How to get into the room with top artists

Conference | Paddy Byrne (Paloma Faith, Tom Grennan, Ella Eyre, Olly Murs, Will Young, Gabrielle...)

So the first thing that I want to focus on is get in the room with a major label artist. Yeah. How,  I mean, that is a toughie, isn’t it? It’s a toughie is how do we get in the position whereby we, we can’t, you know, we’ve, we can write great songs. We we’re, we’ve really worked on our lyrics. We’re starting to learn how to use logic. We’re doing, you know, we’re putting all our efforts into it. How do we then get into the position  where we are in that room and that opportunity presents itself? And then I’ll talk also about how to use that opportunity.

Well,  these are different aspects to making it all come together at the right moment, right time, which is then why you hear of these fortunate moments where, you know, the stars aligned and people were in the right place, right time, and they got this huge cut. So much going into that moment though, that if it wasn’t in place, that wouldn’t have been the right time, time and it wouldn’t have been the right place. Those moments are always retrospective and you can cha you can channel it back to why that moment happened.  So first of all, write your great songs, okay?

Write your best work.  Don’t start with thinking, all right, well I write country stuff, so that’s not gonna get me in a room with ju lippa, you know? ’cause then again, void chasm, I’m never gonna do it. I’m never gonna make it.  Don’t start with, I’m gonna go and meet Darkest Island records and I’m going to, you know, I’m gonna hustle. I’m gonna meet all the scouts. And so again, then they go, yeah, yeah, great. I’ve, this has happened to me. Way, way, way back, way back. I end up with the head of BMG because of meeting a guy in a pub, da da da in a studio with me.

And I’m halfway through a half-assed idea. So I didn’t actually have anything to play ’em. So I’d kinda hustled well with then without any goods. I could write well, but I hadn’t anything physically recorded to play ’em. So you’ve gotta kinda watch. First thing that we should focus on as writers is write your great songs. The ones that make your heartbeat fast.  The ones that you really want to write from your soul. The reason you are in this room,  the start of why you are in this room is ’cause you want to say something.

 Say it. Okay? If you say what really is in your heart, it resonates with people, it comes across and it makes an impact. That impact is the wave that carries out into the world. So that what comes back at you is the right stuff for you. Okay? When you write your own great work and put it out, which has never been easier, Jacqueline will be able to help you. This has never been easier to get stuff out into the world, okay?  Everything that you put out that you are proud of  is your best work is working for you.

Like a little chatbot,  it’s out in the world working for you. So we are all hustling. We can go and, yeah, I’m gonna meet this guy for a coffee and then I’m phoning this guy and I’m going to meeting this girl and she works at such and such. We can do all that.  A song online is sitting there and can be doing that just by click, click, click. You don’t know how that’s happening. We have no control over who’s going to listen to what, at What, what time. But we do control whether we’ve got anything out there.

 You need to write your best work and get it out there so that you’ve begun the domino effect of getting into the room with a major label artist. Okay? This, by the way, think about it. I’m going right to the start. How do you get cuts with a major label artist? This is how, okay, we start at the beginning, write your own music that you’re proud of and get it out into the world. Because then the right artists will stumble upon it. Their managers will stumble upon it, their friends, their moms, their, this is how it works.

And I’m gonna talk more about this later.  So  like I say, you never know what work your best work is doing for you when it’s out there.  Then as an example of this, see the journey of others, you won’t see the path ahead,  right? You just won’t see the path ahead. Every single story of success that I’ve witnessed, the success, smaller success that, that I’ve had, but huge success that I’ve seen  the story up to that point.

 You, you start to try and pick at it and go, yeah, and if I do, and if I do and I do, it’s you never see, we, right now, we’ll never see the path ahead of us. All we can do is look, I’ve written there as an example, SIA, and I’ll try and fly through this stuff.  Sia was an artist on her own. She was in a band called zero seven. I used to play zero seven and my band Burn used to play together. And we used to, she, you know, was kind of part of our scene.  Sia then was doing her solo stuff  with, people that became my friend, Sam Dixon, a great bass player who now plays with Adele and wrote songs on Adele’s last record  when Sia was at kind of a very low e she’d been, had a really difficult time.

Her husband had, her boyfriend had died in a motorcycle crash in Australia.  She was suffering with addiction. She talks about this herself frequently.  And  she recorded a record with Sam  and then that record was heard by Christina Aguilera.

Now that record’s a great record but album. So I use the term record and it’s, you know, so bloody old a that record, although it’s coming back, I’ll stick with it. Record. it’s like the flares, isn’t it? It comes back into fashion. So,  so she’d made this record  and Christina Aguilera heard it. Christina fell in love with it. The record wasn’t doing particularly well over here or anywhere actually considering her talent. it was nothing like the CAU know now kinda soul stuff. but Christina loved it  and asked her to come out with, to LA to work with Christina on a new record for Christina, right?

So there’s Christina doing her work that an artist here and asked, see, she did. Christina didn’t get the, you know, the hottest writer in La da da da. Christina is a musician, low artist, major label artists, and the a and r people are at core musicians, soulful musicians. Yeah, there’s a business around it. But we are not really in the business of talking about the business.

We are in the business of making soulful music that connects people, that is our business and make it our business.  So when, when, Christina heard S’S record, SIA was then invited over, SIA wasn’t comfortable ’cause she was going through a difficult time. She suffered severely from anxiety and panic. She asked Sam to come with her because Sam and her were bonded, making her own record. And they played together from years back in Australia. So Sam and Sia go to, to, to Ellie and make a record with Christina.

They on fabulously  Sia. Then kind of that was the gateway to see her thinking falling outta love with her solo stuff says off screw, I’m not doing solo stuff. I’m gonna write for other people.  Decides not to be a solo artist. And the first thing she writes, this might be, you know, this might have been, you know, trimmed in the telling down the, you know, the last five years. But  first thing she wrote was Titanium with David gta not for herself, right? She vocal that she wrote it and vocal a stunning song,  and she wrote it and vocal it  for someone else to sing and sell.

And David GTA tried to get a replacement. Vocalist couldn’t get a replacement that sounded nearly as good as Sia and the rest is history. Okay? So again, there’s no way we could have told that path. We could have not seen that path and Sia couldn’t have seen that path. Sia started that journey not wanting to be a solo artist. That’s how much she didn’t see that journey. That’s why she wears the, you know, the wigs and all that sort of stuff and keeps herself as much as she can can of private.  So we can’t see the path.

So start with the music that you love. It we’ll set off a chain event that you actually want to be part of.  

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