Young musicians have opportunity to learn how to make their mark on the industry

FML is giving six band or artists under the age of 25 the opportunity to engage in a unique programme this summer.

The team of Wet Wet Wet guitarist Graeme Duffin and award winning engineers Sandy Young and Ted Blakeway are not too concerned with talent, they just want to work with those who are keen to learn.

Graeme said: “Creative Music Making and Marketing is an all encompassing programme offering free rehearsal and studio time, technical assistance and how to effectively promote yourself and your finished product.

“There is no taste or ability restrictions, the only restriction is age, if we are inundated with applications there will be a process of auditions, but the main thing we are looking for is enthusiasm.”

Sandy added: “We have worked with Creative Scotland before and this fits in well with their youth music initiative.

“We want to give bands and artists an opportunity to use proper facilities and work with proper people in order to lift the ante of what they’re doing.

“We have to report back to Creative Scotland so while every band will think free studio and rehearsal time is magic they also have to be willing to commit to looking at the marketing side and learning the technology being used.”

Each band or artist will be in the studio for five days and at the end will have produced a record with three tracks on it as well as learning a variety of skills to deal with situations that are sure arise as they make their way in the industry.

With record labels no longer putting the same money into developing acts they once did and streaming services giving them only a tiny fraction of income compared to physical sales bands and artists have to be a lot more self sufficient.

Ted said: “The system has eaten itself, to make minimum wage on Spotify an artist needs five million downloads a month.

“We work with an artist called Yvonne Lyon and she brings out a new album and tours it every year as the only way to really make money is by appearing live.

“Other bands go in a studio for three hours, record a quick album and are off in a van to sell them, which is the tried and trusted formula which worked for many years and is rapidly coming back.”

Sandy added: “The halcyon days of record companies spending money on 20 bands to break one are gone, now there is no development budget so you are lucky if they spend money on one band.

“There is no great mystery about a band getting good, the problem is facilitating it. Some will only rehearse once a week for three hours and think they can go out and be wonderful, but it take a lot more graft than that.

“However, we aren’t bringing anyone here to tell them they are terrible and should change everything, we just want them to learn best process so they get experience.

“I think it is natural to want to pass something on to the next generation and hopefully all parties involved will get something out of it.”

For more information about the Creative Music Making and Marketing programme e-mail [email protected] or find Foundry Music Lab on Facebook