The AFD Episode 13 Steve Hamilton Founder Burning Soul London

In this episode, Kieron meets Steve Hamilton, founder of Burning Soul London, an artisan candle maker who puts sustainability at the heart of his brand.

By trade Steve is a session musician, playing live shows and recording with artists ranging from Radio Head, Madness and Noel Gallagher’s “High Flying Birds”, so as you can imagine, during the pandemic Steve has been forced to pivot and find creative ways to spend his time and earn a living, so from Saxophone player to the stars too candle maker in his kitchen.

We talk through his adventures in music and how those relationships in the industry came to his aid whilst building Burning Soul London, with Mark Bedford the bass player for Madness and his design agency Mar Mar Co getting involved with the branding for Burning Soul and more importantly being a real source of accountability for Steve when he took the idea seriously and was positive it had the opportunity to be successful.

Steve tells us how he has harnessed the sense of community where he lives to have all his neighbours dropping off their empties for Steve to use in the candle creation. He talks us through the process of learning how to cut glass safely and make high-quality candles that appeal to men and women alike, and trust me he has been successful, Kieron has a couple in his own home and can’t recommend them enough.

Steve tells us how his family have been involved in the inception of Burning Soul, with Katy, his wife putting her social media to work to share the brand, to his kids helping him to make the candles and handwrite a note that goes into every purchase. It’s a wonderful story of a family coming together to face the challenge of Lockdown head-on and winning!

We talk through the feeling of walking into 6 different retailers and seeing your candles on sale and what it took to make that happen, which tracks back to Steve’s rule in life, “Be Bold” because what happens if you’re not? Nothing!

We talked about the future and I can’t lie, Kieron got more than a little excited when Steve started to talk about the tours and gigs he was booked to play this year, the return of music is something we are all looking forward to but when it’s your life, your career, it’s even more important. Steve will continue with Burning Soul London because it has brought him happiness and with loyal customers to keep in candles, well, he doesn’t really have a choice!


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