Celebrating industry dads: Spotify’s Peter Stevens
With Father’s Day coming up on Sunday (September 1), it’s the perfect opportunity to celebrate a few music industry dads who are managing work and family life in a sector battling an ‘always-on’ mentality.
In the short Q&As below, we chat dad life with Peter Stevens, the Senior Editor for Music, Culture and Editorial at Spotify.
How many kids do you have?
One. Her name is Juliet and she is 9 months old.
What’s been the most challenging thing about being a dad in the music industry?
I’m lucky enough to be working for a company that has one of the most progressive paid parental leave schemes in the world, as well as flexible working arrangements to help facilitate being a hands-on Dad (something very important to me), like options to work from home, flexible hours, and allowing us to pick and choose travel dates around our home/life schedule.
The travel can be hard when I don’t see my family and wake up to Juliet’s beaming face every day, but a consistent feed of photos and videos from my wife kind of helps that.
Do your kids love your job?
Juliet is still too young to understand what I do, but early signs are telling me she loves music (I have a video of her rocking back and forth to Pusha T which I’ll never get tired of watching) and I’m taking her to Fairgrounds Festival this year, which I’ve basically been excited about doing since she was born.
:: Read more from industry dads Regan Lethbridge & Roy Amar
How are you at managing family + work life?
As I mentioned above, Spotify has an amazing paid parental leave scheme which allows new parents to have six months off with full pay. This has been absolutely invaluable, not just to witness the early stages of Juliet’s life, but also to learn how to be a new parent.
Outside of that, I now have to work on a well planned out schedule to ensure I can spend time with Juliet on workdays. But it’s all about strategically picking what hours to work, spacing out evenings at gigs/events and knowing when you need to switch off for the day.
Also, we have to remind ourselves, we work in music, our passion! So whether I’m sitting on a couch in the dark at 1am looping the new B Wise single on my headphones whilst updating playlists, or out having a religious experience at a Tropical Fuck Storm show, knowing this all happens in tandem with an amazing family life is pretty damn special to me.
What is your advice to anyone in the music industry who is about to have kids?
Play them all the incredible music you can, from the minute you first bring them home from the hospital. It’s how my passion for music started and I’m hoping to share the same thing with my daughter!
:: Read more from industry dads Basil Cook & Stephen Green
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This article originally appeared on The Industry Observer, which is now part of The Music Network.