Sigourney
Hello, I'm Sigourney. I'm here with...

Larry
Larry. Larry Hibbit.

Sigourney
Larry from the band Hundred Reasons. I'm conducting this interview for a project exploring perspectives across the music industry—from artists and producers to consumers.

You started pretty young, right? Around 15?

Larry
Yeah, I was about 15 when I got into playing music—specifically band music. But I really started around 13 or 14. I did terribly at school, couldn’t apply myself at all.

Sigourney
Hey, twin.

Larry
Yeah, same. Later found out I had ADHD—which made a lot of sense. People like us tend to gravitate toward creative stuff—we need something that keeps our brains busy.

So, I wasn’t doing great in school, but I was using my time well otherwise. I found friends from different schools, including mine, and we connected through a youth club that had a recording studio. That became my space. I’d record friends’ bands and organize gig nights at Heatham House in Twickenham. Eventually, we had hundreds of people coming to those shows.

So yeah, it never felt like a conscious decision to make music. It wasn’t some big career plan—it just felt like the only thing I could do.

Sigourney
And Heatham House—that’s the one near Richmond College, right?

Larry
Yeah, that’s the one. Legendary spot.

Sigourney
Did Hundred Reasons come out of that scene?

Larry
Not directly. My earlier bands did. I think we were some of the first kids to put on shows there. And I think those nights are still going, actually—feels like a nice legacy. Me and my friend Charlie—still one of my best mates—we built the stage and set up the lighting rig. It was all DIY. We were just trying to channel energy we didn’t know what to do with.

Sigourney
They should put a plaque up or something.

Larry
Honestly, they should.

Sigourney
So, how did Hundred Reasons come together?

Larry
That was a bit later. I joined when I was about 21 or 22. Before that, I’d been in a couple bands—played gigs, but nothing that really took off. Then I met the guys from a band called Floor. They were doing new metal. Dark stuff—but good.

I was in a pop-punk band called Jetpack, which wasn’t as good, if I’m honest. But we’d play shows together and had the same managers—a guy and a girl who worked at the Beggars Banquet record store in Kingston. That’s Banquet Records now.

Anyway, Floor kicked someone out, and I joined on guitar. That’s when we became Hundred Reasons. And when we started writing together, things just clicked. Suddenly people were interested. We weren’t chasing anymore—it just started happening.

One of our first gigs was a Kerrang! all-dayer at the old London Arena—what’s now the ExCeL Centre. We were first or second on, I think. Then the good support slots started rolling in. Within 18 months, we’d signed a record deal.

Sigourney
You went from Jetpack, to Floor, to Hundred Reasons, and got signed. What was that like?

Larry
We signed with Columbia Records. It was... fine? I mean, it was exciting, sure—but it wasn’t this big "we made it!" moment. It was more like, “Okay, cool. Now we can make an album.”

Financially, I actually took a pay cut leaving my call centre job to go full-time with the band. But it meant we could do the album properly—we flew to New York and worked with Dave Sardy, who we were all fans of. That wouldn’t have happened without Columbia.

Sigourney
And Columbia wasn’t the only label, right?

Larry
No, not at all. We were also on V2—which doesn’t exist anymore—and now we’re with So Recordings, a solid indie label.

We’ve had a bunch of different publishers too—EMI, Universal, Nettwerk... I was signed to SoRie Music Publishing for a while. You’re not a real band unless you’ve been dropped three times.

Sigourney
Facts. What’s it like navigating all of that? Honestly, that part of the industry scares me.

Larry
It is scary. It’s chaotic. No one really knows what they’re doing. It’s an industry of friends, connections, and a lot of blagging. I've always found it confusing and disorganized.

But the people who survive are the grafters, the hustlers—or the grifters. It’s not easy.

Sigourney
Still, you’re in it. So there’s got to be some joy.

Larry
Yeah, there is joy—sometimes. But it’s complicated. Like I said, it never really felt like I chose this. It was the only thing that made sense for me.

Sometimes I look at people with regular jobs and think, “God, imagine knowing the exact amount that’ll land in your account each month.” That’s never been my life. Being self-employed in music is a rollercoaster. You’ve got highs, lows, imposter syndrome—it never really goes away.

I’ve never sat back and gone, “This is amazing, everything’s great.” It’s not that kind of journey.

Sigourney
Let’s say you’re 20 again, at the top of the rollercoaster. Would you do anything differently?

Larry
No real regrets. I definitely made mistakes—did things wrong. But I don’t regret them.

If I could tell my younger self something, it’d be: learn to work smart instead of just working hard. I used to go all night, all day. It probably wasn’t healthy. But at the same time, I can’t even remember half of it—it’s been 25 years. So it’s hard to look back with too much judgment.

Sigourney
That’s everything. Thank you so much, seriously.

Larry
Thank you. That was great.

So, my name’s Sigourney, and I’m here with…

Murray
I’m Murray from the band The Exerts. Why?

Sigourney
So, so for your first two years, you, actually what am I doing? I’m trying to ask a question. How were your first two years as a band, would you say?

Murray
I mean, our start in the industry was very pure and naive because of our environment really because we grew up in Aberdeen and this was pre-internet. So it was just a hobby to begin with, very much a hobby but I think maybe for myself and Jordan we quickly realised that it’s something we felt very passionately about.

But yeah, it was very much the DIY scene.

Jordan
local band, try and get gigs at the local venue, have to sell a certain amount of tickets or you can’t play the gig kind of thing. Yeah.

Murray
So in that regard, we did learn quite a bit about the music industry.

Jordan
And then moving to Brighton, when we were 18, it sort of happened very quickly for us. We were lucky enough to get an agent and a manager quite quickly and just be put on the road.

A lot of bands don’t necessarily have that start, you know, they have to start in kind of dribs and drabs, but we were just put on the road. So we cut our teeth pretty quickly and got very used to just every venue in the country and sleeping on floors and being tired and playing to no one.

Murray
so yeah I guess I guess that was kind of the way to do it for a lot of bands back then was just to just get in the van and go if you weren’t gonna sign with a label with a lot of money it was just like cool well we’ll go and do the work and we’ll take this we’ll take the music to the people yeah even though it was only like three people up and down the country in total

Sigourney
You did manage to get signed though, right? You got signed to one records, I think? Yeah, that was your first one, right?

Jordan
single deal. Yeah, single deal. It’s like seven inches.

Murray
I don’t even think that like they do single deals anymore because they’re so basically it was the safest way for a label to secure a band that they weren’t sure about but if it took off they had them. So we actually had a couple of single deals over the year.

Yes. So you hopped around. Yeah they were like there’s something here. Maybe they’ll be big. We can’t see it.

Jordan
But let’s sign them for a single video just to be safe because if they take off then we got we got yes

Murray
Yeah, because Biffy, Clyro had kind of done The Unthinkable and became one of the UK’s biggest bands, which was not kind of meant to be for them. They, because they were, they were like the smallest band of 100 Reasons generation. Remember when, like, back then they were like at the bottom of the peck order. So I think when they blew up, that’s when a few people were like, Oh God, we need the next Biffy and the excerpts are on our radar.

So here’s the single deal that will tie you in, in case it takes off. So yeah, that was like our first real introduction to labels. And then we got signed to an independent called Extra Mile.

Jordan
So yeah, we were on an indie for the first three records, and it was nice to see the industry from that side. They very much were an indie, it was 50-50, everything, kind of grassroots, everyone was really nice.

Yeah, it was a good experience.

Murray
Yeah, totally.

Sigourney
Yeah, so how did it feel like navigating the industry because you’re really young, you know, you’re going from label to label. How did that feel in the moment while it was all happening, those first few years?

Like, let’s see. Like, confusing. Just confusing. I didn’t really know what we were doing.

Murray
It was like so confusing that we didn’t really think about it

Jordan
Can I have the adults tell you like, okay, you’re gonna sign this deal now and you go, okay, I don’t really know what that means

Murray
Yeah, totally. Because we also had Sam Duckworth from…

Jordan
Yeah, mannequin.

Murray
mannequin republics. It was time, extra mole, won records, then it was regal

Jordan
We were like demoing for majors, so many majors like gave us money to make devos that just came to nothing but like we seemed to always be in the studio making songs that no one would do on like Universal’s dime and it was amazing.

Murray
Yeah, I think there was always that kind of optimism or like dumb faith that we were like, oh yeah, one of these will work. They’re all asking us to record for them, one of them will work. And then when it didn’t, it was like, well, that’s cool because we are being afforded the chance to record with this other label. So it’s fine.

I think because we had done so much ourselves when we were younger, I don’t know. I think we were pretty self-reliant and resilient because we, again, going back to this, us starting when we were 14, it’s like we were playing in a lot of uncomfortable situations where we would have to impress people in their mid-20s who were 10 years older than us. And we would walk in a little bit like a freak show because we were about this big. Yeah, we were, again, we were well liked by our local music scene and the people that ran venues. So even when we were too young to play, they were like, get on in here, just play.

Jordan
and then get out. You can play but you can’t be in there because you’re not. It’s a way outside.

Murray
on and play the game. Yeah so I do think that set us up well and yeah we didn’t know much about it.

Maybe we also thought, I’m not 100% but I think maybe we thought at the time that’s just how the industry works. Yeah. Everybody else was going through what we were going through.

Jordan
The department, yeah, it’s just assuming that people know what they’re doing and now we’re older and you go, oh, no one really knows what they’re doing. Like, you assume that someone in charge must know and have a plan, but that isn’t actually the case. Yeah.

Murray
I remember speaking to other bands at the time as well when we started discovering that they had one label because they were successful. And they bid on that label for three hours.

What? Seriously? Oh right, why? It’s so weird. It’s so weird that you have support and money.

Sigourney
You are on One Day Will Know, you’ve stuck with Regan for a while, right? Uh, we-

Murray
We’ve been off the…

Jordan
record for the last record we were with them for a long time yeah they were our management and then we sort of self-released

Sigourney
So you’re self-releasing now? No. It’s still going on. It’s still going on.

Jordan
Go for one record.

Sigourney
I remember when we used to pop from…

Murray
Yeah, well, yes, we did two on Extra Mile, one on Ray Gun, the next one was The Orchard, then we signed the Unified. And now?

And now we’re about to sign to a different label. We’re back to this, one label for one album.

Jordan
And they go, yeah, we don’t want you to do another one. And you go, okay, cool, we’ll get another label then. And you just get another one.

Murray
You’d have to be the one where the industry goes, no more! If this one doesn’t really hit, yeah! You fooled us five times!

Jordan
Alright? Shame on you.

Murray
The problem is, on our fourth album, we got a Top 40 record, so everybody came back and was like, you are going to be that band that we all thought you were going to be. Yeah, we knew you could do it.

We’re very fortunate though.

Sigourney
You’ve been a band for 15 years, 20 years, 2 decades, and you’ve stuck through it, so obviously ups and downs, jumping from, you know, label to label to label to label to label to label to label, but there must be like some joy in it, right?

Jordan
Yeah, we wouldn’t do it otherwise. It’s the funnest job in the world.

Murray
also those circumstances with the labels it wasn’t like other acts who get dropped by a major and then you’re in real trouble because independents know how much has been spent on you and they’re kind of a bit like I can’t really touch that because you had all the opportunities yeah so we never actually had that so it never felt like nobody our manager never called and was like you’ve been dropped it’s just like well we signed a one-album deal yeah yeah that’s done now do they want to keep going no cool you know so that was never read the label stuff was never really a low for us there was worrying times where we may have thought like oh no we’re not gonna get picked up by someone else yeah always gonna happen but those were like

Jordan
How’s really like having a label for your whole career that sticks with you through thick and thin It just isn’t really a thing or it doesn’t have to be a thing like it’s we’ve been able to do it sort of label to Label yeah, and then they don’t pick up the option and then you’re kind of twisting in the wind and you go cool We just find another one. Yeah, they’re just facilitators Yeah, and I think they know that now because so many artists are just self-releasing and yeah are cutting out that middle man Yeah, that’s a pretty

Sigourney
New things are right like back in the day. It’s like you wouldn’t you need a little you need it I don’t and they know that yeah, so it’s

Jordan
Maybe a little easier to just get like one-off deals here and there. Yeah

Murray
yeah because we’ve gone off track there yes there are loads of highs yeah yeah yeah of course otherwise we chat about this all the time it would be so easy for us to stop yeah and you know we’ve spoken to people in the industry who years ago not anymore but they were like you know if you just change your band name and start it again you probably get a major label deal yeah so well cool that’s not what this is about yeah like yeah I mean that just kind of shows that there’s not much integrity yeah the buildings of major labels yeah

Sigourney
So there’s been scary or maybe confusing times in your career, like 20 years, label to label. For sure. Is there any advice that you’d give to your younger self, just growing into this industry?

Jordan
Um, that’s a good question, that’s a good question, uh, um, oh yeah.

Jordan
I mean, I feel like I want to say, like, pay more attention. Yeah. Because I wasn’t. I was just kind of assuming that the adults knew what they were doing. And now I’m old enough to be like, no, none of you fucking know what you’re doing. I should have paid more attention.

Yeah. And had the balls to fire people if they weren’t good at their job or like, you know, something like that. We were just kind of scared little kids that assumed that people were working their asses up for us as opposed to the reality, which is, you know, they’re working the bare minimum for you. Yeah, totally. So, like, sack that guy. Yeah. If he sucks, get rid of him. Or she. Yeah. Ooh. Yeah.

Jordan
Yeah, buying all the money and I think, yeah, an awareness of, yeah, the positions that you’re in with the people that you’re speaking to and also, I personally wish, we weren’t that interested in about that, but I wish I’d taken more notice and interest of our aesthetic.

Yeah. When we first started. Yeah, that was not.

Jordan
a thing that we considered you just dress how you dress yeah

Jordan
artwork was always great and younger but like just I still see it now though with a younger artist it’s like it sounds really kind of crass to talk about it but it’s so unbelievably important and as soon as we started uh you know really caring about it things started to change for us. It’s so much about image.

So much yeah so so much I mean for a lot of artists it’s the only thing sure. Name that name. Because it’s totally fun like it’s like zero hate and that it’s like that’s just part of the whole thing it’s all art.

Jordan
music is art, how you look, how you present yourself, it’s like theater. Yeah, totally.

Jordan
yeah that would be both both those things I think yeah just an overall awareness rather than blindly thinking that cool I’m gonna spend the rest of my life in a van with my best friend

Jordan
I’m going to wear the same pair of jeans for 15 years, and that’s chill.

Jordan
yeah and how you want to be portrayed as well yeah um yeah we were so kind of just nervous terrified young men and which is which is totally fine but you know a prince had that when he had his first tv interview he came across really shy and the guy made a joke about him in prince didn’t say anything and then apparently from that day onwards he was like here’s my character yeah so i wish again that’s kind of tying into the just an awareness thing i wish we had because we we met some people that kind of probably put us down or said things that kind of hurt you know and then that should have been like oh fucking hell no yeah that should have been the fuel that should have been the moment where it’s like this is how we’re going to conduct ourselves as a unit yeah but i think we were probably all just so young and a bit scared to talk about our feelings to one another yeah

Jordan
So just confidence really being confident in yourself in every aspect of what you’re doing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah people dictator control

Jordan
you’re doing it’s it’s your choice to do that it was our choice to do this so it’s like gonna do that do the confidence yeah yeah I have to do anything else totally that’s great yeah

Sigourney
I do have one last question. Cool. So obviously you’ve been in the industry a hot minute now, you’ve seen the landscape change into what it is now. If you were talking to a young kid trying to get their start in the industry, what would you tell them?

Like what is the, or like what are some differences between then and now? How is it evolving? You know what I mean?

Jordan
One thing that isn’t different that I think should be hammered home to young artists is that it’s predominantly all about the music. Yeah. I know we’ve just had this conversation of like aesthetic is so important and it is but in order in order to really succeed and not kind of be a fleeting moment, it’s great songs will last.

That’s why I don’t know all these artists from way back when are getting referenced, the artists that are getting referenced were phenomenal, like phenomenal songs, whether it be Fleetwood Mac to Radiohead to like Fortet had a moment again recently. It’s so important because I think nowadays as well in the industry everyone’s telling you that you have to TikTok the most important thing, Instagram is the second most important thing, your image, this, this, this and nobody’s actually like, you should just write a great song. Yeah, make good art. Yeah.

Jordan
and like there’s no there’s no traditional ANLR people anymore like yes it’s more about like the TikTok followers and Instagram stuff there’s no one going like well let’s look at these fucking songs how can we make these as good as possible

Jordan
possible yeah it’s it’s always been the the thing if you’re a musician it’s like and I think nowadays we are celebrating low-hanging fruit a lot of the time in regards to the music yeah a lot of American tat mm-hmm I think we all know that’s okay yeah

Sigourney
section in my project about the oh and that’s not on the recording

Jordan
Sub headline, American tap.

Jordan
No, not just American, but yeah because people aren’t too fussed about writing great songs because they can become huge off the back

Sigourney
and you think ice spice isn’t the modern Shakespeare.

Jordan
Weirdly, I do. Yeah, I agree, I agree.

Jordan
This is okay man, I wasn’t talking about ice necessarily.

Jordan
No, I wasn’t either. Same flow in every song, but it’s not quite Kendrick either. Whoa.

Sigourney
So you hate women. Oh, who said that? Whoa! Who said that?

Jordan
How can I hate women? My mom’s one. Yeah. That’s so true. Okay. I mean, that’s all.

Sigourney
questions thank you so much guys of all my opportunities so far this is by far been the most recent

Jordan
I was like, Hey, my pleasure.

What’s your name, how old are you, and what kind of music do you make?
My name is Ari. I’m 18—just turned, like, fifteen days ago.
I make hip-hop, jazz, jungle, house... just all sorts of electronic music.
Yeah, I make too many genres.

How and when did you start producing and releasing music?
I started producing when I was, I don’t know, 11 or 12.
My dad showed me how to use FL Studio, and I started out making really bad trap beats.
Then I moved into lo-fi, but I got bored of that. I barely made music for a few years.

Around 14 or 15, I got more into it again—especially during a really bad depressive episode. Music was kind of my only savior at that time. I was making stuff every day—sometimes four to six beats a day. That’s when I started getting into classic ’90s hip-hop beats.

Eventually, I went to a few music events, and a label reached out. They wanted to release an EP with me, so I released Rainforest with them. That was my first proper release. I don’t work with that label anymore—I release independently now.

How did you go about releasing your music, and why?
Well, I kind of skipped ahead... but basically, the label seemed like the easiest way to start.
It just worked.

Now I release independently because I don’t really like working with labels—especially if I don’t know the people personally.

Would you consider signing a record deal?
Yeah, for sure—if it was a good contract.
I’d definitely want creative control, and I’d probably negotiate everything.
But yeah, if the money and the terms were right, I could do it.

What’s your dream when it comes to music?
That’s a hard one. I think my dream is to play with other people—to meet people I really connect with and jam, improvise, especially jazz stuff.
Also, just to make good music with people I trust.

What’s stopping you from getting there?
Time. Meeting the right people takes time and effort. But I’ll get there eventually.

How do you feel about where the music industry is headed?
It’s gotten to a point where I don’t even think about it anymore.
It’s not going in a good direction, but that’s just a reflection of how everything is structured—our society, our economy.

I’ve had to separate music as an art form from the industry itself.
They’re two completely different things.

What’s something that scares you about your future in the music industry?
Honestly? Nothing.
I’m not scared—because I don’t even know if I’ll have a future in the music industry.
It’s not a priority. If it happens, cool. If not, also cool.

What’s one thing you’re looking forward to?
There’s too many things—big and small.
But I’m looking forward to my holiday. I think it’s in a couple weeks.
So yeah, that.

Thank you very much.