Schur

When I was eight I was sitting in class with my squad at a crescent-moon table. One friend said his dad had shown him a rock band called Led Zeppelin and he’d become obsessed. The squad had no idea what a rock band was or what a “Led Zeppelin” was. That night I asked my parents. My mom said “of course!” and my dad (who grew up in England in the 70s) said “nah, never heard of them.” They opened the record cabinet and started playing their albums.

SHEEEEESH. Within a few hours I had decided music was what I wanted to do. I NEEDED to play guitar and become Jimmy Page. I was gifted a guitar for Christmas and started lessons. Guitar consumed my life.

I joined bands with my brother-from-another-mother, Zach, and later we formed Pampalibros. From nine to fifteen we played every week—bars, restaurants, venues—and even recorded an album with producer Rob Fraboni. It was a BLAST. Eventually the older members left for college and only Drew and I remained.

For a long time I exclusively listened to classic rock. I remember saying, “if they had to use a computer to make it, I don’t wanna listen to it.” Years later I caved and got obsessed with hip hop—Kanye, J. Cole, Kendrick, Logic—and with local rapper Felly, who felt like one of us and was a big inspiration.

Drew and I wanted to make beats and record, but studio time was expensive. We started Rock Cottage Studio in the attic of an old stone cottage my parents used for storage. We ran RCS, worked with local artists, and started booking shows and fundraisers for a music charity called Horns for Kids. In summer 2016 we organized a 550-person music festival called Rendezvous, headlined by Felly.

I went to college at Columbia in New York City. I joined a humor magazine for illustration and occasionally wrote pieces that, in retrospect, were rash and embarrassing. That experience taught me how much word choice matters, which became crucial when I started writing songs in my second year. Writing lyrics took me a long time (and still does).

My first song, “Gullwing Bravado,” came out the summer after my second year. I hoped for two million streams and got under 1,000. I tried playlisting campaigns and got scammed. Then I found Andrew Southworth’s YouTube channel and learned to run Meta Ads to drive real streams to Spotify.

During Covid I had the time to study and test. After a painful budget mistake that turned into 1,400 streams in a day, I realized ads could work. I kept refining campaigns through college, working odd jobs to fund promotion. I did audio engineering for a racial justice podcast and learned a lot.

After graduating I moved back to Connecticut, worked for my parents’ landscaping business for a few months (rewarding and physically great—I got ripped), then did audio and art studio work that let me move back to the city in fall 2021.

For the next several years I lived on the Upper West Side, working odd jobs to finance music. By 2023 I had 23,000 monthly listeners on Spotify but wanted to step it up. I resolved to release a song every four weeks and promote heavily, which led to The Unsure Mixtape. I spent my savings on promotion, reached 70,000 monthly listeners, and worked whatever jobs I could to keep it going. I ran out of money in July.

Then two things happened: some startup investors offered to test an investment, and I scheduled a consultation with Andrew Southworth. The investment test performed well, and Southworth—who had opened an ad agency—told me I was doing fine on my own and later hired me at his agency. By August 2023 I had investment money for ads and started working at a music ad agency.

The investment performed so well that on May 6, 2024 (my birthday) I quit most of my non-music work and pursued music full time, keeping one podcasting gig on the side. I had 300,000 monthly listeners when I quit, and doubled that in six months.

In 2025 my top priority was meeting fans in person. I needed a tour. Booking shows without an agent is possible but painful; you generally need a touring history to get an agent. I spent early 2025 organizing shows, and one artist I’d met (DLG.) invited me to open for his 6-stop U.S. tour. Between that and four self-booked shows, I had ten shows for spring—or “Schpring,” as I called it. One highlight was flying to Mexico City with my girlfriend to play an acoustic set in a small bar.

We went on the mini tour and got attention from agents. Over the summer I found the right people and started planning my first headline tour. Around the same time we moved out of NYC because my girlfriend got into Oxford for grad school and affording the UWS apartment alone wasn’t feasible. We traveled, lived out of a backpack, and I wrote my favorite song of the year, “Testarossa.” From that planning came the Slowly But Schurly Tour—28 shows, 27 cities, 10 countries, 7 weeks.

In September I hit ONE MILLION MONTHLY LISTENERS while in Athens. I remember celebrating with late-night food that SLAPPED.

Tour highlights:
- Meeting Andrew Southworth in person at the Boston show
- A green room Airstream in Denver
- Going from sub-zero in the Twin Cities to 75°F in California
- End-of-tour In-N-Out with Zach in San Diego
- Kebab at 1am in London
- Playing to 500 people in Paris (our biggest show)
- Arriving in Warsaw and realizing how far the songs had spread
- A pre-show run with Adam (drummer) through Prague

The craziest moment was driving from Denver to Seattle. With storms and highway bans in Cheyenne, the only open route sent us east on a 1,500-mile, 27-hour drive through Nebraska, South Dakota, Montana, Idaho, and Washington. We made it with three hours to spare; a tumbleweed cracked our windshield. It was a drive for the ages.

After the tour I signed my first distribution contract—my first financial foray into the music industry that keeps my independence. I’m infinitely grateful to make music every day.

If you made it to the end of this absurdly long about page, hell yah! This was a nice reflective exercise. More music is on the way. Thanks for listening, vibing, and being a part of my life.

Much love,
Andrew