The Glasshouse

Frankie Jobling: Hi, I’m Frankie Jobling. A born and bred Geordie, a singer-songwriter, and the host of a brand new podcast feed by The Glasshouse International Centre for Music, Music Lives Here. This podcast is basically an excuse for me to chat to artists about what they’re up to, about them making music in the North East, cutting their teeth on the local scene, and what inspires them. We’re going to be hearing from classical conductors to hip-hop artists, nu folk singer-songwriters to stoner metal headbangers, all with the unique connection to the Glasshouse and to the Northeast. We’re going to be kicking things off with Neo soul jazz singer Rivkala.

Rivkala: “I kind of see the whole songwriting process as like a bit of a birthing process. Like I’m this vessel for something that needs to be released, and sometimes that labour is easy and sometimes it’s a bit more painful and time-consuming.”

Frankie: And hearing from white-knuckle noise rockers Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs.

Pigs x7: “We used to get quite loose before we played, and sometimes, you know, there would be night, so you know, you wake up the next morning and barely remember the performance. You had a sense of whether it was a good one or a bad one or whatever, but specific moments were hard to define.”

Frankie: I’ll find out the secrets behind each artist’s creative processes.

John Wilson: “When you’re dealing with great music, your final goals are always out of reach because every performance you give of a piece will never be as good as the piece itself. The piece will always be greater than any performance you give of it.”

Frankie: And what their advice is to young artists, new to the scene.

Kay Greyson: “Like, I, I’m quite a confident person, but I always say like confidence is earned. So when I was younger, like, I would very much lean into performing and rapping and writing because it was a way to sort of pretend to be more confident than I was. And then eventually, like, I kind of forgot that I was pretending and just became a confident person.”

The Unthanks: “Whether you’re a solo artist or not, it really helps to like talk to other people and just reach out, because everybody is like, you think, oh, should I reach out to that person? Like, 99% of the time that person will be delighted that you’ve asked them. And it just— but it’s that taking that leap.”

Frankie: My own connection to this space goes back a long way. I’m a teacher here and I’ve also been a student here, and The Glasshouse has supported my development as an artist in the past. I think when you’re an artist or even a music lover in Newcastle Gateshead, you look up to The Glasshouse as this impossible to ignore a place that you really want to have a relationship with, and I’m so excited to hear about that from other artists.

Stay tuned every Friday for a brand new episode of our very own podcast, Music Lives Here, available wherever you get your podcasts.