Inside The Life Of A Modern Music Entrepreneur

From his home studio in Jarvisfield, where guitars adorn the walls, Mick Thompson writes, records, and rehearses his music.

Mick is a musician moving with the times, utilising the technology and resources available to turn his lifelong passion for guitars into a sustainable career, although he says the learning curve is a steep one.

Mick's love affair with guitars started early; his first musical purchase was a copy of ‘Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band’ by The Beatles at age five.

It wasn’t until he was 15, growing up in Penrith, NSW, that he first started playing guitar, and he’s virtually had an instrument in his hands ever since.

A builder by trade, Mick has always played music on the side and has worked and performed all over the country.

In the last 12 months, he’s started to diversify his musical skillset and take his passion on fulltime.

“There is playing live, which I do in Townsville and Ayr, but there’s also a whole world of it online,” he said.

“Nothing’s overnight; you’ve just got to keep working at it and the more you work at it the more you get and eventually you turn and around one day and realise you’re making a decent living out of it.”

While Mick performs most live most weekends in his duo RT Souls, his week also involves writing, recording, and rehearsing, whether that be his own music, vocal work for collaborations or backing tracks for licensing and royalty-free music websites for other musicians to purchase.

“You’ve got to keep churning out product, basically, and the product, at the end of the day, is the recording,” he said.

He’s started to upload his own music online, which he describes as anything from adult-oriented pop to country, southern rock, and folk, and now faces the challenge of marketing.

“There’s a whole lot of learning to market it, because you can get it out there, but you’ve got to get people to listen to it,” he said.

“You can release music worldwide at the click of a button and it doesn’t cost you a fortune anymore.

“You don’t need to go to the studio, you don’t need a label, if you can operate a computer and learn the software, you can be as good a producer as anyone.

“And you can distribute to anyone anywhere, it’s just getting that marketing side of it.”

Despite the challenges, he’s never lost his passion for the music.

“My favourite element is actually being able to play guitar for a living,” he said.

“I’m not so much focused on the singing, although I do a fair bit of vocal work, but it’s mainly about playing guitar for me.”

Visit tjaymicproductions.com to discover Mick’s work.

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Jarvisfield Musician Mick Thomspon