How to Join Music Without Joining the Music Business Gavin Friday | Big Think

How to Join Music Without Joining the Music Business

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Gavin Friday tells aspiring musicians not to think about how to get into the music business; instead, they need to join music because it is a part of them.

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Gavin Friday:

Gavin Friday was born in Dublin on October 8, 1959 and founded the band Virgin Prunes in 1977. In 1986 Gavin briefly abandoned music to paint, which culminated in the 1988 exhibition entitled ‘I didn’t come up the Liffey in a bubble’ at Dublin’s Hendriks Gallery. From 1987 to 2005 Friday composed and performed with pianist Maurice Roycroft (The Man Seezer). ‘Each Man Kills the Thing He Loves’ (1989), their compelling moody debut produced by Hal Willner, explored the world of Brel (whose song ‘Next’ is covered on the album), Piaf, Brecht and Weill. The follow up was 1992’s ‘Adam ‘N’ Eve.’

In Summer 1999, Gavin travelled to Kosovo on behalf of the charity Concern, to film a documentary highlighting to plight of Kosovan refugees. ‘Artists for Kosovo’, a slide-show of work by renowned Irish artists set to Friday/Seezer music opened in Dublin’s Temple Bar. Later that year the video documentary ‘Three Wishes For Kosovo’ was completed and Gavin’s children’s charity project for Kosovo, ‘Muc the flying piggy bank’ was launched. The project encouraged kids in schools around Ireland to set up their own collections for the charity.

Gavin Friday's film work includes the songs written with Bono for the popular 1993 film ‘In the Name of the Father’. They recorded the title track as well as the Sinead O’Connor sung hit ‘You Made Me the Thief of Your Heart’. In 1996 Friday and Seezer contributed the song ‘Angel’ to the ‘Romeo + Juliet’ soundtrack and wrote their first piece of score for the Australian film ‘Angel Baby’. His subsequent film scores have included ‘The Boxer’ (1998), ‘Disco Pigs’ (2001) and ‘In America’ (2002). In late 2005, Friday and Seezer teamed up with legendary producer Quincy Jones to score the Jim Sheridan directed 50 Cent biopic ‘Get Rich or Die Trying.’ Gavin also performed the surreal and personal one man show ‘I Didn’t Come up the Liffey in a Bubble’ at the Dublin Fringe Festival.

Gavin Friday is currently working on his fourth solo album with writing partner Herb Macken

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TRANSCRIPT:

Question: What advice to you have for young people entering into music?

Gavin Friday: I like the way that you said entering into music. There is a terrible thing that's been happening probably for the last 20 years or so and it's called the music business. And music isn't really business; it's work and you got to pay and you've got to buy your guitar or go into the studio. So there is a business side but when people say, "I'm going into the music business," it's not. It's about expression. It's about creativity. You don't join music, in my mind, to make money. You join it because it's in you; it's in your blood stream. So if you want to be Justin Timberlake, go for it. But if you want to be somebody else, go for it but it's usually very hard. You just got to believe in yourself, work hard. I've no advice, I did everything the right and wrong way. You make it up as you go along, but it has to be in your blood stream and it's not a job. It's a way of life.