By Sally Churchward. Photo: Rhona Murphy.
Only The Poets hit the headlines last week, when they announced a gig at Brixton Academy with all tickets just £1, in support of The LIVE Trust.
It seems like a bold idea but for them, it’s the next step in their ongoing interactive relationship with their fans and a striving to help keep live music accessible.
The band, who come from Reading and Banbury, are known for their friendly relationships with fans who, in turn, are very loyal to the foursome.
Bassist Andrew (AKA Andy/Roo) Burge, says it’s been a conscious effort on the band’s part.
“We try to make it as inclusive as possible,” he says as we chat following the band’s two gigs in one night at Southampton’s legendary Joiners.
“I think a large part of our fanbase makes friends at our concerts and although they obviously have a shared love of our music, they go and socialise with each other. I feel like it brings all of us together because it feels like a safe environment at our concerts and it’s quite a community.
“After the gigs, we go out and try to meet as many people as possible. We do whatever we can just to feel like we know them, because it does feel special meeting people who like your music and come to your concerts. We try to meet as many of them as we can. Sometimes that’s more difficult than others.”
Drummer Marcus Yates adds: “For us, live music was so important in our early years of meeting people and being friends. So we’ve always known the importance of what live music can do for people and it’s like, about escapism, so we always try to give that as much as we can.”
Andrew continues the theme: “ I would say that when I was younger, going to concerts like local gigs in Reading with my friends from school, gave us opportunities to bond and become closer, and have shared interests with new friends.
“So I think it gave me a part of my personality as a teenager. I made friends going to concerts and I liked music.
“I definitely think it was a massive help with things like mental health and building lifelong friendships essentially, which has been a massive rock in my life, all these years.”
Marcus chips in: “Adding to that, I’d say in those early years, having an interest in music led to feeling inspired to start a band and pursue music. I mean, we’ve been doing music now our whole lives, it’s given us our purpose. It’s very important for us and I would say it kind of saved us in our early years.
“We owe a lot to grass roots venues, being able to go to gigs and being able to start a band. I feel like it’s a massive part of who we are as people. We’ll never forget the importance of that.”
He adds that he feels live music plays an important role in helping people to make real life connections, rather than just virtual ones.
“Live music really gives people the opportunity to get out of the house and have proper human connections,” he says. “I feel like live music now is becoming inaccessible, and the cost of living is making getting out of the house expensive, and venues are closing.
“Live music gave us such an opportunity to have one-on-one human connections and being able to play shows in front of people gave that, and, like Roo said, the human connection and being able to make friends that way, is very important for us.”
The band would struggle to meet all the fans at their forthcoming Brixton Academy gig on February 2nd, given that the venue capacity is just shy of 5,000. But there’s no denying that they are making a huge effort to help make music accessible.
And it’s part of an ongoing effort, including offering reduced priced tickets and playing smaller, regional venues, allowing more fans to get the live OTP experience.
And they’re no strangers to charging £1 for a ticket.
Andrew explains: “The first time we ever did a headline tour, it was £1 a ticket. The reason we did that, was at the time, I think we only had one song out on Spotify, and we just thought ‘I don’t think we’re worth more than a pound,’ to see songs that no one knew, minus one, or not even that.
“We just wanted to be able to play concerts and have any excuse to do it, so I think that’s how it actually started.
“But then over the years, like we said, going to concerts was a massive part of our childhoods, and I think we always wanted to be able to give that back.
“Whenever I meet a fan and they go ‘oh I can’t come to the next gig because of so and so,’ I hate that feeling of someone being left out and I want everyone to be able to come and enjoy it. We’re doing as much as we can to make it as accessible for everyone and inclusive.
“We offer low income tickets on every tour. I can’t remember when we first did it, but for a long while now we’ve done low income tickets, so it’s just an honesty policy. You can just apply for them and you get a heavily discounted ticket. We want people to come and enjoy live music. It’s something that everyone should get to do.”
“We wanted people who might not be able to go to a show to be able to come to one of our concerts,” adds Marcus.
“And now we’re in a lucky position where we get to do that on kind of a mass scale. Brixton Academy is a very inspiring venue to be in.
“We’ve seen many amazing artists there and it’s made us want to pick up instruments and start a band. It’s an incredibly inspiring place, so we’ve got the opportunity to do this. It was always something we wanted to do and the opportunity is here, so we thought it would be really important to do that.”
As well as making the show financially accessible, it also supports the wider music scene – the overall ticket price includes a £1 donation to LIVE Trust, £1 fee and £1 venue restoration.
The LIVE Trust functions to ensure the interests of live music in the UK are understood and communicated to Government, policymakers, regulators, the public, and the wider music and entertainment industries.
Making music accessible doesn’t only mean offering low ticket prices, but also the band making a conscious effort to play smaller regional venues.
Their recent tour of small venues brought them to Southampton’s Joiners, where they played 2 gigs in one evening, on September 3rd. We’re speaking a couple of days after the night, and Marcus and Andy are still buzzing from it.
“It was great,” says Marcus.
“I mean the amount of artists that have played that venue is actually unbelievable (bands who have played there include Oasis, Coldplay, Bastille, Catatonia, Skunk Anansie and many more).
“It makes you think how important the UK music scene is and how important it was in the development of all these artists, and how it’s really sad that a lot of these venues, which have been the lifeblood of our band, are closing now.”
Marcus says that seeing local musicians play in Banbury, where he and Clem grew up, was important in making him realise that he could be in a band too.
“They were on stage playing a guitar, and I thought ‘oh that’s something I could achieve. I could do this because someone from my town’s done that’.
“Or like in Reading, it was probably more of a touring circuit then than it is now, but like you said Roo, you saw Don Broco, (Roo: “yes they used to play all the time”), so these touring bands that are coming to these parts of the UK, I think it’s really important.
“It gives people the opportunity to see live music in their hometown. It gives them escapism. It gives them maybe inspiration to want to start their own band. It’s not a luxury.
“I feel like now people have to travel further and further away from their home town and it costs more and more to do that.
“Grass roots music venues are the lifeblood of culture in the UK. I feel like music is a massive part of the identity of the UK.”
Andrew shares Marcus’ passion for grass roots music venues.
“ If you lose these small venues, then there’s no bands, because how can bands develop and grow when there is no venue to play in that’s not a massive venue that only established bands can do?
“I don’t think we would be a band if there were no local venues. That sounds really obvious when you say it out loud, but like if the Purple Turtle closed down or The Face Bar, we would have never been able to do a gig. Without AKA in Banbury, Marcus would never have been able to do his first gig as a kid.
“I think without them, the band side of the music industry completely dries up.
“So I do think playing there was great, obviously nostalgically for us, to go back to these places, into great vibes to play in these small rooms, where everyone’s in it together, but in the bigger picture, supporting it and keeping them going, it’s like the most important thing, I think, for the music industry in general.”
He adds that he thinks the impact of previous closures of grass roots music venues can be seen in today’s music scene.
“I definitely think that we can all say that since we were kids, the industry has changed. You used to look at the charts when I was a kid, it was bands, and now there’s not a band in sight. It’s a real shame, but without a thriving grass roots venue scene, it’s hard for bands to develop. The better the scene is, the better the bands it breeds, I believe.”
The band are now looking towards their Brixton Academy gig, with tickets going on sale this week, and the release of their debut album, And I’d Do It Again, out on January 30th, from which they recently released third single, Saké. The single came out whilst the were at the Joiners, with the evening including a countdown to its release.
Andrew hopes that fans will listen to it as it was intended: “We hope everyone gives it a listen and listens to it from start to finish. Listen to it in order would be my only request, because we worked really hard to make it feel like a journey and a soundtrack, that feels like it should be played in order.”
Marcus adds: “The title being And I’d Do It Again, it’s all about the journey that has led us to this point. Of course it’s about past relationships, and lyrically it’s very much about everything that’s led us to this point, but like a band and our identity. We’ve spent hours as a band, we’ve toured up and down the country – everything that’s led us to this point.
“There’s been a lot of ups and downs but we wouldn’t change any of it.
“So that’s why it made sense to call it And I’d Do It Again.”
- Priority O2 tickets for Only the Poets at Brixton Academy go on sale on September 10th. Artist presale go on sale on September 11th and general sale is from September 12th.
For more information, visit onlythepoets.os.fan/brixtonacademy
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