#8 How Twin Trees started
#8 How Twin Trees started
(Approx 4 min read).
In this blog we take a small trip down memory lane to recall the seeds & roots that grew to become Twin Trees Creative. As a company that constantly advises clients to maximise their personal connections with their audiences & customers, we always try to ensure that we’re doing that too.
For the sake of brevity we’ve floated over much of the details which go back many years – we have known each other for 33 years afterall! We’ll no doubt return to memory lane in the future… hope you enjoy this one & it encourages you to think about your own journey with curiosity & pride.
We’ll start where it all began… around 13.8billion years ago there was a big bang… sorry, brevity, brevity…
Around 15 years ago Rich picked up a Fuji camera & Nick picked up a Yamaha guitar. The two hobbies weren’t aligned & there was no intention for them to collide. Rich was documenting his BMX adventures & chasing sunsets & Nick was learning Tool & Rage Against the Machine riffs. We’ll call this “the seed”.
Roll on 10 years…
So it’s 2014. Both of our original hobbies are now well ingrained in our lives & after some camera & guitar changes we would both consider ourselves pretty adept in our respective passionate pursuits. But there’s a twist – Rich now also has a guitar & Nick is about to buy his first digital camera. Upon Rich’s return to Stafford from some time living elsewhere there is much talk of forming a band (like we needed an excuse to spend time with our mates!). Here come “the roots” of Twin Trees Creative …
For two years we made a lot of noise in a barn & various practice rooms across Staffordshire. A lot of it would never see the light of day, lost as soundwaves floating off into the universe, but some of that noise would eventually constitute our first ever musical release. We had a band name – “Oldernar”, we had tracks – 6 of them!, and we were ready to share it with the world. Now a slight digression & some sweeping statements. No doubt you’ll be aware that the music industry has been utterly transformed thanks to the internet & modern technology.
Anyone can now produce professional sounding music from their bedroom & release it for the whole world to enjoy at the click of a button. The days of requiring record labels with big budgets for success are gone (yes it still helps, but you get the point). The success of a music release from a bedroom pretty much depends on the marketing & branding you put behind said release, and of course the music has to be half decent.
Nick recorded our whole EP & Rich put his media skills to good use (can you see where this is going?). We produced visuals to go with the audio, we marketed ourselves to podcasts, YouTube channels, blogs & pretty much anyone who had a platform where potential ears would be.
Again, skipping through much detail. We’ve released another album. We’ve SOLD music – people from across the world actually paid for stuff we made – from Japan, America, Italy, Australia and many other places. We appeared on a collaboration EP with some of our favourite bands in the post-rock genre – we’ve had amazing reviews from well respected blogs & been interviewed for podcasts. It was an incredible learning curve with so much reward…
Ok, we’re nowhere near this being “our thing”, or even wanting it to be, but we found a way of putting our creative pursuits & passions, crafted over half of our life time to good use, through effective media & marketing. Here’s a video we did on the making of our second album:
Whilst we were writing & recording our last album in April 2018 we began to put our skills with a camera & our knowledge of marketing to good use for other people & businesses. One-off projects soon turned into repeat custom – we made promotional videos for clients in different industries, we took photos of their products & their services in action & we advised them on their approach marketing to their customers to increase their own sales.
April 2019, Twin Trees Creative was incorporated. The name – it’s a play on various things:
1.We’re always asked if we’re twins (we’re not!)
2.We bloody love trees – they’re pretty amazing when you look into what goes in above & below ground & how they work together
3.We liked the metaphor of helping each other grow – our mantra is repeatedly “to help you grow” – every project we do is focused around this idea.
It’s fascinating to look at all of the steps that lead to TTC, but it’ll be even more exciting to see where it goes… the key lesson through this trip down memory lane & to hold onto as we grow, is to pursue what you’re passionate in – it’s where the real meaning lies.
Thanks for reading & we’d love to hear how you got started. If you’d like to chat about how we can help you grow, please get in touch!
You can listen to Oldernar on Spotify, Apple Music & Bandcamp. We also have a YouTube channel with various band & gear related videos – https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCgKx9bE6rI6SjSwgjztjJDA