“I’m trying to limit panic” the impact of coronavirus on music | The music

There is not a single part of the music industry that will not be affected by the coronavirus epidemic. The most obvious are the cancellations of high profile festivals like Glastonbury and Coachella, and the big stars who have to postpone tours. But beneath them is a whole infrastructure of budding musicians, session musicians, sound engineers, booking agents, record store owners, DJs, labels, tour managers, event staff and more whose livelihoods are threatened by the places closing their doors and with Boris Johnson said the places may remain open, but advising people to stay away, fear in the industry quickly turned into anger. We spoke to a few people whose lives were turned upside down in less than a week.

People said: well come to the show, it’s good! But it’s not good

Grace Carter, singer-songwriter

I have been on tour in Europe. During the shows, there was this strange unity. Everyone was a little scared, but there was this feeling of: they were all going to be in a room together and would like to be outside. The thing I really struggled with was not being able to physically interact with my fans. My music is very emotional and honest and comes from a deep place, and the people who listen to it may also have had these experiences. So I always wanted to kiss people and hear their stories.

My group is independent musicians and my technicians will not be paid if the concerts do not occur. I didn’t want to drop anyone. But each show was sold out. I received a lot of messages from people saying: will come again, it’s ok. And it’s really not good. I had to take it in my hands, be responsible and reschedule it so that people were not in danger. There should have been one dominant thing saying: there will be no large-scale events. But the only thing to do was to make the decision for ourselves.

I use this time now to be creative and express my feelings. We were all going through the same thing and, knowing that they were all together, I think there is a lot of peace in there.

The government is deceiving us

Ben Lewis, reservation manager at Super Friendz, which runs Belgrave Music Hall and Headrow House in Leeds

Halfway through last week, we were saying: maybe this will all explode? We played with ideas like: what if you put Shaun of the Dead every night, a concert was canceled? But very quickly, it was: no, it’s not funny. As of Friday, the bars were significantly quieter. Then, over the weekend, everything was beaten as if people were going out one last weekend before having to stay inside.

From bar staff to directors, everyone says the government is cheating on us. We wanted to be told what to do if we were told that we had to close, no one can dispute that. But we watched Boriss’ press conference, and the general feeling was that governments completely dishonored his total cop. We have staff in bars, we have DJs who are all self-employed, and we feel responsible for keeping these people at work for as long as possible. But if we stay open, does that put the public at risk? We were given this decision which is completely impossible.

One big thing we want is government assistance for casual workers. Every business like ours goes through hell. The travel organizers, the engineers, are leaving: I have absolutely nothing for the next few months. I don’t know what they are going to do.

In this industry, people are known for not treating each other the best. Everyone was constantly stressed. If you do art in the UK, since the return of the Tories, it’s everyone for themselves. But everyone is super charming with each other. You have natural rivalries and you have buttocks, but I don’t want to see another promoter let go so that I can recover their shows. I just want to see them all OK.

I can only compare it to September 11

Chris Forsyth, musician and venue owner in Philadelphia

The only thing I can compare that to in my lifetime is being in New York City on 9/11, and it affects a lot more people. It was a frightening and devastating thing, but the scale of the economic devastation about to be seen is much greater. The government is going to have to take steps to get people to keep shelter and food on their plates. They talk about bailout airlines, but ordinary people are going to need a bailout. This [US] the administration is without a rudder Trump aims to create a crisis, but we have encountered a crisis that you cannot eliminate. I’m trying to keep the panic level low and take it hour by hour.

I had a great tour coming, 18 shows supporting White Denim. Here in Philadelphia, where I live, meanwhile I have a place called Jerrys on the front, with a small showcase where we do shows if everyone wants to practice social distancing, there might be five people and six rehearsal studios. Many of the tenants are full-time touring musicians who have seen three to six months of concerts evaporate. We may have to let people defer certain payments for a while.

I also released an album on Friday, which I am self-releasing. Ironically, this is a live album, which seems somewhat newer and more meaningful now. When I planned to do that, some people were like, oh, live recordings are a lesser product. And now, I feel like I have this document of something we can’t even do right now: fellowship around music.

Many fans do not realize how small the margin of error for many musicians you see in the media, they often earn the same amount of money as a bartender. People asked me to put things in place Band Camp, or start a Patreon [crowdfunding] essentially busking page for money. People say they will go from live performances to video projections, and then you can pay to listen to them. I’m ambivalent about this too, because it looks more like the current streaming model, something technologically mediated. I do not judge, however. People have to do what they have to do. I think it’s important that people come together and connect in one way or another. In case of drowning, let’s see if we can support ourselves.

I feel like I’m living in a movie

Twinnie, British country singer and actor

Last Thursday evening, we were still waiting to see if the Country 2 Country festival that I was playing would go ahead. It was canceled, but everyone pulled together, with BBC Radio 2 putting together a unique show to cheer everyone up. I was able to sing my set live on national radio for 20 minutes.

I felt in conflict with the tours. I wanted to honor the people who paid for their tickets. But there were many other countries that do things differently and that made me think. I want to do my part, but sometimes you just don’t know what the right decision is. There are people in my group who have babies; they also played for many other artists at C2C, so they lost so much money. I feel pretty drained of all of this, if I’m being honest. I feel like I’m living in a movie like the world has just ended.

But the most important thing is to stay positive and keep people in high spirits, and music does that for people. Just look at the scenes in Italy, where people sing on their balconies. I’m sure there will be a lot of live concerts and chatting with fans online, rather than putting the fear of God in people and making people feel stressed and panicked. I try to meditate and stay calm, laugh a lot and spread joy and be peaceful because, like all things, it will pass.

The shop can only survive with the help of the government

Mandy Kemp is the owner of Jam Records and Coffee in Falmouth, Cornwall

We have been here for 17 years. CDs are dead, so it’s mostly vinyl. Coffee and discs feed on each other. It is such a small town that I need both to make enough money. The postponement of the record store day until June was a massive relief. It has been suggested that it could have been partially online, which would have been a disaster: to compete with Rough Trade, Resident, record stores with very good online facilities. RSD basically represents a month of sales in a day, so if you do, it should work.

We could probably last a month without having to put money in it, and I don’t want to put money in a bankrupt business. The store can only survive with great financial help from the government. The difference between Boris ‘and Macrons’ answers was worlds apart. In France, they declared that no company would go bankrupt and have invested 45 billion in their support. This is the magnitude of what has to happen. And it can’t be loans.

The store has always paid me less than the minimum wage, it seems like the triumph is to pay as you please. It’s a community of people who come here, from the 70-year-old customer who drinks coffee every day to the tourists who come back every year. I would be deprived if he couldn’t continue, but what can you do?

Even if we went ahead, we wouldn’t have had artists

Alasdair Campbell is the head of Counter flow, an music festival in Glasgow

Our festival has 300 people at each event, smaller than the size of the Scottish government’s recommendation to cancel events for more than 500 people. But the artists we had were on tour in Europe, which closed very quickly. Even if we wanted to move forward, we would not have had artists.

We have public funding and we pay cancellation fees to all artists. Other promoters have complained about me because they say: oh, you are setting a precedent. But it’s not a competition to see who can be the most morally high got the support of Creative scotland to go ahead with these payments. I also got 10,000 flights to try to get refunds. It’s a lot of money for my festival size. With the accommodation, I was offered a 50% discount on my reservation and I think I should go.

It is devastating to a certain extent, but there are a lot of people facing a lot of hardship and I feel a little bit lucky, actually. My close friends who manage sites are all struggling; a festival is a unique thing that we can cancel and move forward. The plan is to make the program for the next few years with the artists we have now, in addition. This year was the first time we tried to bring a Jamaican artist to the UK, I Jahbar, with hard work to get him a visa. His attitude was incredible, he was like: we did it once, we can do it again. We must therefore continue to move away from it.