Music Stars Making a Social Impact: Why & How Kirsten Evans of Inletaudio Is Helping To Change Our World
It’s braver to admit your faults and mistakes than simply move on to the solution. Acknowledge your “flaws” and “wrongdoings”. Understand them, be kind to yourself about them and learn from them. Learning from them doesn’t need to be focused on whether or not you repeat and action, it can be focused on learning why you did, or didn’t do something too.
As a part of our series about stars who are making an important social impact, I had the pleasure of interviewing Kirsten Evans.
Kirsten is a British singer/songwriter, based in Los Angeles, who has worked on productions for companies such as Hulu, Netflix, and HBO, Amazon Studios and more, in a variety of roles from singer and contractor, to score coordinator and composer. After her voice was used in Wales’ national contribution to the Venice Biennale in 2017, and the resultant funding Kirsten was awarded by the UK’s largest music charity Help Musicians UK as one of the first recipients of the Fusion Fund, Kirsten has gone on to collaborate with the 2023 Grammy® nominated vocal ensemble Voces8, create a custom catalogue of sample libraries for Golden Globe nominated composer, Alex Heffes, and work with publishers from West One Music Group to Sound Insurgents. Kirsten’s current work as co-owner of sample library company Inletaudio has lead her to hone her skills as a sample library developer and purpose-driven business woman.
Thank you so much for joining us on this interview series. Can you share with us the backstory that led you to this career path?
I’ve always loved to sing. Singing is my happy place and, to this day, I’ve never found anything else that brings me as much joy, peace, or self fulfilment as singing. So, logically, I make music software for a living… I say that like it’s a bad thing. It’s not, I promise. In fact it’s enabling me to help others stay in their musical happy-places. After moving to America in 2021 from my home back in the UK, I began working for a sample library company in Hollywood. It was so glamorous; my first full day living in America was spent at the Newman Scoring Stage, on the Fox lot, with LA’s finest brass players known for their work on pretty much any Blockbuster movie you can think of. Several days after that the company took a trip to a nearby mountain town and I was offered the chance to ride in a helicopter. I couldn’t quite believe what was happening if I am really honest. Just days before this I was sat working 20+ hour days in the spare bedroom in my mum’s house. After just over 2 years with this company, a lot of learning, developing as a professional in the field and growing into myself as an adult, I found myself no longer working for this company. The following Monday, my partner and I, Thomas Eggensberger, along with our composing teammate, Marvin McMahon, found ourselves talking to the VP of production at Warner Chappell being offered the chance to write two albums with her, back to back, in a way that hadn’t been done before. I mean, again, what on earth was happening. My motto throughout my time in America has been to say yes to everything, and work out how to do it later. As you can imagine, sometimes, this bites you in the behind, but as it turns out sometimes it enables you to do the very thing you have been dreaming of… sing (and write music). So, today, I find myself with my own sample library company, with my partner, and co-writing and singing on an album with a company I thought I would only set eyes upon during their public studio tour. It’s been a lot of hard work but, fingers crossed, it seems to finally be paying off.
It has been said that our mistakes can be our greatest teachers. Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
I nearly sliced open my leg on a cerated metal fence, after climbing on an industrial sized bin because I locked myself in to a complex of warehouses at 4am in the morning only to find that Had had the key for the lock that had been trapping me the whole time. And… I was late home for the pizza delivery guy I had scheduled to meet me to motivate me to go home, and not sleep on the sofa in a warehouse, because it was such a ridiculous time of night to still be working and I had to go and hand in my final assignment at university in about 3/4 hours anyway.
I was working so hard on my project that I couldn’t even use keys. I missed the broadcast of an interview I had taken part in on BBC national radio, and I thought it would all be okay to work on two enormous projects at the same time because “I technically had enough time, so I should just push myself”.
I think the lessons form this scenario are pretty clear to anyone that reads this, but the one thing that came out of this unexpectedly, to me anyway, was that I was not super woman. I could not do it all through sheer will power because the body has limits. I learnt that respecting my body, and my brain inevitably took care of my mind which was my main goal. I learnt that pushing for an extra hour one day is not worth it because it simply makes the next day worse.
Basically, unless you have a super tight deadline or you are on the worlds most brilliant streak ever, it’s probably worth stopping while you are ahead and returning to it fresh the next day to make sure your following days go just as well as the first one.
What would you advise a young person who wants to emulate your success?
I heard a piece of advice once and since hearing it I have never looked back, and it has helped me to feel so much more self assured… “Only take advice from those who have done what you want to do.” I used to get so worried when my friends of family members would share their concerns about my plans or decisions. They would only ever share their concerns out of love, but all the same it made me worry and often second guess myself, and a good number of times I actually changed my mind about a decision I had made only to regret it later on.
By listening to the advice of people who have achieved what you want to achieve, and or gone through a process you want to goo through, you are able to take first hand advice from someone who has already uncovered potential pitfalls or traps. They have done a lot of the heavy lifting for you and you can take on these lessons and adapt with this information in mind.
It’s the same as reading a non-fiction book. So much time and experience often goes into writing a detailed, non-fiction book. They are jam packed with knowledge from those who have gone down the path you want to follow. Even in a situation where you find yourself going down a road no-one seems to have got down before, I would still urge people to take advice form those who’s paths most closely match the one you want for yourself.
This isn’t all to say that you should ignore the concerns of your friends and family, or switch out your dear friends for ones that are purely there to give you advice, but take things with a pinch of salt. Aim to take in people’s opinions and assess them against yours and your beliefs before accepting other’s opinions as the truth.
Is there a person that made a profound impact on your life? Can you share a story?
Someone that has made a profound impact on my life is one of my tutors form college, Owen Lloyd. As a brilliant composer himself, he always challenged me to be a better person on top of teaching me to be a better musician. He acted as a sounding board when I became frustrated with my schooling, and talked me back round to a sensible way of thinking every time.
One of the biggest impacts Owen had on my life was to support me through my dyslexia diagnosis. Owen was actually the one who suggested it. After reading through my copy of one of the essays he had set, Owen suggested that I might have dyslexia. He laid out his reasoning and encouraged me to look into it. I did, and when I found out that I did in fact have Dyslexia, Owen was there to help me adapt my workflows to accommodate for this and generally help me to find strategies to improve my ability to learn in a classroom setting.
Since being diagnosed with dyslexia, so much more makes sense. I don’t need to critique myself every time I don’t quite understand something as fast as someone else, or I can’t read as fluently as others. I’m no often in situations like this now that I am no longer in education, but finding out I have dyslexia has allowed me to finally like my brain and the way it works, rather than always be confused by what it was doing. Without my diagnosis I would probably still struggle with my work and it would certainly have taken me a lot longer to like my mind and develop the techniques I now use everyday to help me with my work and life.
How are you using your success to bring goodness to the world? Can you share with us the meaningful or exciting causes you’re working on right now?
Right now, I have the pleasure to co-run a sample library company with my partner, Thomas Eggensberger. This opportunity is special to me for so many reasons, one of them being that I get to run a company with the person I love, but there are two things that really standout as being really important; the company financially supports musicians passively through royalties helping them to continue to pursue their musical careers with, hopefully, fewer financial constraints, and the other is helping to shift a new wave in the same library industry to be a sector of music tech that values longevity and creativity.
The sample library industry is known to many musicians as an industry that is designed to take away their work. By digitally re-creating someone and their instrument accurately and then selling that piece of software while, more often than not, paying that musician royalties means that said musicians miss out on work. It’s easier and cheaper for a composer to buy the sample library version of a musician than hire that same musician every time they need them to play. If you are to look at the sample library industry from the opposite perspective, you can also argue that these sample libraries have opened up the doors to the composition industry to so many talented composers world wide, that would otherwise not have the funds to continuously hire musicians. They have generated swathes of music that would otherwise not exist and some of that music sounds better for being made by software as it’s able to do things a musician cannot.
With our company, Inletaudio, we are aiming to bridge the gap and form a middle ground for everyone that we work with, or who buys our libraries, so that everyone can benefit from the creation of these sample libraries. They should be affordable to buy, pay good percentages of royalties to the musicians involved in making the libraries and they shouldn’t aim to replace the musicians, they should aim to increase the span of sounds a musician can make and show off their skills to those who can afford to hire musicians.
We create extended technique, textural sample libraries that are built on a collection of performances over a collection of notes. Each performance is unique to the moment, and unique to the musician we are recording. As a singer, I often am asked to use my voice in interesting ways to add emotion and colour to a piece of music and I feel that this has influenced the way we record sample libraries, alongside Thomas’s natural use of textures in the music he composes. By creating sample libraries in this unique way, we truly believe that we are supporting both composers and musicians alike.
Can you share with us a story behind why you chose to take up this particular cause?
The reason I feel so strongly about making sure that both composers and musicians are treated equally and fairly is because I have seen a lot of injustice within the music industry. Don’t get me wrong, the music industry can be wonderful and just an absolute melting pot of creative individuals, but it can also often be that not everyone that works on a project gets the credit they are due, or let us forbid, the pay the deserve. I don’t want to encourage this or partake in this.
I think I also really love the idea of supporting musicians specifically because it just gives me hope for my work as a singer each time I do it. No matter what types of projects I sing on, big or small, I know the pressure of that dreaded “what comes next” question. Sometimes, particularly as a freelance classical musician, it can be hard to balance all of the different areas of being self employed on top of the need to practice your instrument on top of these. I know that, if I weren’t working on Inletaudio with Thomas, that I would benefit form finding new ways of promoting my skills, getting my name out there AND receiving money for my hard work. It just seems like a no brainer, and to think that other out there might find it even remotely easier to pursue the career they love fills me with such joy and makes everything worth it!
Can you share with us a story about a person who was impacted by your cause?
We just had the pleasure of paying one of our musicians a royalty check that was over 5 times the amount they were paid to record the library in the first place, for just a few months of sales. This person is unbelievably talented at what they do, is a natural at their instrument and values their time, and professionalism above all else. They are efficient, friendly and tilted during recording sessions and, no matter what, are always prepared and ready to get the job done. They are being continually rewarded for the effort that they put in during the recording sessions we had with them to make their library.
In another example, on of our musicians was going through a major, but positive, life change when we recorded their sample library. Playing their instrument was not their first love, but their other passion is writing music so making a sample library ticked all the boxes. The additional income they now receive helps to support their personal life as it changes, and we are about to get going on sample library number two with them. Once we have found someone that has a true flare and passion for the work they do and the projects we do with them, it only makes sense to continue to work with them.
Are there three things or are there things that individuals, society, or the government can do to support you in this effort?
I suppose, in an ideal world there would be different steps of change to ensuring that those who create art are fairly compensated and credited. On an individual level, it would be ideal if those running projects we ensure that all of their teams are credited in all projects, that ghost writers would not be allowed and that those individuals take on an appropriately sized team to manage the work load they have that still enables them to pay an appropriate wage for the level of work they require. At the same time, it can be argued that it also falls on those who say yes to underpaid projects to stand up for their right, but again, this only works in an ideal world. If you have to eat and pay bills you need to get the money from somewhere.
For those wiring other, they also need to be paid appropriately in order to pay those that hire them. For example, if a composer was paid more by streaming platforms for their work, they could distribute that wealth to their team to adequately compensate them for their time. It’s not to say that everyone should be paid the same, or that there should be no room for career growth, but that each person’s wages should reflect the tasks they are being asked to do in the time they are being asked to do them.
Outside of an ideal world, it probably still fall on the individual that’s hiring others to ensure they are as smart with their money as they can be, but, again, perhaps we should focus on a step further back from this and look at how musicians and composers are compensated for their work as a whole before we dump the responsibility full on them.
Why do you think music in particular has the power to create social change and create a positive impact on humanity?
Music is emotion. People have their emotions heightened when they listen to music and it makes life richer and better. It adds to cultures, expresses feelings that can be tough to get out in other ways, and it brings people together naturally. Even the most different of people can find a sense of connection through music. It naturally helps people to focus on one thing, and so it can be a real vehicle for change.
Just imagine if it wasn’t there! The world would be such a different place. Coming together to create new tools for composers to express emotions and feel more connected with their music community, and therefore those making the sounds in their music, will hopefully encourage more sharing and kindness. It will, hopefully, encourage more people to speak highly of their peers to others, encourage those listening to music to be more inquisitive about who is paying this music and how it was made. Once someone is drawn into this then they will, for themselves, notice the quirks of how the music industry works and gradually together we can shift the industry to a more “you get what you put in” feel.
What are your “5 things I wish someone told me when I first started”?
- You need to take time off and it WILL make you more productive if you do it. This probably doesn’t need any further explanation, but I really wish I had believed this sooner… it’s so true.
- Building a business take a long time, and it’s hard. But, just like with anything else the first step is always the hardest and if you don’t do the first one, even if it’s bad, you will need have another one that could be everything you wanted.
- Things don’t simply come with age or time. As a kid we are so used to reaching certain milestones simply because we age into them. See what I never thought about was the fact that one day, that phenomena stops. Just like that it stops. So, if you want to achieve something you have to go and get it because it won’t just come into your life on its own one day just because it’s time.
- You are only as good as your last mistake. The fastest and best way to learn is by failing, so fail as much as you can. Especially when you are young. Compound that interest when it comes to learning as well as investing — it’s all worth more the earlier you start (so just start now).
- It’s braver to admit your faults and mistakes than simply move on to the solution. Acknowledge your “flaws” and “wrongdoings”. Understand them, be kind to yourself about them and learn from them. Learning from them doesn’t need to be focused on whether or not you repeat and action, it can be focused on learning why you did, or didn’t do something too.
You’re a person of enormous influence. If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger.
If I could start any movement, I would get people back home in the UK to be outwardly, and more vocally, kinder to one another. Give that person a compliment just because you can, they don’t have to earn it, and it doesn’t have to come as a sandwich either: good, bad good complements stacked in a row. This is something new that I experienced when I moved to the US and it has certainly made me a better person knowing how honest people are with one another, whether that be good or bad.
Can you please give us your favorite life lesson quote? And can you explain how that was relevant in your life?
Purpose will bring your profit. Passion will bring you profit. Passion and purpose will be its own profit. I think I just made up the quote part of that but the sentiment is the important part. For so long, I have pushed my mind to try new things, go down avenues that weren’t quite right and generally keep pushing no matter what. The moment I allowed myself to fail at the thing I loved most, singing, was the moment I allowed myself to finally start singing. Regardless of whether or not I do fail or succeed in my goals I have profited as a person so much for allowing myself the freedom to just do the thing I love. It’s been the biggest career move I have made and the one that has paid off the most, the quickest.
We are blessed that some very prominent names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them.
I would love to meet John Eckbert, the CEO of Five Guys in Europe. I find the way that such a large company can be loved by so many and yet keep so much of its character in every place it goes so fascinating and humbling. The fact that this company can “be itself” on a global scale is a massive breakthrough and surely has a million teachable lessons that come with that.
Thank you so much for these amazing insights. This was so inspiring, and we wish you continued success!
Music Stars Making a Social Impact: Why & How Kirsten Evans of Inletaudio Is Helping To Change Our… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.