Don’t Stop Believin’
Crowdfire Spotlight — from a small town boy to Acoustic Singer Songwriter, this is Simon Baum’s story.
Crowdfire Spotlight chronicles the stories of inspiring Creators — their struggles and triumphs, how they got to where they are now and where they’re headed next.
Picture an old English town — the oldest you can think of. If you’re good with history (or googling), then you may already know that Colchester claims to be the oldest town in England.
Now picture a little boy, growing up in a household that embraced music with open arms and ears. That little boy is Simon Baum, London-based acoustic guitarist and singer songwriter.
Simon’s childhood soundtrack was dominated by the Beatles, Queen, and Tori Amos.
“I remember being obsessed with A Hard Day’s Night. I’d watch the video over and over again. And the first single I ever bought was Cornflake Girl. I was in love with Tori’s voice,” he says, with an almost dreamy glee.
The Start of A Rebellion
His love for music encouraged his parents to sign him up for piano lessons when he was eight. Like most eight-year-olds, he pretty much hated it. Ever persevering, they enrolled him in music school where he tackled the clarinet with undisguised distaste.
“I hated the clarinet. I was awful at it and everyone thought so, too. I just wanted to play the saxophone,” he says.
One would think his disenchantment with the piano and clarinet would dissuade him from picking up another instrument.
But a couple of lessons with a “weird” tutor (who later skipped town mysteriously) got him hooked to the acoustic guitar. With five chords under his belt, he proceeded to write his first song ever — a love ballad for a girl he had a crush on at school. That meant he was skipping music school on the regular; the rebellious 11 year old found a tree in the park to sit under and used three of his five chords.
“Whenever I was supposed to be studying or practicing the clarinet, I’d play the guitar,” says Simon.
Bellicose and ballads
“I used to walk to school with this rocker kid, Rich and we’d talk about music a lot. One day, I recorded some of my songs on a cassette and played it for him.” This was enough to impress Rich and he asked Simon to join their rock band, Bellicose, as lead guitarist and vocalist.
Even though Simon was more into melodious and soft, acoustic tones, he jumped at the opportunity to be part of a rock band.
Their first ever performance was in high school. “It was awful and embarrassing — 150 people just staring at us in total silence. After we performed, there was no applause, nothing. We stank up the stage!” exclaims Simon. They enjoyed the rush of playing in public regardless and performed at quite a few local gigs in the years that followed.
Things started to lose their rosy tinge as time went on. His future with Bellicose would reach an upsetting end. He’d picked up work in a call centre, making calls to rake in a little money on the side. One day, he met the band after work and they gave him some somber news. They no longer wanted him to be part of Bellicose.
“They were sick and tired of all the ballads I wrote. I get it. They were a rock band. And all I wrote were these melodious lyrics — mostly singer/songwriter stuff,” he laughs now as he remembers.
But the adolescent Simon was devastated for three weeks. Their band manager, Grahame, told him “Don’t be upset, Simon, you’re great! Just because you can’t play the same music as them, doesn’t mean you’re not great.”
“Just because you can’t play the same music as them, doesn’t mean you’re not great.”
Wise words from a non-instrument playing 15-year-old. Simon got over this heartbreak soon enough. He was about to leave the small town of Colchester to do his A levels at Middlesex University. He told himself he’d focus on other creative pursuits.
Simon had taken part in a few plays in his hometown and he decided he wanted to be an actor. Little did he know the reality check he was in for. “You think you’re doing really well, as compared to others, since you’re in a small town but then you move to a big city and that’s when you realize — everyone is amazing and you’re really not that good after all!”
“I didn’t really enjoy acting anyway,” Simon shrugs sheepishly.
‘By the way, you can’t play’
He continued to write songs in University, where he met Jonny, a fellow university-goer. Jonny introduced him to a friend, Ben, and they hit it off right away. They started writing and singing songs together. “Ben was really dedicated. He’d come down from Chichester by train, which was 2 hours away, to main London every weekend to jam. He didn’t have any money for food but he made it anyway,” Simon remembers fondly.
When he was 21, Simon met English songwriting legend, Tom Baxter. “We had a producer who was best friends with Tom, so we’d go to Tom’s house to record. I used to go and see him all the time,” he reminisces. Tom’s music had a significant impact on Simon’s writing and music. “I had a dream once that I was writing a song with him. Then I woke up and wrote a song in his style.”
Change followed Simon doggedly, nipping at his heels. “Ben and I, we formed another band with two great guys, brothers Max and Howie. This band was more rock-and-roll oriented, a little more intense than I was comfortable with.” They played a lot of gigs and even ended up touring Canada. “I played the lead electric guitar, but I was really bad at it, just like the clarinet! No one actually told me, ‘by the way, you can’t play’ but I knew I wasn’t good at it.”
After they got back from the tour, Simon realized that this wasn’t what he wanted to do. “I didn’t want to be in a band. I wanted to make music for myself. I wanted things to change.”
Change Train
Enter Simon’s linchpin moment. By this time, his life was in shambles. Overweight and heavy on the drink, his lifestyle had spiralled unhealthily downward. Low on self-esteem and confidence, he didn’t like what he saw when he looked in the mirror.
“Someone told me to go running every day. ‘It’ll sort your whole life,’ they said. I found it ridiculous. I told them, ‘No, that’s rubbish!’” But Simon was desperate to make a change. So he started running, every day. He felt lighter, he felt better. Stage 1 of turning his life around.
With his personal life getting under control, his professional life preyed on his mind. He’d spent all his money and was in a great deal of debt. And he was working at a job he hated. “I worked in a call centre trying to get old people to sign up for charity direct debits. I used to do 45 minute shifts and I’d draw 45 dots on a piece of paper and circle each one after a minute. It was that bad.” Simon decided to bite the bullet — he quit his job and asked his parents for help.
His series of life-changing decisions continued with him quitting the band, shortly after coming back from the Canada tour.
“I wasn’t happy not writing. So I left. I finally felt that I had the freedom to do what I wanted to do.”
Simon’s life was a whirlwind at that point. “That’s when I met my would-be wife, Emma, and fell in love.“ He grins, a wide ear-to-ear toothy display that would make a rock melt. “I also started an entertainment company, supplying DJs and bands for weddings — the business took over and I stopped writing.”
Fatherhood, Squiggles and Songwriting
In 2010, Simon welcomed his first child into the world. Leo’s birth was closely followed by his daughter Poppy’s arrival in 2012. Being a parent became a full time job and he pretty much stopped writing and playing music when they were toddlers. He’d started a staffing agency in 2013 as a steady source of income but he finally got back into music in 2015.
“I remember sitting in the hospital (I had a shoulder injury) and thinking ‘Life is short, don’t waste it!’ and then I started writing a song in my head again! I didn’t write when the kids were young, I had a lot of ideas but I was too tired,“ he laments.
Fun fact: Simon’s kids do all the artwork for his EPs and singles. “They draw something, and I’m thinking, ‘What’s that? That’s amazing!’That’s what my song’s going to be about.” He beams proudly, “If they do my artwork forever, it will be like a little gallery of their stuff.”
So, what’s his songwriting process? “I write the melody and stick the lyrics in afterwards. But with Bridges (his latest single), I played the riff on the guitar and then wrote the lyrics to try to get them to stand out. Mostly, I just sit down and fiddle about with the instruments and try and write the lyrics afterwards. I listen to the melody and wonder what this is about.”
Building Bridges and the Big Leagues
He was contemplating starting a fitness blog when he came across Crowdfire. He thought he might as well do it for his music. The immediate response he got on Twitter surprised him. “I was getting at least one response a day to all the automated messages I’d sent out.” He’d use Crowdfire to send Auto DMs with links to his music in the message. “People were actually listening to my music, telling me they loved it!”
Simon’s been sending Auto DMs on Twitter daily for the past two years. “To this day, I get people writing to me from all over the world — Mumbai, Amsterdam, Australia!”
His hard work paid off. When he hit 30,000 followers on Twitter, he put up a live video of a song every day for thirty days as his way of saying thanks.
On the wrong side of 35, Simon knows he’s no spring chicken. He knows he’s probably not going to make it to the Top 40 charts. But he also knows the importance and value of setting small, achievable goals.
He started off promoting his music on iTunes and Spotify, with an aim to get the verified artist tag on Spotify. “I asked all my Twitter friends to follow me on Spotify. I was quite relentless about it.” And just like that, he got verified.
He tried to market his website on YouTube to get people to go there. But he drew more of a crowd on YouTube. “So I decided to leave the website and focus on my YouTube channel instead.”
After years of making music, Simon has released a number of soft, moving acoustic numbers. His favourite song, though, would have to be his latest single, Bridges.
When asked what it was about, well, “It’s about bridges and a certain person in America trying to build a wall. And also what’s happening in Britain ever since Brexit. I don’t want to get too political but it would be great to have more integration and openness in the world. I want people from everywhere to come here instead of everybody just huddling over to their side. I’m not an activist. I read a quote once that said, ‘Nobody did more wrong than he who did nothing because he only did a little.’ So I’m going to do my bit with my music trying to encourage the world to open up.”
“You’ve got to love the process.”
Simon looks forward to the process of making music more than the output itself. He enjoys the whole journey — from writing the music and adding the lyrics to end production.
All the melody magic happens in his home studio. He’s got microphones, keyboards, Garage Band on his iPad, Logic music software and he just “mucks about”.
Once, he spent 6 hours in the studio, till 3 in the morning. “Six hours of work and four seconds of organ sounds was all that I got, but I love it! You’ve got to love the process,” he insists.
When it comes to his music, Simon goes solo. He does everything on his own, “’Cause I’m a control freak,” he explains with an apologetic smile. “I use a platform called Distrokid to put my music on iTunes, Spotify and Amazon. I think it’s brilliant and cheap, I highly recommend it! It’s run by a personable team, and they’re quite engaging with their audience and users.”
He uploads his music on Distrokid’s app and within an hour, it goes to iTunes and Google Play. It takes a week to go to Spotify and Amazon and then he uploads it on YouTube. He uses Mailchimp to send his music to people on his mailing list. He first sends it to about 20 of his closest friends “to see if it’s awful and to get feedback.” When he’s ready to take it to the world, he turns to Crowdfire.
Weddings, Superstars, and the road ahead
Up until recently, Simon used to be a wedding singer. “I’d been in the wedding singing business for 15 years but I quit. I wanted to spend the weekends with my family and alone in my studio — focusing on writing music.”
One of the biggest gigs he performed was at a corporate event a few years ago. One of his idols, Will Young, showed up as a live singer. His jaw hit the floor. Then he saw Kevin Spacey sitting in the audience, along with Robert Downey Jr. and Val Kilmer. “Are you kidding me? I wasn’t prepared for that at all!”
So, any plans to go on tour? “Nah, I’m done with tours. Unless I can lug my family around — I just don’t want to be apart from them for too long. And I’m not bothered about signing a record deal.” He would love to perform more live gigs and keep writing and just honing his craft.
For Simon, it’s not about the money. Which is why he’s not too concerned about streaming services eating up the profits for small-time artists and musicians.
“It’s about the song. You don’t make music to pay off the mortgage. Just concentrate on the journey and the process. Don’t focus on the money. Getting a message from Joanne in Australia is worth more to me than £1.20. Besides,” he grins, “my mum always buys my music.”
Any advice to people like you out there? “Two things — if you’re going to be a singer/songwriter, cherish feedback.
“And don’t try to rush anything. I used to rush things all the time, but now I take my own time to get to where I want to be.”
You can find Simon Baum on Twitter, SoundCloud, YouTube and his website.
