The True Cost of Owning Your Art

What It Really Costs to Make an Album (And Keep It)

It’s been heartening to see more and more bands and artists being transparent about the huge costs involved, not only in touring (as we saw Kate Nash powerfully attest to at yesterday's State of Play parliamentary enquiry) but also around the recording of albums and the hefty costs of putting a release together. My Instagram feed is now regularly peppered with artist breakdowns of how much money they lost on their recent sold out tour, or how out of pocket they were making their critically acclaimed record. Gone are the days of trying to maintain an idealised portrait of the life of a musician as one full of glamour and endless money.

I begin to tell you all of this because, this Friday morning, the first of two limited edition merch drops will happen to help to finance the final stretch of creating my brand new third studio album of originals, with accompanying videos/short films directed by JJ Eringa - you can watch his most recent stunning short film/music video here.

Apart from the costs of studio hire and overheads, brilliantly talented session musicians, and the necessary mix and mastering fees to add the final sprinkle of sonic magic, in the reign of social media and the age of the chokehold of the algorithmic gods, creating impactful visuals in the form of video content and compelling photography has also never been more important.

Creating complex video concepts and putting together the artwork has also always been one of the most enjoyable parts of the post-recording process for me, a frustrated almost-arts-student who went and did something more 'sensible' at university. It’s my space to create the concept art that never was after turning down my place at art college and becoming the first in my family to head off to university to study English Literature.

We once shot two videos back to back (‘What Goes Around’ & ‘Doesn’t Kill You’) over a 30 hour period because it was cheaper to hire the lighting and camera equipment for a weekend rather than by the day. I went from washing neon pink paint out of my hair (see below) to being transformed into an androgynous 1930s film noir star in the space of three hours. An exhausting but ultimately rewarding experience for the whole team that was involved, working on a shoestring to create something that expanded the sonic world that the album had begun.

(It took three shampoos and a lot of scrubbing to get this mess out of my hair after being drenched in the What Goes Around video)

(The beautiful hair and make-up stylings of Natasha Lawes for the Doesn’t Kill You Video)

Betting on Yourself: The Economics of Artistic Control

I have always self-financed my albums and licensed them to a label - yes, even the first two - partly because this gives me total artistic freedom, but also because it means that I am not handing over the rights to my creative toils in perpetuity, as so many songwriters have had to do across history.

Much ink has been spilt about the inherently exploitative and unfair terms of standard recording deals. Recently, Laura Marling has written very eloquently about her own regrets of signing to a major label deal in her recent piece about being “trapped in a contract” at the age of sixteen that would have “consequences for the rest of her and her children’s lives”. “How would my life be different had I kept hold of those records?”, she muses.

I am very glad to have had the good advice and foresight myself to have only ever entered into licensing deals for the work I have created. This means that my first two albums start returning back to my ownership next year. It means I can choose how they go out into the world going forwards. This does also mean, however, that the substantial financial burden of making something of quality always falls to me alone.

But I am only interested in creating something that I am truly proud of, and this means working slowly and methodically to fund the bigger, long-term vision, rather than sacrificing my art and future to a pay check that might look bigger in the short term, but leaves me without the longer term ownership and control.

So, I want to thank you in advance for continuing on this journey with me to create something of quality, something that will last, and something that nourishes a wider group of creatives: the video directors, the session players etc. who also eke out an existence in the ever-increasing madness of the music economy.

They thank you too.

I’m going to be dropping the first of a small limited edition merch bundle on Bandcamp Friday to help fund this last leg. Next week there will also be a second small t-shirt preorder too.

If you can’t afford to support financially, amplifying my work in the attention economy is the next best thing - share a post on Instagram or Facebook, or this Substack essay!

I hope you’ll get as much joy from supporting the finishing touches to this brand new project as I have from making it.

Watch this space…

Catherine x

P.S. Thank you to everyone who already supports me as a Patreon. You can find out more about becoming one here.