“There would be no music without them”: artists discuss the importance of grassroots venues
It has never been difficult for me to see the importance of the grassroots scene. From the moment I fell into the music industry, I’ve existed within it, working alongside DIY spaces and community interest companies, helping unsigned bands to put out their first vinyl release and conducting interviews in the corners of social clubs and dingy venues. I’ve witnessed how grassroots venues and organisations bolster artists in their earliest forms, how they provide budding industry professionals with a safe space to both fail and succeed and how they’re gradually being lost due to a lack of support from the government and larger music bodies.
This is not due to a lack of effort from those who exist within the grassroots sphere. Every creative who exists within a DIY scene knows how important they are to the musical ecosystem and will generally take every opportunity to shout about it. On a larger scale, the Music Venue Trust has been campaigning for the importance of grassroots music for around a decade now, pushing the government to invest in and protect the scene that gives so many young artists their start.
In a landmark moment for the MVT and the broader conversation surrounding grassroots investment, the UK government recently announced a policy stating that tickets sold for arena or stadium shows should also include a contribution to support the grassroots scene. It’s a small cost for such large venues, but one that will make all the difference for those working in a DIY capacity, for those venues and promoters on the verge of collapse. The MVT described the policy as “the single most significant shift in over 50 years of British music”.
It’s a sentiment that Rose Marley, the voice of Co-operatives UK, recently echoed during a panel at Manchester’s Beyond the Music conference. Speaking in the absence of the city’s mayor, Andy Burnham, she highlighted the support provided to up-and-comers in the world of football to the realm of music. “If Andy Burnham was here, he’d be saying exactly that…” she suggested. “In football, the Premier League does pay into the grassroots. That money from the top does trickle down.”
As it trickles down and finds its way through arts funding to early promoters and small-cap venues, artists playing their first shows, and managers learning how to manage, it upholds the entire industry. It ensures that we will have new festival headliners in the decades to come, that we will have artists who can eventually sell out those stadiums and return the favour, artists who can take home the Mercury Prize and prove that you don’t have to be from privilege or London to do so.
During Beyond the Music, we spoke with a number of up-and-coming artists who played the festival portion of the conference to find out why support for DIY scenes is so important and how those spaces have impacted their careers so far. “DIY is the main ethos of my whole existence,” began Chiedu Oraka, echoing the mindset shared by so many people in those scenes. “If I didn’t do everything myself from the ground up, I’d still be that young kid on the end of my bed daydreaming about being an artist.”
Far from it, Oraka has amassed millions of streams, played at Glastonbury Festival last year and is taking on the London-centric music industry head-on. “Being from Hull hardens you,” he comments. “Especially the part of Hull that I come from. Nobody is going to give you a handout, so you have to create your own scene and take no prisoners whilst doing it. I had no blueprint to follow with a lack of industry infrastructure in Hull, so I did it myself.”
While carving out his unique way into the industry, Oraka credited a number of independent venues as playing a “huge part” in his career development, including the New Adelphi Club and the Polar Bear in his home city, as well as Belgrave Music Hall down the road in Leeds. He acknowledged that those small-scale, community-led venues gave him a platform to “tell [his] story without judgement,” adding, “I’m forever grateful for grassroots venues like this. They work tirelessly to put on thousands of gigs a year without much financial gain. They build more than scenes. They build families and communities, all for the love of music.”
Though those venues that shaped Oraka’s early career and propelled him to festival stages may run on love with little regard for financial gain, they do need the monetary support to stay afloat and, in turn, build artists up and build scenes around them. Blossom Caldarone, who releases both as a soloist and plays for Mercury Prize winners English Teacher, also echoed the importance of those grassroots venues, describing them as “sacred”.
“They allow you to experiment and stumble,” she explained, “And playing shows really is the main thing that keeps DIY scenes alive – they’re magic.” Caldarone also acknowledged that doing things alone and with your peers can be the “best way to hone your craft – it helps you really understand what it is you want to create. Being DIY forces you to be resourceful and consider your priorities.”
Caldarone is now years into her career, but that early experimentation and even failure still has bearing on her current career. Without those spaces, that early opportunity to hone her craft and creativity alongside like-minded creatives in the grassroots space, she might never have landed upon her gently melancholic sound, have stumbled upon English Teacher, or be playing much larger stages with confidence.
Britxton-born genre-blending trio Alien Chicks also started out playing in DIY venues, which remain their favourite spaces to return to. “It is exciting to play in venues that have a real sense of community and where the lineups are booked directly by the venues themselves who know the local music scene so well, as opposed to big promotion companies who aren’t in touch with music on a hyper localised level,” shared drummer Martha Daniels.
Those close-knit scenes have a real impact on artists in their earliest stages, introducing them to potential band members, support slots, and a general community they can use to better their artistry. They also provide bands on the up with new fans, with small promoters working tirelessly to get local music fans down to gigs to see the best new talent, booking carefully curated lineups with both the artists and audiences in mind.
“DIY means a lot to us because relentless touring (tour managing ourselves and usually travelling on coaches or trains), playing live as much as we can and growing through word of mouth is how our fanbase has grown,” Daniels explained. As they’ve amassed more and more of a following through their time on the road, they’ve supported the likes of English Teacher and Warmduscher, increasing their fanbase once more. But if they hadn’t had a chance to cut their teeth and win audiences over at those smaller shows, those opportunities might never have been presented to them.
For Manchester-based cellist Lili Holland-Fricke, who recently put out her experimental collaborative album Dear Alien with Sean Rogan, working alongside fellow grassroots musicians has completely changed her outlook on composition. “I’ve been very lucky to work alongside many wonderful DIY musicians in the city,” she explains, “Who have all completely reshaped my approach to music making. I used to be very much set in the classical music mindset of nothing ever being quite good enough, always lacking in some way, having to constantly battle for unattainable standards.”
“Performing with DIY musicians in venues around Manchester made me step away completely from this way of working,” Holland-Fricke continued, “Beginning to see instead that often the most interesting and honest things are made by embracing the things we lack – whether that be time, equipment, training, space, or certain character traits. In my own music, I found that when I started threading things I felt uncertain about into my music, instead of trying to patch over them, it led to music that felt much more open, that I didn’t have to hide behind.”
The grassroots scene isn’t just made up of venues and promoters proactively supporting new artists; it’s also an essential space for musicians to learn from one another, experiment with new ways of doing things, and build each other up. It’s a space for collaboration and creativity on your own terms, but one that, unfortunately, needs funding and investment to be kept afloat.
“It sounds cliche,” The Wytches add, “But that’s just because it’s true, there would be no music without them,” referring to grassroots venues. Before they became one of the most beloved bands in the heavy psych scene, the Peterborough-born band started out playing in those DIY venues, which allowed them to figure out how to gig. “We were able to get good by gigging to like three people on bar stools at the back,” they remembered, “But that’s what you need to get good to actually be in a venue.”
“We still play in fairly small to medium-sized venues,” they acknowledged, “Depending on where we are, so they still play a vital role in us being able to continue.” They’re not the only band who rely on these small venues for their development and their existence. There are countless artists up and down the UK who find havens of community and creativity in local gig spaces, who look forward to every show they both play and attend there and fear for the day financial difficulties might lead to closure.
Hopefully, the latest initiative from the government is a step in the right direction to ensure that fewer grassroots spaces are subject to closure. Budding bands are truly reliant on those spaces, but their impact is much larger than that. They uphold the entire industry, giving artists their first shows, the space to hone their sound and skills, and the opportunity to meet other musicians and fans. Eventually, those artists will be paying back into the grassroots themselves, headlining huge shows and owing it all to the tiny venues that gave them their start. The DIY scene is absolutely essential to the ecosystem, and we must treat it accordingly.
