More than a gig a day: Catching up with Isaac Neilson

LeftLion: How are you doing, and how is it going?

Isaac: It’s good. It’s getting more intense which I’m thinking is probably a good thing.

Are you sure about that…!?

The thing I notice is, you take on a project and you go, ‘Right, this is an outrageous thing where I’m going to do 365 days,’ and you have a hazy idea of where you want it to lead. But then as you pick up traction, your obligations become greate, because there’s more logistics to organise, there’s more press to do, there’s more staying on top of recording to keep the singles flowing… Everything becomes a plate-spinning competition rather than a straightforward, ‘This is what I’m doing today.’

It’s good in multiple ways. As much as this is a project for building the audience and having the art reach people, it’s also a personal development year where if you spoke to me in January you’d say, ‘This is a different person!’ It’s nice to see and feel my personality shift, too.

Doing a gig a day, there must hardly be room to breathe, but it sounds like you’ve been able to step back and see how you’ve developed over time. Are you able to keep that in perspective?

I think part of that is keeping a close core circle of people whose opinions you trust.

I’m conscious of maintaining the compass of this is what I want to do, and do it for the right reasons. Then any growth in that should be personal development rather than some sort of outward display of success.

Backtracking a bit, what sparked the gig a day project? Was it something you just woke up and decided to do?

It was an existential gig-life crisis that turned into an outrageous experiment. I started gigging in 2022 and the ambition then was to play YNot Festival. It took two years to figure out how to get there. I played it in 2024 to 4,000 people [on] the Quarry Stage. In my head, I thought, ‘This is a success and a sort of gravitas of having achieved this milestone… I packed out the Quarry Stage, the photo looks great, maybe I can leverage this success to get on the festival circuit, get some influential support slots and really build something meaningful here.’

And I found I was just arrogant and naïve in the assumption that that would be the case, and it would be easy to capitalise on it. I went back to playing empty rooms, got absolutely nowhere and was just really frustrated… I was pretty miserable and dejected. I’d put all this work it, done the big thing and I was not able to make anything come from it.

So 2025 was a miserable year for me. I got nowhere, failed spectacularly and I was pretty much going to sell my guitar in December and just throw in the towel.

There’s a guy called Matt Taylor who engineers my records and is kind of a mentor to me, and he said, "Isaac, you’re starting to write some really good songs, you need to do an all-in year, and just see."

It wasn’t until December 31st last year that I said, ‘Right, I’m doing it!’ because the prospect of putting everything on the line was terrifying and I didn’t feel worthy. It was very much a journey of self-discovery as much as it was a belief that things would work. I knew that as soon as I announced it on 1st January, I’d have to see it through.

It’s a very clear goal, and there’s no getting out of that!

Not only do you have to see it through, but also it felt like there’s a little bit of arrogance in saying you’re going to do a gig a day for a year. But I’ve come to realise that a delusional self-belief is the only way of getting to what you want, and you should over commit to the goal: shoot for the stars, hit the moon.

I’m willing to look stupid publicly if that brings me somewhat closer to what I want. I can grow on the way, I’ve bumped into loads of interesting people… I managed to gig with Reverend and the Makers, I bumped into a Lord at The Great Escape who championed it in the King’s Speech debate…

Just put things on the line and see what the universe gives back. Do it authentically and with good intentions.

At the beginning of the year, what did you think it would be like to do this, and how has it been different in reality?

I went into the year setting a sort of pessimistic pre-framing. I knew I needed to have low expectations to get me through it. I set my expectation that by September this would probably pick up some attention. And the kind of momentum I was expecting by September was what I was attaining by mid-February.

I knew the premise itself was potentially newsworthy if executed correctly, and it would also have the development angle of helping me have a better work ethic.

One stage hour is worth 100 at home – I’m testing out that theory and I’m already where I hoped to be by November or December.

Have you thought ahead to 1st January when suddenly you’ve finished doing this, and you’re not playing a gig?

I think I’ll sleep for two weeks straight!

To me, this year represents the groundwork of building an audience and it’s a year of volume – both in terms of social reach and gigging. Next year is going to be more about doing high-quality set pieces and making every gig matter. You can do this once – unless I did a gig a day for seven year – so next year will be capitalising on what I’ve learnt this year.

Next year, can I get on Glastonbury, or Reading and Leeds? Can I release a body of work that’s critically acclaimed and respected as an artistic statement without doing the narrative of this challenge? It’s got to be artistically credible and pushing the boundaries of the genre and making a statement beyond just doing an interesting experiment.

The framing of this is: can a working class artist who doesn’t have any industry backing, or any nepotism, build something from just graft and songcraft?

Is there a danger or being seen as a novelty act because you’re doing this big thing that’s defining you?

All it comes down to is: is the art good? Are the songs good, are they well produced, are they well performed, are the lyrics compelling? If the art is good enough, I don’t think that’s a problem. If the songs aren’t good, then it becomes a novelty. Does the work the challenge stands upon go beyond the weird framing of an experiment?

I haven’t built a mailing list of 1,050 people since February because of doing a gig a day without the songs resonating. Every person who’s written their email on the notepad has done it because they like the music and they want to follow the journey of the challenge which contains that music.

You’ve definitely had some ups and downs so far. What have been the best moments of the year?

The reason I loved that day [of the Reverend and the Makers gig] is because it’s the microcosm of the whole year in a day. I fully believed it wasn’t going to work. I was three hours deep without getting anywhere – just getting ‘no’s over and over from the whole team. I was starting to think about a plan B and it was only when he [Jon McClure] said, ‘You can play after us’ that I believed it was possible. As a day, that was fantastic.

I did my single launch at Rescue Rooms in Nottingham – that was exceptional to come back to what felt like a homecoming gig and get so much support. That was amazing for day 170. There’s so much outrageous stuff that happens. I did another gig at Rescue Rooms where I just randomly bumped into El Estepario [Siberiano] who’s one of my favourite drummers in the world and also happens to be the biggest drum YouTuber, and he was kind enough to sit down with me for 10 minutes and give me some advice…

And what gets you through the low points?

All of the interactions every day are the fuel that gets me through it.

I’ve been snowed off in the first week, where I had to walk into venues until one said yes. I’ve had my car break down four times – the best one was when the car broke down as I was parking at a venue. The clutch went as I was parking up! I’ve driven an hour-and-a-half to a gig for them to call me up as I was 10 minutes away and tell me the gig’s off, and then have to drive another hour-and-a-half to a venue which was past where I’d come from. I’ve done empty venues.

It comes in waves where I’ll have a three- or four-day period where I hate everything, I don’t want to get out of bed, I don’t want to talk to anyone.

The mantra I’m using is: this pain is temporary whereas if I didn’t do a gig, the depression that would follow for failing myself would probably last for six months to a year.

How have you found the time to produce new music amid all of this?

The studio I record at is in Oxfordshire, so I’ll intentionally book gigs around that. All of the bulk of the recording was done last year before this project was conceived, so that was a fortunate symmetry. But all of the vocals have been done or redone this year because I’m just becoming a better performer and writer.

On top of that, I’m also trying to write. I’m curious as to whether the intensity of all of this will cultivate intense quality writing. I think the medium create the product in a sense. Or if I took a few weeks off next year to just sit and write, whether the product would be completely different.

Getting Better, the latest track… is coming at a time when the year is getting better. It’s sort of accidentally parallel with everything I’m going through. All the music coming for the rest of the year is going to carry that philosophy forward and just trying to become artistically more interesting and bold and daring.

@isaacneilson00

Isaac Neilson continues his gig a day journey for the rest of 2026 - you can keep up with him via social media or his website. Isaac also has a series of releases planned between now and the end of the year.