Many of the best shows I’ve been to have been in tiny independent venues around the country. It’s the most special feeling when you’re watching an act with only a handful of other people & you can tell they’re going to go on to huge things, you know the magic memory of that intimate gig will stay with you forever. I started my Good Karma Club night to give new artists a platform to develop & learn their craft and we’ve had some incredible performances over the last few years. Without one of my favourite local venues, the Tunbridge Wells Forum, the likes of Slaves, Everything Everything & Frank Turner would not have grown to be some of the best live performers on the planet. Socially, culturally, creatively, venues are crucial, we must protect them at all costs!”

Without them I wouldn’t have the incredible job I do today, the unsigned musicians I work with would be left without audiences to hone their craft with, communities would lose their beating, jumping, dancing heart, and the world would lose its technicolour. Yet despite this the most pivotal venues of my youth – and the early stages for all my favourite mid-size bands – are now closed. Only a handful remain in the South West, and they can’t keep up with the demands for stage time made of them from musicians across the entire artistic spectrum. Like plants without room to grow, they become stunted, left with nowhere to develop and unfurl the leaves they didn’t even know they had. We need a broad spread of music venues catering to all tastes, just as is commonplace with theatres and galleries. The music industry can’t be expected to fend for itself any longer, and creative lives can’t survive without these venues. That’s why I’m incredibly proud to be a small cog working to protect them as part of the Music Venue Trust.”