Alice Austin

Learn more about Alice and her work via her Instagram here.

How's everything going for you at the moment?

It really depends what day you ask me that question. I have work right now, and I'm excited by it, but often I’m like, “What's next?” Something always comes through, but working for yourself it’s easy to get in your head.

Has this always been your experience, or has it become more prominent in more recent times?

I think I've always felt that way, but I would say I have felt a little bit more lately because I recently moved back to the UK after being in the Middle East. I had a niche and I had a lot of work, so I’m currently rebuilding that. But I also do feel a little bit apprehensive about the general climate - people do not have the same budget they used to have. My rates have been reduced in some cases. So I'm definitely feeling this a bit like a bit of apprehension about the economics of it all.

What are the main challenges that you're facing?

My clients have less budget. The thing with freelance writing is, I'm always pitching. It’s almost always my idea, I don’t get approached for commissions very often. So I think the biggest challenge is trying to constantly drive this forward. It is always my responsibility to come up with ideas and be tuned in. I would love to have more editors come to me, but that's just never really been the case. I think most freelance journalists would say they are the ones to push it and ask for it. One exception was Duncan at Mixmag, who basically launched my career. It was a real tragedy when he left, because he always put me forward for stuff. It was just so amazing just to get those emails in my inbox with subject lines like: “Tour with Charlotte de Witte??”

Do you have a lot of contact with other writers, and, if so, have you got much insight from them about the challenges that they're facing?

I don't have anywhere near enough contact with other writers. I have joined something called Women in Journalism, and I'm a mentee for Women in Journalism Scotland, so I have a mentor. She's called Hala, and she works for Al Jazeera. She's helped me a lot with troubleshooting and aiming high. And there's also a lot of very affordable workshops within the organisation, and they have helped me a lot. One issue is that I'm so niche, and I’m interested in underground culture and subculture, and stuff on the margins. There is no money inside in the scenes within this kind of niche, really. For the bigger publications with budget, my interests are too niche for their audiences. So it's a case of balancing my interests with being able to actually create content that wider audiences want to read. I think what we think of as really obvious and kind of mainstream, often the general public have absolutely no idea about.

Big time. I've been saying this for years, and even down to when people advocate for saving club culture and stuff. I'm like, “Most people don't care, really.” Might sound harsh but if you go up to anyone on the street and say, “Richie Hawtin”, they'll be like, “Who?” We can be in a bit of a bubble. Club culture is important for society at large, to have communal spaces where they can express themselves and connect with each other, connect with themselves, connect with music, dance, all of those kind of things. But, for the average person on the street, I just don't think they really care that much.

Yeah, I think you're absolutely right. We are in a bubble. It's nice though. I've always loved being in a scene, being in a niche. For me, it's so comforting, but it’s wild when you reach out to the bigger publications and they're like, “What are you talking about?” Those places do have more budget. So it's trying to balance my interests with accessibility, I guess.

What would you say are some of the deeper issues or catalysts behind the challenges that you and perhaps other writers are dealing with at the moment?

I think AI has a lot to do with it. I think people can create, for example, artist bios quite easily without paying a writer. Obviously, the cost of living. The cost of living crisis is insane. In our scene, nobody has any money, and everybody's feeling that. So no one has the budget to pay the writers. I don't know if it's to do with video content being so much more of a priority and sometimes I wonder if people are even reading words, I don't even know? For me, it's my craft and you have a few people who understand that and understand how important it is to have somebody write fresh, original content.

For example, yesterday I interviewed someone for their bio, and I had to interview them to understand them and feel them. When I interview people, I absorb them and then I can write about them with authority, and I can capture their essence. I don't think that many people understand how important that is. If you want to write a bio, or if you want to have an interview, or, have someone write an article about an artist, it can't be done by chat GPT, it just can't.

I'm exactly the same. This is literally the way that I describe myself in my artist bio portfolio: “Capturing the essence of someone and then channeling it into words”.

I don't know how many people can do it. It's a weird little skill to have, but I've always been a bit like that anyway, just generally, when I socialise - I can feel people almost immediately. So I'm sure you're the same.

100%. Talking about wondering whether people even read words… Because I work in isolation so much, I get into all of these false spirals where I'm like, “No one reads what I write. Why am I even doing this?” I'm getting paid basically a pittance to put so much work into all of these things, and no one even reads it. Then, once in a while, because I don't go out very much, because I don't even live in London anymore, I'll see people and they go, “I read your thing”, or “I saw that you posted this”, and I'm like, “Oh my god, I needed to hear that so much.” That validation or acknowledgement, knowing someone actually read something you wrote, it means so much now.

What are some other methods that you've employed to navigate the current music writing landscape?

One thing is, I don't beat myself up if I feel like I haven't done anything huge in the last month. I'm very good at not being horrible to myself when I've had a quiet period. I always have work in some form. This happens with producers. They feel like, if they don't produce something for six months, everyone's gonna forget about them. But I don't think that's true for any artist. It's quite a good way to really berate yourself and hurt yourself. If someone goes away for two years and comes back, everyone's just happy they're back. This idea of relevance is very destructive. I'm not horrible to myself about that. I've learned that, as a freelancer and a creative, you never know what's around the corner. So you might be having the world's shittest week. For example, when I moved to Glasgow, I was like, “Great, I'm gonna have to start again. It's gonna take ages to get interesting work.” And then I just sent a pitch to the Guardian, one of hundreds of pitches that have always been ignored or rejected. 15 minutes later, I got a response saying, “This is our word count, have you got a photographer?” That was a huge ambition for me. And within two, three weeks, I had this article in The Guardian that was getting shared a lot. You just never know. So I always remind myself that I might be feeling a bit shit this week, but you just don't know what's coming up.

There's a DJ that I've interviewed a few times called Bill Patrick, and he has this catchphrase, which is, “Relevance is a hell of a drug.” I love it because he talks about the ageing DJ that ends up at the afters, because they feel like they have to be there to be around people and keep their career going.

That's another issue we in our scene is ageism. That's a big, big topic as well. We’re always seeing young people come up and not really seeing older people celebrated. This idea of relevance is kind of ageist as well, in a way. I think relieving yourself of that pressure is really one of the best things you can do in the music industry, whether you're a writer or producer or whatever. It's a form of resilience and rebellion to be able to reject that idea.

So besides your Women in Journalism group, how much support do you have from others, generally, writers, friends, family, etc?

Oh, God, I think none. I feel like if I do have a win, sometimes I don't even really want to share with my friends, because maybe they’re not feeling so good themselves. The Guardian article, I went ham with that, and everybody was very supportive, but everybody could see, that was an achievement. But day to day, generally, I don't have anyone to bounce or speak about my work with. All I have really is people from the outside admiring my career and thinking it looks like it's going really well. That's lovely to hear, but it's interesting how different it is when you're on the inside. I’d love to revel in my achievements but as soon as I get something out there, I’m proud for a few minutes, and then I’m like, what's next? I’m really trying to stay present with my achievements. But It's all me, basically, isn't it? You have to back yourself, and be nice to yourself when you're a freelance writer.

How could writers be supported more than especially within the arts and music?

People prioritise social media, and that's video content mostly now. People could start really thinking about the value in the written word and what we were talking about earlier -capturing the essence of somebody is unrivaled. The general public do read bios. They need bios. We are documenting moments in dance music history, and I would like to see more value placed on that. Just because you can't see the millions of views racking up, doesn't mean it doesn't have value.

On the positive side, what's going well for you at the moment, and what's exciting you about music writing?

I have very specific interests and also very specific values. With music writing, it's an outlet for that. I do think that I'll probably always be involved because I'm so passionate about it. It’s endlessly exciting to know that I can enter a community that interests me, and get to know the people within it and share their stories and build connections. Those communities aren't going to stop growing. They will always be there. The fact that I can always follow my curiosity is something that I'll never get bored of, and I don't think there's anything that will stop me. Maybe even if I stopped getting paid, I'd probably still do it. I would just probably have to get a boring job I don't like. It's almost like it's way beyond a job. Frankly, it's like my life’s purpose to meet people, to connect with them and to share their stories. I went to something called an energy wash. Have you heard of this?

No, I haven’t heard of that before.

The guy who did it was like, “Oh, you're a searcher. What you need to do is to tell people what you find.” I think that's really accurate. This is what I was put on the planet to do.

So big question, if you could wave a magic wand and magically solve some of the issues that we're facing, what would be your main targets for positive change?

I would love all creatives and all artists, wherever they're from, whatever their backgrounds, to have freedom to create. It is massively unfair and unjust how the creative industry is skewed towards people who have money. I was in India in November and December with Red Bull to write about grime artists. One of the things that struck me the most was was there's this producer in Mumbai called NaaR and he's so talented. He's pretty much India's first grime producer. What really struck me was how he can't fulfill his creative potential because he has no time, because he doesn't have the money, so he has to work in a call centre. And I just imagined what he would be creating if he didn't have to do that. So I would love is for creatives around the world to have the freedom to create without having to use up all of their creative energy on stuff that doesn't matter.

The big part of it isn't even about releasing the music, it's about the absolute joy of making or creating something. That's one of the greatest privileges of life, of being a creative, is getting into that flow state and doing something that completely lifts your spirit. That's one of the greatest things about being alive, and I think it's sad that so much energy gets drained out of you. A lot of the unfairness in the world it isn't actually about money, it's about time. It’s so so fucked up that time has become a privilege of people from a certain economic class.

Totally. And finally, any advice for emerging freelance writers in the music field?

Follow your curiosity. If something piques your interest, send a message, have a phone call, find out more. If you’re feeling a tug towards a certain place, go if you can. Following my curiosity has opened so many doors to me, even though I didn’t know what was in store on the other side.

And the boring part… I have no doubt that there are writers out there who will succeed because they can write about music beautifully. But I think it's about finding something that can financially support you while you get your feet off the ground. Honestly, finding a not too demanding remote job that can support you, so you can then go and take the opportunities you need to take, is probably the most practical step you can take to becoming a freelance music writer. There's no way I would be where I am today if I didn't have some flexible work throughout my career. I have so many different clients, from lots of different industries. Of course, I'd love to be writing about grime in Mumbai all the time, but, at this point, I’ve always mixed it up and worked with clients or brands that have a little bit more money. Frankly, it's not so romantic, but that's how it is now.