Episode 6 - Holly Poland 'The Candyrat Story'

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In this conversation Chris chats with holly Poland of Candrat Records. Find out more about Candyrat here...https://www.candyrat.com/

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:10

In this conversation, I chat with Holly Poland of Candy Rap Records. If I'm honest, I've really struggled with how to introduce it. So I get because it's an emotional one. It's emotional for a variety of different reasons. One of them because it's candy rap records. And for a guitar player, an acoustic guitar player, a cut of acoustic guitar player, yeah. I have an emotional attachment to Candy Rap Records, like many guitarists and many non-guitarists who just love the music on there. And some of you will know some other elements as well that are perhaps more personal to do with Candy Rap, which we'll get into in a moment. Now, for those of you who don't know Candy Rap Records, I'll try and give you a summary and somehow hopefully I'll come relatively close to expressing the incredible things that they have achieved. So Candy Rap Records is, well, a record label. Um, predominantly kind of YouTube-based, I suppose. And they released a lot of Fingerstyle guitar music. The timing of this, I think, is really important. So that iconic video drifting by Andy McKee was through Candy Rat Records. And actually, if you've spent much time listening to and probably watching Fingerstyle Acoustic Guitar, you'll probably find that many of those artists that you're enjoying were coming through Candy Rat Records. I think it's fair to say that Candy Rat changed music because whilst Fingerstyle guitar obviously existed before, through their platform they took it to a new global level. Because of their videos, all of a sudden, so many more people knew about fingerstyle guitar and knew about the cut of acoustic fingerstyle technique that encouraged new players, new competitions. There's also another element of emotion attached to this conversation, and that is the very tragic loss of Rob Poland. Now, anyone who was an artist working with Candy Rat Records or a listener who had any involvement or engagement with the label in any depth, I think would have known Rob Poland, would have known his name or even enjoyed interactions with him. And of course, this episode is a conversation with Holly Poland, who ran Candy Rat Records alongside Rob and continues to run Candy Rat Records to this day, and of course was Rob's wife. So the insight we get into Candy Rat is not just an economic one or a musical one or a cultural one. It is a personal one. In fact, the episode or the conversation begins with Holly explaining to me some of the immense challenges that Rob faced. So it's a big one. It's a really powerful conversation. I'm gonna sign off my intro with a thank you to Holly for giving us an insight into a real living, breathing musical community that is the perfect balance of music, business, and family.

SPEAKER_03 4:11

Um kind of terminal mental health issues.

SPEAKER_01 4:15

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 4:16

That was a struggle for many, many years. Um he was good at, you know, he just had had some struggles. I knew that, but uh, we kind of kept it on the down low for the most part.

SPEAKER_00 4:31

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 4:32

So yeah, it got a little too much, and yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:37

So I I didn't realize any of that, Ollie, at all. I don't well, I don't know if people really would.

SPEAKER_03 4:44

No, I it's not something that I I some people know who knew him really, really, really well, but um he he just he had he had um just a mental health that caused him to like kind of lose his sense of um drop. He was kind of in a different world at a time. So I was very good. I had been with him since 1989, so we were uh married 33 years and together 35, so I knew him well, but we just kind of kept you know, kept him safe. So he was still he was still doing his best.

SPEAKER_00 5:30

And was music like a a a therapeutic thing within that?

SPEAKER_03 5:35

Or um well, I would say I'm actually a musician. He was a businessman, but liked music. He did play guitar for a few years in high school, and that's kind of how Candy Rut started. He we both love music. We shared that. Um I played piano and trumpet, but I played for I still play. Um he kind of he was a hobbyist, but he was very good at guitar. He found Don Ross about I think it was 2001, and he just started playing No Goodbyes by Don Ross, the Fingerstyle. He found out about Fingerstyle through Don Ross. And so for our 10th wedding anniversary, we went up to Halifax, Canada, and saw five Don Ross shows. This is my first like experience with Fingerstyle. I just cried like a baby because I was so moved, how cool it was. And we ended up meeting Don Ross um at the shows up in Canada. And so we're like, if you ever need someone to set up some shows in with you know, in in America, you know, we'll hope. Just out of the, you know, just because we liked him. Um, so we ended up doing that in 2002, and he performed at the Megar Michigan Figaro Guitar Festival, and we just kind of did that on and off for a few years, and then Rob actually was um he was an entrepreneurial business guy. He had a different company that um he ended up leaving. It was a Microsoft system certification education class or school, basically, that got bought out by investors, but it got a little too big for his britches. So that he had a year of year off in 2004 and started Candy Rat. I was a dietitian at the time, so I'm in the medical field, so yeah. And then in 2005, when Andy McKee's drifting hit, all of a sudden we were getting like all these orders and he couldn't do it by himself, so he begged me to do it. And I'm like, I don't want to work with my husband, but you know, and we had young kids still, so but I started just helping and then in 2000. Then I I just started working for Candy Rat. So we had different roles in Candy Rat. He had his name on everything and did the videos and artists like um contracts and stuff, but I did all the CD fulfillment and customer service and distribution. Yeah. And then I also worked for IGM too, international target tool tour. I did the C D D fulfillment for the three months, and then we did the tours in 2009 and 2008 with 50 shows around the US. So we did random ones around UK and stuff too. So yeah, that was fun.

unknown 8:31

Wow.

SPEAKER_03 8:32

That's when we kind of like I remember saying to Rob, we're not going big, we're gonna keep it small. Because the last time was a nightmare going, you know, being bought out by investors with the last business. So I'm like, you know, let's keep this family, you know, and true family. So um, so when the artists had their first tour, there was a lot of like competition, and we're like, enough of that, we're gonna, we're all working together, we're gonna support each other. And since then it's just been wonderful community, you know. I feel like everybody kind of supports each other, which is so nice.

SPEAKER_00 9:10

Do you kind of do you really have uh an understanding? Because I'd imagine it's quite hard in your position to to know the effect that candy really had on on music. Um do you think you really get that?

SPEAKER_03 9:29

Like I think I do, um, because I I'm still so passionate about it and always fighting for it, and I'm trying, I'm not a business person by profession, but I've been also been doing it for 20 years. And I've also I've also been a manager, retail manager, so I have experience with managing people, so that piece of it, but for me, like I'm also a musician, so I kind of feel like the connection I have is that all of you are sharing a story, like instrumental music to me is the most. I'm gonna cry probably this year, just so you know. I get really I'm very passionate and get moved easily. I am, but like instrumental to me is so special because it's like it's um speaks to everyone. You there's no lyrics to tell you the story. You create your own story from the artist's heart and soul that they created this piece of music for you to connect to. And it doesn't, I mean, people we have people like we're talking right now. You're in the UK, I'm in Wisconsin, you know. The the family we've built, it feels like and and because I love the music as well, you know. I just I think it's just so it's such a hard place to be to support what you guys do. I'm not a prodigy. My first nature isn't a businesswoman, but I know how to do it, and I love you guys. I love all of you so much. I love the music, and it's such a I love the customers. We have customers and fans that have been with us. You know this, you're an artist, you know this. But it's just like what a yeah, I I do know, but I'm a very humble person, so I don't like to be the shiny one like I told you. I kind of let Rob have his name on everything and be the shiny one. So it's like sometimes I have to like I'm always like, we're a team. I can't do what you do. You you know, and you can't we we help each other, right? I can't I can do the business side and promotion and all that. I can't be a prodigy guitarist though.

SPEAKER_00 11:43

So I think that's so um well, my understanding there's that so unique to hear from as a philosophy from a label anyway. But everything was so unique about Candy Rat in the the sense of even being a label that was predominantly based on YouTube, which I know that now is a thing. Like in dance music, it's but and and obviously it's still very important. Oh, I know. But at the time, that was just like I know.

SPEAKER_03 12:15

We started on my space.

SPEAKER_00 12:17

Right, right, right.

SPEAKER_03 12:19

I'm old.

SPEAKER_00 12:21

Same, it's all right.

SPEAKER_02 12:23

No, you're not.

SPEAKER_00 12:27

But it's do you know do you know what I mean? It just seems so it's such a unique thing. It's like it's a it's a record label, but it's it's uh it's a it's a solely online thing, it's a f it's a family thing, and it really changed like I I wonder if Candy Rat hadn't existed, if you if you and Rob hadn't have gone through those processes, whether finger style would have emerged in the way it did, because it wasn't such a prolific thing before. I mean, it's just unquestionable.

SPEAKER_03 12:59

And there's still so much growth to be had. I still run into people what uh what they think it's finger picking or you know, whatever. They don't really um even my family, like they just that's their job. They didn't really, but now they've kind of been supporting me more just because it's been a rough year losing my partner three, five years, though. And I have a partner in in Candy Rat, so because we had split duties, so a lot of the stuff I did he didn't know how to do, vice versa, because we started it together, so we were very yin in yang. He was a very in introverted businessman, and I'm like, ooh, you know, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:42

But um, I'm more of a people people person, so so how have you sort of managed managed that then?

SPEAKER_03 13:50

Like I mean, the thing was because of the way it started, without a lot of money, you know, like I can tell you the story about um like drifting, for example, that was recorded in our dining room with me doing homework with the kids, making dinner for McKee, and like, you know, doing his laundry, and then we had artists live we had artists from all over the world living with our kids and us. It was just like a make it was this screen in our dining room. You know, I I re I hear the master sometimes, and you can hear Rob fussing around because he didn't know how to record, you know. You know, it was just like and it just you know, it kind of just started it, you know, because we were gonna we weren't gonna make it, you know, until that we started getting those viral videos. So back when you could sell CDs.

SPEAKER_00 14:47

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 14:48

Yeah, you know, that's so wonderful.

SPEAKER_00 14:50

I I think it's so wonderful that Angie McKee is like this um flagship. Sorry.

SPEAKER_03 14:56

I know. Oh, yeah, kind of John Ross was the the original.

SPEAKER_00 15:01

Um of course, but but that drifting thing, right?

SPEAKER_03 15:04

Obviously, yeah, that yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:06

But I also just think with Angie's ethos and the way he talks and stuff, just yeah, he was different.

SPEAKER_03 15:12

Seems to really know that guy. He was a young guy who was a teacher. He had his Christine was his girlfriend, no kids. He he was living in Topeka, just taught guitar lessons, a very humble guy, just you know, hanging out at the Poland house with the kids. I mean, I we I always tease him because I'm like, I washed Andy the Key's underwear. He did his logic. He's just like, oh, don't say that, but I do, you know.

SPEAKER_00 15:40

So amazing.

SPEAKER_03 15:43

I mean, it's so beautiful to me after losing Rob, too, because I think I have I got very nostalgic, and it's like how much all the artists have been my family was going through loss. So the people that really helped me, you know, keep me lifted were all of you. So I feel very grateful and blessed because I had built everyone called me Mama Candy Rat, and I had that role, and all of a sudden I always have to be boss lady candy rat too. So I'm trying to be both because that's who I am. So you know, I know when I, well, this is professional Holly, and this is Mama Holly, you know. So you know, because like Garrett Pearson, for example, like he's from Wales, he lived on us for a year, and then months at a time, and so he's like my adopted child, you know. So yeah, he he grew up with my kids.

SPEAKER_00 16:48

Wow.

SPEAKER_03 16:49

So it's a very, very family. So when I talk about that like that, all everybody is. I mean, it's a unique business.

SPEAKER_00 17:00

I think what what was unique as well is how you guys started to open things up as well. I think I actually can't remember the year that I did something with you, what year it was, because I've obviously lost like five years for COVID. Well, maybe maybe, maybe. Oh, that's shocking. That's so long ago.

SPEAKER_02 17:59

I uh maybe do it later, later.

SPEAKER_00 18:01

I can't cross with but I think um with you guys opening it up to have guest artists and stuff, I think is again it's that's like quite an unlabely thing to do. Do you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_03 18:14

That's like I I I did I've always done all the submissions and then we like kind of weeded them out. And I'm like, there's so many good musicians. So I actually was the one that started the guest artist program.

SPEAKER_02 18:28

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 18:29

Um, I I my name's not why my name wasn't on YouTube, my name wasn't on anything, so people don't know all the stuff that I did. Rob did, but you know, I just I think that it was he started it his game. But yeah, that was one of my jobs, uh, guest artists art program. I love it.

SPEAKER_00 18:48

It's just really positive. It's just sort of acknowledging the the the the the wide range of awesomeness, you know.

SPEAKER_03 18:57

Yeah, I I've had to tweak the vision because Rob's vision wavered in the last couple years. He didn't sign any new people or it was it it wasn't a it wasn't really the he couldn't handle it with his the mental health stuff.

SPEAKER_01 19:13

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 19:14

Um I because I was caring for him in a way, I it was I wasn't I feel bad sometimes because I wasn't really on top of Candy Rat. So um in the last year I've had to really like update programs, uh update like what we're doing to keep up with what's going on now. Like we weren't doing before he passed, we weren't doing any sort of stories or reels or shorts or any of that, which is huge now.

unknown 19:44

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 19:44

Yeah. So taking it one step at a time as I learn.

SPEAKER_00 19:49

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So actually the internet kind of changed in those short two years of when you're carrying frame, really.

SPEAKER_03 19:56

And we still have you know hundreds of thousands of CDs.

SPEAKER_00 20:01

Wow.

SPEAKER_03 20:02

Yeah, it's hard to figure out exactly. We still sell them, but to ship to you, for example, a$15 CD will cost$25 in shipping. In USD, yeah. Yeah, it's a lot. So yeah, it's changed a lot. I wish uh if streaming I mean, for us, because we s it internationally, um, we go through a company, a distribution company, and then you know that's yeah, Orchard. So it's like there's multiple streaming services other than Spotify. I don't know what you guys you use Spotify mainly in.

SPEAKER_00 20:39

Well to l to l to listen. I think yeah, spot Spotify and um Apple Music are probably the most Apple music, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 20:46

Yeah, those there's a quite A few others though that are but yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:51

Yeah, of course, of course.

SPEAKER_03 20:54

But yeah, income streams have changed basically for the level and yeah, and that yeah, it's been a lot of like learning, doing Google Ads and MetaSuite and all that. You know, it's just it's different. But I'm watching a lot of the analytics now, which I don't think rep was able to do for the last few years. So, you know, it's just um we bumped it up in the last uh probably six months, so okay.

SPEAKER_00 21:24

So you're sort of bringing bringing it back together.

SPEAKER_03 21:27

So yeah, it's going it's going upwards now. Not CDs, but of course yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, digital and views and stuff.

SPEAKER_01 21:36

So wow.

SPEAKER_03 21:37

Yeah, it's good. Yeah, just changing it up. I'm uh I I'll tell you my love for music. I I just got my Spotify wrapped.

SPEAKER_02 21:48

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_03 21:49

I I listened to about 80,000 minutes of Spotify this year.

SPEAKER_00 21:55

Wow.

SPEAKER_03 21:56

So approximately 1,400 hours.

SPEAKER_00 21:59

And it's all Andy McKee and Don Russ.

SPEAKER_03 22:01

Yeah, all of it. All of it. Yeah, my listening age was 27 and I'm 54.

SPEAKER_00 22:09

So interesting. Interesting.

SPEAKER_03 22:12

Does that mean you listen to a load of pop, or or is that sort of we just I I uh yeah, I have I dance, so I yeah, I um listen to a lot of like hip-hop stuff, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:25

Oh amazing.

SPEAKER_03 22:26

And I have um a grand Rob and I have a granddaughter, who is seven, and then my brother is he's only three years younger than me, but he has young kids. They're our kids are 21 years apart.

SPEAKER_01 22:40

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_03 22:41

So uh I had kids at 23 and he had kids at almost 40. So I have like four others that are young, like 10, like you're a kid, uh kids age uh 10, 10, 9, and 7.

SPEAKER_01 22:55

Right. So yeah, lots of energy.

SPEAKER_03 22:57

But lots of h-pop demon hunters and Disney music too from them.

SPEAKER_00 23:04

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_03 23:05

We have our disco party, so that's cool.

SPEAKER_00 23:09

That's cool.

SPEAKER_03 23:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:12

Well, well, when we're talking about young people as well, I think there's you've actually seen have you have you seen any sort of candy rat customers, if you like, become artists later on because guys and girls learning you know, learning to the key track and then yeah, we have them on the label.

SPEAKER_03 23:36

Nick Dick Nick Johnson's one of those. He grew up with Candy Rat, started playing Fingerstyle. Now he's on the label.

SPEAKER_01 23:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 23:44

Um Jacob Sayer, um, yeah, quite a few, even the older ones that are new, like Sean Hall and Yeah. Yeah, it's pretty cool.

SPEAKER_00 23:56

That is I love that. But again, that's so unique. Like that's a whole ecosystem of yeah.

SPEAKER_03 24:03

I just um because we have a 15-year-old that was a guest artist recently. Filippo Mazzati. Okay. Um, I spoke with his dad because uh he's so young. Oh, yeah. But he was I released his guest artist uh performance twice actually now. But yeah, he's known Candy Right his entire life since he was born. So I know he's I know, so yeah, it's it's crazy. Yeah, it's pretty cool that way.

SPEAKER_00 24:33

I yeah, definitely, definitely. It's just uh I d you know, in history, I suppose labels do get sometimes obviously attributed to like being involved in a in a scene and being important, but I just think candidates just so special in it being really instrumental. Well, no, I'm not trying to um but instrumental in getting that. It's almost just like packaging it as a as a thing and going this is finger style guitar, and then the world were able to see it. And it is that seeing bit that was crucial, wasn't it?

SPEAKER_03 25:09

I think to sort of Yeah, we were blessed because um we're outside of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. So UWM, which is the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee, had one of the only finger style master's programs in the US. Um, and so we worked with them for John Strobes, who was the finger style professor who knew Michael Hedges and Leo Kotke. Um he's done tabs, um, but we worked really closely with the um UWM Fingerstyle Program. So we did a lot of shows there. They had artists um featured there, they did master's classes at the college. So we went, we had all the kids at our house all the time. So when the artists were in town, yeah, we were very tight. I mean, John Stropes is still one of my best friends. You know, he's he he they cut the program last year, so and he was at the retirement age, so I know it's looking like Berkeley's it now.

SPEAKER_00 26:11

Wow, that's so interesting. I didn't realize that bit.

SPEAKER_03 26:14

So that that's obviously because I sort of sorry. Oh no, we met him in I think it was 2004 before we even started the label. So all kind of coincidental though. Rob liked Don Ross. I remember so Rob was a guitar player when he was young, and he just was picking up a new hobby. He found this song by Don Ross called No Goodbyes, which is about his wife Kelly. So Rob's trying to play this song, and I thought it was such a beautiful song. And then uh we went to see him for our anniversary, is how meant how much it meant to him. Um but it's just like all these little pieces like that. We met him, then we set up shows, and then his other business went down, and then it just like feels like it was meant to be.

SPEAKER_01 27:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 27:05

So I think for me it's just like like I can't predict the future, but I can stay the day. And I think the blessing I've had is I've I think because I can mix business with people and the music, it's all part of me so intric and intricately that I I don't know, I just feel like I've not lost the passion for it. I've always very hopeful. I'm you know, there's always hope. Can't change what you know that you can't change the music industry and it go with what it is, right? But what is what is it truly about? It's about the art, it's about the person that I find you all prodigies, and I've never been I can play music, I can't write music, and I hear that it it's a story you're telling. So how do you for me as a business person, how do I share that story that you're the artist is telling through the song? You know, and a lot of times I'm blessed to know the story, you know. Because the artist will tell me, and so I can connect to it from their their perspective, and then but for other people, they might hear, I don't know, no goodbyes and it relates to their dad that they lost, or even though it was about his ex-wife or his wife that passed, you know. It's just I've used that song this year. There's no goodbyes, it's he's in my pocket. I carry Rob around in my pocket because I know exactly how he did things with Candy Rat. So I'm always very respectful. Like when I make a decision about something, what would Rob do? Because we always talked about it and made a decision together. So, you know, having been blessed to be, you know, him be my partner in life for 35 years, like I knew him. He was the yin to my yang. I just gotta figure out my own yin. So yeah, but doing it with the help of you guys, so I don't know. I'm so grateful. So grateful.

SPEAKER_00 29:14

Well, I I think and I I feel this is uh a good way to finish almost. But um I I think the gratitude actually from players and listeners, but especially speaking as a player, the gratitude felt to you guys for giving a platform and packaging it, for want of a better word, packaging what well, you were talking about stories and expressing it, but you yeah, you were able to present it to the wider world and make well, even make being a fingerstyle guitarist as a career feasible, really.

SPEAKER_03 29:54

Yeah, I know. I know. I and I, you know, when I get like, oh, I don't want to do accounting and stuff, I kind of got like that in the beginning because I didn't that's not my that's not my forte, but now I can connect it to you, the people, because I'm like, that's my that's my adopted son, Gareth, and he needs to pay his rent. So I can like I don't feel bad. It's just everyone has a job. Even if you're a musician, you have you have to do logistics of or chewery to get in the car and drive eight hours and you know, pass on check. And there's a lot of logistics that people the customers just hear what they hear, but they don't realize all the stuff that goes on behind those doors, you know. With you know, even this today, you know, you're doing a podcast, you know, that's an expression of your music and the music industry. And I'm sure there's a lot of work that goes into that, you know, while raising a family and trying your own career.

SPEAKER_00 30:50

And yeah, yeah, it's crazy, crazily into it's so interweaved and intertwined. Um just yeah, yeah, being a musician and presenting it as a podcast to players and here talking to you, the people, the person who made those yeah, that stuff possible. Yeah, it's it's it's insanely interconnected. It is music, it's more than just you know, strumming some chords, isn't it?

SPEAKER_03 31:18

It's it's yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:20

It's about people at the end of the day.

SPEAKER_03 31:22

It is. I think all businesses are. I've run other businesses, and it always comes down to the people. I mean, everything's a business, a church is a business. But but what is the you know, like I said to you yesterday, family comes first, and that's how it is. Like I'm trying to do like I don't have this I need to change things a little bit to fit myself because it was fit for Rob. Rob's doing this piece and me doing that part. I had the people he had the contracts, but now that I'm doing both, um like contracts. I talk to the person that I do a new contract with and say, what are your needs? Not just this is what we do. You know, because some people have full-time jobs, they don't need it for the money, they just want to do it per to cross their art, and but the other people need it to pay their bills. So how do we work that for everyone? Because it's a team. That's the end of the day. Bunch of people on the same team and doing different work, doing different jobs, but respect and gratitude and you know, communication. So yeah.

SPEAKER_01 32:35

Perfect.

SPEAKER_03 32:36

That's what that's how I run a business. That's all I got.

SPEAKER_00 32:41

Holly, that's amazing. Thank you.

SPEAKER_03 32:44

Thank you. I will never stop thanking you.

SPEAKER_00 32:49

Thank you. But I know it is that's that's the perfect podcast. It's um yeah, just sort of expresses the human human nature of it all. So thank you, honestly.

SPEAKER_03 33:03

I mean, I think like I have so many stories specifically about what we did, but all the stories that you have throughout your life, you know, maybe when you started playing guitar when you're five, and it was something your dad gave you, or whatever it may be, like all the stories are a human, you know, a thing to you, the artist. So let's let's share that. That's how you maybe how you express yourself, yeah. It doesn't have to be verbal.

SPEAKER_00 33:34

Well, I think as you said earlier, it's like it's easier or it's it's more I don't know, it's more universal when it's not verbal, actually, isn't it? And it's there's no lyrics, there's no words, there's no narrative in that way, right?

SPEAKER_03 33:46

Well, we both speak English, but we do have artists that do not speak English very well or they're learning English. I'm a good I'm really a pro at Google Translate.

SPEAKER_00 33:55

Oh wow, yeah, of course.

SPEAKER_03 33:58

Korean I can handle, but the rest I'm gonna put.

SPEAKER_00 34:03

Wow. Wow. But that yeah, that's a point.

SPEAKER_03 34:05

Yeah, so many of your artists have been um well, and actually finger style as a whole is yeah, a lot of new guest artists are yeah, different.

SPEAKER_00 34:16

And interestingly, I you so were many other types of music. Different nations tend to have quite a you know, that's the that's German rock, or that's you know what I mean. Whereas finger style, I would say it tends to be, it's just it's more of a universal thing. I wouldn't be able to pick out I don't know, Korean finger style from Canadian or you know.

SPEAKER_03 34:39

Oh no, yeah, it it is. It's definitely I I don't know, yeah, it's like a style that's become almost a genre.

SPEAKER_00 34:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 34:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:48

I think so.

SPEAKER_03 34:50

I I don't I still find myself having to explain it to everyone that isn't a guitar, that isn't have hasn't been part of Candy Rat for a long time, and then they see it and they're like, I've never seen that before. I mean, 20 years later, I still have that response all the time.

SPEAKER_00 35:10

Does that energize you? Does that make you go, oh, we've still got all these people who don't know.

SPEAKER_03 35:14

You gotta see this, you gotta yeah, all the time. Yeah, and I think because I cause it's uh obviously um I you probably can tell I like to talk. So I've even some of the customers like talk to me casually, like send me jokes or you know, like I don't know. So it truly feels like a family to me. Yeah, I don't like the I don't want anybody. I mean, I get the competition, but be competitive with yourself because if I'm gonna tell an artist anything from my perspective as a fan and a listener, and um speak be make it yours. Don't make it sound like Andy, don't make it sound like Anton, don't make it sound like you know, whomever. Make it sound like Chris Woods.

SPEAKER_00 36:10

That's you talking to me, not telling everyone to make them sound like Chris Woods.

SPEAKER_02 36:14

Don't you every everyone, everyone.

SPEAKER_03 36:17

No, no, not everyone else, just you.

SPEAKER_00 36:19

I see, yeah. For sure, for sure.

SPEAKER_03 36:22

And you do, you definitely do.

SPEAKER_00 36:24

So thank you.

SPEAKER_03 36:26

You got the memo.

SPEAKER_00 36:28

It's uh yeah, well that that's what everyone wants to that's what you need, yeah. That's that's what that's what and that's what people want to hear. Personally, I never really thought that uh consciously until being older. I think I arrived sounding like me, trying to sound like other people, but fortunately I was bad at sounding like other people, so I ended up sounding like me. Do you know what I mean? But but now I'm a bit older, I'm like, yeah, I'm me.

SPEAKER_03 36:55

That's okay. I know. People uh people try to to define my personality, and I'm like, it's just Holly. And then after a few months or something, they'll be like, Yeah, I think you are just Holly, like there's nobody you like. I call myself the Diva Wrangler and the multitasking wizard.

SPEAKER_00 37:15

Wow, that's a brand and a half. That is, Holly.

SPEAKER_03 37:18

I like that.

SPEAKER_00 37:21

Put that on a business card. That's fantastic.

SPEAKER_03 37:23

There we go. I'm joke. I joke a lot.

SPEAKER_00 37:26

So that's great. Amazing. All right, Holly. I think yeah, many words of wisdom have been spoken. So, yeah, let's let's finish it there. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_03 37:37

All right, I'm rooting for everyone.