Nat King Cole once said, ‘you call it madness, but I call it love’. It seems to me that this is applicable for all forms of love, as I can only describe my and my friends’ musical endeavours as completely and utterly bonkers.

I say this because when it boils down to it, being an artist is really bloody hard, especially one that earns exactly no money. Why else would we do this but for the love of doing it?

However, being in a band with a manager obviously lightens the load so that one person doesn’t have to do everything, and by everything I mean: organise the photoshoots, organise the music video shoots, be active across all social media platforms, write the music, record the music, mix the music, master the music, create the artwork, upload the music to digital distributors, register the music with PRS, practise your live performance, then do it again, then do it again, then organise all your gigs, then play all your gigs (many of which don’t actually pay enough to cover your travel and accommodation), then do it again and again and again until you’re successful OR you die.

It’s admittedly a chaotic picture I paint for you there, but it is the reality. All of those things are usually happening simultaneously, which as you can imagine is absolutely relentless. But we have each other, which keeps our sanity intact and we have you, the people, who maintain our drive and our dreams.

It can be a tough life but it’s worth it, especially when we get so much love for our single releases, which is why we’re now back in writing mode in preparation for next year!

I myself have been taken out by a couple of colds over these past months, consequently slowing down my compositional yield as it were. This has recently resulted in me having to write one song a day to catch up with the writing targets I set for myself, but I can confirm that despite occasional bouts of procrastination, it’s going pretty well,  and that’s not to mention the songs that we have been writing and developing together.

I think it’s fair to say that the best is yet to come as we have now been together for almost a year, and we know what The Great Leslie is in terms of its sonic identity. All we need to do now is develop that further and bring you all along for the ride.

We will be closing off the year with our last single ‘Anna’, which I think is probably my favourite of our 2021 tracks. So with that coming out on the 26th of November and never-ending singles starting from next February, there is a lot to be excited about. I certainly am and I know that the band are too, despite the fact that there is so much to do between now and then. Still, that’s okay; we do it for your love and for the love of music. Just be sure to like, listen and share our songs as much as you possibly can. Our passion for what we do will never be extinguished, but your incredible support helps our fire burn that much brighter.

So as you dance around listening to The Great Leslie be great on Spotify (or whatever streaming platform you use), I don’t want you to be thinking about how much time and effort we’ve put into writing and recording and all the other shite that comes with simply wanting to get our music out there; I want you to be thinking, ”let’s play it again”. In the words of Shakespeare, ‘if music is the food of love, play on’, and play we shall Bill my old mucker.

May you all find true love and passion for what you do.

I am most honourably, and occasionally stressfully,

Oliver Trevers aka. The Greatest of all Leslies