Tom Webber is one of the lucky ones. The talented 24-year-old singer-songwriter has a record deal, a management team and a publishing contract. He has played at Glastonbury, has supported Suzanne Vega and his tracks have been streamed hundreds of thousands of times on Spotify. But Webber still lives at home with his parents in Didcot and travels into London to perform. “I don’t make any money,” he says with admirable frankness.
Webber knows how fortunate he is to have made it onto the first rung of the music industry ladder. But life is tough, with the cost of performing rising and small venues closing. “It's a lot harder than I'm sure it probably was. I'm only 24 but it's hard because there are fewer and fewer grassroots venues, and I think things like Covid probably didn't help,” he says. Over the three years that he’s been playing music professionally he’s seen fellow musicians “dropping like flies”.
