Next Level Profiles: Mitchell Martin | Bunbury

Regional Arts WA

Next Level Regional grants are now open, closing Monday 8 June. Check out the webpage here for more information, and feel free to get in touch if you’re considering making an application.

Bunbury-based singer-songwriter Mitchell Martin recorded a 6 track EP with Bunbury Producer James Newhouse and session drummer from Sundown Studios Elliot Smith with the support of the Next Level YCulture Regional grant.

After launching the first single from this EP ‘Dim the Lights’ in May 2019 at The Sewing Room, Perth, Mitchell coordinated a headline tour through regional Western Australia backed by his 5-piece band, including shows at the White Star Hotel in Albany, the Dunsborough Tavern, the Prince of Wales Hotel in Bunbury, the Ravenswood Hotel in Mandurah and Clancy’s Fish Pub in Fremantle. Mitchell and his band also had the opportunity to play on the main stage of major festivals including the Belmont Festival Finale where he supported the band ‘Sheppard’.

Mitchell Martin. Picture by Lewis Martin.

Through the project, Mitchell has continued to grow his network within the WA Music Industry and has been working with mentor and Bunbury manager Kelsie Miller to further develop his skills and industry knowledge as an artist.

Mitchell has so far released two of the songs recorded with support from the Next Level grant, ‘Dim the Lights’ which went on to gain over 150,000 streams on Spotify and 20,000 views on the music video on YouTube and he has just released the second single ‘Be Myself’ which has passed 15,000 streams on Spotify and the music video has already passed 4000 views on YouTube in two weeks. Mitchell also released an EDM remix of ‘Dim the Lights’ with a producer from Germany named SVNIIVAN which has now gained over 200,000 streams on Spotify and is set to release a remix for ‘Be Myself’ with the same producer in August.

From doing so, Mitchell has had the following opportunities open up:

Offered a full Publishing Deal with an Australian Publishing company
Signed a sync deal with local Lollybox Music Publishing Company
Approached by PR companies to work with him on following singles
New partnership with entertainment lawyer Francesca Cotton from Ruby Red Legal, who formerly worked for Universal Records and Warner Records
Nominated for the WA Song of the Year Competition by WAM
Mitchell was also accepted and performed at the 2020 Nannup Music Festival after meeting with Festival Director Phaedra Watts at the Artlands Summit in Bendigo
Offers to collaborate with numerous producers on EDM songs, many that have been released have passed 100,000 streams, with the most successful having passed 600,000 streams on Spotify

Due to Covid-19, Mitchell and his band, unfortunately, missed the opportunity to play on the mainstage of major festivals they had booked including the Mandurah CrabFest supporting Jebediah and the WOWFest in Geraldton where Hilltop Hoods and Montaigne were also going to be performing. On top of this, he had to reschedule his single launch headline show for ‘Be Myself’. He has however been using this time to promote his latest single and work on recording new songs with producers so that he can keep releasing new collaborations prior to his single launch for ‘Be Myself’.

You can listen to more of Mitchell’s work and catch his latest updates on his website, Spotify, Facebook or Youtube.