Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Scott Clay. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Scott, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Can you open up about a risk you’ve taken – what it was like taking that risk, why you took the risk and how it turned out?

My fourth studio album ‘Time WIll Tell’ was the first project that I put significant marketing and promotion energy and money into. For the recording of the album, I blocked out time at an amazing recording studio in Seattle, WA called Hall of Justice, owned by Chris Walla of Death Cab for Cutie. I hired incredible studio musicians and engineers to record the album with me. I also hired an amazing videography team based out of Bellingham, WA to record a music video for the title track ‘Time Will Tell’. After nearly 2 years of effort and expense I was ready to release the album. I worked with a band manager to plan a West Coast tour surrounding the album release, and I organized an album release party, and music video watch party at a very nice venue in downtown Seattle.

The album release happened in late February of 2020. I don’t need to tell you what happened immediately following the album release. Because you are well aware that the entire world went into a global lockdown following the Covid19 pandemic. Every single tour date that I had booked for 2020 was cancelled within one day. My email inbox was flooded with venue cancellations, and ‘due to unforeseen circumstances’ emails. I was devastated, I had spent endless hours, money and effort to plan my very first regional tour, only to be met with one of the most massive crises of the century. I had lost so much money and opportunity in such a short window of time, a project I had strived for years to complete. I had taken one of the biggest risks of my life, only to have everything fall flat on its face.

I spent much of the lockdown working remotely with the Hall of Justice studio engineer, Mike Davis, in pre-production for my 2022 album ‘Let It All Lay Bare’. I had an audio interface setup in my apartment, and I would meet Mike on Zoom while he was in the studio, and we would share audio files back and forth over Dropbox. It ended up being an extremely productive time and we roughed out nearly all 10 songs during the most intense months of the lockdown period. As Covid restrictions started to ease up in other parts of the US, I was contacted by Jonah Lipsky of Bridging the Music to perform with his tour throughout the Southeast. I had never performed music in that part of the country, and had never really considered travelling so far from Seattle for music, or even to visit. But the opportunity to promote the songs from ‘Time Will Tell’, after they had sat on the shelf so long during the lockdown, was too strong to resist.

So I packed up and went to work for Jonah as a stage manager with Bridging the Music, assisting other artists with travel, MCing the evening shows, and performing my own set of solo music throughout the show. It was a big risk, but it gave me so much exposure to nation-wide touring, supporting artists on stage, booking venues, and stage management. And best of all, it introduced me to the city of Nashville, where I have lived since leaving Seattle. It an amazing geographic hub for touring the Southeast and East Coast. My music career efforts have been redoubled in Nashville thanks to the other like-minded creative souls that live here, as well as so many music business folks who help musicians connect in a larger sphere. Even when taking a big risk leads to short-term failure, the larger picture outcome that you could not initially anticipate can be incredibly rewarding.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

My songwriting career began at age 14 when I picked up my mother’s classical guitar. I quickly found myself imaging song ideas in the back of high school biology class and during gym class. I went on to record an album with my first band at age 19, and then moved to Seattle at 21 and began interning at a recording studio near Lake Union. I’ve since recorded 6 studio albums and 1 live album. The themes of my music generally center around nature and the outdoors. Growing up in rural Washington State led me to spend many weekends hiking deep in the Cascade Mountains, and those memories fill my songwriting to this day.

How did you build your audience on social media?

The main advice I would give regarding social media presence is this: Plan ‘In Real Life’ events that have a distinct time, place and audience. And then use social media to promote those events, and capture the memory of that moment. Too often artists do a ‘digital only’ strategy, and I feel like that doesn’t carry the energy that planning shows, sharing the stage with other artists, and documenting live events does. Most of my online audience has come from meeting each and every one of those followers in real life.

What can society do to ensure an environment that’s helpful to artists and creatives?

Break down barriers to entry for artists. There is far too much of a ‘defense strategy’ by large companies to take over playlisting, media campaigns and streaming revenue. It’s certainly not an equal playing field for independent artists, and I’d love to see legislation and change happen in the music industry to allow independent artists a fair chance to be heard and seen.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.scottclaymusic.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/scottclaymusic/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/scottclay
• Other: https://open.spotify.com/artist/5aFNMDbeH7hjM4YkWNUwxH?si=pffHmNYOTmyZFttyvkxnxQ
  https://music.apple.com/us/artist/scott-clay/1453306725
  https://scottclaymusic.bandcamp.com/

Image Credits

Nathan Schweiger
Chelsea Erica Smith