#tomstephens

Their new album Lightning Bolt is such a welcome addition to my life. And with Arcade Fire releasing Reflektor in the coming days my ears are in a good place right now (yes, on the side of my head).

As for me? Well I have an albums worth of songs all ready to go, a few sentences and chords aside. I'm just trying to decide how to go about it. I love working with my ex (current?)-bandmate Joseph Buckler, but I can't honestly decide how to go about recording and releasing the songs.

I think all amateur/semi-pro musicians like to portray themselves as professionally as possible and I will generally do that also. However (if I can be unprofessional for a second), the reality is that at least 50% of my followers on here are friends first and foremost rather than those famous maniacal Tom Stephens fans. So I find myself wondering, basically, who gives a shit? Who gives a shit about my new music? Who listens to, downloads, and enjoys my past recordings?

I don't in any way at all mean that as negatively as it sounds, nor am I looking for gratifying responses! But the truth is that more and more I do this very much for myself. I have a first class degree in music, but no job in the industry. I have at least some talent, but so do millions of other more successful, more promoted people. I will, in a very egotistical way, listen back to my recordings when I'm an old man and think of them as a documentation of my life and be pleased that I recorded them and spent my time passionately doing what I love: creating music.

But is spending good money on a professional-sounding recording a good idea for someone with a very basic income? Knowing I have so far made zero pounds and zero pence from my solo recordings, is it just foolish and arrogant to consider making a full-band album whilst still unsigned? Or is it a show of confidence and professionalism in a fresh batch of music I have put so much of myself in to? A rough-around-the-edges 'live' style recording would certainly be quicker and cheaper to produce with the same songs still featuring, albeit probably losing a bit of sheen. If I made an album, I wouldn't want to seem a bit, you know, David Brent...

I think most struggling artists of all kinds have to consider these things. Artists who want to hire venues to show their work with the very real possibility of getting no real work or exposure from it, or writers who spend hundreds of hours on their first novel, knowing they may be the only one who ever reads it, if it gets finished at all.