Jordan Gaffney: Turning The Indie Rock Show Into a Full-Time Business

After the round table in our very first episode, Jordan Gaffney stayed on the bench for a one-to-one with our host Princely and business guest Lewis Windle. Jordan presents The Indie Rock Show on Salford City Radio, and he came with one big question: how do you turn a passion project into something that can pay the bills?

From empty pubs to festival coverage

Jordan has played music since he was about 15, touring grassroots venues across the UK, "playing the empty pubs, playing into the Christmas parties". When lockdown hit in 2020 and gigs dried up, he needed a creative outlet and found it in radio. He took volunteer positions to learn the trade and, as he put it, fell into indie music "because that's what I know".

The Indie Rock Show began as an hour-long weekly show. Looking at how bigger players worked, Jordan and his team saw that audiences wanted to watch and engage, not just listen. So they built a website, started filming every festival interview, and turned the show into a brand of its own. "It's not a show on Salford," he explained. "We branded it. So now it's our show to take anywhere we want."

The coverage grew from local festivals to events such as BBC Big Weekend and Transmit Festival. But the time and money needed to keep up was the problem, and Jordan was unsure whether chasing sponsorship was the right route. "I don't want to be chasing sponsors for six months just to cover our summer of content," he said.

What the bench told him

Princely reminded him that everyone starts somewhere. "If you look at the first Facebook version, if you look at the first PayPal version, it wasn't perfect," he said, encouraging Jordan to keep getting out there, to work with independent marketing agencies and networks, and to take TikTok seriously as one of the biggest platforms for getting a brand seen.

Lewis's advice was about people. Instead of carrying everything alone, Jordan should build a small group around a shared vision: someone strong in marketing, someone who loves networking, someone great on social media, and a mentor to help with the gaps. He shared that in his own recruitment business someone was helping him build IT elements in return for an incentive, so they could all move faster together.

Jordan admitted that had been the missing piece: "I do feel like I've tried to tackle everything on myself."

The takeaway

• Brand the project, not the platform, so it can travel with you.

• Don't wait for perfect: early versions of the biggest companies weren't.

• Build a small team of people with the skills you don't have.

• As Lewis put it, successful people "might have started alone", but they never did it alone.

Watch Jordan's one-to-one, and catch the full round table in Episode 1 of The Legacy Bench.