Joe Townsley, Lincoln Noise Academy

Lincoln Noise Academy focuses on educating and providing support for young people, empowering them and their creativity through music.

Can you tell me about your studio, the community it serves and its place in the industry?

I'd say the bread and butter of Noise Academy is around going into schools, mainstream and non-mainstream. We have freelance tutors across the country and nearly 100 schools a week now. They're looking for creative ways to reengage with young people. They find out what we do, so we send our passionate tutors from one day to a week upwards. It’s about a national reach on that side. We're always trying to try to push further. I think eventually we want to be looking at different countries.

It’s kind of a school in the daytime, it has practice room facilities, it’s got an outdoor area. This hub here is the first of its kind in terms of practice room facilities but we've realised that having this hub, we want to obviously do more of it. We’ve got Selby, North Yorkshire but that's just going to stay in education but Northampton is on the rise so and I’m going to be reaching out to you very soon and we're going to do the same thing here again. It's going to be like the same kind of vibe but the goal is to set up these these kind of hubs and keep it sustainable. We get access to buildings in a smart way, for example in Northampton the guy who owns the building has had a community radio station in that venue for 30 years. And we're helping him out and he's given us a bit of access to the building and we go from there really. So I think collaboration with existing venues is probably something that we're going to be looking at.

What inspired you to start your studio?

My background's always been DJing and music production and then it naturally fell into education in schools. I think subconsciously I've always known that I’ve annoyed a lot of neighbours. So I think having something like this where people can practice with no limits it’s great. It's just a perfect place to practice. We're out the way. And I've been inspired by other studio spaces that are doing a similar things and there wasn't anything in Lincoln so I just thought let's go for it. Be a great addition to what we're doing already.

What kind of musicians do you work with?

Mainly DJs and music producers but with that said with the new studio facilities. We've started working with rappers, and singer songwriters. Aside from people booking in we also do lessons as well for the community. We’re kind of flexible.

You were saying before during the day it’s lessons like an alternate provision. And then in the evening it's more non-traditional with a DJ set up where you book it. Can you tell us more about it?

Pretty much. So in the daytime we're an alternative provision or a small school if you like. And then after 3:30 that's when it's the wider community. Practice room facilities and lessons for anyone and everyone of all ages. I think we’ve got someone at the moment who’s like 6 years old absolutely smashing it.

My favourite is when we work with somebody that doesn't know they've got a natural sense of rhythm and then, they work with us on a whim just because they want to try something new and they discover that and it's just like, that's mega. Especially someone who is, you know, struggling at school or they're having challenges and they find their passion inside or outside of school through working with us across Noise Academy. Everyone involved, like the teachers and stuff are super passionate and so we build good relationships, l'd say.

What’s a day in your life look like?

With the studio. It's relatively passive to be honest for me as a director. The amazing booking system that you've [Andy] set up just works seamlessly. People can book in, they get a code, and they let themselves in. They sign a disclosure, so l'm protected as a business, which is obviously super important, and then they let themselves out. So that side of it is quite passive. We’ve got an ad campaign that we use for getting people on board for lesson, on an evening through the DJ hub and that's relatively automated.

How do you think you have differentiated yourself from other studios?

I think we wanted to go the extra mile and really fuse in some amazing artwork, stuff that really inspires me and have every single hub different. As mentioned earlier, everything's kind of inspired by all these old posters up, and obviously having lessons on the side and bringing in that sense of community through events and giving back. Like I think that's at the core of what we do. I think that's what makes us different. You know.

If someone was wanting to start this from scratch what advice would you give them? What have you learned along the way?

I'd say to try and be proactive and do your market research. See what's what's happening, what's not happening and see how you can fit in to make something a little bit different. Definitely get your legal status set up, whether you're a sole trader or a limited company or CIC or whatever and try and tap into some avenues of funding. Each city tends to have a business hub for example that you can reach out to and say you're a business or whatever and ask if there's anything like council funding or it could be anything. Youth music, arts council, so many different pots of funding.

I know finance is difficult. This place you know, you're talking like, 25 grand to get all the equipment that you need and I was quite fortunate to to get supported by a couple of different organisations along with hard work myself. Setting something like this up without investment straight away is quite difficult.