WHEN YOU’RE A teenager, a career in the music industry can seem like a dream job.
But the reality of making ends meet while making music can be vastly different to what you dreamed about while jamming in your garage.
We spoke to musicians from across the Irish music spectrum who are playing at Dublin’s Music Town 2016 Festival (running from 6 – 17 April) about what it’s like being a musician in Ireland today.
“I was broke for a long time”
Dennis Cassidy plays drums in Mixtapes from the Underground, a live hip-hop collective from Dublin.
Cassidy has been playing the drums for 20 years – since he was 16 – and his career as a full-time musician shows how you have to be willing to adapt and use your musical talents in a variety of ways to make the whole thing work.
“I’ve been working, teaching or playing gigs and working in one form of music or another for a good few years,” Cassidy, who finished college in 2004, tells TheJournal.ie.
“It’s hard doing anything artistic [full-time], it’s hard but you just find your niche and figure out what you want to do and stick with it.”
The hardest part? “Definitely money,” says Cassidy.
Cassidy got involved in music through a fluke, after not getting into art college and going on to study music instead. He taught drums for over 12 years, but recently finished that to run a vinyl record store, The Rage, on Fade St in Dublin.
His work with Mixtapes involves not just gigging, but booking tours, organising rehearsal, and designing and making merchandise. On top of that, he plays in a wedding band at the weekend.
“I’m a little more secure than I have been in a long time,” he says.
The only way you can make money, other than getting a record deal, is teaching or playing wedding bands. You have to be a Jack of all trades really.
He points out that the internet-driven shifts in the music industry have led to changes for musicians. With cheaper music software, instruments and recording equipment, people can make music quickly and at home.
“It’s a lot more accessible, basically, for everyone to do,” he says. “You do have to be your own manager.”
If you want to have a full-time career in music, you not only have to work hard, but you have to accept the challenges that come with it.
It’s really difficult if you want to buy a house, it’s near impossible. The whole thing of security, there’s no pension, you have to either be very diligent and put money away every month or you have to get a job and do music on the side while maintaining a career, be proactive and stay on top of it.
There are grants available through the Arts Council, but Cassidy hasn’t applied for funding. “I’ve paid for everything myself or put together a kitty with the band.”
“I was broke for a long time [and was] teaching and doing crappy gigs every so often, but I think now you have to go through that for a couple of years for you to figure out what you want to do,” he says.
You figure it out yourself – there is no one there to teach you it in school. It’s the school of hard knocks.
“I see more of an opportunity in Ireland than I did before”
At the other end of the spectrum are Stay Gold, a hip-hop duo from Blanchardstown – Greg Adekunle and Shola Ahove – who are just 19 and 20.
They started off writing songs together after meeting in Hartstown Community School in their mid-teens, and played their first gig at Hard Working Class Heroes (HWCH) last October.
“I never looked at the Irish scene when I was a child because I didn’t see one,” says Adekunle. Instead, he turned to the American scene.
I was like, ‘oh, I’ll put my songs on the internet and see if somebody finds me’. Now it’s like I’ll make this music, do shows in Ireland because there is a scene in Ireland, people are looking at Ireland. I see more of an opportunity in Ireland than I did before.
Adekunle says one of the main challenges of being a young band is getting people to come to the shows. But he sees Stay Gold as being part of a nascent scene that has bands like Rusangano Family and Haresquead at the forefront.
“Before, there was no one looking,” says Adekunle. “No one knew what was happening.
There was a generation before us, there were people doing this three or four years ago that were just as good as us. But no one knew and no one paid attention and people were discouraged. But because of Angela [Dorgan] and First Music Contact and HWCH, we know it’s possible and we see results.
Adekunle feels that Ireland is “going to become a hotspot soon”. “We have so many talented musicians,” he says. “When the door opens, more and more of us are going to start coming up.”
Inspired by the likes of Drake and Kanye West, Stay Gold see themselves in the music industry for the long haul.
“Right now I see myself full-time being a musician, recording music, working on albums,” says Adekunle. “Later on in my career way down the line when we’ve solidified our standing in music, then we can branch out into movies or TV.”
“The challenge is always getting seen”
Angela Dorgan is CEO of First Music Contact, an information and advice resource for musicians, and also of the Hard Working Class Heroes Music Festival.
“The challenge is as it always was, which is getting yourself seen and heard and have people know you’re there,” she says of what faces young bands.
The second challenge is generating income. The Music Trail earns the bands – who were all selected to play HWCH last year – €150 for a 20-minute acoustic set.
It’s the first of seven FMC music trails that will take place across the bank holidays this year. There are 20 slots on each trail.
The aim is to make Dublin a ‘music city’. “If we get a reputation as a music city as well as everything else, more people will come here to see music and if they come here to see music they’ll go to new bands’ gigs,” says Dorgan.
“There is such an excitement to be in a band,” said Dorgan. “Of course people would love to do it full-time. But there is such a humility I think. Irish bands are really great about the value they put on the music-making and they’re quite happy to have the skill and to have a community where they can share it with others.”
“I want something to fall back on”
Jake McArdle is 18 and from Dundalk. Last year, he won the Irish Youth Music Awards (IYMAs), and this year he’ll be on hand to open the Irish Youth Music Awards National day at the Aviva Stadium.
McArdle comes from a musical family, and started singing at a young age. He stopped after his voice broke, but then started taking lessons in his mid-teens.
Unbeknownst to his parents, he began writing his own songs – they only found out when he entered the IYMAs last year.
He won the Louth heat of the IYMAs and went on to represent the county at the national awards.
“It was crazy, it felt like winning the X Factor,” he says of his eventual national win. But the process also showed him just how much work it takes to have a career in the music business.
He had a team around him of young people who acted as his stage manager, lighting director, and in other key roles.
https://www.facebook.com/singerjakemcardle/videos/977145822369836/
“You have a full team working with you and when you look at professional singers and famous people, they have a full team behind them,” points out McArdle.
And you never think about them things. You always see the performance and you think ‘right, they’ve just walked up on stage, sang a song and went home, happy days.
The IYMA participants have to do their own press, too. “The work that goes in is unimaginable,” says McArdle. “I don’t think anyone that had never been involved in the IYMAs [would] realise how much work is put in.”
He has long dreamt of being a singer, but thanks to the IYMAs, McArdle now knows exactly what it takes to be a full-time singer.
He wants to pursue a full-time career in singing, but he also wants something to fall back on. Currently doing his Leaving Cert, he intends on going to college to study something not related to music.
“I would like something different that I can fall back on instead of doing a music course, and then if music doesn’t work out then at least I’ll have a different area that I’m good at,” he says. “I’m a very organised person, I like to plan ahead. I like to keep track of what I’m doing and stay grounded.”
Mixtapes from the Underground will play at the Music Town event To Handel, With Love: 12 Points Plus at Meeting House Square in Dublin on Saturday 13 April. Stay Gold take part in the Breaking Tunes Music Trail as part of Music Town this weekend. The Irish Youth Music Awards National Day takes place on 16 April.
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