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This week's podcast explores something we keep coming back to: what happens when you've been making music for decades and you're moving into a new phase of your career, armed with all the experience and perspective that comes with it.

Listen to the podcast here

Watch the video here

I'm 37 now, and according to page 1 of "Myths of the Music Industry", I should have peaked around 27 and then gracefully disappeared. Preferably frozen in time like some gothic Snow White, never ageing, never evolving, just existing as a snapshot for people to consume. Which is obviously nonsense.

What actually happens when you get older as a musician is that you get better. Your songs deepen. Your voice finds new textures. You stop trying to impress people who don't matter. You walk into venues in your pyjamas (I think people are always shocked at how different I look before and after the makeup 🤣)

It's so ironic. Just as you're hitting your peak musically, doing your best work, the industry decides you're past it. You're finally confident enough to create from a place of real authenticity rather than desperate validation-seeking, and someone's writing you off because you've got the audacity to age. It's exhausting, and it's also completely backwards from reality.

The Transformation Thing

To make your best work, parts of you have to die. The alchemists called it mortification—shedding the dead parts. It sounds dramatic, but it's true. You can't carry all your old ego stuff into your next phase. The version of me that needed everyone to think I was impressive had to go. The version that chased labels and networking events trying to prove something also had to go. And good riddance to that!

When Birdeatsbaby ended after the pandemic, we thought that might be it for that band. Then Crimson Veil happened, and suddenly there was a chance to get back on stage with a whole new sound. There's a quote I love: your new life will cost you your old one.

The Luxury of Not Being Desperate

One of the best things about having been doing this for the best part of two decades is that I don't have that urgency anymore. The frantic "I need to release everything NOW before I'm too old" energy of my late twenties has evaporated. Sometimes that's scary because you associate urgency with hunger, like maybe losing the desperation means losing the drive. But actually, I'm just doing better work now because I'm not operating from a place of panic.

I have a body of songs already out there, constantly being streamed, generating small royalties whilst I sleep. I have a team I trust. I don't need to add solos to prove my musicianship. The flex is in the songwriting now, not in showing off technique. Your older fans aren't going anywhere either. The people who dropped off when you stopped being 25 were never really listening anyway. The ones who stayed will be there when you're 90, which is genuinely lovely to think about.

Staying Relevant

There's a Queens of the Stone Age lyric that goes "hell is at the temple of a closed mind," and it's absolutely true. You stay relevant by staying open. By listening to new music even when you're tired and just want something familiar. By keeping up with how language evolves, how culture shifts. By not being that person who resists everything new because it wasn't like this in your day.

I'm not saying I'm out there listening to trap music or whatever the kids are doing now, but I'm trying. I'm looking for new things, even if sometimes that means going backwards and discovering older music I've never explored. The important thing is to keep challenging yourself and not get lazy. If you stop listening to anything new, that's when you start to sound and look old in a way that's more about closed-mindedness than actual age.

Being authentic is probably the most important thing. If your personal journey reflects your artistic journey, you'll always be relevant because you'll always be living your actual experience. Write from where you are, not from where you think you should be or where the industry thinks you should be.

What I'd Tell My Younger Self

Stop trying to impress people. Every stressful situation I've had in music came from looking outward for validation. Putting on gigs to impress people, releasing collaborations to impress people, placing my focus on stream counts and attendance numbers. None of that actually matters. What will matter on my deathbed is that I released art I'm proud of.

The Bottom Line

Growing old in music isn't a tragedy. It's a privilege that a lot of people don't get. You get better, you get wiser, you build something substantial over time. Your work deepens. You stop caring about being seen and start caring about being authentic. You develop this rage that comes from decades of dealing with rubbish as a woman, and that rage fuels some of your best work.

I wouldn't go back to my twenties for a million pounds. That decade was stressful, exhausting, and involved way too much trying to prove things to people who didn't matter. I had no idea what I was doing, I was constantly anxious about how I looked and whether I was good enough, and the paths I pursued made me absolutely miserable.

I'm exactly where I want to be now. Making music that matters to me, with people I trust, without caring whether I'm still young enough to be marketable according to some arbitrary industry standard. The luxury of reflection, the luxury of time, the luxury of already having done the work of building an empire—these are all things that come with age, and they're genuinely wonderful.

Relevance comes from authenticity. Evolution is necessary. Transformation is painful but essential. And you're relevant at every single stage of your career.