“Without them, you don’t get The Smiths, Amy Winehouse, or The 1975. You get silence.”
– Matty Healy, July 2025
A quote that stopped us in our tracks this week, not just because it’s so true about grassroots music venues but because it’s why we started Involving Music in the first place.
We exist to back the venues, bands, promoters, fans and creatives that form the foundation of music culture here in the South West. Behind every shutdown stage is a domino effect. Fewer places for bands to play, fewer chances to discover the next big thing and rarer opportunities for people to create and connect.
If you’ve ever stood in a venue and felt the a deep connection to a song you didn’t even know the words to yet, we’re sure Matty Healy’s words will have spoken to you too.
Matty Healy made the statement in support of Seed Sounds Weekender, a new UK-wide festival celebrating ‘seed venues’, the small, independent spaces where music culture is born. The comment has since gone viral, and for good reason. He’s not wrong.
Without grassroots venues, you don’t get the headliners. You don’t get the cultural shifts, and you certainly don’t get the stories that soundtrack a generation.
