I remember someone saying to me once that every artist has had some kind of negative experience in the music industry. I’m pretty sure that my experience tops them all…
My producer was Denny B (changed his name slightly so I don’t get a letter from his lawyer – seriously he’s such an asshole I wouldn’t put this past him) He had allegedly worked with a lot of artists my top faves – Amy Winehouse, Adele and Paloma Faith. In fact he was such a musical genius he claimed he actually ‘discovered’ those artists and had helped to get them signed to their labels. (He had recordings of them in his studio singing unreleased material but til this day I’m not sure he was ever involved in their careers.) Denny claimed we needed a portfolio of songs to shop to labels and this conveniently meant lots of days in his Fullham studio recording at £300 a day. Expensive? Apparently not. He couldn’t possibly work for free. He also was to own half of the material we ‘co-wrote’ together. 50% of everything and lots of money up front? This dude had won the jackpot.
It would take us three or four days per song – sometimes a week a track. All my writing would be done in the studio (he often couldn’t understand what my lyrics were about so I had to dumb them down for him. Alot of rhyming ‘all’ with ‘phone call’ etc) My vocals were autotuned to death. The tracks sounded tinny and small. He had numerous backing tracks that he used for lots of different artists. A whole computer full of backing tracks in fact. The way he worked would be to steal a riff or idea from someone and change it slightly or use a looped sample from a cracked version of protools. (He flew all the way to Thailand to get that software even though you can just download it on the net) That meant that all my songs resembled something already out there. He never mixed the tracks (which should have sent alarm bells off in my head) and nothing was ever finished. Once we had done five songs he’d say we needed a few more, once we’d done eight he said we needed at least ten to choose from and so on. It was never ending. A never ending amount of money in Denny’s pocket. To top it off everything was paid in cash so I never saw a receipt or invoice.
Looking back on it all I feel pretty stupid. But I was starting out. I was twenty years old and very naive. I really believed in myself and was super determined to succeed. And Denny could see that. I would do ANYTHING to get to where I wanted to be. Trouble was I was a hamster on a wheel working so hard but not getting anywhere fast. He put down the people who warned me about him and told me they were nobodies and promised me so much.
Denny had this way of making me feel I was lucky to be working with him. I think he actually was so arrogant he actually believed that. He believed he was helping me, shaping my voice, building my confidence helping me to write a ‘hit’ But in actual fact he was beating my confidence down. He would make me sing the same line over and over (maybe ten or twenty times) and claim it still wasn’t good enough. Once when I told him I wasn’t sure about something he shouted, ‘You couldn’t even sing in front of a mic before you met me.’ My singing teacher came to the studio and left telling me he was impossible to work with. He was never sure what he wanted and would dislike a line I’d sung and insult me, but then a week later would say, ‘I love this part why can’t you sing the rest like that?’ He reminded me of a spoilt child with no idea about music despite the fact he claimed he used to play drums in Depeche Mode.
Denny also mixed personal stuff with business and came on to me five or six hundred times. That was a whole new level of awful. I couldn’t turn him down as I felt he would stop working with me if I did.
Finally six months later I stopped replying to Denny’s texts. I wrote him off. And instead started spending time with an A&R guy who asked me to move in with him about three days after I met him to discuss my music. (I mean seriously??) He also told me he loved me and that he could help me a lot if I’d only go to dinner with him / spend the night with him / go to a gig with him…I cut myself loose from him too, but this time it took me only a few days to clock on.
It’s difficult being a female in an industry dominated by male A&Rs and management. In a way I am very glad I experienced what I did as I became so much stronger for it and now am extra careful about who I work with. I experiment and co-write with whoever but never spend money on working with someone I don’t know. I always find it funny when producers advertise for new artists and then they reply to me with, ‘Love your stuff but think your recordings could sound better.’ Then by the second email they say, ‘I charge £2000 per track…’ How about we chat on the phone first? Meet for a coffee? Talk more about the music we both like? Be careful who you get into bed with….
