Becoming a band in London (3/12): Heard it on the radio
We were on a high after our first gig. Thinking back, serendipity must have been involved in us pulling something like that off, given that everyone was based in different cities in two different countries. But, for some reason, it happened, and it boosted our egos even more. Yet, the data wasn’t supporting our delusions of grandeur. There wasn’t an influx of new fans after the performance, and the praises stopped the moment we walked out of the venue and after the initial press coverage was written and read. But that must’ve meant that we didn’t get enough distribution of the legendary gig, right? We had to find a way to milk the event as much as we could, ourselves.
We had quite a few friends come down to see us. (Shout-out to Ana, Piti, and Buda for for flying all the way from Romania for the gig.). Luckily, as we didn’t really think things through, they filmed parts of the gig. While they didn’t get everything ‘on tape’, there was footage of a few tracks tracks, so we uploaded what we had on YouTube. They got a few hundred views, and we thought “not bad for a first gig!”. But given the live video scarcity and the fact that only one of our demos was online (‘Even Perfection’), we got to work and finished the demos for the six songs we had performed. How else would people flood our page with likes if their favorite songs from the gig weren’t available online?
First radio play
None of us had any real experience in working with audio, but we used what technology we had available and taught ourselves how to produce music. Looking back at these first demos, it’s pretty obvious we didn’t have a clue what we were doing, but back then they sounded good enough to give us the confidence to start sending them to radio stations. Stylistically, we were a bit on a heavy side back then, drawing on Muse, Maiden, and Linkin Park influences, but we were, nonetheless, somewhat realistic in knowing that getting something like that, even back in 2014, on mainstream radio was close to impossible. (Mainstream, yes, we started big. Nice ego-naiveté-entitlement combo.) We had a ballad, however, called ‘Memories of a Past Life’ which we all liked, and we thought it would give us the best chances of getting some airplay.
One outlet we sent the track to was none other than BBC Radio 6, submitting it to the BBC Introducing show. This was (and still is) a reputable show here in the UK, and some acts we were aware of were featured there. The submission platform was also clean and straightforward, so sending our track was a no-brainer. We submitted the song and got the automated “we’ll call you” response. Still, we were confident about our chances and, what do you know, we shortly got another email informing us that the team listened to the song and decided we’d be featured on one of Tim Robinson’s shows. I don’t need to emphasized how thrilled we were about this. Not even the fact that the show aired late at night (something we still find somewhat curious) phased us. We were going to be played on a radio station whose title included BBC!
We were scheduled to air at around 1am. We were self-aware enough to doubt anyone following us was actually tuning in so late, particularly in Romania (GMT +2), but we didn’t care. Being played on the show would mean we’d get the exposure we deserved, right? We waited patiently, and then we were eventually introduced on the show. Our hearts skipped multiple beats and then the eerie bass line started of ‘Memories of a Past Life’ started. It was a phenomenal feeling that we hope we’ll relive someday. We were so happy we could barely fall asleep. But we did, thinking that we’d wake up with a message from the real Virgin Records execs (recall ‘Shock 1’), wanting to sign us on the spot.
But, similarly to the time after the Garage gig, nothing happened. Not even after the re-run of the show. We didn’t understand what was going on and why these two radio plays weren’t providing us with the recognition our entitlement dictated we deserve. Punched hard, but not knocked out, we decided to start putting the word out: we were going to start gigging more seriously. And what a ride that was.
To be continued next Saturday. In the meantime, you can follow our journey on Instagram and Twitter @electrictuxedo. Thanks for reading!
