BIG JOANIE: “BANDS HAVE THE POWER TO SUPPORT WHO THEY WANT TO SUPPORT”

What’s a trip to the seaside without fish and chips? Between catching sets and dodging seagulls, VOCAL GIRLS got lunch in Brighton with Chardine Taylor-Stone, drummer for the indomitable Big Joanie, to talk about how industry support for emerging and marginalised artists is - slowly but surely - improving. 

“It’s the patriarchy, isn’t it? Men tend to help men with these things,” sighs Big Joanie’s Chardine Taylor-Stone. We’re on Brighton seafront - along with what feels like the entire UK music industry - for day one of The Great Escape, a festival which has become renowned for platforming new music over a stacked three day bill. For emerging artists, it’s nearly always an uphill battle to initially make a name for themselves, and showcases such as TGE are invaluable in getting their music to fresh ears. But, as Taylor-Stone points out, artists who are female, non-binary, or trans “don’t tend to ask [for opportunities] or be proactive because [they’re] not taught to be”, making it even more of a challenge for these demographics. 

Such unconscious socialisation feeds into what’s frequently termed the industry’s ‘pipeline problem’. This is the notion that there aren’t enough artists of marginalised groups getting major headline slots or award nominations because there aren’t sufficient frameworks in place to support them at a grassroots level. Big Joanie are among those to speak out about such significant cracks in the system; with a punk ethos and DIY, community spirit at the heart of their work, there are few artists who practise truly intersectional feminism as they do. “Obviously the industry works in a certain way”, says Taylor-Stone. “Management and booking agents scratch each other’s backs to get their band on, but bands do have the power to support who they want to support”. 

By this, she means that more established artists can (to varying extents) influence who is billed alongside them. Big Joanie, for example, make a point of working with marginalised groups: “For our UK tour, all our support acts were either trans, or people of colour, or women of colour led, and that’s a given”, Taylor-Stone says. “Obviously, you’ve got to be a good band”, she laughs. “But you need to give people the opportunity to play more, bringing them on these stages so they can improve - I think that’s what people did for us”.  

Of course, it shouldn’t be the sole responsibility of artists to champion their peers; there’s a growing number of platforms working to support diverse new music projects, including us here at VOCAL GIRLS. One other such organisation is PRS Foundation, who recently celebrated 10 years of their PPL Momentum Music Fund. Founded in 2013, the initiative provides grants for artists to put towards their creative and business development, with notable alumni including Little Simz, Sam Fender, and Big Joanie themselves. 

Speaking about how the grant helped cover the PR, marketing, and tour costs for their second album, Back Home, Chardine explains that it allowed them to pay everyone they worked with fairly. “Trying to support women and people of colour with decent day rates is really important. Having that funding helped us be able to do that, and now they’ve got that as part of their CV, they can go on and get recognised by other people in the industry”. 

To date, the PPL Momentum Music Fund has supported 526 artists across the UK and awarded upwards of £5.2 million in grants. Moreover, its recently published report - launched at TGE - states that, of all artist grantees, 51% have been based outside London; 49.5% have been Black, Asian, or of other ethnically diverse heritage; 47.9% have been women, gender expansive artists or mixed gender groups; and 18.2% identified as LGBTQ+. Obviously, these statistics don’t tell the whole story, and the industry as a whole still has a long way to go. But for now, there’s been enough use of the phrase ‘pipeline problem’ as a shorthand excuse for serious structural issues - instead, we need major labels and industry stakeholders to start reworking the plumbing. 

You can explore PRS Foundation funding options here.