How do you solve a problem like the music industry?

You have panels on mental health in the industry. How important is it to start having those conversations and how integral are the artists to those conversations?

It’s massively important to start these conversations about mental health because it’s accepted that you’re gonna have bad mental health in the music industry. The music industry is unregulated. There’s no HR department in the music industry. So if you’re on tour with a crew or a band and there are things going on, you know, who do you talk to?

How do you get out? How do you right that situation? I was working in the music industry in London in my twenties, and I’ve seen the bad side of it. So one of my personal missions is to set that right.

If we’re talking about accessibility to the music industry and let’s make it mentally accessible to people, you know, there’s no point being accessible if you’re gonna treat people like a piece of shit when you get in there. So often things are kept under wraps because people don’t want to lose their job. So I think it’s really important to have these conversations because otherwise they’re not being spoken about openly.

Alongside the conference you’ve taken over a number of venues across Manchester, talk to me about how integral the platforming of these different grassroots acts is to the success of the conference?

I think it’s really important. As I said we’ve gone through this whole globalisation process, which has really removed and separated us from music and I and I think that what people want is that human touch again. They want that connection. So that’s what we’re doing! We have 13 venues, all within half square mile of each other. It’s a really unique opportunity to get to loads of shows really quickly. And I think the artists need it because there’s just not the platform there for artists that perhaps there once was.

Speaking from a Manchester perspective there’s more music in the than there ever has been in its entire history. We have an open submission process to play at Beyond the Music and we’ve had over 3000 artists try to play this year, and the quality of music is just unreal.

We have complete faith and belief in the artist that we put on, that they can deliver the goods and deliver the quality for the punters going to the festival. I can guarantee it’s gonna be better than going to see Oasis at one of their big shows.

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