Artist Spotlight: Oli Spooner/Inigo Unknown

Oxford, compared to its oft-referenced rival, Cambridge, has few spaces like Clare College’s music grounds. Whatever band nights and pub performances are put on in this city are comparatively small scale, and music as a genre of creative work commands far less weight and aura then it did a decade or two decades ago. However, this lack of engagement from the public body has not restrained the creativity nor the ability of Oxford’s musicians, as my interview with Oli Spooner demonstrates that even in the face of an unfavourable market, art can endure.

INTERVIEWER:
So, as you were discussing on the walk over, how do you feel as musician, when you’re publishing stuff, you’re publishing it primarily through Spotify, publishing it on your Instagram. How do you feel about that as a career? Because people can be working tirelessly for years. And then, you know, a quirk of the algorithm, you get like a 1000000 viewers.

OLI SPOONER: Yeah, so true.

INTERVIEWER: How do you feel that impacts music? How do you feel that it’s commodifying it? Do you feel that it’s flattening out? Like, you can see that, like, when a certain, you know, bit of a track catches the ear. So, it’ll reappear and reappear and reappear and how do you feel it’s impacting? Not just your music but more widely?

OLI SPOONER: Yeah, I think, like, I think it’s kind of sad that to be a musician, you’ve also got to be a content creator. Like, obviously there’s always been like a marketing element to music, but I think it’s really become sort of as, I don’t know. I think it’s sad how you have to be posting on social media like 5 times a day or whatever if you want to, you know, grow an online audience. And the thing has changed music in the sense of like, I think you can hear when somebody’s tried to write a hook that will catch on on social media. I think a lot of song lengths are shortened because attention spans are decreasing. I mean, I don’t post loads on social media because I don’t have the time. Uh, which, you think, means I probably am not reaching the audience that I could, or, you know, that I would like to. But I think it’s, you know, impossible for a full-time student and also have a really prominent online presence. So maybe post-university, I’ll sort of lock in with social media. Yeah, I think it has when you’re scrolling and you see 20 people all doing the same thing that you’re trying to do, all posting the same content, all using the same hooks, just like you say, for the off chance that maybe one of our videos will attract some attention. And then that attention is always so fleeting as well. You know, you could get like 1000000s of views on a video. And that could amount to 100 streams on your on your song. Like, it’s so superficial and surfacelevel and it’s so ephemeral. It doesn’t it doesn’t stick around. So like I would like to try and build an audience live and then move to social media, build a really strong fan base live.  So I’ve tried to do more more gigs recently. Because I think it’s really important to build a local community, that will stick with you, and then you can sort of try and branch out through social media. Because I think if you build a fan base solely on social media, it’s so tricky to maintain them because everybody’s tastes and opinions and attentions are so fully spread out amongst a 1000000 different things now.

INTERVIEWER: Yeah, you mentioned reduced attention spans and, like, shortening songs, you can sort of see this in rock; do you think you could ever get a song, like Bohemian Rhapsody out today, successfully? Because, like, if you look at the sort of stuff which people listen to – I appreciate the gym community haven’t got the most nuanced musical tastes – but, they’re listening to songs for one, two minutes. And it’s just on a loop.

OLI SPOONER: Yeah. I think you can, like there’s lots of artists that do release songs that are longer. Harry Styles, recently released like a 7 minute song.

INTERVIEWER: But Harry Styles spent years building up that fan base. Like, when Queen released Bohemian Rhapsody, yes, they were well-known on the performance circuit, and they were decently well-known, but they weren’t Queen yet. So do you feel that, for those musicians, for those bands which aren’t huge, its doable? Do you think there is that space to dare and take risks?

OLI SPOONER: Yeah, I think people still reward nuance and a unique sound. It’s very easy to play it safe and to just write pop music. Which is fine, obviously, pop music is valuable music as well. But what I mean is it’s easy to just look at what somebody else is doing, see that they’re being successful, copy it, and think it’ll be the same for you. But there’s already a version of that that exists, so people don’t need a 2nd. I mean, some people do like, you know, some people do get success by just sort of mimicking what already exists. But I think there’s lots of really interesting musicians out there that are doing new stuff. And I think it’s part of it, it’s a really delicate balance between giving people what they want and doing what you want to do, like having a go at something new. Because it’s very rare cases where, like, a totally revolutionary style of music will be super mainstream. And, like, there are examples of that, but they’re like far, you know, few between. But I think if you, If you really want to make something unique and new, I think you have to give in to the idea that you’re probably not going to be the next – I mean, no one’s going to be the next Harry Styles – like, you know, it’s you know, it’s, It’s impossible to go into the music industry thinking that you’re going to be selling out Glastonbury. Like that’s not a realistic goal to go in. So I think it’s just like making what you want. And I think there is space for people to experiment to make new stuff. But I think a lot of people are hooked on the idea of fame and success. And I think letting go of that means you have chances to experiment and explore your own sound more.

INTERVIEWER: We discussed how the music market changed as a result of social media. I think the finances of it have changed too, particularly with the death of physical media. And you do have stuff like vinyl and CDs.

OLI SPOONER: Yeah, vinyl’s making a resurgence.

INTERVIEWER: They were kind of cult resurgences . And occasionally a breakthrough gets wider popularity, but the overwhelming way most people get their music now is YouTube or Spotify or other streaming platforms. Enough has been written on how streaming isn’t a financially equitable endeavour for most musicians. How does that impact the industry and how do you feel that impact? Because, like, as a smaller band, as primarily a recording band, or performing, in the 80s and 90s, alongside doing gigs and that sort of stuff, you could make a decent bit of money selling physical media and that doesn’t seem as viable anymore.

OLI SPOONER: Yeah, I mean, streaming services are just criminally bad at paying. Well, some streaming services, Spotify, are criminally bad at paying the artist. There are better ones. Like I was talking about monopolies, right? Like the idea that companies have a monopoly on things, it’s difficult to use the better streaming services because they don’t have the wider audience reach. You know, everybody uses Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music or whatever, but they pay their artists nothing. So it’s really difficult for new artists to use a different stream platform that might pay you better, but they will end up actually paying you less because you’re reaching fewer people. But even massive artists don’t really make their money off streaming. Most of their revenue will come through record sales, or like merch or touring. So I think in that sense, it sort of stayed the same. Like, I don’t think, I don’t think it’s changed. I think people do still buy physical media. But I think it’s like streaming is just sort of a podcast, essentially. But, again, like, stay optimistic, I think. You can still tour, you can still sell CDs. You can still sell T-shirts. You can still sell vinyl, like And again, it’s just, you’ve always got to try and find the good in it. And find a way to keep making art and keep doing what you love. Because it’s tricky when you’re constantly struggling against, you know, these huge corporations that are trying to make the most money out of you with giving you the least amount of money. It’s tricky to find that motivation.