Becoming a band in London (1/12): Beginnings, self-awareness, and stepping into Bizarro World
The music industry is a lion’s den. But, then again, what isn’t? There’s a time and place for everything, and fairy tales belong in our infancies. ‘Getting what you want’ out of most things in life requires a thick skin and perseverance. We learned that the hard way, but did eventually rip the band-aid before we went full-on into the ‘blaming the world’ zone that is oh so popular within the group of tortured souls that is musicians.
Whether or not we’ve had any level of real success is irrelevant to this story. As part of a cathartic process, the following paragraphs (and future installments) serve two purposes: 1. it’s a way for us to deal with our own misplaced sense of entitlement and 2. it provides a cautionary tale of how not to think and act as an artist, particularly in this day and age.
Beginnings
Cousins Horia and Andrei used to meet up each Sunday with other music enthusiasts in their family and just jam. While some of those jams turned into fully-fledged songs, nothing really happened with that music other than some questionable video footage. The Sunday sessions came to a close when Andrei left for the UK to pursue a career in academia in 2012 (more on that adventure in a future article). However, in December of 2013, with the spirit of the new year looming, Horia and Andrei met up to work on one of the better tracks that was just collecting dust on the shelf. It was called ‘Even Perfection’ and it became the first Electric Tuxedo song. After the track was completed, in January 2014 Andrei asked Cat, whom he knew from high school, if he wanted to join the group. He accepted and the incarnation of Electric Tuxedo that still stands was born, with Cat on drums, Horia on bass, and Andrei on guitar and vocals.
The following months were standard for an early-stage band: writing songs. Not an easy feat, however, given that, at the time, Horia lived in Bucharest, Andrei in London, and Cat in Coventry. Thankfully, it was 2014 and not 1994, so composing and recording remotely was easy, and from January to June we wrote and recorded 5 demos. But then things got crazy.
Bizarro World
At this stage in the band’s development, egos were within tolerable levels. The situation changed in the early days of May 2014, when the band stepped onto Bizarro World. An acquaintance of the band was working for an aviation company and claimed to have a workmate who was best friends with a big-shot exec at Virgin Records. She said over dinner that she’d put a good word for us and send her our demos. A week after, lo an behold, we heard back from this acquaintance that the record label was blown away by our talent and potential and we should all go to a meeting at Virgin that she had already scheduled to take place on the 24th of June 2014, at 10am. Needless to say, we were excited and — in our naiveté — didn’t even question why we hadn’t had any interaction with the label ourselves throughout this entire process. We were too busy imagining ourselves playing on Wembley stadium alongside Muse and Bon Jovi.
Of course, eventually, things started to seem fishy, so we called Virgin media a week ahead of the supposed meeting. We couldn’t find the exec’s name online, but, with the veil of naiveté still firmly over our faces, we thought it was because she was so important that she didn’t want her details available to just anyone. Only to us talented folk. Closer to the event, we asked the liaison for the exec’s number and email, and what we got back was a number one digit short (10 instead of the 11 UK standard) and an email address that didn’t exist (which we found out the second after we tried to get in touch — thanks mailer-daemon!). We then desperately called Virgin Media HQ and asked to speak to the person, and, what do you know, she didn’t exist.
To this day we still don’t know what happened and why the lady put us in this situation in the first place. Why anyone would pull such a prank is beyond comprehension for us. But, alas, such is life. Needless to say, we never spoke to her ever again. However, escaping Bizarro World was like a right hook straight to the jaw. We were so convinced that we were the Beez Neez that we didn’t really think things through. Were we ready to present decent sounding recordings? Was the songwriting in touch with the zeitgeist? Did we have an solid, consistent image? Did we have a fanbase? Could we perform these songs live? While back then we believed that the answer was yes on all fronts (save, perhaps, the fanbase which we were hoping Virgin would take care of — more on that in a future article), it was more than obvious that the real answer was a definite no. After recuperating from the blow, we entered a completely new phase where we took the bull by the horns and attempted to do it on our own and ‘stick it to the man’, as it were. You know where this is headed, right?
To be continued next Saturday. In the meantime, you can follow our journey on Instagram and Twitter @electrictuxedo. Thanks for reading!
