Singer-Songwriter Seb Lowe on Finding Success on Social Media
Seb Lowe is an emerging, young talent to look out for. Ten months ago, the TikTok algorithm introduced me to 18 year old singer songwriter Seb Lowe. The now viral video caught my attention immediately. Lowe was singing about politics like I’d ever seen anyone do before. Using satire, he stepped into the shoes of two UK political parties to present their hypocrisy and rather common ideology. As I scrolled through his page I felt as if I had just struck gold. The music was fresh, thrilling, and empowering. And since then, it has only gotten better. I recently got the opportunity to sit down with Seb Lowe and chat about songwriting, politics, social media, and his career’s future.
Click here to listen to Seb Lowe’s first album, “Half-Decent”
The Gaia Zine: When did you first start writing music?
Seb Lowe: I’ve always really enjoyed music and singing. When I was around thirteen my dad got me a guitar and started teaching me. I left it for a bit and then picked it up again seriously when I was about fourteen. And for some reason, I started writing songs. I had always liked writing stories so I transferred that into lyrics and then music.
TGZ: You mentioned your dad plays the guitar, would you say that you grew up around music?
Lowe: Yes, I’d say so. My dad’s got quite the impressive CD collection. He did his best to introduce me to every kind of music under the sun. When people ask me what my musical inspiration is, it’s kind of hard to pin one because my dad made it so I’ve been exposed to all kinds of music. I’d definitely say that I’ve grown up around all kinds of music. For example, when I was much younger I would exclusively listen to Eminem. My dad, who’s not really a fan of rap, had one Eminem album. That was before Spotify, so I was just listening to the one CD over and over again. I’ve stopped listening to him now but I think that I definitely got my influence from that.
TGZ: What kinds of music do you listen to the most?
Lowe: All kinds. You’d find 50s Doo-Wop music like The Ronettes. A lot of Arctic Monkeys, Led Zeppelin, The Rolling Stones, Blur, David Bowie, The Beatles, Declan McKenna, The Smiths, The Heavy, Oasis, The Fratellis, The Strokes, Sinéad O'Connor, Pulp, Eminem, and Tash Sultana. My favorite songs are Life on Mars by David Bowie, Hard Headed Woman by Cat Stevens and Troy by Sinéad O'Connor.
TGZ: If you could get into the studio today and collaborate with any artist, who would it be and why?
Lowe: It would probably be Dave. He’s a UK rapper. It’s funny because I don't really listen to that much UK rap. But I listen to Dave because he’s a very very good lyricist. If I worked with a rapper like Dave, who writes some bloody genius lyrics, I think he could add something really interesting. It would be really cool to see what you could create mixing rap, acoustic guitar, and politics together.
TGZ: What is your songwriting process like?
Lowe: It depends on the kind of song that I’m writing. The songs I write for TikTok are very different from the songs that don’t go on TikTok. If I’m writing for TikTok, I’ll often find that if I’m on the bus or doing something where I’ve got time on my hands, I’ll get my notes app and write some lyrics. I have a massive sheet in my notes where I just write any potential lyrics. If I hear someone say something interesting and think “Oh, that’d be a good song lyric” then I just jot that down. I’ll get to my house, stab some chords, and sing the lyrics over them. With Tiktok, I focus very heavily on the lyrics and less so on the music. But when it’s other songs, which I don’t really post on TikTok, they tend to be less wordy so I think much more about the music. I find chords first and then put lyrics to them as opposed to putting music to words like I do for TikTok.
TGZ: Do you only perform the other, more music heavy songs during your gigs or are they a mix of those and what you post online?
Lowe: I’d say it’s definitely a mix. One thing about the wordier stuff: when I’m performing live I can imagine that it doesn't translate as well to the audience because they don’t get the lyrics on the screen like my viewers on Tiktok. It’s more of a mix because some of the fast lyrics that generally hit online don’t really hit live.
TGZ: You’ve gotten pretty big on Tiktok recently, how long after you started posting did it start to gain traction?
Lowe: It was a long process even joining Tiktok. I was reluctant to do it. Everyone was saying to do it but putting myself out there was still a bit of a daunting thing. I don’t make my songs very personal but songwriting, full stop, is just a very personal thing. Especially when you put yourself out there and people you know are seeing these songs. When I first started posting, I got this small following of the same people commenting on all of my videos. It felt really good because they were people that I didn’t know. Back when I was just posting on Instagram, it was all people I knew who, no matter what, were going to say “that sounds great.” But these were different people which was really nice. When I had one video that sort of blew up I remember thinking at the time, “woah, woah, this is wild.” And then another one did better and then another which did better than that. That was about the time that I gained the confidence to start speaking politically and start singing faster. Once I had the platform and following I thought that, “alright, now I could say what I think.” If you go to my first videos there’s hardly anything political.
TGZ: Since your music is so political, I can imagine that you get a lot of commenters who disagree with your views, how do you respond to that type of pushback?
Lowe: It depends. It’s most annoying when people don’t really get the point of the video, for example they won’t understand that I’m presenting other viewpoints, which is the only instance where I’ll comment in response just letting them know it’s satire. But if it’s someone who simply disagrees, I welcome it. The music is doing its job when that happens because it allows for discussion, at least people are talking and thinking about it. I find it very interesting when I’ll go into the comment section and see a chain of people saying, “I think this, I think that.” It educates me to see viewpoints that I didn’t even think about. I think it’s cool when people disagree.
TGZ: You’ve spoken about your personal journey, but, in general, how do you think social media is shifting the industry and how artists are sharing their music?
Lowe: It’s wild. The ease of entry into the industry has increased by landslides. It’s very easy to just create a profile on TikTok and just start posting videos playing guitar. You don’t need a lot of money or a big producer. You just need a guitar and a camera. It’s become very easy to get into the music industry but it’s also made it a bit harder to make it to a certain point of success because there are now so many more artists. I’m interested to see what it does to the industry. The industry itself is a little bit behind social media. Artists don’t really make the money from their music being streamed. They get paid for their gigs. It’s all changed.
TGZ: What’s next for you?
Lowe: Releasing. Releasing. Releasing. I want to try and release as much as I can. I wanna do some cool gigs and just see what happens. I wanna carry on with TikTok. Hopefully, it can become a job and I can do this for the rest of my life.
Click here to read Seb Lowe’s advice for aspiring singer-songwriters.
