Fresh from supporting Jake Bugg on his 2020 UK tour, ONR. (pronounced honour) caught up with Newcastle Magazine to discuss how the music industry has been affected by the coronavirus, postponed gigs ☹️, their recent March 12th show with Jake Bugg at Newcastle City Hall, and his debut EP “Must Stop” coming in May.
ED – Given the recent closure of music venues across the UK and around the world, when do you think we’ll have the opportunity to see another live show from ONR.?
ONR. – It’s an awful situation for an awful lot of people. In terms of seeing live performances again, I think everyone is hoping for a best-case scenario of around 6 months, but that’s really just an arbitrary date that has been plucked from thin air. We’ve got Reading and Leeds at the end of August, which according to all the press releases is going ahead as planned, so I’ve got this in my mind as my first gig back. That’s what I’m hoping at least. That’s over five months away, and that’s a crazy long time to be without any live music. But nobody knows; it could be longer than that, or this coronavirus situation might burn out really quickly.
It’s a really stressful time for people who work in the industry, I had a phone call with our one of our crew, who said six months of work just dried up overnight and I’m having the same conversation with tour managers, drivers, and techs/roadies over the last few days.
ONR. – Human Enough (Official Music Video)
ED – How do you think this crisis will impact the music industry in the long term?
ONR. – Massively, especially with the rise of the live-streamed gig, which up until this point has been an anomaly and will now become mainstream. Artists are enjoying the personal connection they have over twitter and that’s breaking into the live environment as well. I think that will broaden in the general culture as well, business people are doing more video conferences, families talk to their grandparents online, and it’s going to become much more normalised after this. I do think it’ll change the way society, artists and the music industry interact with fans.
I don’t think anything will replace the live experience, but for people who aren’t able to attend or for new artists it’s a perfect way of reaching out to new fans. And with with music venues closed, this is the only way artists can perform live to their audience.
ED – Have you get anything new in the pipeline?
ONR. – I have a new EP out in May and it’s called “Must Stop”. It’ll be nice to put something out now, it’s my debut EP and ONR’s first real collection after just doing singles so far. After that, who knows? The plan was to go touring, but I have no idea whether that’s going to happen now: probably not, at least until later in the year. We could worry about that, or we can think how to work with these circumstances, like doing more live streaming as I mentioned and working on a couple of new tracks of my own and with other people like Jake Bugg.
ED -How many more tracks can we expect when Must Stop comes out?
ONR. – Two more: Must Stop and Crash Landing, which we played at the Jake Bugg gig.
The Next Shed Session – TONIGHT 7PM GMT (Monday 23rd March)
ONR. has been performing live from his shed after a poll on Instagram where fans chose to have a live stream from his shed rather than his home studio.
View this post on Instagram
—–
New ONR. EP “Must Stop” is out May 15th, 2020 on all the usual streaming and music services.
Other music industry sources:
UK music statement on Coronavirus:
https://www.ukmusic.org/help-and-advice/uk-music-statement-on-coronavirus-and-the-music-industry/
The impact of the coronavirus on music: https://www.theguardian.com/music/2020/mar/20/im-trying-to-keep-the-panic-down-the-coronavirus-impact-on-music
