They say that necessity is the mother of invention. In the case of Scottish singer-songwriter Sandi Thom however, necessity propelled her into a musical journey that would surpass even the most whimsical of fantasies.
Her tale is the stuff of musicians’ – and A&R men’s – dreams: too broke to go on the road again, the 24-year-old staged a three-week ‘world tour’ from the basement of her Tooting flat.
“The intention with the webcast was to play to that amount of people every night, but without spending the money,” explains Thom. “Instead of doing it to a UK audience, we’d be playing it to a global audience, which made more sense. The Internet gives the power back to the audience, as opposed to the media and middle men having it.”
Using the MySpace wizardry that has also orchestrated the success of the Arctic Monkeys, Gnarls Barkley and Fall Out Boy, the canny Scot spread the word of her tour, inviting fans to come to her basement to watch the shows live.
In a humorous mailout, Sandi mentioned that the venue had a capacity of 10 people, and those interested in attending should bring their own bottle and sleeping bag.
So far, so typical – yet what happened next was unexpected by anyone’s standards. An audience of 70 tuned in to Sandi’s webcast within its first five minutes, with 672 viewers tuning in by the end of the first gig.
In the ensuing months, the internet worked its alchemy and by the end of her ‘tour’, she was performing to 70,000 web viewers nightly from as far afield as New Zealand, Mexico and Russia (cynical souls have since wondered how a starving artist could afford enough bandwidth to stream to such a huge audience).
“I wrote that whole sleeping bag thing as a joke, but when they actually came it was scary,” laughs Sandi. “I think people were bewildered by a whole thing. People have started signing the walls – I’m trying to think what the landlord will say. I guess it’s all happened so quickly you don’t fully grasp it until you stop and take stock.
Less than two weeks after the fabled tour, Sandi signed a five-album contract with SonyBMG, where she is now a priority act for the year. Significantly, she is now the protégée of Craig Logan who, despite his own rather questionable start in the industry as ‘the other one’ in Bros, went on in recent years to manage the likes of Pink and Tina Turner.
“The people I’m meeting at the label are so nice, and at the time it was done so quickly, the only way I could have made the decision to sign was based on personality. It’s funny, I had the Bros stuff on vinyl, too. Craig has some great white-stretch-limo stories, and he’s a great guy.”
It’s a far cry from the Liverpool Institute of Performing Arts student who, like many before her, slavishly sent her demo away to the major labels in the hope of becoming a major artist.
I think I was probably a bit more naïve about how the music business did actually run when I was 18 or 19,” Sandi recalls. “I thought it was as simple as putting a CD in a jiffy bag. People (at the labels) would write back and say, ‘You’re too young for the music you’re playing.’”
Certainly, Thom’s music, which has already drawn comparisons to Joni Mitchell and KT Tunstall, belies her 24 years. Like fellow ingénue Joss Stone, her music is a soulful, gospel-infused paean to times past. Even her name (her real name is Alexandria Thom) reeks of a sort of flower power, clean-cut innocence. In her own words, she was born too late.
“It recently dawned on me the gospel thing comes from the fact I was in two gospel choirs in Liverpool,” she muses. “I’ve always been intrigued by voices and using mine as a main instrument. The ‘70s vibe I guess comes from the first band I was in when I was 14. These guys had formed a band 25 years before I joined it; they were really old rockers, but they were playing music from their young years – The Eagles, Fleetwood Mac, The Band – so when I joined that band that’s what I ended up listening to. That was my first taste of playing music so I’m very nostalgic about it.”
While her music steadfastly refuses to bow to any sort of modern trend, she contends that her decision to use webcasting to promote herself is very much a sign of the times.
“In the last couple of years there has been an explosion of reality TV, and everything is associated with a Do-It-Yourself vibe, and people are intrigued by that,” she observes. “People like to feel they’re part of something. With the basement gigs, it felt like someone rehearsing in their house, which is quite an intimate thing. It’s similar in a way to Big Brother – you’ll sit and watch for hours even though there’s nothing happening on the screen. You feel you connect because you’re not meant to be there. That’s part of the attraction. The music remains true to that – it’s only three of us, so it’s very bish-bash-bosh.”
Her rise to stardom may have been organic – if a little extraordinary – and for now, the former basement dweller is being groomed for a life of celebrity and stardom, not to mention a proper, leave-the-Tooting-flat world tour.
“I look at people and think, ‘I wonder if anyone knows who I am? Surely not!'” she laughs. “I saw my TV advert last night, and it was the oddest thing. I think it’s quite exciting and yet daunting, the prospect of this career building around you. But it’s all right for now. We play the gigs just as we always have… just this time we just have a nicer car, with DVDs in the headrests.”