Talking To...Laura Warwick

#N Assuming you sell all the shares, how much of Laura Warwick does the public end up owning

#L Fifty percent, but I get the golden share.[laughs] Well fifty percent of the money goes to the shareholders and the rest goes to myself, the producer, the paid crew.

#N When you started this project, did you have any idea of what a typical Laura Warwick shareholder would look like and have they lived up to that?

#L Ohh, that's a tough one. I have to tell you that most of the shareholders right now are males. I don't know why that is

#N At the risk of alienating some of my readers, I guess more men buy music.

#L I also think they're more willing to take a risk, not that five pounds is much of a risk. I'd say about eighty percent are male. Most buy four or five. I've had people buy a hundred and I've had people buy one. I don't think there's a typical share holder.

#N It's certainly a fascinating model and one that I'm interested to see where it goes. I'm sure it's a project that we'll be keeping an eye on. It's groundbreaking

#L Well I'm hoping people will take notice

#N And it's working. We get a lot of very good artists come through the Fatea office and into the magazine. You're the first artist that we've interviewed, since the days when we were a paper magazine, that hasn't even released their debut single yet.

#L Really? Cool.[laughs]

#N As you know we believe in giving new artists space, but in today's world it was interesting to see a new take on getting off the ground.

#L I was looking on your site and I saw all the artists with debut eps and albums and I was thinking, 'I'm doing it, but I'm not there yet.'

#N That said we wouldn't be here talking if we hadn't liked "No More". I think I need to say, and I think you'll know what I mean., it's a proper song. Well written, well thought out. It's not a gimmick, under pinning this project is a 'real' singer songwriter who finds inspiration to write. Where does Laura Warwick get her words from?

#L Anything boring like mowing the lawn, vacuuming, washing the car, anything that sort of clears the conscious mind. Then I'll get an idea in my head. I'll just stop what I'm doing and get the idea down. It's the main way I write.

#N If you need any mind numbing lawn mowing, car cleaning etc and you're down Dorset way…

#L [Laughs, more out of sympathy, if I'm honest] It makes me creative

#N You've got the first single recorded, how far on is the album?

#L We've got eight songs done. I get the lyrics and the melody down, then it goes down to my producer who listens to it. We throw a few ideas about around the backing and how the track will sound, then I go down and record it. There's another four that are partly done. I'll keep on writing. When we've got enough we go out to the shareholders and get their thoughts as to track order, final cut. It's well on it's way.
If it all goes to plan it'll be available as a cd and a download. I want it to be both. I'm taking it one step at a time and making sure I get it right. I want it to be on as much of a scale as we're able to do.

#N I guess that's also where having shareholders is better than selling in advance, they've got an interest in other people getting to buy your album and go to your gigs.

#L It all helps it to grow. It will certainly be on a bigger scale than if I was just doing it myself.

#N Live work. Are you getting out, giving the songs a run out in front of an audience?

#L I am. I'm gigging as much as possible with my band. We're test running some of the new songs. It was only recently we really got enough songs together to start gigging them. They're all your babies when you write songs.
It's frantic rehearsal time, but it's a lot of fun.

#N What would you view as a success for the project?

#L The sky's the limit really. When I started doing this I was really looking for a deal, preferably with a major, because that was what I saw as the key. When that didn't happen, I thought how I was going to do this. You sort of consider X Factor, but those are TV shows first and foremost.
I have to be true to myself and at the end of the day I realised that I wanted to make music and reach a wider audience. Success would be getting to the end of the project and be able to reward the people that had faith in me.
I'm hoping it provides a way for unsigned artists like me to be able to do it themselves. I think that would be my idea of success.

#N Thanks very much for that. I'm sure we'll come back later and see how the whole thing is going.

#L Look forward to it

More details can be found on Laura's MySpace Page. http://www.myspace.com/laurawarwick

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