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I got a huge amount of requests asking for the Instagram stories of Screech's Tale to be put on youtube. So here they are!

For the promotion of this song I wanted to do something different. One of the most challenging things about making music is making people invest in the stories you're trying to tell... so at the risk of sounding like a psycho... I thought the best way of making people care about the characters I created was by making them real, really real.

A week before the release of Screech's tale I decided to stage it to make it look like my phone had been stolen by someone calling himself 'Screech.' After posting a story of a man in a balaclava stealing my phone, I deleted every picture on my Instagram, changed the screen name to 'Screech,' and to make it seem even more authentic, contacted my band mates and artist friends (who shared the same following as me) and got them to post stories saying that my phone had been stolen but I was safe.

That night hundreds of messages came through from my fans asking if I was okay, or telling 'Screech' to give the phone back, and that he was scum. I was quite taken a back by the amount of people who bought it. For the rest of the week I continued to method act as Screech. I thought the idea of a story, almost like a mini movie, unfolding in real time on Instagram was such a cool way to bring Screech to life.

I brought to life the key people in screech's life by getting my friends to act them out. What I didn't anticipate was that this would feel very uncomfortably real for some people. After a scene where Screech grabbed his girlfriend by the face, I started getting a lot of hate messages from people who thought this was real. I was also contacted by Instagram, who warned me that I was at risk of my account being banned if I continued to post antisocial content. I was too far at this point to want to stop so I carried on.

There was a really difficult moment the next day as I saw my fanbase drop. I lost close to a thousand followers overnight, and witnessed fans who had supported me switching on me, sending death threats. I started to question weather this publicity stunt had been a massive mistake and even something which may sabotage my musical career, but I'd gone too far at this point to stop, so I stayed in character and carried on.

The next day I posted a story where I shoplifted inside a local Tesco (in real life the guard was informed and had agreed to 'catch' us, but it all looked very real) In this moment I was sent an ultimatum by Instagram who had informed me that they'd received hundreds of cases of my profile being reported. They said that if i violated the community standards one more time my entire account would be deleted, along with all my archived work.
At this point I was in a bind, if I stopped, then the big reveal would happen, and it would have all been seemingly for nothing, If I carried on, my account might be deleted and I wouldn't be able to finish the story anyway. There was a moment where I was pretty ready to throw in the towel, apologise to all my followers, and admit defeat.

In a lightbulb moment I decided to make Screech his own Instagram profile... If a new account ended up deleted, it wouldn't matter so much as I could just make another, and another. I admitted to my followers I had been method acting the character of Screech and redirected them to his new profile @ScreechMakesMusic . Where I was able to finish telling the rest of his story. It lasted about 48 hours before Instagram banned a few of the key moments of the story, and threatened to delete the Screech account too.

Once people realised it was all a way to try and bring the characters to life, the feedback was so overwhelmingly positive. I started getting messages from people all over saying how invested they were in the story and characters, which was a massive fucking relief! Thanks everyone who followed this, and for people who didn't... here is that story in all its glory!

You can follow my instagram at @RenMakesMusic

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