We first got to know him as the drummer who accompanied UK artist Gemma Ray at her Coach and Horses gigs earlier this year, but there’s much more to Andy Zammit than just playing drums.
It basically started from driving a band to a show to taking care of their merchandise and then their entire tour schedule
For starters, as you’ll have already noticed, his name implies he comes from Maltese lineage, although he was born and raised in Wales.
“My great-grandfather Jack was Maltese,” he explains. “I’m told he was orphaned at a very young age and ran away to Britain after stowing away on a ship.”
Once there, his great-grandfather apparently settled in Wales, where he eventually married a local girl and set up a successful construction firm.
“He later also became mayor of Llanelli, but unfortunately he died a week before I was born.”
Just as his great-grandfather had sought his fortunes away from his homeland, Zammit’s own career only took off once he’d left his hometown. “I’d been a musician since I was 11, playing in local bands. But Llanelli isn’t exactly known to be a hotspot for music, so when the opportunity to move to London with the band presented itself some years later, we grabbed it with both hands.”
Although the move only involved a three-hour drive, Zammit says it was a huge step for him to make.
“London was where it was all happening, and to any 18-year- old school-leaver coming from a small town, it is a big change on all levels.”
Embracing all that London had to offer, he graduated with honours from university there, drifted in and out of a variety of jobs, played in various bands, got into tour-managing and set up a record label; not necessarily in that order.
He says it was more a case of one thing leading to the other, but I surmise that tour-managing must have come at a later stage, since it is something that requires some experience.
“Well, I’d learnt a lot from touring with various bands, but there was never a plan or anything – it basically started from driving a band to a show to taking care of their merchandise and then their entire tour schedule.”
Making no secret of the fact that he got savvy from experience, Zammit confirms that “you take in something new from each experience; perhaps not always consciously, but I’ve always been up for a challenge”.
And if proof of this were needed, you will find it in the fact that he set up indie label Bronzerat Records while still learning about the music industry. “When you’re regularly meeting music managers, record companies, agents and promoters, you start to understand what it is they do and how it all works – it’s no mystery.”
This is what convinced him it was something he could do himself, and he confides that “most likely, the situation musicians are in today is because most of them have never really truly understood how the industry works”.
What first started out as “a kind of vanity thing” achieved its real purpose later, offering an outlet to “a lot of musicians I knew who were fantastic but weren’t getting the time of day by the industry in London”.
These included Gemma Ray and Charles Campbell Jones, who were part of the community of musicians Zammit played with. After initial releases by Ray and Campbell Jones, Zammit approached Seasick Steve, then an unknown quantity whose gigs only drew a handful of people, to release his music.
“It was good timing, I guess, as the releases did extremely well.”
Seasick Steve became a sensation in the UK and beyond, his success transforming Bronzerat into a business practically overnight.
“It was already hard doing everything myself before Steve’s success,” Zammit confides. “I suddenly needed to learn everything about the business side of the industry, while juggling my other job as a tour manager.”
Since then, Bronzerat’s catalogue has grown, with Ray and Joe Gideon & The Shark well on their way to bigger things and Jon Spencer Blues Explosion’s latest album just out.
“I’d already released stuff by other projects of his so when he called to ask if I wanted to do his new album, what else could I say but ‘hell, yeah’!”
That said, Zammit emphasises that Bronzerat doesn’t release records for the sake of it.
“There’s not a lot of music out there that gets me fired up,” he explains. “Unlike a lot of labels who sign a lot of acts and release a lot of records, I see it as a huge responsibility. For me, releasing a record is like a mission to get it heard above the noise.”
Furthermore, he sees Bronzerat as more than a label.
“I manage bands too, so it’s a holistic approach. I don’t think like a label – it’s not all about hitting sales targets.”
Raising an artist’s profile paves the way for rewards to come, and they do come, albeit in different ways every time.
“I have different relationships with different artists,” he says. “With Ray, for example, it’s quite a flexible arrangement. I’m pretty much managing her, I’m in her band and I also produced her last album with her.” Zammit admits he has a lot on his plate, but he says it’s manageable.
“If you stay small, you can roll with the punches and stay close to everything. Some people see it as being a control freak but you can’t make an educated decision unless you know all the details.”
Apart from Spencer’s latest album, Zammit says there’s a Ray album in the works that will spearhead a series of left-of-centre music albums to be re-leased as limited-edition vinyl collectables.
“Ray’s album is a fantasy soundtrack for a movie set in Gozo, but the funny thing is that the concept dates back to way before we knew we were coming to Malta,” he says with a chuckle.
“Funnier still,” Zammit adds, “is that when we moved to Berlin, the apartment was bare except for a bookcase, behind which was a book called Realms of Fantasy (Folk Tales from Gozo).
“And if that wasn’t weird enough, it was also around that time that Hairy Amp contacted us to come and play in Malta.”
Now if that isn’t destiny calling, I don’t know what is!
www.bronzerat.com
Bronzerat label artists Joe Gideon and The Shark will be performing at V-Gen on October 5 as part of the Nil by Mouth Sessions.
For more information, look up Nil by Mouth Sessions on Facebook or e-mail hairyamp.promotions@gmail.com.