What Do We Know?
One of them makes music for a living. The other just really loves it. What Do We Know? is hosted by professional musician and producer Danny McCrum and hobby guitarist Mike Harrington. Each week they dig into the albums, artists, gear, history, and big debates that make music worth talking about. Expect strong opinions, genuine curiosity, and more laughs than they probably intended. Join the conversation.
What Do We Know?
11. Show Me The Money
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Andrew Rooney and Danny McCrum are weird. Breaking a variety of stereotypes, these two are both musicians with a mind for business. In today's episode, cohost Mike puts on the interviewing hat to find out how they've both sustained careers in music for over two decades, without living on the bones of their asses.
Oh, that's how you play that thing. I am not improvising on that thing.
SPEAKER_06I feel like Rooney, you and I are kind of anomalies in a way, because we have both been self-employed musicians for a very long time, and we've been so without being on the bones of our ass.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I think you're one of the people that I sort of speak to very closely about this, and we're very open and honest about it. Yeah, I think so. Um and you sort of got me hip to the idea that this is actually quite unusual. Right. The situation that we found ourselves in. Yeah. And I'd never really looked at it like that, so yeah.
SPEAKER_06Well, we thought this I mean this episode runs very sort of dangerously close to the theme of the old podcast.
SPEAKER_03Right.
SPEAKER_06Um, but fuck it, let's do it. Uh and we're gonna let Michael Harrington take the lead on this one.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so I think, you know, in most industries, when I like if I'm gonna become an engineer, I can do a Google research and see what is the engineering sort of pay salary bands and stuff and have a bit of a a general idea of what my journey might look like, you know, five, ten, fifteen years down the line. Um if we could do that. Well that's that's the one that's you know, when I you asked me this in a in the very first podcast, you know, did you ever consider being a musician seriously? Uh-huh. And when I was a teenager, you know, I did, I I thought about it, and and just that whole unknown scared the shit out of me. Right. So you guys actually took that plunge um and you've survived. So I think what I would like to know is, you know, maybe just just to start off, could we get a bit of a Cole's notes on your journey? You know, what worked for you? What was the things that you've learned along the way? Um, just a very high-level summary so the listeners kind of know where you're starting from.
SPEAKER_06Okay, well, the the quick overview of my career. I started playing live when I was 12, dropped out of school at 16 and spent many years working a variety of jobs that I hated just to make money and had a very stressful most of a 10-year stretch there, broke most of the time and struggling most of the time. The upside of all of that is I did a variety of jobs, and all of those jobs taught me all sorts of things that I would later use to build my career, whether it be learning to do stock takes or doing admin or working with money or working in sales or even just the the team kind of camaraderie and work ethic of you know putting on your overalls and unloading a container or whatever. But the whole time I was trying to work out how to build uh a career in music and become uh self-employed, and I realized along the way that to do that I was actually going into business, you know, whereas you grow up in rock and roll, no one's talking about business, no one's talking about money, and actually to talk about those things would make you unpopular. So I realized along the way that, well, I'm gonna become a small business owner, I think that's what I have to do. So I went and um started making notes and plans, and it was like this long journey of trying to sort of work out what the business model would be and how that would work, and I would be there there are a number of key people in my memory that really helped me form that idea, and then I got fired from a job, and instead of going looking for another job, I thought, well, this is a good time. I got pushed, and by now I had actually figured the model out, and so I I set up my company, and 21 years later, here I am.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, actually a little bit similar. Um, I didn't even start playing drums until I was about 17, which is quite late for someone who's a working player. I was actually the uh rapper in my high school band. No!
SPEAKER_02I want to hear you rap.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, you're definitely rapping on this episode. Breaking news, you heard it right here on What Do We Know? Um We know how to rap, apparently. And that was actually funnily enough, that was actually quite a serious band. Like we went in the Battle of the Bands and we came second in that, and we were doing the rock quest and all that kind of stuff. Um and I I mean I was just doing it to be almost like a it was like sport for me, like to be part of the part of the gang, you know, and have fun with the boys. Um and then I got more interested in drums and I realized I couldn't rap, so so I started getting really into drumming, and uh from there, uh much like Danny, I worked a bunch of uh without being disrespectful, probably dead end type jobs that I wasn't interested in or passionate about, and all of this sort of culminated in me doing a little bit of work over in the States, uh doing summer camp over there, and I had I basically just had so much fun, and I had to quit my job to do it, and I was like, what am I doing with my life? And I sort of hit this thing and I was like, I really like drums. So I was like, I'm just gonna be a drummer. And my parents were like, but what about a job? What are you gonna do for money, right? Uh which is fair enough. Parents are just looking out for you. And I mean, it's good advice. It's a good question. Yeah, thanks, Mum and Dad, for believing in me so much. Um But I ended up going to jazz school at Auckland Uni, uh, which was basically a full immersion type situation where you're living breathing music all day, and managed to sort of get enough contacts, I suppose, and enough skills to pay the bills and essentially work as a as a teacher and a and a drummer.
SPEAKER_02Now, is is your main source of income these days, would it be teaching? Yes. Yeah. Was that the same same for you? Yep. Yeah. Um I guess before we get to you know, today, uh did you both sort of start out as more a studio musician or were you trying were you in a band that was touring or what about that?
SPEAKER_06I mean, I my whole thing was writing original music, you know. Um that's probably where you and I are a bit different because you know, dr drummers aren't usually thinking I'm gonna be a songwriter and a singer on stage in the center of attention, you know. Um I actually in some ways regret not having more of a focus on being a session musician because I think I don't know, there's reasons for that. I suppose that's another conversation. But no, my main focus was writing songs and singing. In fact, I wasn't I didn't even start off thinking I wanted to play guitar. I just all I knew was I wanted to write songs and sing them. And um I tried piano at first and eventually found the guitar as just kind of like the vehicle that I would use, you know. So that was my main focus. And what was funny is that for years and years and years, that was my whole, you know, sort of priority is writing music and putting bands together and booking shows and going on tour and trying to get support slots and all that kind of stuff. Uh, and I would just from you know end up getting invited to do other stuff, you know. Like when I was a teenager, I was constantly invited to play in other people's bands because in my local area people started to realise that I could play drums and bass and guitar, and so I was actually quite employable. Yeah, and I'd get lots of like last-minute calls, you know, our bassist is sick, can you fill in? Like, yeah, okay. And I never kind of realized like this is pretty clever, I should lean into this, you know. I just thought that sounds fun, I'll do that, you know. Yeah. Um, and early session work was the same thing. Some a producer would say, Can I hire can I give you this much money to come and play guitar on this thing? I'm like, sure, I'll take the money. But I never really thought of that as part of my job. Yeah. Which is a bit daft, isn't it?
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_06So when did you start with the session work then? Um unpaid session work when I was about 16. And paid session work would have been more when I was about 20 or 21. Was that in LA at this time? No, no, no. I I didn't start going to LA until years later. No, it was all all here.
SPEAKER_03Oh, cool.
SPEAKER_06Yeah.
SPEAKER_03And then what about you? So this is where we start to veer off into different tangents here. So beyond my high school band, I actually never had any inkling or desire to be in a big band or even do originals music, which is probably a little bit unusual. Yeah. Maybe it's a sideman type approach.
SPEAKER_04Right.
SPEAKER_03Not sure. But I I I mean, I actually loved Kick. I don't know if you remember Kick the Covers band. They were legends. Legend. Legendary covers band in the Auckland scene. Yep.
SPEAKER_06They're all the best musicians in one band.
SPEAKER_03There we go. Yep. And I I mean, while I was at uni, I was looking at things quite I had already worked and stuff, so I was already aware that I had to look after myself. I'm not living with my parents anymore. So I was like, I gotta pay pay my way through this. So I tried to set up the new kick to pay my way through uni. Um, so I was already looking at it very pragmatically and sort of common sense, I suppose. Um and I wasn't looking for big tours or jumping in the van, which I'm sure is fun, and traveling around, going over the inter islander, and you know, doing all that kind of thing.
SPEAKER_06Where you could play on the inter islander and then get free pass? There you go. Did you get that?
SPEAKER_03No. Oh no, didn't know about that? I did know about it, but it was never on my radar to try and do it. I did that. It was awful, but it was free. Yeah, there you go. Yeah, so that journey was quite different, I think. And I always had teaching there to uh well not only as a sort of security blanket, but because I do enjoy teaching, but it was always there as like I need this to consistently earn money. So I was yeah, I did find out that I was a little bit unusual for this approach. But what did you have a business mind at that at this time? I developed more of one. Um at during uni it was more survival, right? Um trying to get through and um you're just bombarded with so much work. Um but I was I actually ended up making more money while I was at uni than when I had a job. Because I'm doing covers gigs, I had a couple of residencies doing covers, I had a couple of residencies doing jazz, and I was playing like five, six nights a week.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, I gained financial freedom when I became self-employed. So this is unusual. Broke as fuck until then.
SPEAKER_03So this is not this is not the story you're told. No. So yeah, that's that's kind of my brief brief history on that.
SPEAKER_02Cool. Yeah. You know, you kind of touched on it there with the whole Inter Islander thing, and you know, oh, you get a you get a free ride. And I wonder how, you know, when you're starting out, um obviously you're a bit more naive, you don't know the way of the world, you don't know how predatory things can actually be. How bad is that really? You know, those sort of uh exposure gigs. You know, hey, come on the road with us, you'll you'll get thousands of people will we'll see you every night, but if you're not getting paid for it, you know. You can do that in any other industry.
SPEAKER_06A large amount of our industry is based on using young people, tricking and abusing and using young people. That's it goes all the way back to the start of the industry. We get into sign, like Paul McCartney talked about how they were sort of more or less bullied into signing a contract when they're about 18 that they spent 35 years fighting in court to get out of. And it was just like, sign it now, it's your one opportunity, you know, this is it's it's over by tomorrow. The train's leaving. Um it it I mean, keeping people dumb is part of the mindset of record companies and management companies. I have talked about it before, but I was offered a really good management deal at one point. I had a lawyer check it. We had a couple of very simple questions, the deal went away. I wasn't we didn't even dispute anything. But it was just like this guy's gonna be too hard work. Oh shit, he can read. Exactly. So we don't we don't want him. This is actually um this is quite good timing because I prepared a clip. So on the old episode, on the old podcast, I mean, very early on, I think it was episode 20, we interviewed Carl Stephen from Supergroove. And on you you may not know Supergroove, so they were a uh Kiwi band in the 90s, probably one of the best bands we've ever had in this country. Amazing band. Um, at the time they were easily the biggest thing in the country, right? Um, really interesting kind of combination of funk and rock, and you know, just right right on the crest of what was cool, yeah, sort of at the time.
SPEAKER_03That was great.
SPEAKER_06Horns, funky drums, you know, killer guitars. They had two front men. Carl was like the white singer, uh the white rapper, and Shay Fu was like the RB voice. Just a great batch. Right killed it.
SPEAKER_03Oh, I thought you meant No, no, yeah. I mean I meant they killed it. I looked at the recording of what? It was a it was a big deal. Yeah. It was a big deal. It was a number one album, I think.
SPEAKER_06Oh, it would have been. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it would have been. So this is uh an interview, uh a segment of an interview we did with Carl Stephen about record deals. How did it perform? Um, not that it matters, but how did it perform like you know, sales wise?
SPEAKER_00Oh, I have no idea. I mean, you don't see much money even if it goes great. So um I'm sure it was uh a massive failure.
SPEAKER_01Um hang on, so uh uh y you don't see much money if it goes great? What do you whatever do you mean? So you were signed with BMG, wouldn't you?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's right. Um well you know, I mean they record companies recoup their expenses out of the percent out of your percentage of the you know such as month-long farm stays in Europe. Yeah, yeah, that's right. Um and so we had a deal where I think we earned 12.5%. Wow. Yeah, and that was considered a great deal at the time. You know, that was like wow, awesome. You know, that's above eight, man, that's 12.5%. Woo God. Um and and then but then out of that twelve and a half percent, that's where they recoup their expenses from. So if they uh I I'm making up examples, but you know, do TV ads or something. It's like that might cost them, you know, sixty thousand dollars to do some TV ads. Um, well, where are they going to make that money back from? Your 12.5%. It's not from the um 87.5%. Yeah. Um then it becomes rational for a record company to every time the band's about to recoup, um, spend more bit more money on promotion or spend a bit more money on touring or whatever, because you'll sell more records and then you'll keep skimming your eighty-seven and a half percent off the top and pocketing it. And um, yeah, so keeping the band in debt is uh quite an important uh strategy that's always served the music industry very well.
SPEAKER_03And that's about the most depressing thing we've heard all day.
SPEAKER_06I think I think that's just capitalism. I think I don't know. I mean uh that is a good example of how the business works. And I remember I I think it was uh on the rest of that episode they were talking about how at the height of their fame and popularity they actually couldn't make money because the band's not going to get paid from their record deal until they recoup. So that's just the record company making money, right? So they're not getting paid from that, they're probably getting paid for gigs. Um, but they also like I I remember what he made this point that I found quite interesting, they weren't even available to pump gas at the petrol station because they were required to be on tour and in the studio and doing all the other stuff, right? So they weren't even available to do the the kind of blue collar job.
SPEAKER_03It's almost like a slave to the label.
SPEAKER_06And they famously released a follow-up album that didn't land very well and the band exp like imploded. And if I remember correctly, he he kind of puts it down to that. Like there was so much pressure and they were struggling so much personally and financially that they just couldn't take it. And young guys, they were what late teens, early twenties at that point, they just didn't know how to cope with it, and the band fell apart. Well, I mean, how could you?
SPEAKER_02Nothing nothing really prepares you for that, right? Right. You know, nowadays this is such a common trope of the industry. Like we you know, we've we've heard this story a million times um all throughout history, but you wouldn't have known that at the time. And you know, you get all this excitement, there's a bit of buzz, all of a sudden, hey, we're making music, people are actually listening to it. We got a record label who's interested in us. Wow, we're doing something right. That was the goal, yeah.
SPEAKER_03It was the deal. It was the whole thing. Yeah.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, you wanted your ricote.
SPEAKER_03It's almost like being endorsed on the guitar, right? That was for some people that could be like, oh, that's a real validation of my skills or a validation of our band that were being signed. We're gonna be heard, we're gonna be famous, and yeah.
SPEAKER_02No, I had a you're gonna be taken for all you're worth.
SPEAKER_06I I had a part of my character that had actually been criticized a lot when I was young, which was the the part of me that questioned things and you know found discrepancies in a comment or whatever and sort of pulled the the loose thread. Um and I was told off for that at school and by my folks and whatever, but this would this would be the thing that would help me navigate to your question, you know, through that stuff. I'm like, what do you mean by wait a second, what does that mean? You know, and I had this um the first time we ever got paid to play a gig was when I was about 17 or 18, and we got hired to play at some little festival down south somewhere, and they offered us some amount, like it would have been like 150 or 200 bucks or something for the whole band. And I remember going, Oh my god, like that's so much money. Like we're we've made it. Um, which is a testament to how little money I had, you know. But we we 200% right. Yeah, we were all we were all so excited, and and we had to, you know, travel down there and stay overnight and whatever. We may have gone for a couple of nights. Um and we came back, and I remember getting home and unpacking all my stuff, and then a thought popped into my head, and I sat down with a pen and paper at the at the dining table, and I wrote a list of all the stuff we'd spent, just petrol, meals, all this stuff, right? Strings, things like that, costs, and added it all up and realised we'd spent more than we were getting paid. Yeah, and in true music industry fashion, we never got paid. I chased the guy and he ripped us off. But I remember at that moment going, okay, hang on a second.
SPEAKER_02Uh you know the math isn't math in here.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_03That's right. See that that whole experience and that whole world of my Carl Stephen Carl Steven? Stevens.
SPEAKER_06Carl Steven. Carl Stephen.
SPEAKER_03What are you what he's talking about there? That's that hasn't been my experience at all. Simply because I haven't been in that world. So I can't speak to that, and I imagine that is genuinely tough.
SPEAKER_06And I don't know if you've thought about that, Mike, but that's a key difference is that Andrew came into this as a hired gun. So he's he's going to the band leaders and the studio sessions and stuff, like negotiating fees to play, right? Yeah. Whereas I'm effectively trying to become the guy that would hire you.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, just for the listeners, I don't know if many people really understand the difference between a studio, a session musician, and you know uh most people when they think of a musician, you think of more of like a legacy band, someone who's releasing albums, going out on tours, going back to the studio, doing it again. Um maybe do you want to just uh kind of highlight to people what makes a studio musician and what is the difference there?
SPEAKER_06I mean, the m main difference is that an original artist or original band are creating their own thing and going out and trying to sell it. Whereas a session musician is someone who's hired to play on someone else's thing, whether it be someone else's album or a TV commercial, the music for the commercial or a radio jingle or something. It's not your own art. You know, you're hired to be on the art, right? But the actual characteristic of a mus of a session musician versus an original musician is a session musician has to be good enough to do a bit of everything. Yeah. Whereas this is why I often tell people if you want to learn about good technique or anything on the level of good musicianship, don't look at the famous guys. Look at the people standing behind the famous guys. Because the people standing behind the famous guys had to play on a wide variety of genres and and sounds and whatever, right? And they could get fired any minute. But the famous person, they're not going to get fired because they're the ones who sell the tickets, right? No one's going to fire Jimmy Page. So he can get away with being a great guitar player or a sloppy guitar player. But the guitar player who's hired to play for Sting or Phil Collins or whoever, they have to be the best and far more diverse. And how do you become the best guitarist?
SPEAKER_02Well, you know, whether you've never picked up a guitar or you've been playing for years and feel like you've hit a wall, Auckland guitar lessons are for you. Lessons are one-on-one, and every session is built around your goals, your taste, and the songs you actually want to play. All of the fundamentals of technique and theory are covered in an accessible way and applied within the songs you're learning so you pro so you progress faster and actually enjoy the ride. If you've always wanted to play, now's the time. If you've plateaued, Auckland Guitar Lessons will unlock your playing, rebuild your confidence, and get you moving again. Head to aucklandguitarlessons.co.nz or email info at aucklandguitarlessons.co.nz to find out more.
SPEAKER_06It's like someone pushes a button and goes into the certain Can you just read a little bit of that again and and just try and make it sound a little bit more conversational? See if you can do it. Just like just like we're having a chat at the pub, you know? No.
SPEAKER_02No.
SPEAKER_06It doesn't work out. It's either perfect or you've got a bit of a spot in you, you know.
SPEAKER_03I think that's called autism. I want to make a little bit of a disclaimer here, especially we're talking about guitar lessons and money, uh, music and money. It's not all about the money, of course. You're more than welcome to enjoy playing music and uh not even worry about the money. I'm gonna you'll probably be even more than happier.
SPEAKER_02But if if you want to do it professionally and you wanna you wanna have a roof over your head and and food in your belly, but I'd have to be a little bit about it.
SPEAKER_06It's not about the money. I'm Like, no shit. Like, who gets into this business just to make money? If you're if your primary goal is to make money, you don't go, I think I'll become a musician. No. Like, if you're a musician, you've already like sorted that out. You know, so I don't understand why people feel this incessant need to go, it's not about the money. And I'm like, yeah, okay. I actually think that that's part of an echo of the upper echelons keeping us dumb. Because it's like they they framed commercialism and the need to make money as some kind of and the term sellout. They made that a negative. Why is it a negative?
SPEAKER_03You're selling out the stadium.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, yeah. I'm a professional trying to make a living, right? I'm good at what I do. I'm trying to make a living. I don't have to justify that.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_06Right? We all should get paid for being good at something if if in the perfect world.
SPEAKER_02I don't engineer shit for free.
SPEAKER_06Right, exactly.
unknownNo one does it.
SPEAKER_06You build a skill set and then you and then you, you know, you make a living off. I had a student once who was a pilot for Air New Zealand and he got his he got himself tangled up and he quit the lessons. And I said, Oh, what you know, what happened? And he goes, I just I just think you're in it for the money. And I'm like, Yes, I am. Yeah, this is my job. Do you fly those planes just for the love of it? You dumb fuck.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. I had a parent of a student who asked me after a lesson, like just casually, I was sort of packing up it was the last student of the day and packing up and doing my thing, and he's just hanging around and you know, having a bit of a chat, and he's like, Oh, so what do you do for a job? I'm like, I've literally just taught your kid a drum lesson and you've paid me for it. And he was just like, Oh, this is your job. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Well, I think that's that's actually a pretty good segue because as you know, as a casual fan or someone who's not in the industry, it you don't know a lot of these things, right? Like you don't know, so maybe could we break down some of the myths? Like, what are the common things that you if someone you know you have a young student who says, you know, I'm gonna make a go of this, I'm gonna become a professional musician. What are what's one of the immediate red flags you warn them about?
SPEAKER_06Well, a lot has changed in 20 years, so whether that conversation is based on when I was starting versus now is a uh uh really changes the answer. But I think there is a little bit of a get rich quick vibe to the whole thing. So I think a lot of the time why artists want to get that like 20 years ago, want to get that record deal or get that management deal, or these days get funding or get their social media numbers up. Um, it's the idea that if you can get across that threshold, then you can sit by the pole while someone else does the work. It sort of automates itself. And there's a there's an I think there's an underlying attitude of not really wanting to work hard, right? In the history of the music world, the majority of the time, the successful artists out there they went out on tour after tour after tour, they practiced hours and hours a day, they wrote a thousand songs just to get one good one. They worked harder than they would ever believe, harder than any high-paid doctor you'll ever meet, right? And that's how they got that good. And then, of course, if they were lucky enough to fall into um uh a situation with making lots of money or whatever, then then great. Um, but I think there is a bit of that get rich quick vibe um and kind of easy answers, or you know, uh I I think it's a mistake to think that there's a repeatable model in this industry. I think you have to go into it going, whatever anyone's done before, that's off. That was a one-time only thing. You have to go into it like new territory and and read the room, you know, work out it's it's it's really a lesson you learn in business. Like you you could write down what Branson did with Virgin, and that's a fascinating story, and he did obviously very well out of it. But you can't then just go and do exactly the same steps and expect to become a billionaire.
SPEAKER_02That worked for him in that moment of time with that climate around him. Exactly. Totally, yeah.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, so I think there is a I think there's a there are lazy attitudes in there, there are delusional attitudes in there, um, there's a lot of bad advice out there. Uh, I think you have to be prepared to work hard and you have to be prepared to problem solve and innovate, that sort of thing. Rooney?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, thinking about the whole repeatable thing. Um tech is moving so quick, and I think there's still plenty of opportunities out there, but there seems to be plenty of t people still teaching. Uh possibly more than ever. I'm not sure about the gigging scene, um, because my two main uh strains of income were always gigging, teaching, and it was just TikTok back and forth every day like that. But I haven't gigged for a couple of years now, uh due to online stuff taking over. Um but I I think the work's still there. I don't I'm not sure.
SPEAKER_06The gigging work? I don't think it is. For covers groups? No, I don't think it is. Really? Yeah, I think the wedding market's almost completely collapsed. Alright. The corporate world, the corporate gig market, I think is mostly gone. There are there are a few bands here and there that seem to be working a bit. Yep. Um, but it's not the same as what you and I would would remember. Okay.
SPEAKER_02I think it might be a little bit tricky too, because you have a lot of people, you know, like me, who just do music as a hobby, who might want to go out and play a gig and they'll say to the bar owner, you know, oh we don't care, you know, just a hundred bucks, give us cover the cover the bar tab. And that's that's great for that band. They get to go and play and stretch their legs out a little bit and have fun. Yeah. But that immediately resets the expectations of the bar owner as well. Yes. Now, what's the thing? Why would I pay these professional musicians when I know there's somebody who wants exposure or who just wants to have a jam and they're gonna entertain people the same.
SPEAKER_03That's such a good point. Yeah, and just to piggyback on that, that group that perhaps has never gigged or doesn't gig much, they're probably gonna bring a good crowd of people along with come and laugh at yeah, look at you guys not that way. So the bar, it might even look better.
SPEAKER_06I knew a guy some years ago who was I can't remember what it actually can't remember which guy it was, but he was uh a wealthy guy who had made a lot of money, he might have been a lawyer or a doctor or something like that. And he had a four-piece covers band all made up of people, he he was a bit older than me, and they were all very highly paid, very successful people. Um and he was telling me about a regular gig he had at the pub where they were getting some really low fee for the whole band. It might have been 200 for the whole band, plus I know some other situations, yeah. Um and he was talking about, and I and I said, Do you realise how bad that is? Do you realise how negative that is? And he said, What do you mean? And I said, You should not be charging that low amount of money. And he said, But we're we've made our money, we're not needing money, we're just doing it for fun. I said, But you don't realise that someone like me that comes in behind you is going to have a much harder time negotiating a fee now because you've you've lowered all this money. Setting new comparables. Yeah, yeah. Uh it's something I think corrupts our industry in a lot of ways is that our industry is straddling hobbyists and professionals.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, we wouldn't go in and do a slapdash brain surgery. You know, but they can come in and a couple of beers. Yeah. So there is this element in trust me. There is a bit of a hobbyist element there. And uh I I know a couple of groups similar, yeah, corporate type people, very successful people, and it's like they're leading off steam. Yep, it's almost like playing pickleball. But go out and hey, let's do a gig, and they're actually genuinely nervous about it, and they'll rehearse and like they're really actually quite into it. Not necessarily very good, but um, so yeah, that's a that's a real good one.
SPEAKER_06I noticed a minute ago you used the term streams of income.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_06And I thought that was cool because I that was one of the things that uh I think maybe a few people actually advised me on in the early days was having multiple streams of income. Yep. The idea being as you become more resilient when a couple of them dip a little bit, the other another couple are possibly doing better, and they sort of keep the various plates spinning. Uh, and also I remember one artist in particular, a singer called Chris Melville, said he goes, You can't expect to earn enough money from one thing.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_06So you've got to diversify.
SPEAKER_03And you can even diversify within the stream. So you could be a teacher, you could teach it at school, you could teach privately, you could teach a lot of different ways, you could teach online. So there's even ways of diversifying that. But in terms of playing, excuse me. In terms of playing, you can also obviously diversify who you play for, what style you might get hired for. You might be able to just quickly turn up at the pub and run through some top 40 stuff, or you might also be able to be available for a session of whatever style. And there's I mean, there's various types of things. There's like Bossa Nova type gigs around Sky City.
SPEAKER_06And well, I went I went and dug up some of my notes from 2005 when I started my company. Um, because I also at the time there was I think it was an accounting firm that were offering free business kind of full day courses, like like one-day courses, you know, and you could choose whichever subject you wanted to sign up to. Um and they were subsidy subsidized by the government for some reason, and it was awesome. And then for and then like immediately after that, they ended them. They cut the funding for it, of course. And it's like, yeah, no, we're being helping too many people. We're being too helpful. So I just went and like ticked a bunch of them in various re areas in terms of sales and business management. I remember being really interested in how they taught me to write a business plan and a financial forecast and all that kind of stuff. But I went and looked at my notes to remind myself what I was trying to do in that first year. Because I remember sitting down and writing a list of like, what are all the things that I could do in music? You know, like I've got this sort of I've got a bit of experience, I've got the skill, what's all what are all the things I could do? And in that first year, here here's the list of all the stuff that I tried. And not all of this worked, but a lot of it did. So I one of the first things I did was I set myself up as a booking agent. Um, I realized that I could I knew a lot of musicians and I could actually be the one who went out and got the gigs from the You could make those connections, wedding planners and the corporate clients and so on. I could I could talk that language to them. Um and when they'd ring me and say we need a covers band, I could go, okay, these are the guys that will suit you. So I was a booking agent. I was uh momentarily a manager, I was actually a manager for Debbie Harwood for a while. Never really worked out, but that was what I was doing. Um, private guitar lessons. I did actually teach at a local college for a while as well, in the first couple of years. I was making money from royalties because I did have original music out. I was running an originals band, but we were actually getting a few paid gigs by then, so that was part of it. I was also in the process of starting a covers band that started off as kind of a jazz, you know, sort of um hybrid jazz cover sort of thing called Bourbon Street Quartet. I was doing solo performances, and some of the time that meant I was going and doing like I remember doing an instrumental solo gig, and I didn't have a set of instrumental music, so I basically just made one up. Those are pretty boring lonely gigs, but there was that. Um there was session work. Uh another one that I did, I I wrote uh a workshop about music and being a musician and so on, and then wrote to a bunch of high schools and um and and tried to sell it to the schools, and I got a sale, and so they paid me, and I went and did this thing in in the lunchtime and they filled the room up with kids, and I talked about by then I'd worked with some famous people, so I could name drop a bit and I talked you know about this and that, and I came home and crossed it off my list and meant never again. Too much. Well that was fun. The kids were great, the school was great, everything about it was great. I even think it was received really well, but I absolutely hated it. And I thought, okay, you know, I I don't want to do something that's not sort of natural to me. Um, and one more thing I wrote down which never happened, but I I had bought this cheap acoustic when I was in Europe a year or so earlier, and I actually contacted the company, which if I remember correctly, they're in Belgium, and I talked to them about um whether I could become the importer for these acoustic guitars. And the deal breaker was that they wouldn't buy let me buy less than a container. And I was like, I can't buy a container, but if you can I just buy like three or four, and I'll go go to some local stores and see if I can get a couple of and I'll build it up, and they're like, nope, container, nothing less. And I was like, No, no, you don't get it. We're a small market, I have nowhere to put a container, you know. So yeah, cross that off the list too. But I just thought that would be interesting to you.
SPEAKER_03Podcasting, you made a fortune from podcasting. Yeah, well that was that was later.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, this is literally a snapshot from 2005, that first year. That's great.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, a lot of that stuff fell off within a couple of years, but yeah, is so interesting about that though is you can see just the level of you know how many different things you were grinding on to make that actually a reality. And that is not the view that most people have when they think, oh, I'm gonna become a musician, because you grow up with this real romanticized view, you know, you're gonna you're gonna slave over that first album, but you're gonna get a single, and all of a sudden that you're gonna get that record deal and you're gonna go out on the road and and all these great things are gonna happen. Yeah, it's that get rich quick um thinking. You know, they don't it's always in the the record company's favor if you don't think like that. If you're not thinking about a revenue stack and multiple revenue streams, if you're not thinking about owning as much of that process as possible. And I think ownership is one of those sort of last sort of bastions that we really need to highlight and and people need to be thinking about, unfortunately, more than than I would like them to need to, you know, but you really need to be thinking about that right at the outset. How do I retain as much ownership and in my endeavors as possible? I think that's kind of regardless of the industry, but especially in music.
SPEAKER_03That's probably easier now. That part's probably easier now with being able to record and it's not a high priority for me.
SPEAKER_06For me, it's more about control. Um, the reason why it's not a high priority is because we're we're often arguing over a few bucks.
SPEAKER_02Aren't we talking about the same thing? When I say ownership, I'm talking about like control of the city.
SPEAKER_06Oh, is that what you mean by it? Okay, well, I'm used to people talking about like owning the the song rights and things like that.
SPEAKER_02No, that is it, that is a common example. You know, people will say, Oh, so-and-so recorded this and he only did it in a week's work and he took $600. But if he had kept the the rights, but people quite often don't actually think about, well, that recording studio was brand new at the time. There was no, you know, no uh long-term vision that they were actually going to become this megastar recording house or something. Yeah. So that was the safer bit. And when people are on the road and you're you're running from session to session, you know, it makes sense to take the cash.
SPEAKER_06Yeah. Can I I just want to jump in because I realise how absurd what I just said may have sounded to some people. I do care about ownership in a way. Like if I've worked on something, I make sure my name's on it. I register it with APRA. Um, I do make sure that if that thing does become some huge success, I'm gonna benefit from it. But I just have a clear understanding of how rare that would be. Um, there's a lot of other stuff I worry about first. That's really what I'm saying. And the reason why I said control is more important to me is because having quality in your work and consistency in in your work and in your brand, if you like, is something that it's up to you. And the more you work under other people or sign yourself over to things. We had a manager years ago, nice guy, good friend of ours, um, was really, really trying. He wasn't experienced, wasn't that experienced, but um he booked a gig for us with a well-known band, and we had talked about it ourselves and said, Why don't we put a gig together? We'll do all the legwork. The known band is going to be the draw. We'll just say to them, we'll throw the gig for you. You guys, you know, do the marketing, we'll do the legwork. But the communication broke down between the managers, he didn't convey this properly, their manager was expecting us to do the work and whatever. And is and and when we ended up playing to an empty venue, instead of handling it professionally, they had a huge row. And I remember just going, Ah, I don't know about this. You know, this guy's representing me. You see what I mean? I I don't want people to think of me this way. So so we fired him.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, one of my key points here was relationships matter, probably more in this industry, maybe than even most. Well, I'm sure it's important in all industries, but it matters in everything.
SPEAKER_02It's one of those things that I like to romanticize and say, well, my good work will speak for itself. That's not true.
SPEAKER_06But I w I w genuinely want your thoughts on this because we have problems in our culture in this country, uh, in terms of complacency and tool poppy syndrome. We find it hard to reach levels of excellence because of some of those problems. Yep. So to get good and to work at a high level, you end up accidentally without meaning to, you end up stepping on toes and and alienating people and things like that. Um, I always hear people talk about relationships and how important they are, and I totally agree. But over a long career of really trying to work at a high level, I've had fallouts with people and I've pissed people off, and they it annoys me because I didn't want that to happen. I tried to avoid it happening, but it really was out of my control unless I watered myself down.
SPEAKER_03So how have you yeah, how malleable do you be for everybody, right? Yeah, to keep the peace and keep employed and yeah, that's a tough do you be strategically malleable? Yeah, I think I'm I've always been pretty good people person, um, you know, sort of just happy to turn up and do the job. Um, I've certainly been in a lot of situations where it's just like this gig is just awful. You know, but you just sort of log it and then I never play with that person again. That was like the worst of my life. Um, but no, I try and keep the peace. Um you'll probably just not hear from me.
SPEAKER_06I'll probably just go just go completely black in the is this a difference is this the difference though between hired gun and band leader?
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_06Because what I've noticed as a band leader, which I've been for most of my life, yeah, when everything goes right. We're a band, we did it together. Right. When everything goes wrong, fuck you, Danny. Yeah, see, I I can't really speak to that.
SPEAKER_03I mean, my only real experience with that kind of thing is I was a bit of a go-getter in terms of talking to bars to get gigs for the covers band.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_03I was quite sort of uh influential and active in that period.
SPEAKER_06Yeah.
SPEAKER_03That's about as much as I've sort of gotten into that that part of it.
SPEAKER_06I found it so hard to bring any kind of business sensibility into this business.
SPEAKER_03Well, you're dealing with people who are typically not business savvy. That's right.
SPEAKER_06Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Um, possibly even not very professional at all. Totally. Um I've done gigs with people who you know how you'll typically have like a sort of setup time, possibly an hour and a half, two, possibly even two hours before a gig. And the person's turned up like after the start time. And it's like, don't like you're so late that you know you're basically here tomorrow.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, you know, like you're early tomorrow. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03And they'll sort of just like, and they're not wearing the right stuff that we all agreed on, and it's just like, how? Yeah, how is this even possible?
SPEAKER_06Yeah. We've talked about this privately, but um, I had a drummer who I I didn't even book the guy, someone else booked him for some reason, and he refused to attend a rehearsal and refused to even attend soundcheck. Um he wanted to just turn up and play, and I was trying to say, listen, we have different arrangements, we've got some stuff to work out, we're not just playing at stock. And he got such an attitude that I rang the guy who booked us and said, I've got to take him off the gig, I'm gonna bring my drummer in. And he goes, We can't, we booked him first. And I and I was like, Oh, that's a good point. Okay, I won't do the gig. I don't care. Go with someone else, I won't do the gig. We can't, we sold you to the client. You're the you're the you're the one with the reputation. I'm like, I can't work with this guy, he's a total amateur. And I said, I don't mind not doing the gig, I don't care. And they said, nope, you have to do the gig. And I said, Well, we it's literally not gonna work. I'm not gonna deliver a half-hour service for this client, yeah, it's not gonna work with this drummer, who's still to this day quite a widely regarded drummer. So it came to a head. You know, they would not let me off the gig, I wouldn't work with the drummer, and this drummer went on Facebook and annihilated me. I had I had a a mini version of being cancelled, and I know to this day there are some musicians out there still think ill of me for that, and they only heard one side of the story. And of course, I couldn't go on Facebook and give my side of the story because one, I would immediately seem defensive, um, and then I'll just end up in this pathetic shit fight that I wasn't prepared to get into. That that's the kind of side of this business I absolutely loathe.
SPEAKER_03It it is quite slapdash. Yeah. Like the the whole even you're often dealing with a bar manager who's just oh you you take care of the band bookings and oh sorry, there's two bands tonight. Uh you guys can sort out who's gonna play. You know, there's always been a little bit of that, and that's just like incredibly low um priority. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Well, it's it's it's a low level of professionalism at the end of the day, isn't it? That's right. You know, we you've you kind of even touched on it where you say, you know, it's not all about the money. And that for well, I I I mean, it's I'm I'm taking this out of context, but that is a mentality that sort of permeates the industry, right? So when it is all sort of slapdash and and oh, don't worry about it, we're just gonna go have some fun. Even with the paid guys. Well well, that's just it, right? It it can it that can warp into something worse, and I feel like we're kind of living in the result of that.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. I've got a little bit of a controversial take on this. I'm I'm quite big on ownership in a different way, of like actually accepting your own position and improving yourself. And like I've a little bit of a controversial take, and I've talked to uh some friends about this, that this There's some musicians here who are overpaid for what they deliver. And like they're actually not delivering a good product at all. And it's like 'cause we often hear that it's hard to get gigs and and the pay hasn't changed since this date and whatnot. And it's like, you you're really not worth any more though. For some for some groups, um, which is a yeah, it's not a popular opinion, but it's true though. I've had I've had yeah, friends confirm it.
SPEAKER_02It's totally true. That's sort of the baseline, right? Like we're I feel like what we're talking about right now, the assumption is that you're good. You can play, you know, you're professional. You would hope so. You would hope so, and that's not always the case. And I think that's a huge issue.
SPEAKER_06But then again, there's what's good for the market. Yep. So that the one wedding band I know about that's still booking regular gigs, are they themselves say we're not good musicians. And we don't sound that good. But what they do is they bring the party. Can you say who it is and then edit it out? Um They're called Okay. Yeah. And one of my friends plays with them, and and he'll he'll often say, like, we're rubbish. But so they bring the party. They they are really loose, they're really matey, the audience can get as raucous and crazy as they want, they can destroy the gear, they'll play outside in the rain.
SPEAKER_02So they're focusing more on the entertainment value than the competition. Exactly. And that's valid.
SPEAKER_06But those components are actually delivering. They are delivering-that's what I'm saying. They're delivering the city. I didn't mean that as a joke. Yeah. Like they're actually hitting that market. They're doing the job. And in the past, when I did gigs like that, um, I think I think what I used to do worked well, but over the time over time, I think the market wanted more of that type of thing, and that was not my vibe. Like you're part of the party. Yeah. You're really the leader almost of the Yeah. And I'm not an extrovert and I'm not a that kind of party animal sort of person. So I always just wanted to play the songs, you know, and and that's why I started to back away from that world.
SPEAKER_03That sounded really interesting. I think that's going to go down far better than just standing there in place and playing the perfect guitar part. Speaking of our smooth yacht rock episode. Like live, you do need a bit of energy and you know, uh interaction with the crowd.
SPEAKER_06But we're not talking about interaction with the crowd, we're talking about like the Danny Doolins type thing, you know, where you're actually required by the bar to get shit faced. Like if you're not doing shots of tequila during the gig, you will get fired.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I've never been so into that. No, that's what I'm saying.
SPEAKER_06Like there's one thing to be like in a good mood and hey, how you doing, but there's another thing to be like loose and musically shit. But knock all the speakers over you.
SPEAKER_03That's not fun for me. It's not fun. That's what I mean. When when I'm playing, I'm playing. Yeah. And it's like I want to play good. Yeah. I'm there to play good. That's what I'm saying. Yeah, I'm not here just to get drunk. Right. And hopefully not get caught when I'm driving home, like with my drum kit in the back. Like, I'm actually here to play.
SPEAKER_06Yeah.
SPEAKER_03But yeah, as you say, like you have to mix this with a little bit of a little bit of party at the same time. You still gotta smile and enjoy the it's a performance at the end of the day, right?
SPEAKER_02You people need to feel whatever emotion or vibe you're trying to portray. Yeah. And the good party bands do that really well.
SPEAKER_06Yep. I just I just realised I had a really good example of the control thing as well, because I also wrote some notes about the first album that I released, which was called Awake and Restless, and came out in 2007. And what I think is significant about this album is that it was an independent release and it didn't land on the zeitgeist and it didn't get serious play or anything like that, but it did break even. And I spent $21,000, uh $21,230 of my own money on that album. And I hit break-even ten months later. And what I had was energy and ambition and time, and again that problem-solving kind of attitude, not saying this to brag, by the way, it's just it's just I think an important comparison to the next thing I'll say. Um, the way that I did it is that I uh I sold CDs, obviously, back in the era where you had physical media to sell. I even did a deal where we got hired to play a corporate function, and we we got the custom we got the client to buy a CD for each member that was coming because they were putting goodie bags together for their people, right? So uh whatever else was in there, they all got one CD, and that was instantly like I don't know, 120 sales or something. Go Danny. Um we licensed music to Air New Zealand, we were featured on the plane, so I think they used us in a commercial or something, and that was quite lucrative. Uh, we licensed music to Shorten Street to be used in the background. I think loads of artists did that. We sold t-shirts, we again we made money out of royalties, we signed a distribution deal with a Nelson-based company called Elite Music that unfortunately didn't survive the recession a few years later, and we we got it to break even. The reason why I brought this up is because two years later I'd released my second album, Say What You Mean, under a record deal. And what I didn't see coming was that I couldn't do any of that work under a record deal because it was up to them, and I could I I wasn't allowed to go out and contact people because it'd be like crossing wires. Somebody else's job, someone else's job. But of course, I was like a low priority artist because they had some big artists. So they're not doing anything, so they're doing little bits and pieces, but nothing like I would have done. Um I was spending all day on it, you know, back then. And the album probably did better commercially, but it it never made I never made my money back on it. Interesting. So control, yeah, definitely.
SPEAKER_03Yep. So my my story is much more, I think, straightforward than yours. So just uh just basically gigging uh in various uh forms, so a hell of a lot of covers, a huge amount of sort of cafe style jazz gigs, played on a cruise ship, so just drumming anywhere and everywhere. I did a lot of theater work, yeah. Um so and then just teaching. And it was that's a pretty pretty straightforward path, I think. Yeah and definitely it's I'm not it's not sexy or glamorous, it's just very working drummer path. So that's all interesting to me. That's very much on the side of entrepreneur, like yeah, it felt like that. Being creative.
SPEAKER_06I was reading, you know, Richard Branson's um first book, Losing My Virginity, and I was inspired by Charlie Chaplin's autobiography where he got screwed over by the studios and then set up his own studio, and that meant that he had by by setting up by creating his own independence business-wise, he got creative independence because they were constantly interfering with him. But he set up his own studio so he could make whatever he wanted. And and the all of his most iconic and most famous work is from when he owned his own studio. Yeah. Uh and he was a multi-millionaire back over a hundred years ago, you know. Right. Yeah. So I was reading about all those guys. I I also wanted to mention that I think another superpower is budgeting, learn how to learn how to budget. And I I don't know if you're uh if you agree with me on that, but I had this idea in the early days that how much money you make is sort of what we focus on in our culture. And I and I thought that's that's a mistake. It's only half the equation. It's only half the equation. Like if you if you're constantly focused if I just thought back then I thought of this image of having a bucket and focusing on how much water you're pouring in the bucket, but it's irrelevant if the bucket's full of holes. Yep. And so I really made myself learn about effective ways of budgeting. And a lot of the times over the years, I haven't actually m been earning that much money, but I've been in a very good place financially just from learning how to budget.
SPEAKER_02Yep. Good goal. Yeah, I think you know, the whole business acumen side of the industry is something that doesn't really get championed very often because at the end of the day, you know, quote unquote big industry doesn't want you to be thinking like that. That's right. The more control that your record label has, um, the more they can push you around and the more they can suck out every little bit of royalty possible, and the the the least they actually have to pay the talent.
SPEAKER_03But I also think it's seen as naff by other musicians a lot of the time. Well, it's time to grow up, I think.
SPEAKER_06Well, that's being forced upon them. Yeah, yeah, definitely, in a way. Because things have only declined and gotten harder in the last time. You don't really have a choice.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Earlier we were talking about repeatability. You know, you you find something that works for you. How do you keep going in that that that zone or that space, whatever you're doing? Yeah. But repeatability for how long? There's only ever a moment in time where any one thing is the thing. Yeah. And if you're tapped into that, you know, yacht rock, they had a good 10 years. And then had a good time.
SPEAKER_06Turn is not even 10 years. A couple of years.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, a few years. Yeah. But but that's just it. You know, you need to be, I think, constantly problem solving, constantly thinking for that next thing, constantly um reinventing yourself and reevaluating what's working and what's not, and being brutally honest with yourself. Yep. Um, that's not something that is very sexy to do. People don't want to think about all the bad things that aren't working on. You want to think about the good thing and just keep hitting that.
SPEAKER_06But this is the one thing that one of the things that I'm passionate about is that a lot of people would receive that as being you know, glass half empty, like a doom thing. That's fully empty. Um but it's not for me. Because but you're saying being honest about it, having clarity, not being delusional, right? Being honest with yourself. By being honest about these things as they've been unfolding, I've been able to respond to them. 100%. And choose where I invest my time and where I invest my money. And one of the reasons why the majority of us professional musicians are actually making most of our money through teaching these days, is because that's one of the only consistent, viable businesses left in the music industry. You know, and I could go out there like with a new covers band and really work my ass off and and book some gigs, but we're at the point now where the number of gigs that I would book wouldn't stack up against um the work that I would have to do to achieve that, right? So if you look at it through that business lens, um it starts to change where you put your efforts. Yeah. So I don't see it as negative.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Just facing reality.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Yeah. It's a just it's a sober look in the in the environment that you're currently living in. Yeah. And and I think you you really need that.
SPEAKER_03I think you do need to look look at it like where do I bring value? You know, um, we're talking about sort of the DJ situation or the or the party band that you mentioned before, and it's like they're clearly bringing value. So where is your value? Are you just a brilliant player or are you a party guy who can really get the whole room moving? Like do you bring something to the table? Like what it's like you're a guitarist and or you're a drummer and you need an and what is it? Yeah, yeah. Like we need something else. I still think there's opportunities. I still think there's plenty of things you could do. I know people who are gigging constantly. I've got one friend who's doing seven or eight gigs a week. Wow. Covers at Danny's. Really? Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's a regular one. Is it there are there are and but they're really, really good players.
SPEAKER_06But again, let's let's separate exceptions from trends. Yep. You know?
SPEAKER_03Yeah. So I but I think it is it's possible. Yeah. It's out there.
SPEAKER_06If um No, and I know we've got to wrap up in a second, but when we were talking a couple of years ago about the property market, and I and I was talking about you know how hard it is these days, and especially if you're a creative and so on, and you were very, you know, outspoken about how much you disagreed with that mentality. Yeah, okay. Yeah, yeah, just privately. Yeah about how you how much you disagreed with that mentality. And I I argued with you a fair amount, going, Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's all great positive bullshit. But at the end of the day, you know, and when my partner and I we were basically just we had decided we would never be able to buy a house, and I said to her, Why don't we just go and talk to you know a mortgage broker and and or whatever and just get the confirmation that we won't be able to? It was around that time I was talking to you about it, and you were forcing me to think about it differently and forcing me to think with a problem-solving mentality, but not in a delusional way, but just go think it through, do the numbers. Yeah, you can work this out. And lo and behold, we got a mortgage, and now we're sitting in my house. And that's not something we ever really saw coming, but that's to me the same mechanism we're talking about. You didn't your your advice was really good, and your advice wasn't based on fluff or hype, right? It was based on reality, it was hard hitting, this side of it sucks, this side of it's clear, whatever. You know, isn't that the same thing?
SPEAKER_03Yep, totally. And the media will tell you you can't buy a house.
SPEAKER_06Yeah.
SPEAKER_03So that's the message. It's really expensive, you can't do it.
SPEAKER_06Yeah.
SPEAKER_03And that's it. And it's like, uh yeah, but you you can either believe that or you can buy a house. You can't do the two. You can't like believe it's impossible, but also have a house. Right. I think it's a little bit like that with the um being a musician. Like you kind of have to just make it happen. Yeah. And the the mentors part is a big part of it. Yes. Not saying that I'm a particularly a mentor to you.
SPEAKER_06But you also talk about someone who's a mentor to you, right?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah. I've I've had people who have just it's almost a situation of when the the teacher will appear when the student is ready. Yeah. And you know you're you're ready to accept that advice. Stephen Small was a big one at university. Yep. He he really bailed me up against a wall one day because I was talking to him about um I was doing a jazz gig and I was really nervous about the amount of money I would have to charge to do a jazz gig in Tauronga. Because I was looking at it logically, like, oh my god, we're gonna have to, you know, gas, and it's a lot of time, we've got to stay the night. Yeah, like, dude, you're a professional musician. You've just been hired for a professional gig. Yeah, charge them like a professional. I was like, whoa. And I was like, Yeah, but you know, I I couldn't charge as much as someone like you, and he's like, they haven't asked me, mate. Not with that, they've asked you, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I was like, Bing! Like, we will be the best jazz band for them on that day, yeah. And uh you just gotta, yeah, bring the value. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02I think, you know, not not to put this on the consumer, it's kind of one of those things like, hey, why do why do companies keep polluting? Well, why don't you just use plastic straws, put it to you? But on the flip side of that, like what is something that fans can do to actually like what are the you know, what are the things that I do as a fan that that earn you the most revenue? You know, what is something that that people can actually do to help artists?
SPEAKER_03Got anything? Well, j in my previous life as a covers musician or uh music come along.
SPEAKER_02Actually support and show up?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, like feet on the ground in the bar buying beer. That that says a lot. Um we had that situation where we got a residency at Father Ted's, I'm sure you guys have stumbled into there at some point. Wellesley Street, it's across from the Pacific. Uh when we started gigging there, it was dead as a doorknob. And we developed a huge following, and it literally got to the point where there was a extra security on and a line down the road. But we were like going for it. We were so motivated and hungry, yeah, and we totally turned the whole dynamic of that bar around. And it was just standing room only. People up they they started putting boards across the pool tables so people could dance on the pool tables. Wow, oh that's cool. Yeah, so yeah, not to big up me or the band, but yeah, we went in like we're just gonna kick ass, we're gonna um talk to people, we're gonna be friendly, we're gonna, you know, come back, you know. You guys, you you know, make sure people are coming back, and we got the whole student situation going on because there's obviously a lot of students, international students in town and stuff. So yeah, don't know if that answers the question.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, and I don't know if I have a very helpful answer because I hear people you know talking about this sort of stuff quite a bit. It always seems like just gestures um and platitudes that I don't know if really will ever make a difference. I I I compare it to the problem of climate change, where the plastic straws thing became a kind of a pin-up subject that doesn't really solve any problem um or enough of a problem, you know. Um it's a new one. It's just don't drink you drink. Exactly. Um but it was it's sort of a bit like that. I mean, really the way that we solve climate change is gonna be a lot larger scale. Um, it's gonna be corporations changing habits and things like that. It's gonna be repopulating ecosystems, it's it's it's much more than just making sure we divide our trash on a on a small level. However, that doesn't mean we shouldn't do it. We should still try. And even if we even if collectively we only make a 2% difference, we should we should make that 2% difference. We should also raise our expectations and raise our standards. We should try when we can to avoid corporations that hurt the environment and so on. Just do what we can, but understand the way we really save the climate is through is through the larger scale stuff. And that's uh the exactly the same answer I have for the music industry. Like, yeah, go to the gig, buy the CD that you probably don't have a player for, you know, buy the t-shirt. That's awesome. That'll help a little bit. It's not gonna save the music industry, but it's gonna help a little bit.
SPEAKER_03But also sort of from the grass grassroots up, you know, if we value music in schools and there's actually a lot of emphasis put on it, you're gonna bring through more musicians. If it was really valued and people were aware of the benefits, even even just socially, you know, getting together and making music so yeah special. Um if that was more known and and pushed and encouraged, I mean that's gonna help, you would think, to have more music in general. More musicians. Promoting the love of music, the love of the craft.
SPEAKER_06I'm gonna I'm just aware that Rooney has to go. So I'm gonna ask you for your conclusion in a second. I'm just gonna mention that we we want to hear what everyone else thinks about this. Oh yeah. Um please comment on this. It's a subject that's really important to us. Hit us on Instagram and Facebook and Spotify and Apple Podcasts, all of that. We've got our new Facebook group. You're welcome to join. Just hit the what is it, apply button or something? We'll let you in. We'll let you in. Yeah, come on, whatever. I'm not sure actually. Whatever it is. We're on buy me on buy me a coffee, speaking of money. Um, if you'd like to support the show and the production costs, that'd be awesome. So yeah, you're you're uh someone who hasn't earned a living from music for the last quarter of a century. So what's your conclusion or verdict here, Mike?
SPEAKER_02I think for me, one of the big takeaways is you know, I'm somebody who loves like those music biopics. You know, I I do enjoy the whole romanticized view of of the music industry. Um, but I think it is probably time to be a bit more honest and have this conversation a bit more broad. Yeah. Um, and you know, I think one of the big things that I take away from this is that being a really good musician is not enough, unfortunately. Absolutely. It it's all about those uh adjacent skill sets, you know. Can you market yourself? Can you can you build connections? Can you build relationships? Can you build community and and a fan base and a support? Um you almost need to pay as much attention to that side of it as you do the actual playing. Right. Yeah. And that's not that's not what people want to hear. That's not an exciting answer. People just want to play the music, which I understand. Um, but if you want to make a career out of this, you absolutely need to be thinking like an entrepreneur, you know, thinking like uh a small business owner and really taking that side of it much more seriously than a lot of people. Uh definitely, you know, from my viewpoint uh as an outsider, I wouldn't have thought about that as deeply. But it is something that if you're seriously considering this, you need to go into it, eyes open, um, and be constantly problem solving.
SPEAKER_06I like to say talent without business is like a bullet without a gun. Yeah, it's a good saying. Go to progression? Uh A minor. Here he comes.
SPEAKER_03Five This episode was brought to you by Auckland Guitar Lessons. Head to Aucklandguitarlessons.co.nz or email info at Aucklandguitarlessons.co.nz to find out more. See ya there.