We were lucky to catch up with Pamela Sheyne recently and have shared our conversation below.

Pamela, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Are you able to earn a full-time living from your creative work? If so, can you walk us through your journey and how you made it happen?

I have been earning a living as a singer and songwriter for around 40 years now. I am a New Zealand native who moved to London in the 80’s to be closer to my brother and sister. I started working in the travel industry as a secretary in London and discovered office work was not for me. I had always enjoyed singing so applied to a hotel band advertisement in a music paper and landed a job singing 6 nights a week in a covers band..It was too gruelling to work both jobs so I gave up my day job and worked in 2 different bands in this hotel for around 3 years. Over a 10 year period I worked my way up to doing free lance backing vocal jobs, jingles, some touring and session work for some well known artists including; The Pet Shop Boys, Celine Dion, Elton John, Tom Jones, Lulu, Cyndi Lauper and Daryl Hall. There were a lot of pub gigs and wedding band work before I moved up into the session scene. I also took some part jobs when the work was inconsistent. I made a decision to start writing songs full time in 1992 when I got my first publishing deal. I didn’t know it at the time but I would write a worldwide number #1 record in 1999, Christina Aguilera’s first single Genie In A Bottle.

Pamela, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I started out as a singer in London and worked solidly for around 10 years before getting into songwriting full time. My first job was in a cover band at a hotel for 2-3 years, 6 nights per week then I slowly shifted into working more as a freelance backing vocalist on some tours and recording sessions, with some well known artists including; The Pet Shop Boys, Elton John, Celine Dion, Darryl Hall, Cyndi Lauper, Mike & The Mechanics and many others. Singing cover songs was incredible groundwork in learning popular music and though I didn’t realise it at the time, it was teaching me song structure, melody and story telling. Songwriting is definitely my calling, though I also love singing and mentoring others.. I am passionate about crafting a song and emotionally connecting with the listener. I got my first publishing deal in 1992 after the Pet Shop Boys Tour and started getting some releases with some artists in the UK, then internationally. I worked at building my network around the world and went on many writing trips (a lot of them I funded myself) to write with artists and producers. In 1998, on one of these trips to LA, I wrote a song that changed my career. We pitched a song to Ron Fair who was Christina Aguilera’s A&R guy and it was released a few months later. Our song Genie In A Bottle (co-written with Steve Kipper and David Frank) climbed the Billboard charts and went on to be #1 in 22 countries and earned us an Ivor Novello Award and Christina a Grammy Award. Other artists I have written for include; Miley Cyrus, Camila Cabello, Demi Levato, Seal, Corrinne Bailey Rae, Jessica Simpson. In 2018,

I started SongWriterCamps with business partner and long time collaborator Richard Harris. We were both mentoring at various different songwriting festivals and expos around the world and we felt we had some experience and skills to share with others. We are both full time writer/producers but started out offering one or two in person songwriting camps per year to music creators who wanted to learn more about the craft of songwriting to ultimately earn a living from their music. During the pandemic we shifted our business model online and started offering monthly workshops, 1on1 mentoring sessions, Sync and Songwriting Camps and also some customised camps. Since then we have put together a few programs for a UCLA professor and his international students and have been travelling to Australia each year working with a group of talented young artists. We have just finished our 9th Sync Camp, a more experienced level camp, where songwriters, artists and producers from around the world write directly to brief and are mentored by US Music Supervisors who work in TV, film, advertising and trailers. We work alongside our partners at PEN Music Group, who pitch and represent the songs worldwide and we have had several placements including a song in the recent FastX Movie Trailer. Several of the artists and writers who have attended our camps, have had their first sync placements through this program and have gone on to sign admin deals or full time publishing deals. We have a talented community of people, many who are regular clients who have built up their creative and business network through our camps and we are not only proud of what we have achieved in just 5 years but also the people who have attended our programs.

How can we best help foster a strong, supportive environment for artists and creatives?

Anyone in the arts knows how challenging it is to earn a full time living from it. The music business, like many industries is evolving all the time but when the new streaming model came in, in the late 2000’s, it drastically changed the way music creators earned their income. The rates for streaming were not in line with the mechanical and performance income rates we were used to before and it became clear that streaming was unsustainable for songwriters to exist on. In fact many songwriters left the business because they could not exist on these pitiful rates or had to take on part time jobs to stay in the game. I became one of the founder members of a core group of songwriter advocates, lead by songwriters Michelle Lewis and Kay Hanley. SONA (Songwriters of North America), was created to fight and lobby for better rates and conditions.. SONA was one of the groups instrumental in helping the Music Modernisation Act pass in 2018. SONA has been going for 8 years now and they continue to fight on behalf of songwriters and music creators in the music marketplace. It is vitally important to support music creators, by buying music, paying for a ticket to a concert, opting to a pay for a streaming service that pays better rates to keep music and music creators alive. For any music creators who would like to join and support SONA or become a volunteer please check out their website; www.wearesona.com

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

I am extremely grateful to have been working in music, doing what I love and earning a living from it for over 4 decades now. It has been a series of peaks and troughs along the way but you learn how to pivot and reinvent yourself to keep up with the changing times. Songwriting is not only my biggest passion but also my therapy and it is my greatest pleasure to mentor others and pass on some of the experience and skills I’ve learned on my journey.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.pamelasheyne.com
• Instagram: pamsheyne
• Linkedin: pamsheyne

Image Credits
Photo 1 – Genie In A Bottle single cover Photo 2 – SongWriterCamps Pam Sheyne & Richard Harris Photo 3 – Pam Sheyne Photo 4 – SongWriterCamps in person camp in Palm Springs Photo 5 – SongWriterCamps in person camp in Palm Springs Photo 6 – Co-writers of Genie In A Bottle, Steve Kipper, Pam Sheyne & David Frank