"Avant-garde blackened hardcore" is exactly the sonic assault it sounds like, and Edinburgh musician Tommy Concrete is at its forefront. On his upcoming album Unrelapsed, he tears into listeners with twenty-two jarring tracks about addiction and recovery. He took some time to talk with Metalhead Money about his artistic and personal journeys through decades in the music scene:
Hi Tommy, thanks for talking with Metalhead Money. Tell our readers all about your upcoming album, Unrelapsed! As a solo artist, what was the writing and recording process like for you?
Hi Jessie, Unrelapsed is my tenth album and is twenty-two tracks in thirty minutes -- which is a bit of a departure pace-wise as it’s the same duration as the first two tracks on my last album Hexenzirkel. My music is based in heavy guitar music, but I like to include lots of stuff and have a genre-terrorism approach. Typically, anything progressive always tends to also mean ‘long songs.’ I have a background in punk and hardcore outside my solo work and felt that this time around, I would attempt to make progressive extreme metal but with hardcore arrangements and pace. It’s also the first album completed entirely since achieving complete sobriety, which forms the nature of the lyrics.
What are your goals for your band? (Or in your case, yourself?)
Promote Unrelapsed and get it out there. Beyond that I’m not sure; I retired from live performing last year. I feel for a number of reasons that Unrelapsed is also the end of something be that an era, releasing stuff under the name Tommy Concrete or maybe even releasing music at all. I’ve been doing a bit of session work this last year but feel ready to put that to bed as well. I was taking jazz guitar lessons for a bit; I might return to that as I’m really more into discovering new things. I’ve been at this a long time now and feel drawn to the unknown.
What do you do for a living?
I work in addiction services in Edinburgh Scotland. Basically the main of my job is doing follow-up calls to people who have survived drug overdoses, and seeing what I can do to support them either in the short or long term. I also have a caseload of people who I provide psycho-social support to assist them in harm reduction around their drug and or alcohol consumption.
How do you balance your work and personal life with the band?
I have to put it in my diary in blocks. I am kickboxer and also practice Brazilian ju-jitsu so I don’t have much free time outside of training and work. I can get very carried away with music and so if I don’t organise and schedule in my time, it will just take over, then I get burnt out and everything falls apart. So it’ll look something like ‘Monday evening 2hrs fix bass on track 4’ or something like that, and I don’t divert from the specified task. When undertaking a complex album such as Unrelapsed in which I play every instrument it is absolutely essential to project manage it, otherwise it simply wouldn’t have got finished.
What do you consider to be the best investment you've made, music-wise?
Learning to drive, no question. I’ve played in a shitload of bands over the years, some more successful than others. If I was to list them from most successful to least, the list is pretty much directly proportional to what percentage of band members can drive, with most successful bands having the most drivers. Two musicians auditioning for the same band, with equal musical talent except ones a driver and the other isn’t:100% of the time the driver will get the gig. On a personal level, outside of my own bands I’ve done huge amounts of gigs as driver/tour manager for other bands and earned the majority of the money I’ve got from music as that.
[Editor's Note: I asked Tommy to expand on this a little, because life in the US is so car-centric in most places. He clarified, "71% of people in UK drive. But in my experience, most musicians tend to be in the 29% that don't. Also, there are plenty (me) that can drive but don't have a car. As well, the 71% is optimistic as a lot of people get a license for ID purposes mainly."]
What's the worst or least helpful thing you've ever spent money on as a musician?
Drugs and alcohol. I’ve been fortunate to have been in the position where bands I’ve been in have had a guarantee on gigs and the amount of times that has been blown on drugs is unreal. Also, loads of times in the studio where we could’ve afforded another day to mix if we’d spent the money we drank or fired up our noses on the session. As well, other trappings that sometimes people feel they need to spend money on that are not really necessary. Such as hotels and fancy vans with TV’s. I DIY toured for years, sleeping in the van and on floors and got used to it. In the early 2000’s I sang for a metal band called Man of the Hour, and we got really carried away with the rock star trappings. We were pretty busy and relatively popular, we could have actually made some cash if we didn’t spend it all on daft shit. That and fancy guitar pedals. No one in the audience notices or cares that the pedal you turned on for one solo has a germanium circuit.
What kind of merch sells the best for your band? And what do you purchase most often as a music listener?
The majority of the money I make is on Bandcamp in the digital discography option. I’ve ten albums, five singles and two EPs which can be bought for £23.50. This is a popular one for me personally and just keeps getting better value the more music I put out. CDs and shirts went better when I was out gigging, I tend to still sell them but mainly as a bundle.
Personally, I buy a lot of stuff on Bandcamp, so digital is my main option. I also still get CDs for my main favourite bands such as Enslaved or Amorphis. I get a bit of old-school vinyl as well. I’ve chilled out on band shirts as I’ve just got so many and I’ve lost a lot of weight this last year so a lot are too big and I don’t want to buy more until my weight stabilises.
Can you share some tour budgeting tips?
Be sensible with your food choices. Don’t eat fast food, bring a sandwich toaster on tour and buy bread/cheese or whatever and make toasties. This is so much cheaper and will last longer. Some venues will be cool about you doing this onstage at soundcheck, backstage if there is one or just do it behind the amps with no one seeing.
As well, if you are lucky enough to get a rider, make intelligent choices. Most bands ask for drink, and I think they do that simply because they think they have to. When I first had the opportunity to tour in a band which had a rider I had 9v batteries on my rider. I worked in a venue for years and it was always interesting to see the more experienced bands ask for things like socks, pants, strings. Quite often venues will prefer to give drink on the rider as they get it cheaper. I tour managed a band once that asked for bottles of spirits which they would sell on out the back of their van at a reduced price.
Hotels are cool, but so unnecessary and expensive if you are playing a lot. Try to get floors to crash on if you can instead, more than once we’ve announced onstage that whoever gives us a floor to sleep on can have the rider, which works. I’ve known bands bring tents on tour and one band had a caravan, it cost them some money for sure but they saved even more before long.
Which online music or social media platforms are currently most helpful to your band?
Bandcamp is the main one for me. Facebook is the necessary evil and Instagram is pretty good. Twitter was great for networking industry people but since it turned into X it’s become a horrific hellscape and I don’t go near it.
You are donating your preorder proceeds to The Willows Cat Hotel, a sanctuary for feral cats. That's very generous! Why did you choose this organization in particular?
I donate to them monthly and am just really touched by their mission. They provide a free-roaming environment to cats too feral and or old to be rehomed. A lot of them would most likely have been put down at other shelters to they truly do life saving work. I love animals, specifically cats and just feel that on my tenth album I could use the opportunity to try to raise some money for a good cause. Besides, I am feeling burnt out and in the final chapter of my music and needing some motivation to raise awareness for my album. I care about helping cats way more than I do about selling albums. So this motivates me more to actual engage in promoting my album.
What does "making it" mean to you, and what do you think a band or musician needs to make it in 2024?
When I started we just ventured out into the unknown with no plan whatsoever. I don’t think that’s really feasible now as the competition is so much more. I would recommend bands now setting some goals, and some time limits. Make them achievable, like ‘get a band together and do a gig within a year’ and keep updating the goals when you tick them off. Moving from play a gig to play a gig on a Saturday night, play an out of town show, play an out of town show on a Saturday night, do a tour etc. But keep it time focused. When you can’t think of a way to up the goal in a way you can manage, then I would say you’ve made it.
When it’s all over the whole thing will just be stories. If those stories are mainly fun, then you made it.
Unrelapsed will be released on November 1, 2024. Preorder here to help Scottish kitties!
Photos courtesy of the artist.
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