Guys, am I completely insane? (Career rant)

[tempe]

Alright first things first I'll give you guys a little bit of background. My name is Matthew Templeman and I've been running a small studio here in Perth, Australia for the last two years. Things have been going ok, and I've been scraping by. I've studied at SAE and like to think my work has been steadily improving. The long and short of it to me is though, there's just not enough happening in Perth for me to continue pursuing this job full time in this city. I think as a career its best to aim for the absolute top and I plan to get there one day. So ultimately considering my goal and my current location, I need to move.

Which is where the insanity starts, ultimately I need to move to one of the big four hubs of music production. The UK, New York, LA or Nashville. I'm not to fussed about the sort of music I work with so ultimately I'll take any job anywhere. What I'm looking at doing is saving and researching for the next year or two, then trying to make the intern / runner / assistant transition somewhere. This is a huge, huge decision however. As I can imagine there are 1 million other people just like myself hoping to do what I'm trying to do, but I'm ok with working hard enough to make it work.

Has anyone here made this transition? How did you go about doing it? What I'm really scared of is having to move somewhere and not being able to earn an income for a period of up to 18 months. Which means I need to save a serious amount of money.

Is there anything realistic about this at all? I'm ok with earning my dues / working for nothing / doing what I have to do to get there. Sure there might be more competition than ever, but there's got to be an opening somewhere.

I'm really scared of saving and putting everything I have into a lofty goal and getting absolutely no where. What do think the best option is? Plug on in Perth and try to bludgeon a name for myself? Or try and save and move?

 

[amarshism]

Perth has plenty of bands. Some are even flying to me to record. Get your ear to the ground and try and find more. I think the day of the big studio is dying/dead and with it I assume alot of assistant/runner jobs have become a necessary cut from the team. I'd say spend your time/money on more research/more practice/moar gear. Australia is a growing country and in the coming years there's gonna be alot more bands popping up and hopefully a lot less hacks to record them.

 

[tempe]

Oh I know there are heaps and heaps of bands, there's also HEAPS of people recording. I'm ok with the competition, in fact its great! Just having a think whether I'm better off here or somewhere else. I'm doing all I can to network, I'm in a band that does ok, I spend a lot of time at shows meeting new bands, I've started up "Band starter kit" packages, think its just a case of time and perseverance. On a unrelated note Amarshism, are Thy Art is Murder coming over hear for that Sounds of a Silhouette festival?

 

[amarshism]

If we get fronted our guarantee as per our contract then of course

 

[Fbarre]

I don't think that being an intern will lead you to where you ultimately want to be. Still it might be very interesting to live in a different country to gain more experience which broadens up your horizon. However I would suggest learning and researching what you could do now marketing wise to establish your name or gain a reputation in the music scene. Think outside the box or if there were no box and don't restrict yourself to only work with artists from your local area, if you can connect with the whole world from your fingertips.

Don't get me wrong, being an intern could make you a better engineer but it doesn't necessarily make you any better at attracting clients wanting to work with you. There's a lot you can do even without needing to spend much money at all and there's a lot of ebooks and free information scattered across the net.