Edge Forum

 What do you do?

 I’m a musician, a music producer, and a youth worker. I have my own projects on Brainwash Beats and am currently working on an album with a top American MC soon to be revealed, I've agreed to keep it quiet til it's all ready. I've also written and played music in a ska band. I’ve recently started working on more corporate type projects and also community and youth-led projects with Inspired Youth. That’s what I want to do: I’m trying to do that full-time really. I used to work more in art and am getting back into that now too.

 What was your journey to get to where you are?

 Music’s always been my main interest. It was one of the only things I would put effort into. I remember you had to write music for homework on manuscript and the teacher would play it on the piano during the next lesson. I used to compose it in my mind and write it down on sheet music just before the music lesson ‘cos I was good at sheet music and manuscripts so when the teacher played the music it was the first time I’d heard it being played. I was quite proud of that. I was a bit too experimental at school and didn’t fit into the box there so I kind of threw it away really. I felt I got pressure at school to get a 'proper' job.  We did have a music room at school with an old Moog analogue synth and a simple sampler too- I used to spend time in there on dinner breaks.  Apart from that I didn't enjoy school at all. School didn't support me at all in music or art and never made me feel like it was a valid route to take in life.

When I left school I didn’t really know what I was doing. I signed up to a two year course at college that my best mate was doing at the time. I remember we got our GCSE results, we went in that day, and he had a form in his hand. I said what you doing next year and he said I’m doing IT something or other. I didn’t even know what it stood for but I said oh yeah I’ll do that as well, just ‘cos I thought I didn’t have a chance of getting a job and didn't have a clue what I wanted to do.

I passed the course but I wasted two years really and I totally lost focus. I was around 18 at this point and claiming benefits with no real direction and lost the plot a bit, so went off to Barcelona for a year selling frying pans!  While I was out there I was doing a lot of drawing and I realised that this is what I’m interested in, this is what I want to do.

I returned to College for a GNVQ Advanced in art and design and that’s the first time I started really engaging with education. I did really well there and went onto Cardiff University and did a degree in fine art. I definitely learnt a lesson; when you do any course you’ve got to be passionate about it.

All the time I was doing music on the side, I got into a ska band. The band was a good learning experience, I got experience of studio recording and live performance. We toured and recorded an album, so that was brilliant. When I was still doing the degree, I was getting more into music production, I'd started when I was 15  on a borrowed drum machine, and there was a label starting up down in Cardiff at the time- SFDB - which turned into a big underground hip hop label. I got involved with that from the beginning and the guy who ran that, Leon West, had been in bands and worked as a session musician. He had a lot of different skills he could show me and then I left the ska band and went more into music production. A lot of networking is important with music, and we were working with people from London, Birmingham and from all over. It was a really good creative atmosphere… lots of photography: a good cottage industry going on. I learnt through their mistakes, how to do it and how not to do it.

After Uni I worked in a record shop for a year and really expanded the range of music I appreciated, and got to get hold of the best vinyl for sampling too.  Then I moved back up north and got into doing community arts and working on projects. I lost focus for a while and did care work for a year because I felt pressure to get a 9 to 5 at the time, then from that got into youth work again, which is more creative. Then I got back into my music and it’s never been better than now!  There's a lot more stuff that’s happened that fills in the gaps, but that’s the jist!

 What does success mean to you?

 I think it means being happy with what you’ve got! I think for young people especially nowadays it’s drummed into you that you should have this, you should have that. I think it’s worse now than fifteen years ago when I was that age, there’s a lot more pressure to always want more and I think success is being happy with what you’ve got and what you’re doing.

 What challenges have you faced?

 Challenges have maybe come from my personal life whether that be relationship breakdowns and all the problems that it can bring. Or through moving around and finding myself without a job for a while or getting into bad habits, doing things you shouldn’t be doing when you could be focusing. I think when you’re doing something creative you have to be really focused and that has to come first – it has to be before anything else. It’s like a vocation. If you have to do sixteen hours work one day, you do sixteen hours work because it’s your passion.

 Did you have any support?

 Definitely my parents and they still are (supportive). They’ve always wanted the best for me… We didn’t have much money but my dad used to pay out every week for a private lesson for saxophone. I wouldn’t say they’ve pushed in any direction particularly. My dad is very much old school and holds a working-class ethic, so he can’t stand lay-abouts and people who can’t be bothered. So it wouldn’t really matter what I was doing, so long as I was working hard at it.    My mum is the most supportive person in my life.

 What drives you?

 There have been difficult times when I’ve ended up with nowhere to live, but then friends get you through; if you haven’t got friends round then you’ve had it. I think that if you do creative things, then it’s just something you have to do – it’s not something you choose to do, it’s like scratching an itch, you’ve got to do it. I’ve lost focus at times, like months or a year at a time, because of the pressures- if things aren’t going so well then you can feel like you should be doing something more stable sometimes, bills always need paying. I always come back to what it’s all about. I’m thirty-two years old and now have confidence in the skills I’ve got. What drives you is I think you need like-minded people around with similar goals, and networking is vital- you can’t do it on your own.

 Who is your role model?

 I take different aspects from different people. I’d like to think I’ve got the same drive to work that my dad always has. There’s not one person I hold up on a pedestal. There are a lot of people in music I really admire, like Hendrix, but I wouldn’t hold him as a role model… I’ve taken influence (from people). I think that sometimes when you’re younger and look at people who are where you want to be, you can take influence from the image and silly things that are around them, rather than looking at what got them where they are. It can be a dangerous thing when you’re younger, to choose the wrong role model. Who my role model is would be very different now to who it would have been in the past.

Yellowman, the reggae artist- he had everything against him but he went for it and became king of his scene.

 What advice would you give to young people?

 I think having the confidence in your own skills and abilities. As you get older you realise there are a lot of people who are making a good living and sometimes out of not much talent, but they know how to apply it. If you can do something and stick to it and make money from it… it’s knowing how to market what you’ve got. It’s about networking. If you don’t have any confidence in your ability to do it, you can’t expect anyone else to. So you’ve got to stick to it. As someone said to me years ago, be consistent with it. Get known for doing something and doing it well and consistently. If you can do that in the creative industry, then the money comes next. I don’t work full-time yet in what I want to do, but I’m getting there. If I knew what I know now ten years ago, I’d be a lot further on but it’s a lot to do with self confidence… but looking back I could have made a go of it years ago.

 What do you think education should be like?

 I think if people have a desire to learn, they should be able to learn in whatever way they want, whatever suits them best. Whether you’re in the classroom or you’re hands on, academic or practical. If you’re out in the real world doing stuff, then it gives you the confidence to actually do it. Just varied and tailored to the individual.

 What would you like to put forward as part of your experience to be a role model to others?

 Dedicate yourself to whatever it is you feel you’ve got a talent in; maintain good networks and stick to your guns. Music and arts will never be a 9-5 job. It’s more than that.

Dan SPLEEN

e| the.vented.spleen@gmail.com

w| www.myspace.com/danSPLEEN