We caught up with Steeve Body earlier this week before his appearance on our Producer Panel this Saturday at the Abbey Road Institute September Open Day!
We put the topics and issues that will be covered on Saturday to Steeve to get his invaluable insight into the industry and the direction it is taking!
How would you judge the state of the Australian Music Industry today?
There have been huge changes in the music industry for the past decade with music streaming and curation services such as Pandora, Spotify and Apple replacing the record store, and internet “viral” video and youtube sensations becoming the new way people find out about pretty much anything.
The industry is more fragmented than ever before but I believe this fragmentation created many niche markets and opportunities that were not there before. The power is back in the hands of the content creators, and the opportunity and tools available for them to reach their audience is far beyond anything we’ve ever seen before.
What are the most important attributes a young producer needs to generate work?
I believe like many things in life, a good dose of passion, hard work and tenacity are the bare minimum to become successful. In this field in order to generate work you need to be socially engaged with your music community, go to gigs, even the ones you don’t want to go to, and slowly start building a network of relationships. Work will stem from those relationship with time as long as you stick around. Sending bulk emails to studios, producers etc. In order to get an opportunity very rarely leads to anything good.
You have to be sure that there isn’t anything else in life you believe you could be better at. If you have any plan B you will simply give up on plan A when things start to get hard… and trust me it WILL get hard. To survive this you need to know your strengths and weaknesses so you can work your skills set to the point where nobody can deny that your are an indispensable part of this industry. That part took me 10 years so you know… It’s all about the journey!
How did you go about establishing your personal brand and reputation in the Industry?
I went into it head first with a huge amount of drive and determination and never looked back. I did all sorts of jobs in the industry related to what I wanted to do, live sound, broadcast, location recordings and eventually started my own recording studio with a great friend and fellow producer Louis School. No i didn’t have any money and Louis didn’t even know if he would get a visa to stay in the country and pretty much gambled the savings he had into our venture..
We were just nuts! But we both wanted it so badly that we would not take “no” for an answer. We pretty much “played” studio and producer for a while as the work started to come in. We both had vibrant personalities, so people liked us (at least we think they did)… and eventually we became good at it… then higher profile work started to come our way which lead to more work which after many years finally gave us the privilege of saying “no” to some projects we didn’t want to do.
I did some soul searching and left the studio to pursue my career as a composer for film and tv… Tenacity, Personality, Perseverance and Craziness…? are probably what got me where I am today.
What role will Producers play in the digital online space that the Industry is rushing towards
I think producers are going to play an essential part in curating the huge amount of content streamed through all the different mediums available today. If anything the role of the producer will become even more specific and targeted to their audience as ever before.
I believe the audience feedback and the huge amount of data generated by users and listeners is going to influence producers greatly where the audience response becomes production itself. I believe this has already started with the rise of crowdfunded musical projects where fans are part of the fabric and DNA of a project.
The Abbey Road Institute September Open Day is the perfect opportunity for you to come and meet Steeve and learn from his expertise in the music production industry whilst amongst world class gear and other world class producers. The passion, drive and knowledge available at the producers panel is surely not to be missed! Register Now!