Open Door: Tallulah Guard on unlocking her artist project
I wasn’t sure what to expect going into Latch’s Open Door mentorship. Having seen a post about it the day before the deadline via a mutual’s Instagram story, I quickly sent in an application for the entrepreneurship aspect of the course and was surprised to find out the next day that I would be coming on board.
Safe to say, Open Door exceeded my every expectation. From day one, I was in contact with my mentor, Alex, who became an anchor and hugely helpful sounding board throughout the coming weeks. I was consistently impressed by the panels Latch curated, covering areas like artist management, radio plugging and marketing. In Zoom meetings hosted by Latch’s team, aspects of the industry I had never come across or had felt totally alienated from, were explored by talented and experienced professionals – data-led marketing, publishing and brand-design are just a few that come to mind.
As an independent artist, I released a single earlier this year, along with a music video. It felt like spinning plates; I had no experience, limited contacts and hardly any guidance. I threw Instagram ads, countdown posts and pre-save links into the void – all the while feeling like my ‘strategy’, or lack thereof, wasn’t coming together.
Open Door has given me a new and improved outlook, to say the least. In an industry that can seem so closed to newcomers, elusive and inaccessible, making connections is invaluable – especially with people so consistently welcoming and encouraging. It can be so easy to forget when trying to carve out a space in any part of the music industry, that everyone you reach out to, everyone you meet along the way, has been in the same boat. One of my favourite pieces of wisdom shared by the speakers was from CD Baby’s Hen Heimdal: 70% of people in the industry are awkward music fans.
In amongst all number of invaluable tips, tricks and avenues to explore, the overarching piece of advice from so many talented contributors was surprisingly simple. Be nice. Be on time. Don’t be a dick.
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Written by Tallulah Guard, an Open Door 2020 mentee
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