Feet Don’t Fail Me Now has now been playlisted by over 40 radio stations, and had some big airplay on Dermot O’Leary’s Saturday afternoon Radio 2 show. Thank you Dermot! By all accounts he actually cares passionately about the future of music and young songwriters, contrary to what you might expect from watching X-Factor… (sorry X-Factor fans but it’s true!)
I’ve done so many radio interviews I have to be careful not to launch into a traffic update every 5pm. Although you can’t beat the big all-powerful Beeb, I’ve been so impressed with some of the smaller local and community stations. They’re often staffed by volunteers who do it for the pure passion of it, for the thrill of having a microphone in front of them and a big bag of CDs to play people. Although they don’t tend to be as professional, or as good at interviewing, they have passion for music and it’s infectious. Thank you to you all.
Among the more memorable moments was an interview squeezed in between Matt from Busted and the guy from the Go Compare adverts, after a long day of travelling and food poisoning. So surreal. The Go Compare guy had done 38 interviews that day – 38! No doubt answering the same questions every time which is probably some sort of justice considering the number of times we have to sit through his adverts.
Speaking of repetition, it’s hard not to churn out the same stories and lines across all your interviews. I don’t know how many times I’ve been asked ‘how did you started playing the guitar like that?’ but it’s tempting to break into elaborate lies to see what you can get away with. A bit of myth-building never hurt anyone after all! Maybe it’s a similar situation to playing the same songs again and again – it may be the 100th time you’ve played a song, but it may also be the first time someone in the crowd has heard it. It may be the last time they ever hear it too, so play it like you want it to be remembered every time. Or else give up.
By the way if you’d like to get involved in my street team – The Squad – send an email about it to info@jakemorleycom-2.onyx-sites.io – they do things like try to get radio plays and live sessions. The more help they have the better!