy kind of post-rock music um i have probably had 50 emails from people that that either formed a band or change the music they were making because of that record yeah i've not had that from working with metric martha wainwright like all these records that sold pretty well i don't think i've even had it with the kaiser chiefs like bat for lashes i've had a few people go see you release bat for lashes like and used it as a kind of hook to start an email but the value of like that yanni forever record one it was amazing to discover their music start working with them help them kind of get their footing but two just like yeah we didn't sell that many records we sold a few thousand records but like we were in the time of the transition to streaming and people were just quite happy to stream it another good example of that is giller band

20:21Sean Adams:yeah massive influence on fontaine's dc probably all irish bands um massive influence on lambrini girls the drummer i think his name's dan from lambrini girls and a member of male yeah forget her name produced this lamborini girls record who let the dogs out it sounds unreal and guilliband i'm pretty sure you know without i don't know but you know i don't think they're making much money no uh but they've influenced directly directly influenced the biggest headliners of 2026 pontines dc so how do you value that i don't know and you know i mean money's not everything I hope they be members of their Patreon.