Heysham teen celebrates music fame

Photo Neil Cross Robert Tharm, a dance music producer. at his home in Heysham. At the age of 17 Robert released his first single. He has had 3.5m streams of his music on Spotify.

Robert Tharm has been producing dance music for the past two years and is already becoming a recognised artist on a digital music site.

The 19-year-old’s first single, ‘Hold Onto Me’ has been listened to more than four million times on music service Spotify.

The dance hit, which Robert produced fresh out of college at 17, went on to become a viral hit in Germany and was later signed by Casual Jam Records.

It entered the Global Viral Spotify charts for the UK and USA peaking at number two.

“I didn’t know how to take it all in at the time,” said Robert, who goes by the artist name, Bortharm.

“I wasn’t really expecting anything, certainly not expecting to get signed to a label.

“The first single received a huge following, I had 100,000 monthly listeners.

“I never thought I would be making money, it’s always been something I have done in my spare time as a hobby.”

Robert, a former Heysham High School pupil, began his love of music when he played the drums at More Music in Morecambe.

He attended Kendal College studying music and spent a year studying music production at BIMM Music College in Manchester.

After setting up a studio at his home in Heysham, Robert began to produce music using the software Ableton Live.

He was inspired after watching others do a similar thing on Youtube and listening to artists Avicii and David Guetta.

“I start off by opening the soft ware and setting up with a chord progression and build from that,” said Robert.

“I then build a melody on top with a bass line and drums and build that up to make a melody.”

Now Robert has four singles under his belt, two (Hold Onto Me and Breathing) signed with Casual Jam Records and the latest singles, ‘Lead The Way’ and ‘Last Time’ have been self-released.

DJing and performing will be Robert’s next attention for the future but for now his is enjoying continuing to produce and release music to the digital world.

‘Last Time’ is available in most online retail stores.

See more at https://open.spotify.com/artist/1B77cthpMNt71jYcCBKjEq.