Tom Law - Unplugged

Full transcript: Tom Law on London Real

5:34 This is London Real. I am Brian Rose. We are sponsored today by Bulletproof Coffee, which is the official drink of London Real. I just want to say thank you to Dave Asprey, the Bulletproof Executive.

5:47 My co-host today is entrepreneur Colin Pile, who comes to London via Toronto and then China and India. You tend to ride motorcycles across entire countries and get World Records. Thank you for being here. Also, drink Bulletproof. Oh, you do look at you, Bulletproof.

6:04 We get Tom drinking Bulletproof before the show’s over. Also, Colin is my co-host on Silicon Reel, which is a new hit series that we are doing. We just filmed episode 9 this week, and it’s just so cool. It’s all about the London technology startup scene. It’s fun.

6:20 Everyone’s got cool ideas, and you get to talk to people that, like Tom, I think actually like their jobs. It’s a strange thing. So check that out, and thanks for coming over to London Real today. No problem. Our guest today is Mr Tom Law, who is a singer-songwriter and guitarist, who last year began posting his own music videos on YouTube, and now has 56,000 subscribers and over 1.7 million views.

6:45 Just to give you an idea of how hard Tom is making London Real has just over 177,000 subs. So you’re killing us here, you’re making us look today. You can also find Tom’s original music on iTunes. He’s from Cornwall, and my girlfriend and my stepdaughter think you’re dreamy. Is that a prerequisite, what for being on the show?

7:08 It usually gets you off the show, but you know, I… yeah, and I need some hair advice as well. Advice: ignore it, blow dry it. I try to do that. It’s just perfect advice. Tom, welcome to London Real.

7:21 Thank you. Thank you for having me. I’m excited to be here. Cool, man, I’m so glad you came you know. I met Tom a couple of weeks ago at the YouTube Studios, which are in Central London off Tottenham Court Road.

7:30 We got invited there. I think it was kind of like if you have over 10,000 subs. Yeah, it was one of those exclusivity kind of get new people into studios things. I think, yeah, if you’re making serial content, which we’ll talk about later which YouTube’s big into, which is kind of like regular content. They’re going away from the cat videos, and they’re trying to to build a group of consumers that come back regularly to see, like, one of Tom’s new music videos or a London Real or something else, like something in a web series.

7:57 So I went there, to the studios, and I was like, oh wow, there’s a spaceman near in the front door, and there’s free popcorn, and it was really kind of cool. They got Final Cut editing studios that got a green screen and everything, and Tom was on the panel of guests that I sat there and listened to, 20 years my SE, my junior, and I sat there and I shut the f*** up and I listened to what Tom had to say. 57,000 subs. Yeah, I don’t know why I was on the panel, but yeah, it was good fun.

8:23 So you were there up with a few other YouTubers. There was Benjamin Cook from Nine Brass Monkeys, who’s also been in video YouTube. Yeah. Um, yeah, becoming YouTube, a great series. We think we probably have Ben coming here in a few weeks.

8:36 Yeah, do. And also Tom Ridgewell and Tom Tim H. Who else was there? I’m trying to think. There’s one other guy there.

8:43 Oh Jack Howard, maybe? Was it? Yeah, maybe, I think it was Jackard. Yeah, you know these guys better than yeah, yeah. He’s like a vlogger-comedian type guy.

8:50 Yeah. Okay. And you were the only musician up there, and I mean, part of me was like, looking at these guys, and they’re, they’re kind of like the It boys of YouTube. I mean, YouTube looks after you. They want you at all their events.

8:59 Events, they’re very nice to, like, but they’re nice to me. Yeah Yeah, yeah. They’re nice to you. I don’t know why, and like part of me was thinking, I’m looking at, like, the future like George Lucas or Steven Spielberg, or, you know, I don’t know. I could go even further with analogies to him you’s or whatever.

9:13 It’s because, you know, these guys have something like YouTube to express themselves, whether it’s through music or video. I mean, that 10 years ago it just wouldn’t have been an option for you, right? It’s huge. It’s absolutely amazing. Yeah.

9:24 Without YouTube, I don’t know what I would have done, really, in terms of getting people’s attention and building an audience, because, yeah, before the internet you’d have to be spotted, you’d have to be picked up by a label, and that that. And if someone up in, you know, some kind of magical record label office didn’t pluck you out and bring you up into a cloud, then you’d be, you would never really see a lot of that musically speaking. You’d rely on somebody else then, and now with the internet you have the tools, and YouTube is one of those kind of tools to get yourself out there.

9:57 It’s a platform where you can find people interested in what you’re doing, and I don’t know what I would have done had I, you know, if I didn’t get picked up and I didn’t stumble into YouTube and find YouTube, I don’t know really where I would be or what I would be doing. How did you become so popular on YouTube, though? Like, cuz even YouTube itself there’s so much noise, you know what I mean? So it’s becoming… it’s not just enough to be there. You also have to now, it’s hard to get seen on YouTube, so you do to make that happen.

10:24 Um, I think the first thing is is, I mean, make good videos. It is obvious, isn’t it? But I guess, I mean, I like to think my content is pretty good. Yeah, I pour myself into it, so if you’re making good content, people are going to find it, and even if one person finds it, if it’s good enough that they want to tell someone else, right, then you’re going to grow. And so in terms of how to get attention on YouTube, it all comes back to make good videos.

10:54 But in terms of, I don’t know, tips or whatever to try and get bigger, I guess. Posting regularly is one. The more active you are on YouTube the more active you are on other social networks, like Twitter and Facebook and Tumblr. I have all those. I have Instagram as well.

11:10 Yeah, and I’m pretty active. You know, I post on Twitter a couple of times a day every day, and you interact with fans and viewers. I shouldn’t say fans. I don’t like that word, but viewers and people who are supporting what you like to do. Yeah, so there’s lots, you know, like posting regularly is one, interacting on other networks and things.

11:31 You know, now posting videos on Twitter and stuff helps boost my videos quite a lot, because my Twitter people who follow me on Twitter tend to be a little bit more interested in me than those who just follow me on YouTube, and they want that a little bit extra. So, yeah, posting regularly, and I don’t know, making good content, I guess. And the funny thing you said to me at YouTube was, “Brian, I hate making videos.” He told me right after I grabbed him after the… yeah, I was.

12:00 You can’t say that. It’s a little bit of a, yeah, yeah, strong, strong wedding certainly. But I was actually in YouTube today briefly. I was kind of passing through London. I just dropped in, and I got chatting to a channel strategist.

12:14 So that’s her job, essentially, to get channels to grow. and help people grow, less so with people like me, because they tend to bring us in to ask for advice. But, you know, they’re helping, like, corporate people grow channels who she says have no clue on how to even make a channel, and every time they upload a video, she said, they try and make a new channel or something, because you don’t understand it. So that was her job, but we got talking, and she said okay, and and I said to her, you know, I don’t really particularly enjoy making videos that much.

12:46 I mean, don’t get me wrong, I would rather be making videos than working a job or something, you know. Videos, video making. It’s creative, it’s fun, it’s interesting, it’s challenging, it’s different. You know, I’m always learning new stuff, and it’s certainly, you know, it’s certainly fun. It’s certainly a nice thing to do.

13:04 But it’s nowhere for me on the scale of, you know, like diabolical and absolutely just loving every second of it. It’s further down the scale than actually playing, writing, performing, recording music, which is what I want to do. So that could be a good thing, because there are some guys on YouTube that are just serial. They’re musicians but they’re serial YouTubers, right? Yeah, yeah.

13:24 I mean, some guys that don’t even perform live that are just kids on YouTube. There are people who do that, and there are people who are maybe seen as primarily, you know, as vloggers, like video blogging, and things, and release music occasionally, or, you know, people who do a lot of music online, but actually they don’t take it out on the road or play gigs or anything like that. So yeah, I guess I mean YouTube affords that now. You know, it does. If you can, you can do that if you want to.

13:53 I kind of want to be more of a traditional musician, I guess, and that you know, I want to write, record music, and perform it. And YouTube is a way for me to get my music out there and let people access it 24/7, all the way around the world, for free. And so it’s constantly being shared, and I’m sat here talking to you guys, and there’s people watching my videos and sharing my videos right now. And when I first started getting into YouTube, that was huge, because I was gigging all the time I was gigging so much before I started posting regularly on YouTube, and I was landing some kind of good tours with big racks, and I was getting into a couple of festivals and things, but the amount of time and effort and energy it would take to book a gig, promote a gig, get as many people there as I can, travel to the gig, play the gig, stick around afterwards, try and kind of network, find new people to kind of meet and collaborate with, and everything, and then drive all the way back, and then kind of wrap it all up.

14:48 You know, I might be playing to 30 people that night if I’m… if I’m lucky, at that stage. And you know, it was a couple of days’ work, essentially, and it’s gone. It’s a flash in the pan, you know, all of that work, a couple of days, is gone, you know, for those 30 people. And then hopefully they’ll remember it, you know, and if they buy something from you, they might just throw it in their trunk. I mean, it’s not guaranteed they’ll listen to you.

15:10 Exactly, yeah. And so YouTube is there 24/7 for everyone, so you know, when I made a video last year or something, you know, you can go and watch it now and go, oh hey, I like this video, this is cool, or I don’t like this video, whatever, but it’s there. It’s available, you know, it’s essentially like every gig I’ve ever done is there, ready to bring in new people and let people discover what I’m up to, and hopefully draw them into following me. When did YouTube start giving you love?

15:38 Was it like a certain number of subs, or was it like a certain breakout video? No, I don’t. I don’t think anything like that. I don’t think YouTube’s quite that shallow. I mean, like, yeah, I mean, like, I mean maybe YouTube is cor, I don’t know, but certainly the people in YouTube who run YouTube, and people I deal with in the studios and stuff are just really genuine people, and what they…

16:01 I don’t know, in my experience, what they like to see is, you know, people who are passionate about what they’re doing, who are, you know, really working hard to kind of make better stuff and progress, and they’re doing okay with it, or doing well with it, and they like to encourage that and get on to that. You know, if somebody is making 10 cap videos and hoping one of them goes viral, you know. They’re not, they’re maybe not going to invite you into the studios, I guess.

16:25 I first went into the studios. I was lucky. There’s just been a festival this year, Summer City, it’s like a YouTube-type festival thing. And I played that, but last year, when I was kind of still really new on YouTube, I managed to get involved in that, as a musician. On YouTube there are not as many musicians on YouTube as there are vloggers, or I don’t know, maybe more so now, I guess, but certainly then it was it was quite easy to kind of stand out as a musician on YouTube, I guess.

16:53 So I got involved in that, and then they took me into the space to film a video to help promote this YouTube Summer City festival thing last year, okay, which was good of them. And then I met all the people in my studio, and then I started to join regular, and things like that. So they have somewhere in the city, here in London. They had VidCon which, I know Ben Cook was there a couple of weeks ago in Anaheim, which sounded nuts. Yeah, it’s huge.

17:17 Yeah I’ve never actually been myself. Um, what is it, video? It’s called VidCon. It’s video. I don’t know.

17:24 I think a video convention, or it might be. I think con might stand for something else. I don’t… what is it? If you to describe it, it’s like, this was in Anaheim, yeah. It’s like a big convention, CER, the same thing.

17:37 I think it’s, as I understand it, the kind of bigger, slightly, you know, year-ahead of Summer City, but it’s a similar thing, essentially: a cross between a music festival and, I think VidCon is more ComicCon, or something, you know, but it’s all creative online personalities, you know, meet and greet, signings. I don’t know, so not just music, other… no. I mean, even at Summer City I was on a couple of panels with things. I was on a panel about channels and brands.

18:05 I don’t know why I was on that, but I was also on a songwriting panel, so, you know, we’re chatting about songwriting, and people all came along, and so that was cool. So there’s a lot of other things going on. So yeah, it’s kind of diverse in that way, as YouTube is. It reflects YouTube and the diversity which is found in YouTube. So yeah, it’s just an interesting company.

18:26 I mean, they… so we got invited originally, once met Tom, and then they had, like, a masterclass workshop, and they brought us back for two days and taught us. We had another panel, I think, of people, and then they taught us everything about, you know, cameras, lighting, sound. I had taken some of that stuff in a film course I took, but I’d forgotten it all, and, like, really good job, you know? I mean, like, I hate to say this, but it’s an American company, and it shows.

18:50 Like, they go really far out of their way. They really have this idea. Yeah, like, I mean, they bought us lunch during the day, and, you know, the kind of place that sends out that surveys afterwards: how did we do? And it’s a really professional run place. The studio, I mean, the studio itself, I don’t know how much money went into that, but it’s a lot.

19:08 It’s a lot of money that’s gone into that, and they’re not seeing a direct return on that investment, because no one… well, we don’t pay to use studios. I think maybe some people do pay to use studios, but I’m not sure I’m allowed to talk about that. I don’t know if I am or not. It’s only guesswork, but I think some people probably do, but we don’t. So the majority of the people who use the studios get it for free, and they get it for free because, I guess, YouTube, what they’re what they’re trying to do is they’re trying to encourage and grow, not just individual channels who are making interesting content, they’re going to grow, and, like you said, kind of serial videos and things, and actually people are going to keep watching, but actually they want to grow groups of people who cross-collaborate and cross-promote, and actually, you know, grow up very quickly together, because everyone’s, you know, like giving each other legs up.

19:55 Well, you hang out in the studio a lot, and apparently that’s where everyone bumps into each other and collaborates. If you look at one of his videos, he’s got like some of those guys I mentioned, some of the top London… next video is that… I don’t know if I get fit, the age demographic. I’ll bring a bunch of guys, older men, to watch your stuff. Okay, our age demographic is quite high and quite male.

20:17 That’s cool, that’s cool. But, no, there, you know, you must have bumped into guys at the studio, and then you ask to be in the video. Studio is one of the main places. I’m I mean, I’ve met people often at parties and things, kind of like YouTube parties, I guess. But yeah, like where you can really kind of sit down, talk to people, and get on with them, and discover kind of what they’re into and what they’re passionate about, what they want to create and what you want to create, and, and also, it’s just really easy to be like, hey, can I… be in for you a sec?

20:45 Like, oh yeah, what’s up? and you’re like, can I just film you, like, in the video, talking about, you know, can I film you clapping? Can you just come in here, like, just send on that light? And, just, I… and that’s what I did with Ben. Ben, yeah, he just came out like, Ben, I grab you sec. He’s like, oh, oh yeah, I’ve got… shoot, what’s up?

20:58 So come in here, and I just press play on the thing. I just say clap along, and I just, like, filming, and he seems destined to play that role. He did a really good job. He did a great job. Yeah, he just going crazy.

21:09 Yeah, he was dancing around. He’s such a lovely guy. So, um, yeah, and it’s very useful for things like that, you know, and it’s really easy to kind of get involved. I mean, also, geographically speaking, because it is so central, and London is so big, you know, people do live all over the place. So I did a collaboration with Carrie Hope Fletcher.

21:27 She’s… lame is now, but she’s also, um, quite… she’s got a fantastic audience on YouTube, and she’s an incredible vocalist, and she’s absolutely lovely, but she lives, like, on the other side of London to what I lived in, and so it would have taken us like three hours to get to each other, but if we both go into the studios or something, then it’s a lot easier. And actually, so geographically speaking, that was easy, and it worked out as well as well, because they have sets. They often put sets in the studios, and, um, Tom Scar, Tom R, who was on the panel, um, when you came along, he had just made this huge, kind of Santa epic where there was, like, this big fight with Santa, and it’s a fantastic video.

22:06 But there was this huge set, you know, like this Christmas set in the studio, and it was, you know, Christmas tree, and it had a fireplace, and they had, like, fake snow, and had the windows, and it was brilliant, and we just sat in there, and we played, we played a couple of Christmas song duets. And so, um, stuff like that would have been hard to do had it not been, had the studio not been there for. And so they’re trying to get guys to create, you know, serial content, and they’re doing it like, um, I think the new thing that Ben’s working on is called Project Library, and it’s a, I mean, these are like six-part, eight-part, you know, web series that will come out over the course of months, sometimes, I think Ben’s, becoming YouTube came out over, like, a long period of time.

22:45 Yeah, and they’ll, they’ll raise money to to make it, and it’s like a really, quite a deal. And obviously YouTube, that’s free content for them now. I don’t know if that competes with Game of Thrones, but obviously that gets people there, and then they love the collaboration, which is actually what we’re doing right now. They won, collaborated. I mean, yeah, what we’re talking about is a perfect example, you know, we met at the space, and now here we are, we’re collaborating.

23:07 So, um, yeah, it’s collaboration is invaluable to growth. Everyone’s view on it in general, had to generalize, and certainly YouTube encourages it hugely, um, but I would say that holds sway in any kind of, you know, walk of life. I’m sure in startups and stuff, collaboration is incredibly important. You kind of sit in a bedroom on your own and try and change the world. It’s going to be a lot harder than if you actually get out, meet people, and do it together.

23:37 So that’s the thing: people think because of the web that we’re all interconnected, but you know, we spoke. We had a guest here on Silicon Reel on Wednesday, but ultimately you actually need people in the same room, like, you need population density to get that idea. I bounce off you, I bounce off you. You can’t do that virtually. The thing, the innovation is bringing two people from different backgrounds together to create something new.

23:57 Right, right, for both of them, I think it has to happen in a physical space sometimes. For me, face to face is so important. Skype just doesn’t really, kind of, like, you can arrange stuff online and things, but in reality, if you want to get stuff done, yeah, in person is always the way to. So there’s been famous singers that have started on YouTube and then have got really big, you know, that have great hair and look like you, but you’re not trying to be the next Justin Bieber or anything.

24:23 No. He’s Canadian. Be careful. Oh, he’s… I think I think he subscribes a lot more.

24:31 I don’t know. I don’t know the history of Justin Bieber, so I’m sorry if I’m insulting anybody watching. I, I think he subscribes more to the old kind of… I wouldn’t say old, but, you know, certainly like a more traditional way of being successful in music, in that he got picked up by a label and then promoted and things. He was discovered on YouTube, so that’s, you know, like, if he wasn’t on YouTube maybe he wasn’t discovered, but I guess it’s still the same kind of thing, you know, like back in the day you’d be discovered at a gig or, you know, whatever.

25:03 And so that’s, kind of, I feel like that’s a different example to kind of what I’m doing, which is growing my own audience and actually doing everything independently. Have you been approached by labels? Would you consider a label? Yeah, I have been approached by labels, and, um, I’d quite like a label, actually, because I want to spend more time on music, less video. And yeah, and it’s not just videos, you know.

25:26 I spend a lot of time booking gigs and promoting gigs, and I spend a lot of time building websites and promoting, you know, like changing websites and stuff, and I have to, you know, like, get hold of and research and find videographers, and I have to find photographers, and I have to go through and pick all the approaches, and I have to try and put them and make them into the website, and then I have to, like, design my CD label, or get someone to help me design my CD label, or I have to get, you know, like, so I’m constantly, um, you know, I’m doing an entire record label’s job, and that’s a lot of different positions to fill. And, um, but the downside is you don’t necessarily control your cash flow. With a record label you don’t know what’s going to happen.

26:05 You could be constrained creatively, or long-term contracts. We’ve heard all the horror stories. Yeah, obviously, yeah, of course. And I… the biggest thing for me would be creative control. If they said you have to write with this person, and I didn’t want to, then that would be a bit of a sticking point for me.

26:24 Is there a new breed of labels that might, like, let you keep your iTunes money, and they just help you with the next album, or they just help you tour? There must be some hybrids. Yeah, kind of stuff going on like that, unfortunately. As far as I understand it, any ones that do well get bought up. Okay, which kind of makes sense.

26:44 I guess I’ve been approached by many smaller labels and management companies, but they don’t tend to be able to offer me what I’m looking for. And essentially, the two, well, three things I’m looking for are contacts, because I don’t have all the right contacts to kind of get things done and find the right places, investment money, and things to kind of maybe hire a studio, or, you know, front cost to put on a tour or something, and actually, a team of people to do all the stuff that I’m doing now, like, you know, building the websites, making the videos and putting everything together, and management, essentially, so I can focus my time on music, which is what I want to do. Makes sense.

27:28 We had a guy named Immortal Technique in here. He’s a really popular kind of battle rapper, and he’s a super popular hip-hop guy in the States, and I think he owns his own label now, but he said back in the day, you know, a record label was a loan with a ridiculously high rate of interest, you know, as in something you couldn’t conceive of, because you might get 50 grand or 100 grand to do these things, but it would be 10 years later, you wouldn’t, you know, you’d be paying that off in some way. Essentially, it’s everything a record gives you comes out of your royalties.

27:55 So it is, it’s still, I mean, still is a loan. The thing I guess, the thing is, I mean, if you do well, then the money is going to be paid back, and if you don’t, if you don’t do well, they’ll drop you, and actually you haven’t lost any money. It’s not like you go to the bank and you’re going to have to pay all that money back anyway. But it is, it is essentially still a loan, you know, any money they spend on a TV ad comes out of your royalties before you get paid.

28:19 So if any labels are listening, they should tweet you at Tom Law Music. Yeah, yeah. I have, I’ve had a couple of chats of labels recently. They all seem to be very much, we’re interested in you, right? And that’s kind of it, for now, but no numbers.

28:35 Yeah, yeah, that’s kind of it for now, I guess. I mean, I haven’t released a lot of well, I haven’t released any original music bar the last song I’ve recently released, for about a year. So I’m working on an EP at the moment. Awesome. So hopefully when I release that, then there’ll be, then I’m, it’s more current, they know what I’m doing now, and they can actually, that’ll step up my game.

28:55 Would you want to release that on your own? You don’t want to release that with a label? Uh, well, no one’s approached me and said, hey, we want to release an EP with you. So I’m releasing it on my own, I guess. Okay, when’s that coming out?

29:10 I think I’m aiming for sort of October. I’m aiming for October. And how many tracks on the EP? I was just going to go for four. I always want to do more, but I keep being told do four, do four, do four, because four seems to be like the acceptable… yeah, start.

29:25 If, I release a four-track, obviously I’m going to be able to get another four-track EP out a lot quicker than if I release a six-track EP, because obviously two of the songs are already gone. The other thing I want to do is I want to make a video for every single song on the EP. I don’t want like a lead single, and then that’s the good one, and the rest are fillers, because I’m proud of all the songs, and I have a YouTube audience that wants videos. So I want to make videos for all four songs.

29:52 So it makes sense to kind of do a four-track EP and make four music videos. And then maybe do another one, or see what goes, or hopefully I’ll be in talks with labels and stuff. I have no idea. I could be completely left alone and be making an album on my own. I have no idea.

30:08 I have no idea, but the wonderful thing about YouTube and the internet, and just the internet, it’s not just YouTube. It’s the internet is that I have an opportunity to do it myself. I have an opportunity to. I mean, it’s hard work, and it’s difficult, and I’m learning everything. Well, I’m learning every single day, and I’m making mistakes as I go, but actually I have all the control.

30:33 I’m my own boss, and actually I can do what I want to do and as long as I’m happy and I’ve got a roof over my head at the moment, then why not? Can you make a living right now? Can you survive? I’m managing. Okay, yeah, just, yeah, yeah, managing.

30:46 Yeah. So that’s good, because that way, if you didn’t have that outlet, then that would, then you couldn’t. So it keeps you alive. Yeah, you know, I want to talk about one of your videos. And then we are lucky, because Tom’s going to play some music, for, he was warming up, and I was like, I thought he was pretty dreamy when he was warming up.

31:03 So, um, but you have one video, and you were talking about it. I think you did 52 takes. Was that it, or 50 takes? This is Thrift Shop. Yeah, Thrift Shop.

31:11 So it was a cover, right? Yeah, this is a cover. Yeah, the shop, and it’s all electric guitars and guitar solos and things, and I actually retitled it. I changed the title to English version, because when I do a cover, I deliberately mix it up and I change it, and I want to be quite artistic with it, so it’s not just a copy, you know? It’s different, you know, like, case in point, I did a cover of a Bob Marley song, and I played it to my mom afterwards, and she said, I thought you were going to do a Bob Marley song.

31:39 I said, mother, is Bob Marley like, like, I was on the phone, and she was like, it doesn’t sound like Bob Marley, because I kind of changed them up. But yeah, the Thrift Shop, I changed it to English cover, because I had so many comments that, cuz I sing in an English accent, I’m English, and, and, but it seemed, because it’s like rapping, it came across as very English, and I changed lyrics, and I changed kind of lyrics around and stuff, and you know, there was a reference to tea at one point, and pop pop, or something, the nerve on you. Yeah, I know, just little kind of clichés, English clichés, and, you know, a lot of kind of attention on that, so I changed it to English version of the Shop, which, okay, Americans tend to like, I don’t know why.

32:23 I guess the accent is big over there. Yeah, so, but in your bedroom you shot this video. I shot it myself, yeah, and I just had a camera on the tripod, and I sat on the floor, and I went to a charity shop, and I think I spent about 30 on just the most awful clothes I could find in the charity shops down the road from my house, and I was just in and out of the charity shops, and I just bought the most hideous, awful clothes I could find, and I shot about, yeah, 52 shots, if I remember right.

32:51 52 takes. Yeah, so I would sit there, and I would, but obviously, you know, I would sit there, and I would sing it, and you know, I’d be wearing one silly costume or whatever, one silly outfit, and then I would do it again, and I’d sing it again. I’d just change my costume, I’d sing it again, and then I’d do it again. I’d just have glasses on, so I could change it, and then I’d do it again, and I’d change it again, and then I would pick up my acoustic guitar or something, and then I would do another four or five takes with different clothes and acoustic guitar, and then I would have my electric guitar and do another four or five takes, and then I’d have my electric guitar with the rhythm part and do another, and then the bass guitar, and then, and, um, yeah, and then, you know, and then the cymbal, and then, and then at the end, I think I even did, you know, three or four takes of me just being stupid and just doing silly things, just in case I could chop something in, and a couple of them did end up being chopped in, and just kicking my legs or just rolling around or something, just for fun.

33:41 So yeah, about 52 takes. Great video. It’s fun. It’s fun. Have you seen that?

33:46 No, I haven’t. I will. I’m proud of that video. Yeah, yeah. It’s very good.

33:49 I, before you do that, would you… because you changed the lyrics a bit? Would you lay down the audio and then play it in the background while you’re kind of lip-syncing? Because if you change it up every time, or do you just know? No, with that, I minded the whole thing. So, yeah, so I produced that completely separately.

34:06 So I sat down, and I didn’t have any cameras or anything, and I just wake up and I’m recording, and I’ve got my mics, and I’ve got my audio software and things, and I’m laying it down. I’m producing the song, and then I mixed it and mastered it, and I had a finished song, and then I went and bought the clothes, and then did the video. Yeah, it would have been impossible to actually do that live and then chop it all together. Yeah. And you wanted to do 50-something takes.

34:30 That was just in your mind. You were like, what? No, no, no, no. I just wasn’t happy at 25, so I went to 30, and I just didn’t think I had it yet, so I just kept going until I felt like I’d got enough good stuff. I guess perfectionism.

34:43 You know, I meet a lot of musicians, and they all are kind of waiting for the break. And I mean, I know they try to gig, and I know they hand out flyers, but then a lot of them seem to just kind of stop there. And so that’s kind of what I like about Tom, that he’s actively trying to do this stuff. You’re making the break yourself. And even, I’m sure your first few videos probably weren’t watched very much, you know, and they were probably really bad.

35:05 Are they still on your channel? Horrendous. You take them off, when was the tipping point, out of curiosity? Yeah, um, it’s a snowball. It’s a snowball effect, you know, like that.

35:12 It took me a long time to get, like, a first thousand subscribers, and then to go from 55 to 56, you know, I don’t know, that happened like in a couple of days. I didn’t know. Yeah, something like that. I put up a video, and it just ticked over, because obviously now there’s a lot more people sharing it, so a lot more people find it. Whereas, to begin with, you know, this, let’s… the tipping point for me, I had a couple of… there’s a few kind of occasions.

35:39 Really there wasn’t one defining moment. It was, it was a steady, gradual build. Everything was kind of chip, chip, chip, chip, chip. It wasn’t like, that video was amazing, this is going to make me… no, no. I had, I tried.

35:52 Yeah, I tried a few times to create a video or a cover video, which I was going to hope was going to go viral, or going to just catch on because it’s popular, or I would cover a song in the charts, hoping it would get swooped up again. And I tried all of those things, and they didn’t really work for me at all. I’ve never really had more views than people, just my subscribers and people re-watching. I’ve never had, like, that video blown up. Or right, which is good in a sense as well, because you don’t rely on that one-hit wonder, because, well, a lot of that’s true with the London Real back catalog.

36:25 It’s just like, people keep watching, keep watching. It’s not like one video has to find us or anything, which is kind of nice. I do have, yeah, to answer question about the bad videos to start off with: I had a camcorder I bought from Argos or something for like 50 quid, and it was just awful, just awful. Did you take it down? Sorry, is it still up there?

36:46 There’s, I think my first vlog is still up there, and I used this camera, and the lighting’s off, the camera moves every shot, because I’m jogging my leg or something. And yeah, I had the window behind me, so I’m just like a silhouette, because I didn’t know you’re supposed to sit in front of the window, and all those things. Much, my first, first go. I think I might have left that one up, but I have, I mean, I’ve privated quite a lot of videos on my channel, because I’m not interested, really.

37:11 I don’t want this to come across as cold-hearted, but I’m not that interested in having a back catalog showing my growth for people to go, oh, isn’t that nice. I’m interested in having quality, yeah, best stuff, which is to direct people to my original music, because it’s my original music I care about. Not, I mean, I… the covers are great, but I want people to care about my original music. So the covers are there, and the kind of, the better, and the kind of more dense, that quality of covers, are that I’m going to get more people coming over, I feel, as opposed to just people enjoying an old rubbish video of me, because I’d hate for someone to wander along and see, but that’s like the cat video, right?

37:52 That you know that’s not what you want. Yeah, exactly, yeah, and I’d hate for someone to wander along, see like a really old first video of mine, and think, oh yeah, yeah, he’s not so good. All right, speaking of original music, you got something for us? Let’s play a song. Let’s play.

38:04 Let’s do that. I’ve got to get comfortable. You see how you have… I’ve got to move this mic around a bit, and give me one sec. I’m just going to get this camera going.

38:21 Okay, hold on one second. Let me just, I’ve just got to get the double video Going on. Get a few shots first. All right, awesome. Cool, we good.

38:54 Yeah, so this is a song called Touch My skin, and it’s a, it was the first song of my very first EP, and it’s actually one of the first ever videos I uploaded to my YouTube channel. Um, so [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] Wow, that’s amazing. It’s incredible. I, like, I was telling you guys before, I have zero musical talent, and so when I see someone with so much talent, it’s just… thank you. That’s, yeah, that was great.

42:10 That was amazing. Wow, you have a lot of, um, there, go here, there, you go. There’s water back. You’ve got a lot of feeling in your songs. You really put a lot in there, don’t you?

42:20 Thank you. Yeah, I tried to. Yeah, little, little goosebumps on me. I don’t know, but I don’t think I’ve ever had, like, a private performance. So, oh, wow, that’s kind of… yeah, it’s always, um, I think the first time I ever did, like, a performance like this, I found it a bit awkward to begin with, I think, but now I’m fine.

42:35 I guess I just like to play. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think, uh, I maybe… does it transfer on YouTube? Like, because on YouTube they get the shot that you choose for them. They get the shot from the side. There’s not a lot of close-ups, but like, when we’re right here, it’s a seriously powerful moment when you’re singing, because you’re, you know, there’s a lot of feeling going on.

42:56 Do you think that’s hard to translate on YouTube? I do, personally. Yeah, I’ve always had a, I was going to say an issue, but certainly I’ve always had a, um, I’ve always found it a challenge to try and replicate that feeling and emotion and atmosphere that I kind of try and create when I’m performing live, in a recording or a video. And, um, I’ve always found that, and that’s part of the reason that I love performing live, and I love to go to go to people’s gigs.

43:24 And if there’s a band I love, I’m always trying to go and see them live, because personally I feel that live music is just a thousand times more magical and emotional and just incredible than, you know, when it’s captured on a video or music. I mean, recorded music certainly has its place, so, the videos, but I feel like live music is, you know, where music started. That’s what music really is. And I feel that that’s kind of the best type of music, personally.

43:57 Thank God for that, because that means you can tour, and you know, you can do… because if you couldn’t, that would be like a crazy virtual world we’re living in. Yeah, I mean, well, yeah, some people do. You know, not like they don’t tour, or something like you said at the beginning. You know, there’s people who just make music and they put it out online and they have a huge hardcore following but they don’t like to tour. I’m, I’m not like that.

44:19 If anything, I’m much prefer playing live. I mean, I find it easier for one, because I don’t have to sit there and sing the same lines 10 times, you know, to make sure it’s the right one, or something. Two TT. Yeah, yeah, 52 TT. You know, like, it’s just, I guess it’s the difference between, um, acting for film and acting, you know, film and television, and acting on the stage.

44:40 You know, on the stage, as an actor, I’ve done a lot. But, you know, like on stage you can get into it. You are a character on stage, and for three hours or whatever, you are that character, and you’re into it and you’re emotional. I guess I don’t know, I’ve never done like TV acting or whatever, but you’ve got to snap in and out, and it’s more analytical, I guess, you know, whereas when you’re on stage you do all that kind of analytical bit beforehand in rehearsals, and then you’re in the moment, and you’re kind of, when you’re performing, and that’s what I love.

45:09 And people can tell if you’re in the moment. They can tell if it’s genuine. They can tell if it’s real when you’re live, even if they’re in the back. I think they can tell. Right?

45:18 Yeah, completely. That’s how, like, you wrote that song. Yes, that came from you. You know what I mean? You can tell.

45:23 Yeah, you can tell. You can just feel it, and it’s where, like, if you’re doing a cover, sometimes you’re at a bar and people are just jamming covers, and it’s different than when they do their own. You just feel that energy. Cool, I’m glad you guys liked it. That was awesome.

45:36 All right, now I have to ask you about your fans. Tell us about your fans. What’s a typical fan? Do you love your fans? Do they go a little crazy sometimes?

45:47 Well, fly. I mean, I don’t know why, but I don’t like to use the word fans, I guess. Um, no, it’s a horrible word. I don’t, yeah, I know. I don’t know.

45:55 I don’t know, but certainly, like, I don’t know, you say supporters or something, I guess, but that’s, we need a better word than that. Come up. Yeah, I don’t know. I don’t like followers, it makes me sound like, I don’t know, like I’m inventing a religion or something, little cult followers. We need the law equivalent of a, of a Believer.

46:16 Some, some of my law, law, heard some of my viewers have come up with um, Tomatoes, tomatoes, so they, yeah, hashtag Tomatoes, which I think is kind of sweet. Yeah, I’m not sure it will catch on. Um, yeah, #TomTom started to come up at one point, but obviously then a load of satnav stuff came up as well, Tom Saav. Yeah, so I don’t know, but yeah, my audience is primarily younger, because I built it mostly on YouTube. How old are you, Tom?

46:51 I’m 23. Okay, yeah. Most people don’t realize I’m 23. How old do they think you are? I think most people guess I’m about 19 before they start talking to me, and then when I start talking to them, they realize, you know, I don’t live with my parents or something, and I’ve done other stuff, I guess, or whatever.

47:09 They’re like, you can’t be 19. I don’t know. But yeah, I’ve got a nice baby face, I guess, which is useful, I guess, in music. Yeah, I’m going to be ID’d until I’m 45, no doubt. But hey ho.

47:22 But yeah, an average kind of viewer, because of, um, it, my average viewer, essentially, or what to put it, is average for YouTube, and YouTube subscribers tend to be, like, I think, I don’t know what it is, I think it’s like 80% 14 to 17-year-old girls. Is that really the majority of YouTube? 80%? Yeah, but, um, I don’t know, don’t quote me on that, certainly, but a lot. It’s a lot.

47:45 Yeah, it’s a lot. And I think, again, please don’t quote me on this, but I think I remember someone on YouTube telling me that subscribing people who have a YouTube account and subscribe to other accounts counts for 2% of viewership on the website. YouTube, everyone else just goes on to YouTube, types what they want, watches that, and then clicks off again. They don’t subscribe, they don’t log in, they don’t follow people. So Google’s trying to change that.

48:11 Google’s trying to make that, that is, they’re trying to link the Gmail and YouTube accounts. Yeah, and they’re trying to get people to, yeah, to log in and subscribe and actually follow content, as if they were going to do it on TV, or whatever. Um, and it does feel like it’s moving that way. More and more people seem to be doing it, and more and more older people seem to be doing it, which is really nice to see. What’s old?

48:32 What’s old for you? I’m just checking. 85? Okay, okay. What’s long-form content?

48:37 Where is your audience? Is it UK actually? Yeah, I checked this out the other day. I’m rubbish, like, I know a lot of YouTubers who religiously check their analytics, and you know, they’re following every trend, and they’re working out, you know, how many subscribers they’ve made or lost per video. It’s a dangerous, dangerous game.

48:57 Yeah, get quite wrapped up in numbers, and I glance at my total subscriber figure if I’m on the page, and I try not to get hung up on anything else, but I did, for the first time about two weeks ago, check out like a map of the world and see where everyone is, because I was thinking, this is crazy, and out of the, I know 56 55, 6, 56,000 people or so following me. Only about 18, 19,000 of them are UK. Okay, and I’ve got like I think it’s like 16,000 or something which are American, and then there’s like, and then there’s like 11,000 which are Chinese, Australian.

49:35 Oh yeah, yeah. So, so kind of look Australian if you didn’t, if I didn’t hear your accent. I don’t know, I’m in the background. I’m told, like, you know, the kind of acoustic sing-song thing is big in Australia. But yeah, for me it’s kind of like UK, closely followed by America, closely followed by Australia, and then like everywhere.

49:56 Still, yeah, I don’t think there’s, I mean, there’s hardly any countries where there’s not at least like one. I’ve got like one person in some obscure country, like, God, you know, like somewhere down, like below Mexico or something. That’s cool. And, um, yeah, you just think, like, how did they find me? And why is there only one of them?

50:14 Like, surely they, you know, they must have found me from someone. I guess, but probably went to school in London or something. Yeah. So your stuff crosses over. I mean, you know, your music.

50:23 Yeah, that’s, that thing does, right? Yeah, so I mean, but it was really interesting for me to see, um, to see that I had such a large following in Australia. I mean, Australia and America are like massive compared to UK anyway, so I guess you know, in terms of density, that’s still quite small, compared to the UK. You know, 18,000 people in the UK is a lot more than 18,000 in America, because they spread out a lot more, I guess, but Australia is a small population, so, you know, it’s a good, a much higher percentage of Australians listen to.

50:53 What I want now is, I want YouTube to break down the UK one into counties and cities, so I know where to book gigs and where to talk. It just says UK, so that’s highly frustrating. I don’t know whether or not they’ll change that, though, because that’s like an interesting data play that can help out. They, the people like you guys, who, I mean, that, yeah, that would help people like me, that help people who are comedians and people, you know. Um, that would help quite a lot.

51:19 I mean, even people, you know, there’s people who were promoting books on YouTube and stuff, book signings, book tours, that, um, useful kind of applications. You get YouTube to get on this. Hopefully they’re watching this. More granular. Um, yeah, I saw something on your blog post recently where you were playing, like, an open mic somewhere, and it was this huge auditorium full of, like, oh, that was Summer City.

51:39 Oh, that was Summer City. Yeah, so I was on the, the YouTube thing that was, um, I was fortunate enough to have a main stage slot on the Sunday, which is pretty cool. That’s a massive, great big stage, and that was, you know, it’s inside. Yeah, yeah. It’s Alexandra Palace, so it’s like a 7,000-person venue, sold out like ages ago.

51:57 And, um, so that was absolutely amazing. But the day before, the Saturday, I was asked by the people who are running the open mic in the other, uh, like room, off, or whatever, on the other side of the palace, and they said, you know, can you come along and do a slot, you know, just a couple of songs? That’d be really great. And I think they were trying to get as many kind of main stage acts as possible to come and do a spot in the open mic to kind of keep people interested, because, you know, it’s really easy for people to get caught up in big names and all these huge YouTubers in the main room, and actually forget about people who want to showcase their stuff in the other room.

52:30 And for me, I was like, yeah, definitely. Like, I, me, I even said, you know, if you want and it’s struggling. I’ll go a couple of times. I’d love to. I love to play.

52:40 Like, yes, please, let me play. That’s awesome. And I know what it feels like to play to an empty room, and I know what it feels like to play to, I don’t know, a man who’s asleep, his dog, and the bar, you know. I’ve been there, and I’m all for, um, kind of helping in music, and other musicians kind of come through. I played the gig recently in Nottingham.

53:04 It was one of my first, well, it was actually technically my first headline gig ever, recently, in Nottingham. It was my name on the poster, and it was me with support, and it was awesome. It was my name on the ticket, and it was so novel. It was absolutely fantastic, because I played loads of… I’ve played hundreds of gigs, and I’ve played loads of gigs, but I played last, and I’ve been the last on the bill, but it’s never really, you know, it might have been a collaborative night or something, and I’ve just played last for some, you know, whatever, but um, I’ve never had my gig supported before, so that was kind of a nice thing.

53:34 But I’ve played loads of people’s gigs where it’s somebody else’s gig, and I am that support artist, you know, turning up early and getting the 7:00 slot and just hoping to God someone is there early, and just desperately needed the pint after work or something, or, you know, loves the band enough to turn up so early, or something like that. That’s actually performing. And so I always make points, and I did it, not him of going and watching the other acts and stuff, and making sure that anyone who’s come to see me isn’t just waiting for me outside or whatever.

54:04 I’m like, guys, come in, let’s watch the people at, not… I had to, um, this is mental, but actually I had to leave. I would come down and I’d kind of stand at the back, and as soon as people started to see me, I’d leave, because I then I was distracting, because people who come to see me started to come over and say hello and maybe want a picture or something, which is lovely, but I don’t want to attract from the guy who’s on stage, who was me. You know, okay.

54:28 So let’s talk about the fans in person. What are they like? Do you get marriage proposals all the time? What’s the deal? It ranges from, um, really lovely, amazing, interested, genuine conversations of people who just really love what I’m doing musically, and are pleased to have the chance to kind of say hello, and I love that, and, you know, maybe want to ask me a question about songwriting or something, because they play guitar as well, or something like that, and, um, and it’s just like a really nice, genuine conversation.

54:59 You know, all the way through to people who just kind of walk up to me and go, can I have a picture? And you go, yeah, and then, yeah, sure, yeah, how are you? And they go, yeah, and they take a picture, and then they kind of walk off, and then all the way down to people who kind of jump on me, and, you know, like, oh, you know, I’m talking to one person, you know, like one of the interesting people who wants to come and talk to me about music, and then someone would just be stroking my face, and uh, and then I’ll be like, okay, hi, how are you?

55:25 Yeah, yeah, that happens. Yeah, people there, often, the excitable, uh, you know, like there’s always the excitable person who wants you to sign their arm or something, or, um, just arm. I’ve signed faces. I’ve signed shoes, bags, sign most garments. Okay, um, don’t want to get you in trouble here, let’s not get into that.

55:46 And, um, yeah, like, again, yeah, everything, that’s, yeah, yeah, silly things. I mean, I I don’t… I’m not like Justin Bieber famous or anything, but, certainly on YouTube you do get, um, I mean, they’re called fandoms. I don’t have a fandom, you know. I don’t have Believers or dire, or whatever.

56:04 Um, Tomatoes, Tomatoes. Yeah. Don’t, don’t, yeah, I don’t think Tomatoes or tomatoes, oh God, be at war. They’ll be at war with each other. Yeah.

56:14 I don’t really have that kind of fandom, and I’m actually kind of wanting to steer away from that, because I’m, it’s part of the reason I’ve stopped vlogging. I’ve stopped vlogging on my channel and speaking to a camera, because I realized I was attracting people who follow me for kind of celebrity, and because they want to know who I am, and they wanted to know about me. And it’s nice, that is, and as much as I quite like to connect with my audience, I want people to follow me because of my music, and, uh, and I would much rather have an audience like Jack Johnson, who, you know, like, married, has kids, and I don’t know, bold, or I don’t know, but doesn’t matter, you know, like, absolutely doesn’t matter, and he can just turn up out of the blue, you know, two years after not doing anything, and say, hey, I got an album, and I’m coming on, talk, and everyone will buy the album, and everyone will go to see him play, because they care about his music not about him and his life and his family and what he had for dinner that night and why he’s bought new socks.

57:13 And, um, that certainly has its place in the world. You know, I mean, I think Coronation Street’s the longest running TV show in the history of the world, wasn’t it? And what is it? It’s people’s lives dramatized, you know. People are interested in people, and that’s great.

57:26 Um, I just don’t want people interested in me. But people really want to know what Tom’s doing on Sunday. People really, they want to know what I’m doing, and I’m not even near as famous as you are, but they want to… they always want to know the personality behind. Yeah, I mean, yeah, people do. Yeah, and I mean, I’m the same, you know.

57:43 Like, um, if I really love a book or a writer or I don’t know, something I’ve read, an amazing blog post, I want to find out who wrote it. I want to find out who, because I want to know more about them, because, you know, if I’ve enjoyed or learned something from what they’ve created or their music, then maybe I can learn more from them as a person. So it makes sense that, you know, I’m a fan of Jack Johnson. I like him, he’s, I think his music is great.

58:04 Um, and it would be nice to talk to him and say, look, you know, like, when you’re in the studio, or, you know, when you sit down to write a riff, you know, or I don’t know, ask questions and try and learn more. But um, I’m not interested in his hair, you know, or his, like, or his new… I don’t know, his daughter’s name or something, if he has a daughter, I don’t know. And that’s what I’m trying to kind of steer away from. You know, if people want, um, want to learn more about what I have to say or my thoughts on my art and my music and stuff, then I’m all for that.

58:36 And like I say, the songwriting panel, some I did. I also, aside from performing at Summer City, I did a songwriting panel, which I mentioned, and, um, and I also did a meet and greet, although to cut short, briefly, because I had to get on the main stage for a duet thing, but the meet and greet essentially was just people queuing up to meet me, which is lovely, and so nice that people actually care enough to stand and wait their turn just to say hello to me. That’s absolutely amazing, and it’s surreal, and it’s, um, I still can’t really work out why.

59:08 It’s, um, it’s really not, I can understand why people want to come and see me play, because, you know, I’ve poured my heart and soul into these songs, and I’ve, you know, crafted my, my, my kind of, I don’t know, my skills on the guitar, and, you know, singing, songwriting, for, for years, and I’ve really poured myself into that, but I still can’t really work out why people just wanted to come say hi. But that’s okay. It doesn’t get creepy? No. I don’t think, I think it’s lovely.

59:30 I think it’s really, really nice, but I would personally, I, I much enjoyed, um, I mean, not say I didn’t enjoy the meet and greet. I did. It was really nice to meet these lovely people who actually wanted to come and say hi. That’s great, but I personally enjoyed the songwriting panel, talking to people after the songwriting panel, a lot more. So after the songwriting panel finished, you know, like, people all came up and wanted to say hello, and, you know, told everyone was on the panel, and everyone’s kind of chatting about songwriting, and, um, and I stayed there for a couple, like, for until they kicked us out of the room, because I was just chatting to people, um, who, you know, may have been viewers of mine or following me for a while or supporting my music, and I was just chatting about music, and that’s what I really enjoyed, and I, and I was the last person on the panel in the room.

1:00:15 Everyone sort of moved off and got a sandwich or did what they got to do, and I was still in there, and then we got kicked out, because a new panel was starting, or it was closing, and, um, and so would much rather have people interested in my music, and, um, and kind of what I’m trying to develop myself and work towards, and stuff, as opposed to just me as a person. Fair enough, enough. I don’t think I’m that interesting as a person. No one ever does, but you probably are.

1:00:41 Um, you know, I’m going to hit you with a couple of questions. We always ask the Silicon Reelers and the London Reelers. Sometime I think we’re going to have to adjust the age a little bit here for Tom, but that’s okay. So here’s the deal. If you can make a phone call, we usually say to the 20-year-old, but I’m going to say to 15-year-old Tom Law and give him a bit of advice.

1:00:59 And it can’t be just, uh, keep going, Tom, you’re going to be on YouTube someday. But if you want to give him a little bit of advice, what would it be? Embrace technology. Um, wow, because I didn’t. When I was 15, I, um, I didn’t have an email address, you know, and everyone in my class did.

1:01:18 Everyone had like MSN, everyone was like online chat, and everyone was getting Myspace and Facebook, and, um, um, you know, like everyone was starting to be online all the time, and, and I didn’t have anything. I didn’t have it. I, I set up an email address because, um, someone had to send me notes from a class I missed or something when I was like 14 or 15, or I don’t know, something like that, 15 maybe. And, and I hated, I just hated technology. I just couldn’t, I just didn’t like it, you know.

1:01:48 I that’s why I like acoustic guitar, you know, like effects and pedals on electric guitars sound great, but I can’t be to sit there and play with knobs. I want to play guitar, you know, and, um, and so I just never embraced technology, and, you know, I finished school at 16. I went on to college and I did music. I was doing five, you know, academic A levels, and I traded it all in for a National Diploma in Music, which my mom is really pleased about. Best decision I’ve ever made.

1:02:15 And, um, she’s not happy. She’s, at the time, I think she was a bit like, you know, because my grades were good, and the teachers were like, you know, if you work hard you can go to Oxford, and I’m thinking, why do I want to go to Oxford? Um, the only one of these classes I’m taking that I like is music. Why am I spending, you know, 80% of the rest of my time working on stuff I just don’t care about? This is a waste of my life.

1:02:40 Why am I doing this? So I just changed it all in for a National Diploma in Music, and I caught up three months’ worth of work in like four weeks. And yeah, and then, that was great. Yeah, and then I got my grade eight on guitar, and I did all that kind of stuff, because we had to actually, um, for the grade. I’ve actually got two grade A certificates on guitar, two days apart, because I didn’t practice.

1:03:00 And I turned up, and he said, the guy came up to me in the corridor, and he said, on a Wednesday, he said, someone said you’re Tom Law, are you ready for your exam? I said, no, it’s on a Friday. And he says, no, it’s today. I said, no, it’s on Friday. He says, I’m sorry, it’s today.

1:03:14 You have to do this. I hadn’t even looked at the pieces. Um, I just didn’t care. It was jumping through a hoop to get a piece of paper I didn’t want or didn’t need, you know. I wanted to play guitar, not jump through a hoop for a piece of paper.

1:03:23 I guess, um, you know, if you want to be a I don’t know, a teacher, you need that piece of paper, but if you want to be a musician, you might as well smoke it, as a rizzler, you know. It’s not worth the paper it’s written on, in my experience. And, um, and so yeah, so I did it, and you know, got to the… I was just sort of jamming along with the backing track, and you know, got to the arpeggio bit, you know, to do the scales. He said, okay, do the arpeggios, and I just said to him, I don’t want to waste your time.

1:03:48 And he said, really? I said, I thought it was Friday. I don’t want to waste time. Let’s just skip that, and we just skipped it and moved on, and uh, and then at the end of the exam he said, you really did think it was Friday, didn’t you? I said, yeah, I did, yeah, I did.

1:03:59 I’ll try and get you another one. So he got me another one, so I spent all Thursday practicing, because like, the same guy, so I was thinking, I’ve got to, I’ve got to do this. I’ve got to improve on my mark, otherwise I’m going to look like an idiot. So I spent all Thursday practicing, which I didn’t know what to do. And then I did the exam on Friday and kind of bluffed my way through it, and then I got both certificates back, both got marked, and I got two marks more for a whole day.

1:04:19 For a whole day, two marks more. Two, I, but I passed. I still passed. I’ve got two grade A’s, so part of that, on that, same advice question. Um, what’s the best advice you’ve ever received?

1:04:31 Um, I don’t, I don’t know if I’ve ever received, I don’t know if I could pinpoint, like, a moment where I actually received advice, but I guess a message which has been brought across to me repeatedly, kind of sunk in, which I feel is fundamental to my happiness and my, I’d like to say developing success, is, um, enjoy what I’m doing. Um, and actually just enjoy it, because, um, I was in school, I was always lazy. I was like, I just didn’t care, you know.

1:05:10 I just, I didn’t want to be there. I would flunk off and go and play music in the music block, you know. I, my, for my GCSEs, my dad, I remember, and I was getting my GCSEs, and I finished one of my exams, and we were waiting for the results, and my dad was like, I didn’t, I didn’t, I didn’t revise. I wanted an iPod desperately, because I was carrying around a CD player in a bag full of CDs every day, and I wanted an iPod desperately, and all my friends had one, and, um, my mom and dad were that desperate for me to, to, to, to revise.

1:05:37 They said, look, if you revise one hour a day for the next month and a half to your exams, we’ll buy you this really expensive iPod. And I did the first night. I thought, this isn’t worth it. I’ll carry on with my CDs, you know, it’s just a bit heavier. And, uh, and I, you know, I just wasn’t interested.

1:05:52 I didn’t want to do, I couldn’t work out, you know, I went, I mean, I wasn’t stupid about it. I went, I remember I went to the head teacher, and I said, or the deputy head or something, and I went in, it was their meeting, and that you’re supposed to work out your revision plan with them, and they said, um, they said, you know, like, you’ve got your revision plan. I said, I said, okay, hold on a sec, these are my coursework grades. I said, yeah, I said, so that I’m guaranteed, even if I don’t turn up to any exams, I’m guaranteed three Cs, two Bs, and this, and he says, yeah.

1:06:16 So I said, if I don’t go to a single exam, I’ll still get into college. He says, yes. I says, and I’ll get into the college I want, doing the course I want. He says, yes. I said, why am I doing exams?

1:06:28 And he said, what? And you can’t argue with that. So I was, this is a waste of time, so I didn’t revise. And, um, my dad was very much like, you can, you know, like, I think he said to me he was kind of, in a way, looking forward to saying I told you so, you know, if I didn’t get such good results and stuff. And, uh, and I did get good results.

1:06:46 I don’t know. I bluffed my way through, I guess, but, um, but I got good results, and I forget where I’m going with this story. You said enjoy what you’re doing. Sorry, yeah, you weren’t at the time. Yeah, and I wasn’t, and so I got through it, but I just didn’t, I wasn’t passionate about it.

1:07:00 I didn’t, you know, like, I got good results, but I could have had, you know, top results, you know, I could have done so much more. And, um, and my, you know, my, when my brother got his exam results, I don’t think he did quite as well as me. He’s not quite as academic. He’s a very clever guy, but he’s not quite as, luckily, academic, I guess, in that way. When we were younger, and, um, and he got loads of, like, presents and congratulations for his results, and I did better than him, and I got nothing because I didn’t put any effort in, and that’s what my dad valued.

1:07:31 And I think that’s great, that is. And, um, and, and at the time I didn’t, because I wanted gifts, but, um, but you know, I can see that, that, that’s kind of great, but things I cared about all through that period, when I was just, I didn’t care about exams. I didn’t, you know, I was getting into college. Why do I need to study? And stuff.

1:07:47 I was working on stuff, and I, I wasn’t lazy. I wouldn’t be kind of sat around watching TV. I’d be trying to play guitar, or I’d be trying to learn how to do something, um, something I cared about, something I wanted to learn, because I kind of feel like there’s so much in this world and so much knowledge, and so much there, out there. Um, I, I can’t you know, why am I wasting my time learning logarithms, which I’m never going to use and don’t care about, when I could learn something really cool, which I care about and it interests me?

1:08:14 And if that’s the thing which I feel is the best, like, say, the best part of my life, or whatever, I’ve taken in is that by enjoying, and, um, and just really getting into what I’m doing, it’s not working. You know, I can work 12- 14-hour solid days every day, seven days a week, and it’s not tiring. So you’re enjoying yourself now? Yeah, yeah, exactly, because, um, because it’s something I care about. It’s something I want to do, and it’s interesting, it’s challenging, it’s different, and, um, it’s not a waste of time in that sense.

1:08:49 You know, I don’t feel like it’s a waste of time because I’m enjoying it. I’m learning, I’m developing, and I’ve got a goal, and, um, and so by enjoying it, I mean, it’s when people say to me, like, what’s your top tip for learning guitar? I say that. I say enjoy it, enjoy it, because if you sit there and you’re just annoyed and angry that you can’t hold an A minor without your finger slipping off and hurting, and you just sit there, just desperately trying to… you’re going to give up.

1:09:17 You’re never going to get past that first stage of playing guitar, because you’re not enjoying it. Whereas if you just hold the easy version of A minor, I know, and enjoy playing a song, you’re going to want to learn the next bit, because you really enjoyed that. And, um, that’s good advice. That’s good advice. That’s good advice.

1:09:32 There’s a last part of that question, and this is really, really relevant for you, and, uh, that’s to the person listening right now, who’s, you know, maybe in that 13 to 17-year-old demographic. Maybe they’re a girl, maybe they’re a guy, and they literally want to be like Tom Law someday. You know, they want to have their own YouTube channel. They want to be invited to somewhere in the city, maybe next year at VidCon. I don’t know.

1:09:53 What advice do you give them? Um, well, firstly, what we just said, enjoy what you’re doing, that applies to everything. I feel, um, it’s going to work harder at it, but I guess, um, have it, I don’t know, like, break it down. That’s probably the best thing. Break it down.

1:10:12 Like, figure out what you want, and if, in this case, if it is, you know, have a music channel or whatever, have a YouTube channel, um, break it down. Don’t wander along aim- lessly hoping that you, you chuck up a video and wonder why you haven’t made it yet. You know, like, break it down, and understand that there are going to be steps and things, and mistakes you’re going to have to make, and things you’re going to learn from, and actually, one step at a time.

1:10:36 And, um, and if you kind of, you’ve got your end goal in mind, and for me that end goal is, you know, like, having an audience, which is going to help me achieve longevity with my music, and people kind of coming to my shows and buying my music, and that’s my angle, and, and right now I’m still working towards that, and YouTube is like, you know, my end goal is here, and I’m here, and YouTube is kind of like a big side step, you know, like, most people see it as a huge side step, but for me it’s not, because, you know, I’ve broken it down, and I’ve kind of thought, well, I’m not going to go straight up here unless someone picks me up, so I need to kind of like work my way up the steps, and that might take me away, but as long as I’ve got my end goal in mind, and I’m doing one thing at a time, and I understand why I’m doing something, um, then then it’s going to make, I feel it’s going to, it’s going to make, um, achieving that goal more realistic, and, actually, you’re going to get less disheartened, because, you know, like, if I’m stuck editing a cover video of you know, a song, which it’s a really cool song, and I enjoy making a cover video, but it’s not my song, it’s not what I’m really passionate about, and it’s, you know, 4 in the morning and I’m editing this video, and I don’t like video editing, and why am I video editing?

1:11:48 I want to be a musician, and all these thoughts, and you’re kind of doubting yourself. I’m doubting myself and I’m thinking, why am I sat here? But I know how that fits into the greater scheme. I know how that fits into the steps to getting where I ultimately want to be. So I think the best thing, other than enjoy what you’re doing, is break it down.

1:12:07 Okay, break it down. That’s good stuff. You got, uh, you got one last jam for us before we finish up? Yes, yeah, let’s do that. Awesome.

1:12:14 Enjoy this. This doesn’t happen very often. A private audience with Tom Law. I just tricked him over here just for the private audience. Really.

1:12:22 All right, I’m going to play, uh, the song that you mentioned to start off with. Yeah, let me know. Okay, ready? [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] That’s amazing. I got to get these private shows more often. That was great.

1:15:36 Enjoy that. Wow, yeah, that was good, and I knew that song you did. That’s the one you checked out. Yeah, that’s the one I checked out. That’s the one you checked out.

1:15:44 Yeah, I had to hold back from singing along. Is this one [music] Wow, that was, uh, I like that one better than the first one. Why, why did I it’s more of a… in my experience, guys tend to prefer that, cuz it’s a little bit more like edgy, bit more edgy, and it’s kind of almost got a little bit of almost hip-hop feel to it. I’m really into hip-hop. Really?

1:16:06 Yeah, I’m really into, kind of like, um, like some little pieces, like, remind me of, like, Sublime songs, like, you know, I don’t… I love Sublime. Like a couple. I just like, I love lyrics. I’m fascinated with lyrics just as much as I am with music.

1:16:20 Like, um, so did you lose, did you lose if I ever lost you? Do we want to go there? Yeah, let’s not go there. What’s this, what, this? Well, the song, if, if, I, oh yeah, yeah, we got to keep his private life private.

1:16:35 People always ask that, like, are your songs about real people? I’m like, yeah, they’re like, who’s it about? I’m like, no, my cat. I lost my cat. Yeah, I lost my cat.

1:16:44 Yes. Have you done hip-hop per se, or is it the way that you kind of, you bring it into a bunch of your songs like, you bring that in? Yeah, I love hip-hop. Um, I love like Jurassic 5, and yeah, I love J5. Yeah, I saw him play in Brixton a few years ago.

1:16:59 I saw, uh, I saw one of them in, uh, in Bristol, like last year or something. I think they were at Lovebox this year too. Really? Oh no, they have big love in the UK. They’re a big, I want to see Charie Tuna, he’s awesome.

1:17:10 Um, but yeah, like, I just, I love hip-hop. I love lyrics. I love how things fit together in the kind of word play, and, um, I think that’s like a whole kind of separate art, and I just really, really enjoy that. Um, I never do it as, like, poetry, but like with music. Okay, do you have musicians you want to collaborate with, like, like J5, or other people out there that you’re like, I’d love to, you know, do that with?

1:17:33 So many, so many. Does that kind of stuff happen, or do you have to make it happen, or does it not happen? Is it kind of like record labels? Yeah, I mean I guess it’s the same kind of politics, in a way, as is YouTube. Like, um, you do get, you know, like, if I’ve got friends and stuff who are absolutely massive on YouTube and have huge, huge audiences, and they might collaborate with someone who, you know, has absolutely no following, essentially, and they’re essentially just kind of giving that person their following, but, um, they believe in that person.

1:18:03 They think they’ve got amazing content. They feel like they deserve kind of a chance to be heard, more so. So they kind of, they let them, you know. They want to do that. They want to help them out, and they want to work with them regardless of whether they’ve got no following, uh, and then you get people who have similar-sized followings and, you know, don’t really like each other in real life, perhaps, but do videos together to cross audiences and cross-promote.

1:18:25 So you kind of got both ends of the scale. And I’m sure that happens in collaborations in music. I’m sure you get people who collaborate just because they’re friends, regardless of whether they’ve both got massive followings or not, and I’m sure you get collaborations where, um, yeah, it’s like Shakira and Beyoncé. They’re like, you guys do this, we’re going to make a ton of money. It’s less of an artistic thing, and maybe a mutually beneficial business proposal.

1:18:48 But you don’t collab much. It’s hard to, in YouTube I find, because, um, in YouTube there are very few musicians in my circles, I find. I mean, I know of fantastic musicians who are, you know, all around the country, and even, you know, I’ve got friends who make music on YouTube, and they’re absolutely fantastic, but finding the time to do stuff is really, really difficult when I’m always trying to focus on the next bigger thing, or whatever, and, um, and unfortunately, because I’m not doing YouTube for, although it is fun, I’m not doing YouTube primarily for fun.

1:19:28 You know, my main goal on YouTube is to find as many people as I can to like my music, and to find as many people as I can to introduce to my music, and that is why I’m on YouTube. And so, um, although collaborating with a friend would be amazing, fun, it’s time I, um, would rather prioritize introducing people to music, or to my music, and things. Um, and so although, like, you know, I often do little videos and things here and there with friends and stuff, um, in terms of, you know, if it’s like a quick video or something, or it’s not taking long, or it’s just like, you know, oh, can you pop in here and do this?

1:20:09 And I love doing that. That’s absolutely fantastic, it’s great fun, but, um, in terms of, like, hey, we should sort out a day and rehearse, and then we should sort out a day and film, or we should… he’s a businessman. Yeah, I mean, yeah, there is that to it, and that, I guess, you know, sounds, in YouTube and for some viewers perhaps, a little bit cold, cutting, but like I say, I mean, I guess at the end of the day, I want people to hear my music. You have to have your priorities, because no one’s going to have them for you.

1:20:34 You know, you have to keep your eyes on the goal. It sounds like you have a very fixed goal in mind, and I love the fact that you’re, you know, you’re using YouTube as a tool, and, uh, I’m quite open about that. It’s, when I first went to YouTube, there was like a big circle, and everyone went around, all the YouTubers, a lot of them I hadn’t met before, and, um, it was like, you know, why are you on YouTube and what do you want to do on YouTube? And everyone was like, I want to grow, I want to learn about myself, or I want to create movies, and I want to use this as a platform to learn more about camera skills, to go into TV.

1:21:00 And I said, um, I want to get off YouTube. No, I don’t. I don’t want to get off YouTube. I think now YouTube has become a love, and I will probably always make videos. Yeah, I’d like to think so.

1:21:11 Yeah, I do too, but, um, but it would be nice not to have to make videos. It’d be nice to make videos because I want to, or someone else makes the videos for it. Yeah, or someone else edited it or filmed it, and I could, you know, don’t know. We need to get you on a big shoot, because we talked about, like, getting your intimacy into a video, but, like, you know, some kind of really cool, on, you know, on the scene, unplugged thing. You know, multi-camera, get a director involved.

1:21:32 Anyways, in the future. All right, last question, Tom. Okay. Um, what’s Tom Law doing five years from now, at 28? Ten years from now, at 33?

1:21:40 What do you see? That’s hard. This is London Real, man. What do you expect? You know, we’re going to hit you with some hard ones while you’re here.

1:21:48 Um, okay. In five years, I mean, what I would like to see, uh, what I would like to see in five years, I would like to, I’ll be really candid, I’ll be really open. I would like to be signed to a label, um, preferably like a really, um, well-respected subsidiary of a major, so it’s got a bit of the clout, but actually it’s still, um, interest in music and not the bottom line, right? Um, I would like to be touring relentlessly, um, because I just love playing live, and I would love to have creative control of my music.

1:22:22 Maybe got an album out. I well, I should have hope I’d have an album out in five years, and then maybe working on the second one, or just put the second one out, I guess. Um, touring a lot, surfing, I don’t know, traveling a little bit. I mean, I, the Australian audience. Yeah, no, he’s a real surfer.

1:22:37 Like, there’s a surfboard in the back of his video. Oh, yeah, I’ve been surfing since I was like 11. I was a little bit… I’m from San Diego, so I’m not actually a great surfer, but I do know how to surf, but I saw a surfboard and I was like, actually, I believed it with Tom. Tom has continuity in his character.

1:22:52 You believe it. It’s on a prop, but you know, you’re from Cornwall, they surf in Cornwall. Yeah, yeah. I’ve been surfing since I was about 11, or maybe 10, or my brother started surfing when he was like 12. So I served in the rain in Nuki?

1:23:03 It was in the rain in, me and my brother, have a bit of a tradition every boxing… well, sometimes, like, Christmas morning, but usually every Boxing Day we go for, you know, really, yeah, wet suits, and I mean, like, in it, gets cold, like, you know, you have your wet suit, you have your winter rash vest underneath, you have your boots, your gloves, and you have your hood, and you’re like this, and, uh, and you’re like a little seal. But I’ve only surfed two days, and there were lessons, actually, in Australia. I was just traveling, and I was like, hey, the weather was crap, yeah, it’s like, I’ll just take some surf lessons.

1:23:33 It’s, it’s like, it’s hard. I find the better you get at it, the more rewarding it is, and, um, and the better I’ve got at surfing, the more kind of effortless it is, and you just don’t have to think about it, and you connect with a wave. It’s oh so amazing. All right, we segue there, so that’s you in five years. I like that goal.

1:23:51 Ten years, ten years. You’re going to be an old dude by then. You’ll almost be my age. Ten years, 33. I, uh, what the saying, you know, put out another album.

1:24:03 I guess. I’m a simple guy. I know it’d be nice if I had a house or something, and a house in the country, maybe somewhere to stay in the city. I don’t want to live in the city. I’m a country boy.

1:24:14 Um, one family man, some dogs. Yeah, yeah. 33, I probably married by then. Yeah, married, and I don’t know, yeah, got a kid on the way or something. Tom, Tom Law talks marriage on London Real.

1:24:26 Getting hot in here. See the YouTube fans freaking out. Yeah, yeah. But yeah, I guess just more of the same, making music, flexibility, and what I’m doing, and would you ever, uh, want your own label and sign young talent? Is that something you ever think you’d do?

1:24:41 I don’t know. I mean, now I don’t, not at all. Um, because I feel like I have too much to accomplish on my… I certainly couldn’t handle taking on anything else, and I can’t see myself in the immediate future wanting to do that. But I don’t know, maybe, you know, maybe once I’ve done two albums or something.

1:24:56 And I mean, even if I released them independently, I’ve done two albums, and I, you know, I don’t know. Yeah, maybe, cuz like I say, I now, I still, I feel like, um, I want to help people come through on YouTube if I can, or I want to, you know, like this open mic, and I wanted to go and play, and try and get my supporters to come along and watch, so that they watch the person after me, or something. And so yeah, maybe in the future okay, those are good answers, Tom.

1:25:18 Thank you so much for coming on. I knew this was going to be cool as f*** but I didn’t realize how cool it was going to be. I talked to Tom briefly at YouTube. I knew he was a real deal, but um, I mean, with the music and everything, you know, thanks for being here. No You’ve been on London Real.

1:25:32 You’ve hosted other shows. I mean, he’s a real deal. Yeah, real. Yeah, I can’t believe you’re 23, like some of the advice you’re giving. Yeah, when I was 23 I was just an idiot.

1:25:42 Yeah, that’s a backhanded compliment, isn’t it? Can’t believe you’re 23, or is that a compliment? No, it’s a compliment. You’re, I can’t believe you’re 23, and I can’t believe how very well spoken you are, and you’ve got good advice, and you’re, you’re just an older 23. Really?

1:25:55 Like, you’re, you’re smart, you’re, you’re… thank you. Make good decisions, and I put my money on Tom for being big, getting places. You know, it’s hard. It’s hard, especially in the artistic industry, in the music industry. A lot of people have big dreams, but you know, you’ve got to put that one foot in front of the other, and you’ve got to do the hard work, and even though you’ve got to enjoy yourself.

1:26:11 Um, Tom, how do people get a hold of you? I know on Twitter you’re Tom Law Music. Yeah, everything is Tom Music. Um, I had to force, I had to sort that out when I started. Like, yeah, a website as well, TomMusic.com.

1:26:22 Website. Music on YouTube, music on Facebook, at Tom Music on Twitter, Tom Music on Instagram, Tom Music. Okay, and if they want to buy your stuff on iTunes, type in Tom Law, Tom Law, come up. Yeah, and Spotify and all that stuff. You’re on Spotify?

1:26:36 Yeah. Oh no, once the girls find that out, I’m be hearing Tom all around the house. I might release… I’ve got a video on my iPhone of them watching Tom for the first time, so I might release it. But, um, anything else coming up in the next, uh, month or two, that people need to know about?

1:26:54 Just stay tuned for original music on the horizon. I guess I’m really excited. Yeah, it’s the first time I’m also producing it all myself properly, so I’ve done a lot of my original music. It’s just kind of acoustic, just sat there singing like this. That’s how I recorded my first EP.

1:27:07 I had one mic and I sat on the floor and I sang it, and that’s my first EP, and I pressed stop and put it on the CD, and I still sell those now. But yeah, so this is one of the first times I’m going to be… I’m playing all the drums myself, and I’m playing the bass myself, and I’m doing the harmonies. I might even try and do some piano, although I suck at piano, need to learn that. So excellent.

1:27:26 All right, we’re going to keep an eye out for that. Um, if you are listening to us on iTunes, you have to go check out Tom’s videos, you know, especially the one with 50 different cuts, and, uh, and those two. Yeah, yeah, Thrift Shop. Are those two songs you played? Do you have videos to those on your YouTube channel?

1:27:42 Both of them have videos. Yeah, one of them is a really, really old video, and one of them is a little bit more recent, and both of those are on iTunes as well. What’s the name of those? The first one was “Touch My Skin”, and the second one, “If I Ever Lost You”. That’s why the girls touch his skin.

1:27:55 Is it a song reference, or do they just touch your skin? Sometimes there’s been humorous moments at gigs. Yeah, by some. I said, this song has touched my skin, and you know there’s a bit of a, you know, like a scream or applause or something, and I just put my hand down and see if anyone does touch it, and they do, and it’s just hilarious. Everyone has a laugh.

1:28:09 Pretty… if I was younger, I would be hanging out with Tom Law. You can hang out with me anyway. I mean, like, when he goes out and goes playing. Yeah, I hang out with you anyways. Anyways, cool.

1:28:18 Thank you so much for being here. Like I said, if you’re listening to us, check him out on YouTube. Check us out on YouTube. We’re London Real TV across the board as well, on Twitter, on YouTube, on Facebook. If you want to come in turn for us.

1:28:29 We’ve got people doing everything. I found someone last week on Twitter who did the whole Final Cut edit for the Dan Hardy episode. She’s awesome, and she’s just so happy to be part of the show and everything. So appreciate all your support. Thank you, guys, for watching.

1:28:42 It’s so much fun. You get, you allow me to meet cool people like Tom and Colin. So who’s the lucky one? Me. Um, until then, guys, it’s about the journey.

1:28:50 Tom,