Man found dream job after ‘niggling feeling’ wouldn’t go away

A number of chance encounters led to a man finding his dream job.

Steve Simpson, 46, from Southport, worked in various jobs including as a touring musician and in IT. However, there was one aspect of his hobby that always intrigued him.

Speaking to the ECHO, Steve said: “I've always been into games. I’m a child from the ‘80s from Southport, I was always in the arcades.

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“I basically have always been into audio and music. I was a touring musician for about 10 years. I ran my own touring studio. As I was doing it, a family friend was working in video games and mentioned jobs. I didn’t know it was even a real thing you could do.”

Productions for video games, TV and films have Foley artists. Their job is to create the sounds that either weren’t there during filming or weren't picked up on set, such as a door opening or ambient music.

Steve said: “He mentioned there were positions available. I put together a CV at the time - a demo of Foley stuff. We lost touch and never heard anything, but I always had a niggling feeling.”

When he found some spare time a few years later, Steve decided to properly pursue working as a Foley artist, and sought to promote game audio work in Merseyside before he had even got a job himself. He said: “When the pandemic came, I had a lot of free time. I thought, I’m going to teach myself for fun. I decided to go for it full time.

“When things started to open up, I started going to these game audio meet ups across the country, including in London. A guy at one of these events chatted to me and said, is there nothing like this in the north west?