Interview: Shawn Christie
In my opinion, having a booking agent is more important than any other traditional aspect. Independent artists need to take their music to the people and having more opportunities to perform live is paramount.
In my opinion, having a booking agent is more important than any other traditional aspect. Independent artists need to take their music to the people and having more opportunities to perform live is paramount.
I`ve just released my seventh instrumental album, which is now available on all web platforms, as are my six previous releases.
This time I tried a crowdfunding approach and was able to finance a significant part of the production costs through pre-orders placed through the respective campaign.
I'm trying do more to get the music exposure and the radio airplay is doing that for me, since I get listeners from every country in the world.
I hear themes in my mind and somehow it goes on paper. Some songs on "Untold Stories" took years to get written and recorded.
But there is a risk with being an independent musician, and that is that you get so lost in your own freedom that you end up with a career that isn`t going anywhere.
Knowing I would fund the project myself, I felt that I would demonstrate more credibility to labels and other industry heavy-weights by investing in myself prior to asking them to invest.
I love creating things, so putting my project together myself, while it was a lot of work, was very rewarding and also a good learning experience.
The main reason I started to play the guitar was Randy Rhoads. He had the biggest influence on me and my playing. When I first listened to him I couldn`t believe what I`d heard.
The music I write and record under my own name is just the kind of music I`d like to listen to and therefore has no commercial consideration whatsoever, which means it`s a bonus if other people like it!