John Rolls: What If Inclusion Worked Better Than Quotas

We talk with John Rolls about the Gremlin Club’s Sunday open mic in Camarthen and how it grows from a rehearsal night into a welcoming community where people leave their troubles at the door. 

We dig into what real inclusion looks like for autism, mental health, and disability when the room treats everyone as equal and still makes space for what people need. 
• how the Gremlin Club open mic starts as a Welsh Factor practice night 
• why the night becomes about community building over competition 
• John stepping in to run it after Elise’s bowel cancer diagnosis 
• building confidence for nervous newcomers through crowd support 
• making space for autistic singers and people with mental health challenges 
• handling disability and access needs while keeping the same respect for everyone 
• why the event is not branded as karaoke and how the format keeps it fun 
• filming for nostalgia and feedback while choosing not to live stream 
• word-of-mouth promotion and small grassroots marketing efforts 
If this kind of conversation matters to you, follow the show so you don't miss what comes next. 

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intro/outro music bed written by T. Wild
Why Not Me the World music published by Mantor Music (BMI)

Transcript

Why Understanding Begins Here

0:00

What if everything you thought you knew about autism and mental health wasn't the full story? Today's conversation might change the way you see it. This is Why Not Me, embracing autism and mental health worldwide. Real conversations about autism, mental health, and the stories that shape our lives. I'm Tony Mantor. This is where understanding begins. If this kind of conversation matters to you, follow the show so you don't miss what comes next. Joining us today is John Rolls. He's here to share the story behind a powerful and inclusive event he hosts at the Gremlin Club, one that creates a truly special night for all, especially within the special needs community. Welcome to the show, John. Tony, it's uh nice to see you as always. Oh yes, it's my pleasure to have you on. So give us a little information on what you're doing with the Gremlin

The Night That Builds Confidence

0:48

Club now. The Gremlin Club is a small social club down here in West Wales in Camarthen. They were really looking forward to having some entertainment on a Sunday night. The rest of the week is all filled up. They didn't have anything on a Sunday. So they approached a company called Welsh Factor, which was a talent competition down here. I think they covered like most of South Wales. And the idea was basically to have a night where the contestants could practice their songs, practice their performances, practice all year round so that when they get to the Welsh Factor competition, then they were a bit more rehearsed and a bit more polished. The lady who was hosting it was Elise. Um I think you've met Elise before, a larger than life cabaret singer as well. She knew her trade. So that was the idea behind it. And then, of course, because it's in an open pub, then on top of these very accomplished singers, which gave it a a standard, you then had all these other pub singers who wanted to come in and have a go. Now they were not karaoke singers, they were people who genuinely wanted to join in and sing. How did you find that to work out with everything you were doing moving forward? What we found is that people who were on the circuit or on the Saturday night trade would come in on a Sunday, use the club, and again practice songs, try them out, see if they're gonna be crowd pleasers. Sometimes you have a song and you think this is great, the crowd's gonna love this, and it just dies a death for some reason. And then other times when you're sitting around in a group and somebody gets up and sings a song, and everybody's up and singing and the crowds are dancing, and you think, why isn't that in my set list? So there was a bit of a learning curve for proper singers. So while you were seeing this, what was your input and what did you see coming out of it? At the time I was just sitting back watching, my son was joining in singing. I could see these uh newcomers, some of them had huge confidence issues. I remember one girl, she would walk off the stage crying because she got her words wrong. Everybody was so supportive and cheering everybody on. Oh, don't get off the stage, go and have another girl, we'd be fine. And then of course then she would get back on when she finished then they get the biggest round of applause of the night. So I saw it building confidence. I'd suddenly realised then this was far more of a a karaoke night. It was more community-building event. I was seeing people get in more than just singing from what they were getting. It was a way of people could leave their troubles at the door, come in, enjoy some singing, enjoy a bit of fun, and then go home slightly better than they came in. As time has gone on, the uh the Welsh Factor folded and and at least parted company with Welsh Factor. Now the only target that we've got to hit, because we haven't got to train people up to go into this competition, the only goal now is can we give people as much fun as possible? So now it's a a fun night that people can just come in, sing with friends, everybody's equal, even you know, we have good singers, we have very, very bad singers sometimes, but they have the same stage time, they have the same attention. Everybody is equal, and that's that's what I love about it. How have you seen it evolve since you have taken over and put it in the direction that you saw it going? Uh yeah, I should I should talk about that up if I

Taking Over And Changing The Point

4:06

if I can. I just change the subject for one second. Um Elise managed to get a diagnosis that she had bowel cancer. She was going to retire. There was nobody to take over, and I thought, well, I can't let this just fold. So from the back of the ranks and from basically from being insignificant in the corner, I said, Well, I've got DJing experience. Can I carry on running it? Suddenly then everybody took like five steps back, and I was the only one standing uh like you see in the jungle book. There I was with the spotlight on me, and uh they said, Yeah, as from Sunday night, you're taking over. Wow, that's great. So moving forward, how did it work for you? What I've seen, I think because now we don't have the Welsh factor. I love the Welsh factor, because we don't have that, those targets to meet. We're not trying to get people into the music industry, we're not trying to get them into winning competitions. I'm finding now a lot more people want to come in and have a go. There's a lot of people now, yeah. I've seen we've we've got a young lady just joined us about a month ago, 14 years old, plays the guitar, very, very nervous, no stage experience whatsoever. But when she finishes her song, the smile on her face and and the applause that goes around the room, it I mean, she gets a bigger reception than many of our really accomplished singers. That's just because it's not a sympathy vote. It's the way the crowd are. They are just naturally supportive and really keen to give everybody that that shot. Now I know that you are a huge supporter of autism and special needs.

Neurodiversity Meets The Spotlight

5:39

Yes. Have you seen some from the autistic community come out and support what you're doing and participate? Absolutely. I joke about it. I say we are a drop-in center for dropouts. This is because many of our audience and singers are um let me just get my brain in gear there. They may have social disadvantages, they may have some kind of mental health issues. I know we've got one guy who's an absolutely amazing singer, but he has schizophrenia and bipolar, and um somehow that doesn't affect him when he's on stage. He may be having the worst day possible, but once he comes in the club, gets up singing, he gives this amazing performance. We have one young lady who is 100% blind, she's been blind from birth. Of course, it's much harder for her because like a karaoke night, we have the lyrics on a screen. She can't read that, so she has to learn everything and perform it by heart. But somehow nobody really notices. Does that make sense? Yeah, absolutely. And it's great to hear. We um we had one night when um we didn't have the words on screen and somebody printed them off. We'd go around with sheets of paper like for community singing, and he gave this one to this young lady and she just laughed and said, Well, that's no good to me, is it? So you see his face and think, Oh my god, yeah, I I wasn't thinking, I hope I haven't offended you, but that's just the way it is. She is just one of us, and the disadvantages and disabilities really don't exist. We see past that, and whatever your ability, your needs, your religion, your colour, your creeds, your beliefs, it's all flatlined and everybody's equal, and everybody comes in with no preconceived reputations. So some people come in and we've heard about them and we think, oh, these people are gonna be trouble. Again, they start at a zero, same as everybody else, give them exactly the same stage time, and then everybody kind of earns their stripes. So whatever you got outside the club, that's a whole different issue. When you're in the club and when you're singing, everybody's equal. That's such a great way to look at it. And I think I think that's one way that we have to look at our attitude towards discrimination. I'm not a fan of positive discrimination, I'm not a fan of quotas. We've got one girl from Vietnam who's uh just a bundle of energy. We love it when she comes in. Everybody's equal. If if the club ends up 100% Chinese one night or 100% Asian or 100% Welsh, that's the audience that we've got. And welcome one at all. Same with ability. If we have a busload of autistic people, they will be treated exactly the same way as our regular singers. Obviously, there are people who have to have special treatment. For example, if somebody's in a wheelchair, they need to be helped onto the stage. When I say everybody's equal, it's the attitude is uh the attitude is we treat you equally, but we do realize that people have to have a bit of extra attention to to make that equality. Now that you've got it to this point and it seems to be really going well, what's your plans for the future with

Designing A Fun Night Without Pressure

8:43

it? What do you see it evolving to eventually? Honestly, I'm just having fun, and that's what we really want out of it. We're not trying to go anywhere, we're not trying to do anything, we just want as many people to come in, have fun, and enjoy the night. One thing I'd like to do is attract a bigger audience for that reason. We don't brand it as a karaoke night because people don't go to karaoke's to listen. People go to karaoke to get on stage and sing typical songs very, very badly. As a a former karaoke host, I know that the the first thing you've got to do is get somebody very bad on stage to start the night because suddenly then everybody wants to have a go. Whereas what we're doing is the exact opposite of that. We want to put on a show and have a handful of really good singers or really entertaining singers. I think the entertainment factor is more important. We have several people who are less accomplished singers, shall we say, but oh, they're great fun to watch. And getting that entertainment out there and letting the audience see these people having fun, and again to encourage everybody to just leave your troubles and get up here and sing with us. Now that this space has evolved beyond a training ground, how has that changed your mindset? Are you leaning more into creativity, taking risks, and giving yourself permission to explore without expectations? By doing this, it seems like this shift can create a space not just for creativity, but for people to discover what they're truly capable of. Have you tried anything different? I tend to have at least three or four group songs on the stage. I look around and think, oh, let's let's put together maybe a five-piece girl band. And uh and they all come up on stage and they'll sing together, and that's bonding. They people make friends that way. Again, if this new person comes in, maybe a bit timid, it's a great way to get them on the stage for the first time and suddenly they feel part of a a small family. After they've been on the stage and they know what it's like to stand in there and the spotlights on their faces, it's much easier to make the second attempt, which will be a solo performance. That's really what I want from it. I want to see people enjoying themselves, I want to see people progress and turn into more confident versions of themselves. If I'm a a treadmill to achieve that goal and I see people come and then they become more confident and then they leave, and then we see other people coming in and we do it all again. I'm quite happy with that. The smile on people's faces is exactly why I do it. Since you're in video production, do you film this? We do, not for any particular reason. Sometimes it's nice to have it recorded in case there's a particularly good performance, or in case somebody says something funny, or if I say something funny in the odd occasion, then uh it's worth having it filmed. I do tend to put a couple of performances up on Facebook every now and then to let new audiences see what goes on. Also, then because we filmed it, I let people have copies of them so they can go back and analyse their performances, see what went right and what went wrong. Trouble with filming things is it never sounds as good unless you use studio quality recording equipment. You're only basically using it on a telephone. The microphones tend to be fairly poor. So I I always say to people, you know, when you listen back, remember you've got the acoustics of the room, you've got bodies, you've got people talking, you've got background noise. You're listening to a very sterile performance on your phone. You can overanalyse that sometimes. But they recorded mostly for nostalgia rather than for anything professional.

Promotion Struggles And Proof It Works

12:15

So with it doing so well, how are you promoting it so that people know that they can come and hear all this? Badly is the answer. Most of it is just word of mouth. We tend to have a lot of freebies with our logo on it that we kind of pass around, and if people got a fridge magnet with the gremlin open mic logo on it, then it becomes a topic of conversation. We've got our Facebook page, there's nobody with any social media experience, so it just organically grows every now and then. And the club tend to promote it on their other nights, so we we get a mention on a Saturday night, which is their live events. But uh apart from that, we're really very, very bad at promoting things. I hear there's a guy out in Nashville called Tony Mantor, who I'm gonna see if I can have a word with him and see if he'll help us to promote one day. Yeah, absolutely. We'll promote it any way we can. Now, you mentioned that you have had some autistic people attend, and have you seen that change the way people look at neurodiversity now? If you go into the real world that just happens to be outside the club, unfortunately people still do not understand autism or mental illness. Unfortunately, they have no clue what it is. If they can see those that are autistic and deal with mental illness that are inside that club, hopefully they can get a different perception. Have you seen that change in any way help the perception, even just a little bit, in what you're doing? Definitely. I've seen people become a lot more accepted as a result of getting up on stage and singing in the way that the audience accepts newcomers and the audience accept really good singers. When somebody gets up and they've got autism, and uh again, I won't mention names, but there is one lady who is heavily autistic. She can't speak very well, but oh boy, can she sing. And uh when she gets up and and belts a tune out, then I mean everybody they set their goals and their expectations lower because of her autism. And as a result, she's just a a hero. She's one of the stars of the night. Not necessarily the best singer, not necessarily the best performer, but the audience really, really kind of get behind her and encourage her to go on. I nearly said her name then. Go on then, go for it. And then when she comes off the stage, her smile is infectious. The audience's smile is infectious, and yes, the audience have accepted her as part of our Gremlin family. That's just incredible to watch. Somehow people with autism tend to have a lot more confidence than the rest of us, and they're gonna get on that stage whether we like it or not. And they often steal it. Again, the audience reaction to that is always so warm, as you say. If they met outside the club in one of the supermarkets or department stores, they may have just sort of walked down the other aisle, whereas now it's all kind of accept. So you've mentioned that they come off feeling good about themselves. So this is a real confidence builder for them. Have you have you seen? I know you've seen this, but how can you do you have a story about how someone went on and they were really timid, they were really afraid, and then once they saw that they were accepted, they came off that stage with more confidence than you thought they would ever have? There is one lady, again, forgive me if I don't mention her name. When I first went there, which would have been 2017, something like that, and obviously we had all the Welsh Factor singers who were semi-pro, and then this this one young lady who was quite large. I would always regard her as the friend. She wasn't an incredibly good singer, and I would have probably overlooked her if it hadn't been for the the format of the night. Because when she got up and sang, she was at this incredible low register in her voice. I could hear there was something different about her voice. You could sing songs like Yazoo, which had that kind of Alice and Moye richness of her. Another music mogul who was happened to be there one night, he said, I'm gonna pay for you to have some singing lessons with Elise and which they didn't do because she didn't need it. But she just kept coming every Sunday and her confidence grew and grew and grew. She's still coming now and she is one of the best singers that we've ever had. Her voice is really exceptional and she's often now asked to come and guest perform at various charity functions, fates. You'll often see her headlining or I know for St. David's Day, which is our Welsh patron. The local Welsh male voice choir put on a concert to raise money for charity, and they asked this young lady to come along and be uh a guest singer. They all gave her flowers. I found out on Sunday she did eleven songs, so it was far more than being a guest singer. She was really fronting this whole male voice choir, which has had about 40 people behind, yeah, 40 men with a big wall of sound. A few years ago she would have never had the confidence to do that. Again, she's gone from being quite a timid character right in the background to fronting some fairly big shows. Wow, that's awesome. Now, how many people help you put this together? The actual running of it is just a small family event now. It's just myself and my son actually do the running of it. My wife is always behind me in everything I do, so even though she's not formally involved, she's there putting out the beer mats with our logos and things on. So and we really need to mention the committee of the club because they do an amazing job of promoting the night with you know the various posters announcements. They have to pay our expenses, obviously, because I live about 40 miles away, so there's transport and things like that to get us up there. So their support as well, but even though they're not directly involved in the running of it, there's a lot of people behind it who are making it happen. Ultimately on the front line, it's just uh me and Dan really. Now, since you started this, you've got it up and running, and it seems to be doing very well. How does it feel that you've taken something that was a completely, totally different animal? So how does it feel that what you started now and what you've created is actually making a difference? Uh, it it feels fantastic. I can't uh I can't say anything else apart from that. It's changed because well partly because of my beliefs, but also it was evolution. Elise had to run it the way she did because she was funded by the Welsh Factor. So she she was quite constrained. It had to be a very, very high quality performance. Whereas when I came in, I was really lucky because I didn't have that noose around my neck. Suddenly I then had the ability to involve everybody in the room. Because I was then financed by the club. My ultimate goal, as much as we like to think it's all about singing, my ultimate goal is to get money behind the till. So yeah, my my goal was really to attract people in. I had different targets in the way, and the way we get people in there is, as I've mentioned before, building this community and building up this uh this everybody's equal attitude where everybody can come along and sing, everybody can sit in the audience and enjoy the night, sit in the audience and and sing along. The other thing I think is quite important, I think when you go to a certain karaoke nights, you sit in the corner and you think, Oh, I hope they don't call me up. And you sit there all night worrying. Whereas I make a point of saying, look, if you don't want to come up, fine, don't put your name down. We got more than enough singers. If you haven't put your name down, sit back, relax, enjoy your drink, enjoy the music, and you know, maybe just sing along from where you are. So it's been in a kind of an evolution, but the core elements of encouragement and building confidence and accepting everybody for who they are, not what they are, has gone all the way through. And I think the shell may have changed, but the core is still very much the same, and that's not going to change. This is based on community, and from what I see, it's a community within a community. Yes. How have you seen the community bond together? Has that community gone out and expanded by telling more people about what's going on and what you're doing? This could evolve into something even bigger than you ever anticipated. Um, I don't see that part, to be perfectly honest. I know very often people do go out and they say, Oh, we had a great night on Sunday. Again, I would talk about that male voice choir, and one of the choir's performers is one of our regular singers. So very often he'll go out and he must be talking about our night when they're at choir practice, because we've had four or five other members of the choir coming in occasionally to take part. So they must be going out and talking about it and saying what a good night they had. So I suppose in a way we are kind of infiltrating our way into people's conversations. But that's um that's just something that's happened organically rather than my attention. My intention was just to give them a bit of fun on a Sunday night. Well, that's how organic promotion happens. It just works just

Why No Livestream And How To Go

21:21

that way. So if you would tell everybody where it's at so that they can come out and see you and hopefully support you as well. Oh yes, one last question. Do you live stream? It's not live streamed, and again, that's a conscious decision because I want people to get up on stage and be able to try out something new, and it can be a complete car crash. And and if it is a car crash, well then everybody's gonna whoop and cheer anyway. Again, we've got some very accomplished singers, but they will always try out something new. If they do try something new and it goes badly, I will then get out one of their more popular songs that they've done well so that at least when they walk off, everybody's heard them singing a good song. And for that reason, we don't want it to go out across to the internet. I want people to have the confidence that they can get up and try things. New singers probably wouldn't want to get up if they had an audience of 20,000. With an audience of uh 50, 60, maybe a hundred people who are cheering for you, it's much easier. So it's not live streamed. The only way you can come in and see the mayhem and enjoy the uh the camaraderie and the chaos, because it is organized chaos, and that's part of the magic of it, is to come along to a town in Wales called Camarthen, which is in West Wales, and the club is called the Gremlin Club, which is right in the town centre. It's a small social club, which if you know the uh kind of social clubs that Peter Kaye has sent up in his Phoenix Nights, it's exactly like one of that. Great fun, great people, cheap alcohol, that's always a winner. And it happens every Sunday from 8 through to 11. And you can find more information on our Facebook page, which is the Gremlin Open Mic Sunday. Well, this has been a pleasure. I've genuinely enjoyed this conversation, and more than that, I've learned a lot about what you're doing today, and I know our listeners have too. So I really appreciate you taking the time to join us today. Tony, it's been a joy, it's always a joy to come and talk to you, and I never need an excuse to talk about myself. Oh, that's great. Well, thanks again. A sincere thank you to our guests for sharing their journey. If today's conversation helped you see the world a little differently, then we're doing exactly what we hope to do. Until next time, keep believing, keep learning, and most importantly, keep asking yourself why not me?