Jane Weaver: how to be an independent artist in 2015

http://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/mar/30/jane-weaver-folky-psychedelia

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My first experience of being a musician was the major-label system. My band Kill Laura were signed to a Polydor imprint in the early 90s and then six months later our A&R was sacked. “Sorry, the album you’ve been working on for months isn’t happening. We’re shelving you and you can’t release it anywhere else unless they pay out a load of money for the recording.” It was brutal but I quickly saw the harsh reality of the music industry.

I’ve always wanted to do what I’ve wanted to do and you can’t really do that unless you’re independent. As an independent female artist, you have to work as much as you can with as many different people as you can. Especially as, after a while, women can get pigeonholed as being a singer-songwriter, which is depressing as it’s not what you set out to be. It’s a limitation or a circle around your art; like, you can’t go beyond this circle we’ve set out for you.

That’s why since 2010 I’ve been forcing myself to be a lot more experimental and work outside those boundaries. I’ve moved back to psychedelic music after getting all folked out on the last album. I couldn’t listen to any more Pentangle records. I also started Bird Records, an imprint of Finders Keepers, to help a lot of female musicians I admired, such as Cate Le Bon and Beth Jeans Houghton. They – ridiculously – just weren’t getting ahead in the way our male peers were.

With a lot of the psych revival I think: is this just guitar music with effects? The whole ethos of psychedelic music is about communes. I listened to a lot of Amon Düül II for [my 2014 album] The Silver Globe, for example. It’s people living in a house making music together. I’m interested in that cooperative vibe. If you’re a young musician getting into psych, you need to diversify. You’ve got to look on your own doorstep. Make your own festivals. Hire a venue and put on a load of bands you like. Create your own club or commune. Working with different bands along the way is the secret to my longevity.

In many ways, it’s easier to be an independent artist in 2015. We can arm ourselves with knowledge about the way things work. We can put something on YouTube and it becomes popular. We can access a huge mixture of diverse music. There is a price, of course. It took me a while to finish The Silver Globe because of financial restrictions, but being independent allowed me to make that album, to experiment and to make it work. Major labels will say: “Oh, we’ll pay for that studio time”; I’ve got a family so those choices are different for me. But even though my life is fuller and it makes things more challenging, it makes me more determined to get results. My time is precious now.

The deluxe edition of The Silver Globe is out now; she plays The Lexington, London, N1, on Sunday 29 March