© Freddie Long
INJECTION introduces you to Brighton-born artist Freddie Long as he converses about his experience breaking out into the UK music industry.
Part 2/6 of UK’s breakout musician series.
INJECTION introduces Freddie Long, 29-year-old singer from Brighton who has reached over 1 million streams on Spotify, performed at a host of reputable venues and has recently been signed to Sony Germany. The artist spoke to us about his personal venture into the music industry over the past 6 years, as well as what the future holds for the promising singer/songwriter.
Raised listening to a range of artists from Jamiroquai to Top Loader to Blink 182, Freddie has adopted an old-school indie overtone to his music, accompanied by insightful lyrics and sharp vocals. The artist started releasing music at age 23 and has released a host of singles and EPs, with more to come. The artist discussed how his style has developed over the past few years, saying ‘I’d say my music shifted over the years. For me as an artist, you start releasing music and you gradually develop into what you want to do. So I think when I started releasing music I was a little unsure’. His most recent release, an EP called Motion, has amounted significant attention, with the single In Your Arms reaching almost 300 thousand streams on Spotify.
Freddie has been songwriting for years and channels his emotions to create insightful lyrics for his music. He told us, ‘I take lyrical inspiration from my life. I find (not to sound really cliché about it) that it's quite an escape for me emotionally. I find it quite hard to tap into my emotions sometimes so I think music is the only place I can feel comfortable just talking about whatever really’. With the help of collaborators, these emotions and ideas are brainstormed until a song is produced and the artist emphasises the importance of collaborating and working with a great team around oneself. He told us ‘It's all about finding the right people around you. As a solo artist, it can be quite tough. Obviously, you’ve got your management, you’ve got your label, you’ve got your team. I think that’s been something that I've had to understand to develop a good crew of people who are passionate and share the same vision, and put the same energy in. Like, however big and small they are- It's really important to have a good team around you.’
Live music and gigging is an enamouring aspect of being a musician and despite lockdown putting that on hold for a while, Freddie is over the moon to be performing again with a variety of exciting gigs planned for the future. He told us ‘I love playing live so much. This year we've got Lollapalooza festival in Germany and a few other things planned so I'm super excited for that. I aspire to get on the road more and play anywhere possible. I'm excited to be able to tour around and play the music as opposed to just playing in the studio. I'm looking forward to that.’ A significantly special gig for Freddie was back in November 2021 when he performed his own headline show to a crowd of 150 people. He said that the atmosphere was incredible and that it was truly surreal.
Despite his success, Freddie was honest about the trials and tribulations of the music industry, opening up and commenting ‘Creativity is such a humbling place anyway because you have such an amazing week then the week after is such a down week. I think its consistently just ups and downs.’ To tackle this, the artist once again emphasised the importance of the people who surround him, adding ‘I think it's important to have that network of people that when you are feeling low can just pick you up. Having that solid base of people is so important.’
Freddie has already reached significant success as a breakout artist, and this will only continue to grow. He has a few gigs in London over the summer months and be sure to keep an eye out for his upcoming album which is set to be released in September. Linked below is the music video for Battles, which dropped in early 2022.
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