TRANSCRIPT 🔗
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Hi everyone, welcome back to the Tune Up Pages Spotlight series.
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I'm your host Izzy and today I'm welcoming back to the podcast the incredibly talented Tom Ball.
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How are you doing today? Thank you so much for joining us.
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Thank you for having me back. It was an honour last time and it's so wonderful
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to be asked that. Thank you for having me.
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Well it's such an absolute pleasure to speak with you today.
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So glad that we can have you back on and you're currently working on your new
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single voice scientist with musical collective LIM
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and that comes out on August 12th very exciting and it's it's a classical crossover
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it's recorded with London Voices and it's it was at the,
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London Abbey Road wasn't it as well so,
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such an incredible experience I can imagine so how has this new music helped
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to inspire your overall creative process,
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oh well I mean it all started last year To be honest with you,
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I was working with Lim, Susan, this just incredible visionary, and her entire team,
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just absolutely amazing.
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And I was invited at Abbey Road Studios with the RPO and London Voice Choir
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called Timeless last year.
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And I pinched myself, but we had some really great success with it.
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We went to number one in the classical charts in the UK and awards for the film
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and the song across the whole world. And it was really amazing.
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And then subsequently, I got invited back to sing a couple more songs. And of course, I jumped.
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I jumped at the chance to work with them. You know, the composers as well,
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Ron J. Danzinger and Christina Teens Tan.
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They wrote Timeless and Boy Scientist.
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And they invited me back to sing Boy Scientist. And it was an offer I absolutely couldn't refuse.
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A beautiful, cheeky love song that just encapsulates that beginning part of a relationship.
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It's a really gorgeous song and a beautiful story. Definitely.
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I mean I'm sure everyone will be very excited to hear it when it comes out and
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now so obviously you've done so much in your musical career and there's so much
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that we could go into but something that people might not be aware of
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is that you're actually an ambassador for My Diabetes Story and this has been
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at the forefront of raising awareness alongside your manager who is Overtones member Jay James.
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What was the catalyst that led to your involvement with Diabetes UK? care?
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So I've been type 1 diabetic since I was diagnosed when I was eight years old.
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So I've had it for 20 years now.
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And growing up, I often felt like I didn't know anyone else with type 1 diabetes.
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You know, it's not a condition that you can cure. It's not a condition that goes away.
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You've got it for life. And I kind of hid away from it for a long time.
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I really didn't want to speak about it and didn't really want to get involved in the community and,
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i'd lived my whole life just kind of letting it sit in the background and then
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my manager jay i started working with him i told him about the condition that i lived with,
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just because he should be aware of it because it does have effects on your day-to-day
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living and um it was an incredible and tragic coincidence that literally about
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a month later his son was rushed to hospital and was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes.
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And so straight away, it was like me and Jay and his incredible son,
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Franklin, who is an absolute.
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Icon and a massive hero of mine. He is amazing. He was diagnosed when I was four.
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So he's so young and he absolutely deals with it so well.
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But me and Jay kind of knew from that get-go that we should probably start doing
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something meaningful with the platform that we're so privileged to have to start,
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making sure other people don't hide away from it or don't feel like they can't
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talk about it so we we set up a peer support platform
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initially on a website and it's grown onto social media on instagram with tuesday
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live streams with incredible team of people,
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and we just we just talk about the condition and we bring in amazing guests
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from all across the world,
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to talk about their experiences and to try and normalize talking about the condition.
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And it's been a real passion project for both me, Jay, and now the wider My Diabetes Story team.
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And I think that is such an incredible thing that you can
Load full transcript
use your platform
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to be able to do that because, I mean, I know people in my life who have diabetes
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and I feel like it's one of those things that,
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everyone's aware of it, but until it's kind of experiencing it,
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you might not know so much about it.
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So to be able to use your platforms for you to do that is such an incredible
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experience and opportunity that I'm sure so many people all over the world are grateful for.
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I can imagine i can imagine it's become something that you can really because
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you can resonate with it in so many different ways it's so fulfilling i can imagine,
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yeah for sure but that aside let's kind of circle back to your music could you
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give us a little bit of background on how you got into the music industry and
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why you chose this path what drew you to this
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i uh i had an incredible opportunity.
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So I was a secondary school teacher teaching drama and music.
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And I applied to go on to Britain's Got Talent in 2022.
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And somehow, and at the time, I definitely wasn't expecting anything to kind
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of happen. I just thought this is my last opportunity to kind of try something
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before I commit the rest of my life to teaching. And,
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i got accepted and i got i got through and i did really well.
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And i still don't quite know how that happened but we did really i did really
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really well i came third in total in 2022 and then invited out into america
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and by simon to do america's got talent all-stars where again i got i got to
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pinch myself that i got the first ever group golden buzzer,
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and that moment just kind of catapulted i signed my first record deal
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i started doing my first touring and from that moment it was a snowball effect
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to the point now that I've got the privilege and honour of saying that I've
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recorded at Abbey Road with the RPO
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and I'm releasing music and I'm doing more tours and.
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It was really the catalyst that started absolutely everything and so I've got
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so much to thank Britain's Got Talent for.
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100% and I can imagine that was such an incredible experience overall old but
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to have been able to go back again as you said in the
all-stars and get the
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golden buzzer I mean how was that
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how did that feel America do everything bigger it,
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was it was an epic week I was I think for Britain's Got Talent I was there in
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total for maybe three days four days in total for for the filming and that was
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across a couple of months
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but in America's Got Talent I was there for two weeks solid because the whole
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week we were prepping and filming
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and getting things ready and then you record it on the last day and so,
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I felt like I had so much support and so much preparation building up to that
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one moment where you stand on that stage and do it and so,
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I wasn't expecting a golden buzzer let alone a group golden buzzer which was just incredible,
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and uh so I left I got on that flight home to go tell my wife,
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just on the absolute height of excitement, it was really amazing.
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I can honestly, I can't even imagine how much fun and that, because I know just
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from watching it, you see someone get the golden buzzer and it's this massive eruption.
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It goes in slow-mo on the screen, but it feels like slow-mo when you're staring at it.
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Genuinely, it's like, oh yeah, that's exactly how it happened.
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It flows down really slowly.
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That's exactly how it felt. You're all moving in slow motion. 100% yeah.
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And so I wanted to ask you as well for anyone that might not be familiar with
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your music how would you describe your music how would you describe your sound
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and what do you think makes it stand out
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it's quite eclectic what what I do I love a bit of soul a bit of pop a bit of musical theatre
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but I think what I'm known for is turning,
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sometimes quite simple songs like the sound of silence into,
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a song of epic proportion I love doing it it's really nice full orchestra kind
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and a big sound, big voice.
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That's probably how I'd describe it.
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And it's such an incredible sound that it is, definitely. Thank you.
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Thank you very much. No, honestly, I wouldn't lie.
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And so one thing as well, again, that people might not know about you,
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as I mentioned earlier, you've got a lot of things going on outside of music.
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And you and your family have been through such an incredible journey through
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IVF, resulting in the birth of your daughter, which is so amazing.
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Congratulations for that. Oh, my God. There we go.
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Little bubba there. oh she's adorable thank you very much well congratulations
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thank you thank you very much it was anyone that's been through any form of
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IVF and to be honest before,
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we started the journey through IVF I think at the moment you kind of presume
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that not many people go through,
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this journey there is quite a small minority but as soon as we started looking
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into it we realized quite how,
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widespread and mainstream idf has become it really so many people go through
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it you just don't realize that they've gone through it,
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uh and for me the turmoil started when we started collecting the eggs you collect
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so many but then throughout the week you get messages almost every day saying
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that we've lost one or this one's not good enough and so you start counting down your chances.
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But we were so, so incredibly fortunate that we had a successful first round, which,
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it is very rare to have that success and so we thank our lucky stars every day
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and we've got our beautiful baby girl Adeline she's now 18 months which is bonkers,
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amazing oh well it's such an incredible story and again I don't know how many
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times I can say congratulations such a beautiful thing.
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But I also feel like I wanted to ask you because I feel like it's quite commonly
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known that your emotions and your life experiences can,
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come through in your music and are oftentimes a big inspiration for your music
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and do you feel like since bringing your daughter into this world do you feel
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like this has influenced the type of music that you want to produce yes i've
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never written so many songs than i have this year
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this year i've been in my studio writing music like crazy and so many of them do stem back to,
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kind of Adeline now and that emotion it's a different emotion a different life
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experience often the songs that connect with people are songs that people can relate to,
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and to write a song
about something that I have no experience of it is so much
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harder than just letting raw and true emotion come through when your writing and playing,
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and so I think it's had a dramatic effect on the music that I like to create
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but also the music that is kind of just,
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coming from it it's,
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uh it has such an impact on like your mood your mood has an impact on the music
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that you write and you you work on because it's how you're feeling in that moment definitely and,
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I also think it's such a beautiful thing that now that you're able to create
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some songs and write some music that are inspired by your daughter.
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They almost become little time capsules that you can look back on in the future
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and I think that is such an incredible thing and that's one of the most wonderful
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things about music as the consumer and the producer.
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Bring on a lot of nostalgia yes that reminiscing,
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that story that it tells from a moment in your life and even as a listener not
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just a writer you listen to an album and you go,
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I remember listening to the album that was that period of my life,
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it has it's such an incredible thing music 100% I could not agree more I think
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it's the most incredible thing on the planet I actually might go as far as to say,
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and so my final question to you is you've obviously had so much success in your
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career you've had some incredible opportunities ears and it's been absolutely
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wonderful to sit and listen to what you have to say about your experiences
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and so for anyone at home who might be looking to get into the music industry
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what advice might you give to students who are looking to take this path take
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every opportunity that comes across your way no matter how small no matter how big,
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take the opportunity and learn what you can from it it's it is a.
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Challenging business to be in you're it's up and down it's a roller coaster
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and you've got to recognize when you're in the highs stay strong when you're
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in the lows and so every opportunity you get just brings you into that high for me,
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if i'm performing i'm happy and so i take every opportunity i can to perform
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so that i'm i'm on high even if it's a local kind of small thing that maybe I shouldn't be doing,
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I'm loving it because I get to perform and that's my advice just take every
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opportunity 100% I feel like that will.
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People will take that on board for definite definitely resonate with a lot of
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people so thank you for your incredible advice and it's been an absolute pleasure
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to speak with you today I mean it's been a pleasure to have you back here at
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student pages so thank you again so much for join in and,
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thank you to everyone else who tuned in at home and i will see you all next time.