Stateotronic and Lethoscorpia are the brainchild of singer songwriter Tommy Crouch. Not to be confused with musician Tom Crouch this is my only website.  I'm not on facebook  or any other social media.  I appeared on ITV when I was young, see video below, and was support for a techno band called Overworld at a concert in Camberwell, London for a record company once (not the Swedish heavy metal band, a techno duo, who if my memory is correct, released a song with Lisa Stansfield) but I stopped sending my demos to record labels a long time ago.  The main feedback I used to get when I was young was 'you need to be in a band', 'you need a better singer' and 'you need to be more different to what's already out there', all very hard to achieve.

​

 The music industry changed dramatically in 2004 when you no longer needed to be signed to a label to release your music over the internet to sites like iTunes.  I'm not signed to a label and now I have no desire to be, my music is available through a distribution company which is great for me as there is no pressure to be controlled, be popular, or do music/promotion you don't want to do.

​

 Stateotronic is more guitar indie with a touch of dance music thrown in while Lethoscorpia is more trance/EDM using female session singers but really there is no set agenda, being independent, I can just do what I like rather than the 'brand' that record companies inflict on artists.

​

 I encourage people to use legal music websites, such as Spotify which is free.  I've had an estimated 125000 illegal downloads over the years (one song turned up on several illegal 'club hits' type compilation albums so I appreciate people were downloading the albums rather than directly downloading my music) and at £0.35 per song the artist gets that would be over £40000!  If it was streams I'd get around £279.  I do agree music downloads are well overpriced but at least if people stream your music on legal streaming sites, the artists get something for their work.  Think how bland life would be without music.

​

 I'm a self taught musician, all I ever had when I started was a guitar chord book by the legendary Bert Weedon and gradually just kept trying to add more synths, drum machines and guitars to my sonic arsenal, and keep improving my music. Nowadays, you tube can be a great help, especially with production techniques.  I do everything myself in my home studio. I put a cover version on each Stateotronic album but the rest of the songs are my own work, and some of the Lethoscorpia tracks are trance versions of classical pieces but again, all the others are my own work, just with session singers doing the vocals.  My favorite artists/influences include New Order, Feeder, Muse, Coldplay, The Foo Fighters, Armin van Buuren, Cosmic Gate, Joy Division, Jorn van Deynhoven, Kraftwerk, Andrew Rayel and Lene Marlin.  Plus loads more.  I just really love music.

​

 Virtually every band/artist name you can think of has been done now so I wanted new words unique to me.  Stateotronic & Lethoscorpia are portmanteaus of state and electronic, and lethologica and scorpion.  For Stateotronic I wanted a name that implied an electronic beats with an indie sound.  And when I was starting out I would often forget my words, hence lehtologica, and scorpion comes from the parable about the scorpion.  Music being so ingrained in my nature, I can't stop doing it in some form or another.

​

 Gear wise, the hub of my studio is Sonar X3 by Cakewalk.  Absolutely brilliant piece of software, I totally love it.  Synth wise I use VST instruments by Rob Papen, Nexus 2 by Refx, Elements by Waves, several from Spitfire Audio, also an AKAI MPC, and Z3TA+2 by Cakewalk.  I have a Yamaha FA06 hardware synth, guitars by Ibanez, Electric Sound Production and Yamaha, and effects processors by Boss, Roland, Line 6, TC Hellicon and DigiTech.   Software effects I use include lots by Waves and iZotope.  All mixed down through a Behringer X32 rack mixer and out of my Behringer truth B2030A monitors.  Someone once said to me 'oh Eric Clapton could make any old guitar sound great' but the reality is top professionals use top professional gear.  I love looking at you tube videos of top professional studios and people at work in them.  I did hire cheap studios when I was young but I always felt hurried, trying to fit too much into the time I could afford and ended up disappointed sometimes with the results.  Now I'm old I'm happy to have a pretty good set up and the time to use it.

​

 Once you start writing and performing your own material, you're judged on a totally different level to cover bands, you tube posters and tribute acts.  Your peers become established artists and performers on the radio/TV.  There will always be a level of hostility and spite thrown at me but then I'd much rather enjoy doing what I do than living without my own music in my life. It's really, really easy to slag someone off.  Especially when you know you will never be up on stage yourself.  Can you imagine Simon Cowell putting the effort into learning an instrument, the talent to write a song, and the guts to stand up in front of people and perform it?  Nah, didn't think so.  The soft option is to sit on your butt slagging people off, making negative comparisons, or just being abusive because of your caustic nature.  As an example, someone I knew was taking home £12000 a month doing some sort of legal work.  He's nowhere near the top 40 earners in the country, not even close, yet no-one gives him any abuse.  For musicians life is totally different.  Lack of status above others is a constant abuse thrown at you.  I try not too take to much notice, a lot of is quite farcical and all bands/artists receive it.  After seeing Muse described as 'an average band with a couple of mediocre hits' and 'a stupid little group' I realize some people are just empty headed.  I do get a lot of positive feedback too, it's not all hate.   'As good as you hear on the radio', 'sounds great', 'you're a talented producer', ​'the track is beautiful'.  Not my own words.

​

 The music industry is ferociously competitive, nothing can guarantee you'll have a successful career.  Artists can spend a fortune promoting themselves.   (See link).  It's virtually impossible to get your music on the radio, especially if, like me, your not signed to a label.  There are so many songwriters, musicians, singers out there you have less than a 0.1% chance of ever getting your music on mainstream radio. And the songs that do make it are played over and over again.  What really gets me though is the vile arrogance and sheer utter ignorance of someone who told me I should change my style of music.  There are artists all round the globe doing every imaginable style of music that will never get anywhere just because of the sheer number of them about and to think you can just change your style of music and become famous is frankly ludicrous.  Just enjoy doing what you do.  There are loads of real top quality tracks out there I like to share some of my favorites so, with a couple of my songs included below is my fantastic songs playlist...

​

​