CLIP: Live music isn't dead, the talent is | Molto Music Group

0:00As a performer, as a musician, you're either going to go through training or you grow up, either going to become an artist, work in the theater, or, you know, that's kind of how you see it, I guess. There's a whole world of work available for session musicians that I had no idea about. So I was, I had an opportunity to work on a cocktail bar, which had live music. And then I was going to these hotels quite a lot, going to cocktail bars in central London and just seeing what was around and seeing that actually it was almost like a just forgotten add-on. Like when you think about hotel music, you think boring, stale.

0:47And that was true. It was just shoved in the corner. It was the same type of musician playing the same type of music. And it just lost all the love. But in most of these five-star places, music is a core element of their offering, especially in London. And you could just sense that the people running these hotels is almost like a bit of a burden. Like, okay, we've got to have a pianist at afternoon tea because that's what happens. There was no love. And we were seeing that in these spaces, especially these high-end ones, there was so much focus on the food, the furnishing, the cocktails, the service.

1:24Olly Fawcett:but this element was just being completely neglected so and then on the flip side I was going to all these grassroots venues and music everywhere and it was so amazing and I was like why what where's the disconnect here what why is that not there's all this free live music and why why does no one know about it um so that's kind of where it it started and then being from a theatre background I wanted to bring in that sense of excitement and feeling within these spaces. Was it because I guess establishments weren't prioritizing the quality in terms of like how much they're paying who they're bringing in because I feel like if we go back 30-40 years hotel bars were the place where you were discovered a lot of music if that makes sense right and there was you know from especially in London there was many places where like it would be oh we're going there because that person's playing yeah the musician was the draw like in in a way as well as the booze and like the vibes and all that kind of stuff right but where do you think or why do you think sorry a lot of the establishments just deprioritize this i think it just become a little bit it was dominated by a certain like it was being dominated by a provider and i just think it was becoming it just become a bit tired and i also think that it was unfortunately there was no young voices from my side from speaking so i spent and i talk about it quite a lot but i spent a lot of years being and i still am like the only woman within these spaces and the only young person and so you'll have a hotel that want to draw in a young crowd but the decision makers not within the hotel but just as a collective were a little bit more out of touch with what the younger generation wanted so yeah i just think it it just needed a bit of a shake up at that time so it was kind of like a combination of of of things of also a good time to really come in and have a moment where we could get make a bit of a mark how did you go about doing that and did you do it by yourself well um it was a terrible time to start a music business because obviously we i didn't do it by myself i have a co-founder um who is also a professional drummer right so that's also where like the two worlds collided um and we set up literally weeks before covid and i remember going to a few hotels we managed to like push and get some meetings and And they were like, there's this thing happening, but we're not worried.

4:10You know, like the hotel's a bit quiet, but I think it'll be all right. Like, yeah, it'll be fine. And literally within a space of a week, we must have had about five potential contracts. And just day after day, it was like, hey, sorry, we're going to have to review this. Hey, we'll come back in a few weeks. Hey. And we just lost everything.

4:26Olly Fawcett:Is this your first business, right? Yeah. And it's just the two of you? Yeah, just the two of you. And I guess you're not earning until you've got contracts. Oh, no, no. And we fell through every single crack you could fall through. Like we hadn't been established long enough. I hadn't been, like it was just, it was really scary. And I remember we would sit and like, we'd watch the announcements and we'd be like, okay, cool. Maybe we can furlough ourselves. Oh no, we're not on payroll. So it was like hideous.