First of all, tell us about yourself, who are you and what do you do?

Hi we’re Tall Shaves, we’re a folk pop duo based in the north east. We’re both self employed musicians, this involves performing, writing and little bits of workshop delivery along with the occasional session job!

Why did you choose to become a musician/songwriter?

K: It’s a good way to put a smile on someones face, its very rewarding knowing that singing a song can change someones day.

P: I was always a really shy and quiet kid, then I got involved in music and got to work with some really amazing community musicians and it gave me so much more confidence! I decided that I’d really like to do that for somebody else through music, and feel really lucky that I can call that my job now.

As a young musician/songwriter, who were some of your biggest inspirations?

P: When I was growing up in the 90’s and early 00’s there were loads and loads of pop bands about, I loved the likes of S Club 7 and I think ‘Reach’ was probably the first song that made me realise that music could change people’s emotions, make people happy, so I thought that was unreal and wanted to make music that could do that! But also, I loved the likes of Katie Melua and Norah Jones, at the time most women in music seemed to be doing dance routines rather than playing instruments, which was fine, but I wasn’t much of a dancer ha! So seeing Katie and Norah playing piano and guitar was really inspiring, I remember just being like ‘Whoa, I’m going to do that!’.

K: Jason Mraz was one of the main reasons I started to learn guitar, I was a drummer prior to that. It was the audience engagement, and the fact you dont need a band to create music. Just one man and his guitar does the job just fine.

What do you feel is your biggest achievement in music so far?

As a band I think we’re pretty proud of the fact that we’ve done everything ourselves thus far, from writing and recording our first single to releasing our first ever EP ‘Two For Tuesdays’ and selling out our first ever headline show. We also got to headline a stage at this years ‘Hit The North festival’ which was pretty cool!

What are your biggest aspirations within the music industry?

To keep writing music that we’re proud of and means something to us, and keep putting it out there for others to hear!

If you could go back and give yourself one piece of advice as a young musician/songwriter, what would it be and why?

Probably that you’re not ‘just’ a musician… You’re also a sound engineer, a promoter, a roadie and you market yourself! Once you have the music right, just go for it!

Why is music education so important? 

Music is amazing and just like any other subject the musical skills you gain can put you on the right track to a career. However, its one of those subjects that can give you so much more than that, you can gain confidence, social skills, learn to work as a team member and on top of that its loads of fun and can make you feel great! Being able to write/compose your own music, you can express yourself, in a way that you might not usually. Its also really rewarding to have a product that you can take away at the end of it all.