Was the questioned answered? Many had showed up to find out.

What Does it Take to Make it in the UK? at Brobjergskolen

Left to right: Simon Raymonde, Tim Hole, Christian Ulf-Hansen, Stephen Kempner, Mike Walsh, and Neil McCormick. FOTO: Jesper Hedemann.

I must say that I had expected to see a nice turnout for this panel – and I was not disappointed as my expectation was fulfilled.  Industry people of all kinds and some non-“music business people” were present at Brobjergskolen to hear the wise words from the six British music insiders.

In the panel was Christian Ulf-Hansen (manager for Teitur) as moderator, Neil McCormick (music correspondent, The Daily Telegraph), Mike Walsh (head of music for Radio Xfm), Stephen Kempner (music lawyer), Tim Hole (producer and promoter) and Simon Raymonde (head of Bella Union).

All six have had sizeable experience with the music industry in the UK, so the audience were in for an hour of good advice, what to do/what not to do and jokes about who to buy a drink, if you want to go somewhere with your music.

All agreed that breaking the UK  is extremely difficult, because you would, as an artist, have to be predominately better than everything else, because there is so much music out there.

Instead of worrying about sales numbers, an artist should be happy just to be released.

It almost sounded as a mission-statement, when Simon Raymonde said that his finest tasks was to:

– fight against the instant need for success.

Instead of working on getting instant success, Christian Ulf-Hansen mentioned the idea about having acts touring together who are big in their respective country - and  then having them touring together in the two countries. A sort of pay it forward idea - he had done so successfully with Teitur and Tina Dico.  

All in all, we did not really get an answer to the question, but tons of good advice on what to do. Mike Walsh hit the nail right on its head when he said:

- just being brilliant is often enough. Concentrate on being brilliant – you can't keep a good song or artist down. It's not about where you're from, it's where you're at.  


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Afterwards I met up with the Sarah Pearson from British Wasted Youth PR, who represents acts such as Keane, Ida Marie and Scouting for Girls. She thought the seminar was interesting and liked the idea about acts touring together,

-the exchange idea was great, but also quite obvious, she said with a grin.

She also mentioned that her favourite musical experience at SPOT so far had been Bodebrixen – so who knows, maybe we will see them soon in the UK.

A musician who had also chosen to spend an hour of her afternoon listening to the six British gentlemen, was Anna Brønsted of Our Broken Garden – an act which is signed to Simon Raymond's Bella Union label. And she agreed with the panel:

-if a song is any good, it'll make it – as an artist you should worry about making great music.

She also emphasized the fact that the press has a lot of power – that they are the real gatekeepers. As with Sarah Pearson, Anna thought that the band exchange idea was great and that it was a good way to create connections with other bands and countries.

Our Broken Garden are currently working on new material for their next album – an album, which will be released on Bella Union where they have an option for releasing two more records in addition to “When Your Blackening Shows” from last year.