Photo of Jimmy Jewell
Articles

If I were 22: Jimmy Jewell

The composer and producer Jimmy Jewell, who has performed on stages all around the world, offers a clear message to 22 year olds: only you can grab hold of your own future.

Jimmy Jewell
4 min read

I worked a lot in America, jumping up and down on pianos on rock tours and conducting musical theatre. Americans seem to understand their worth far more than us bumbling apologetic Brits. There is obviously a very fine line between confidence and arrogance, but if you can be confident and assured about your talents and abilities without turning into a jerk then people will believe in you.

If you are young, inexperienced and talented there will always be people that try and take advantage of that. I used to have difficulty in saying no to people when they were offering me brilliant projects to work on with the promise that, despite not having much of a budget, the exposure would be worth it. This is acceptable to a certain extent, but there now seems to be an entire genre of low/no pay work in theatre and music, which exploits an actor’s passion to act and a musician’s desire to play. I spend a great deal of my time as an agent protecting my graduate actors from this; they get offered leading roles for no money and two weeks into rehearsals wonder why they can’t afford to eat. 

I came very close to buying property when I was 20 and then again at 23. I didn’t go through with either because I didn’t think the relationships would last. The first one was a flat in Blackheath and was £71,000. The relationships didn’t last, but that investment alone would be worth nearly half a million by now.

This is simple really – if there’s something about your life that you don’t like, change it. Sometimes that’s easy, like just asking the waitress to get the chef to cook that steak a bit more instead of saying “lovely” when asked how your food is and then begrudgingly paying a bill; and sometimes it’s making changes to professional or personal relationships, which takes guts and nerve.

I spent far too long in my twenties engaged in professional relationships that became stagnant, and then got overtly worried about leaving them in case I offended people. One day I realised that I was doing just as much harm to them as to myself, as no one can be in a decent and fruitful working relationship unless all parties are completely committed. Life is so much easier when you’re living it according to your own agenda.

I was determined to get everything done far too quickly. I still meet up with two of my college buddies Rosie and James – we were certain we would run the UK music and theatre industries and be millionaires before the age of thirty, just because we were talented. Contrary to what we believed back then, the world doesn’t work that way, and the people that do run our industries have worked, worked, worked.

I would say to my twenty-two year old self: to become successful you have to put in the time and the sweat, you have to fail, you have to make comebacks, you have to live and breathe the stage, you have to take every opinion, adapt and change, run on empty and fight to the point of exhaustion… Then people will listen to you, then people will trust you, and then you can get anything you want. It’s going to be a slog, but it is going to be fun. Enjoy it, and make sure that you make every moment matter.

Jimmy Jewell is a conductor, composer, performer and producer. He also runs artist management agency Jewell, Wright Ltd. and production house Jimmy Jewell Ltd.

http://www.jwl-london.com/