Geoff Ellis on championing Scottish artists through TRNSMT and upholding Glasgow’s firm reputation as a music city

We speak to festival director Geoff Ellis on TRNSMT returning for 2024.

Transcript

00:00Glasgow's got UNESCO city music status, and deservedly so, because through King Tut's,

00:08which is our venue, we've been promoting bands who go on to arenas and stadiums. I think

00:17there's over 60% of the acts that play at Hydro previously played at King Tut's on their

00:24way up, so that's important. But there's lots of venues in the city, lots of great

00:29venues supporting live music at a grassroots level, and probably more so than anywhere else.

00:35There's about seven or eight gigs every night of the week in Glasgow, which is phenomenal

00:40considering the size of its population. Then you've got the bigger venues like Barrowland,

00:45the O2 Academy, and then obviously the Hydro for the big acts, and the stadiums as well.

00:52Glasgow has always been a live music city, and lots of bands come from Glasgow. Going back to

01:01the days of the sensational Alex Harvey band, right through to the big artists of today,

01:09Paolo Mutini's from just outside Glasgow, and Paisley, and Lewis Capaldi not too far,

01:16Amy Macdonald from Bishop Briggs. We've always produced musicians, Simple Minds,

01:23Texas, Gun, all the other ones I'm forgetting as well. Transmit plays its role in that. We're

01:34the largest festival in Scotland and one of the largest in the UK, and it's great to have our

01:40home here in the city centre. I think it's important for Scottish music. I think obviously

01:46they have to be big enough to be able to headline, but if you look in the past at

01:52Senior Park, which is the festival we used to do, headliners, Soul Patrol, Texas, Paolo Mutini,

01:59Calvin Harris, Lewis Capaldi's headline there, Transmit as well. It's important for the Glasgow

02:09music scene, or the Scottish music scene rather, to see these bands come through and progress.

02:14In the case of Jerry Lewis playing the King's Touch stage and then headlining the main stage,

02:24it gives other bands hope as well and they can see, wow, that trajectory is there. You don't

02:29have to be the Foo Fighters from the US or the Killers or whatever to headline a festival in

02:35your own country. You can start off playing a small stage at Transmit and go on to be a headline.

02:43Obviously, you've got to get the fans on the side to do that, but there's no barrier to

02:49stop that. If you're an artist, you write the songs, people come to the gigs, eventually you'll

02:55hopefully get to headline something like Transmit. That's good for not just young

03:01musicians, but for any musicians to see that there is a pathway.