What It Takes To Be A Rockstar
Host and musician Melissa Lucciola talks with signed and DIY musicians from around the world about their lives behind the scenes. From maxing out credit cards, sleeping on floors, sharing beds and getting paid $250 to play Madison Square Garden, you will hear the in's and out's of life on and off the road and the real struggles of the modern day musician.
What It Takes To Be A Rockstar
Episode 2 - Ghost Funk Orchestra - On bringing an 8+ piece band on the road
This week I talk with Seth Applebaum of Ghost Funk Orchestra about how he brings an 8-11 piece band on tour, how he got his booker and label and how he makes it all work logistically and financially.
Find out more about Ghost Funk Orchestra at https://www.ghostfunkorchestra.com/
I recorded this interview via Zoom and you can watch that on Youtube here.
Edited, recorded, mixed and produced by Melissa Lucciola.
This episode is sponsored by SORRY Cables - rad and colorful quality instrument and microphone cables handmade in LA.
Intro song is called "I'm Starting a Podcast" by Tea Eater
Other music is by Pretty World
Hello, hello, everybody.
Welcome to the second episode of What It Takes To Be A Rockstar.
I am your host, Melissa Lucciola, and today I'm interviewing Seth Applebaum of Ghost Funk Orchestra.
Hello, welcome back to week two, What It Takes To Be A Rockstar.
Thank you so much to everyone who has been listening so far.
I've gotten a lot of amazing messages, and kind messages, and supportive messages, and I really, really appreciate you tuning in.
It's cool that you're into it.
And I'm into it too, this is fun.
And I can only imagine I'm just gonna get better and better at it, so this is just the beginning.
Anyway, thank you for tuning in.
And for those of you who don't know if this is your first time, this is a podcast that shows the behind the scenes look at musicians' lives.
I'm specifically focusing on original musicians.
My circle is a lot of rock indie musicians, but I'm gonna try to get a little bit of everyone.
And this week, my special guest is Seth from Ghost Funk Orchestra.
And me and Seth go way back.
My band used to play with his band, The Mad Doctors.
We used to play some psych rock shows together.
And one day, I don't know how I got it, I got a tape, I said, Ghost Funk Orchestra.
And I was like, oh, this is Seth's new thing.
And I popped it in my tape player and was transported to this like psychedelic and jazzy world.
And the next thing you know, he's out touring with 8, 9, 10, 11 people in his band.
And now they're opening for, you know, legends like Os Mitantes.
And they've done just amazing things recently.
So I really wanted to see how the heck he's doing it.
because to me, it's pretty fascinating.
Knowing where he came from too.
And you know, we played some basement shows to like 5 people more than once too.
We've done that quite a bit.
But without further ado, here's our conversation.
How you doing?
I'm good.
A little crazed, but good.
How are you?
I'm great.
I'm so excited you're here today because this podcast is about me.
It's about me talking with musicians about how the heck they make everything work with their crazy musical lives.
And you are one person that I'm totally curious about, because logistically, it just seems like the most amazing feat of all time.
I have no clue how you do it.
So I'm really, really, really, really excited to hear about everything that you have going on.
Yeah, I'm excited that you asked because I'm very much in the middle of doing all the logistic stuff.
So it feels like a good opportunity for me to just vent.
Yeah, please.
That's like the stuff I really want to hear, because I feel like musicians were so good at sharing the, hey, we're going on tour.
It's going to be awesome.
But meanwhile, you can't sleep at night because you're like, how am I going to pull this off?
And we don't really share this side too much.
So I'm really excited that you're willing and down to do that.
Yeah, for sure.
because whenever you drop the tour poster, that's like, once it's cemented and you've kind of advertised to the world that we are in fact going to these places, then it's like, oh man, we actually have to make that happen.
It's like, it's not just cooking in the background.
It's like, now we've put it out there.
People are getting excited.
It's like, oh boy, now I have to start running credit cards and stuff.
Yeah.
For those of you out there who don't know what Seth does, he runs a how many piece band right now, is it?
It fluctuates, but generally speaking, it's anywhere from 8 to 11 pieces.
Do you bring anyone else on tour with you or just you guys?
Very, very rarely do we have.
We were touring this august and I was able to swing it, that we have our friends who owns a passenger van.
He's going to be driving us and selling our merchandise.
Thank God.
Any small task that can be taken off the plate of the band is amazing.
But in this circumstance, rare luxury, like we're everybody that is generally on the tour is also on stage.
So yeah, no extra hands.
Right.
Wow.
So between 8 and 11, and are you all going to be able to fit in the van together?
Or do you have to take multiple vehicles?
He says he's got enough seats for us.
So hopefully that's actually the case.
I trust him.
But we've definitely, we do the caravan thing most of the time.
We go out for a number of reasons.
Like it's kind of nice to be able to split the band up.
People can sort of play musical chairs if they get tired.
Of being in the car with the same people all the time.
Or, you know, sometimes different halves of the band want to go on different side quests.
So it's nice to have a little freedom.
But for this one in august, I was like, I want to try and just get us all in one car, just make it simple.
Like the driving is taken completely off the plate of any musician in the band.
So, you know, we don't have to budget our energy levels the same way we would as if, you know, one, we normally would play a show and then maybe still have to drive like 40 minutes, depending on the city.
Like sometimes we like to get out of town because it's cheaper.
So, you know, you play a show and hopefully you're not too wiped.
And then we have to white knuckle it 40, 50 minutes to the hotel or wherever we're crashing.
So now, now at least like in this circumstance, we can just fall apart after we play the show.
And then our buddy John will cart us to wherever we're sleeping.
Wow.
And when you sleep, like, do you all stay in a hotel or do you usually crash at different people's houses or how does that usually work?
It's funny.
Like the first time we ever went out on a tour was back in 2021.
Like, we haven't really been doing it that long, but when we started, we just kind of got into a rhythm.
When we went out that first time, we went out as a 10 piece, which was crazy because, like, the guarantees were very low on that first tour, but it was just like, well, let's try it out.
And it was more cost effective on that run to do Airbnbs because we would at least, you know, we'd have beds, couches, floor space for air mattresses, whatever, whatever.
But over the past few years, the price of Airbnbs has gotten so crazy that it's actually a lot cheaper for us to book, to do hotels now.
So, you know, if there's eight of us, I'll get two rooms with, that have two queen beds each and we'll all just double up.
And it's actually not that bad.
Like, in some circumstances, we'll have a friend in town that's willing to put us up.
But it gets more complicated doing that way, because then we have to, like, plan to pick folks up.
And like, it just, when we have one car or two cars, it just gets messy if everyone's crashing in different places.
You know, every once in a while, someone from the band will, like, break out and have a night quest.
Which, you know, at that point, it's not an unspoken agreement, but it's a pretty out there agreement.
It's like, do what you're going to do.
But you are solely responsible for getting to the lobby call.
It's like, we're not picking you up from wherever you end up.
Like, you get yourself on your own dime from wherever you stayed, back to the hotel or the Airbnb and you're in the van on time.
And everybody's been cool about that when it happened.
But yeah, that's to say, it's like for my brain, especially having that many folks on the road, if we can all stay in the same place, it just makes things so much simpler.
I'm sure.
Oh my goodness.
Do some band members have cars that you usually take out on the road?
Yeah.
Yeah.
So I have a car that we'll use sometimes.
Josh, who you know from Mad Doctors way back, he has a car that we'll take out.
And last year when we were in the middle of a tour, actually, and we, so we were doing a tour where we picked up one of our members midway through.
And we had his car.
Actually, we had my car.
And when we were loading in his saxophone, we completely ran out of space.
So we had to go like on an emergency mission to REI, so I could buy a roof rack.
Oh my God.
Which ended up being huge for us.
So we got the rails and we got a tulli and put that on top.
And that gave us so much extra space.
And then what we ended up doing, I think it was like earlier this year or late last year, we got another set of roof rails for Josh's car.
So depending on which one we take out, I have the tulli now.
We could put it on his car.
We could put it on my car.
And it's just, you know, we don't have a trailer or anything, but that will at least we can put guitars up there.
We could put like a cymbal bag.
We could put, you know, soft bags, luggage.
It just saves us so much extra space to have that thing.
But yeah, so that's like the investment in vehicles has been like the Tully, the car carrier stuff.
That's amazing.
Do you bring amps and drums on the road?
We do.
Most of the time.
I love going out.
And I love going out with a touring package because then there's opportunities to share gear.
We toured with Oshima Tante's.
The first few dates we did with them, we didn't know them personally yet, so we assumed we're bringing everything because they're old school, they're legends, we don't assume that they're going to want to share with us.
But after one show, we got on really well and we're like, could we use your drums and your bass amp?
And it's always like the drums that goes so far, especially like some of the stages we play, if we have to stack drum kits, it gets real hairy real quick because there are so many of us.
So we'll do stuff like put the drums on the side of the stage instead of in the back.
But yeah, so most of the time if we're doing headlining stuff or just like sort of the DIY pick up locals in each city kind of tour, then we'll make sure we have everything.
But whenever I do prefer to go on tours where we're touring with another band so that we can share the load.
That makes sense because you usually bring just the two cars or you bring like three or how does it?
We can usually make it work with two.
If it's an extended tour, then we make sure that we can get it all in two cars.
Usually that means I rent one car that's got like huge trunk space or something like that.
Or it's either that or we'll take Josh's car, put the back seats down and that's like cargo van, two people up front and then I'll rent a mini van that has seven seats.
Then that's pretty much like the passenger van.
Yeah.
It depends how many people are going out, but we've figured out ways to finagle it, where we can go out with two vehicles max.
On rare occasion, we'll do three, but that's only if it's like East Coast, and it's just easier for folks to drive their own cars.
And then I'll just, you know, no rental costs, but I'll just reimburse on gas and stuff like that.
Nice.
That is wild.
I couldn't imagine touring in multiple cars, but you got to do what you got to do.
Yeah, it's, I mean, it's, in a lot of, in a lot of circumstances for us, it's the only thing that works, because I feel like especially now, because bands are touring pretty hard, passenger vans on a rental level have gotten sort of hard to come by.
Like I, I always look for past vans first and usually strike out.
It's either that or the ones that are available are just not close to where any of us live.
But yeah, because I, you know, for a lot of, for a lot of reasons, having a passenger van would be ideal.
They're just like, I just can't find them.
Most of the time.
So it's easier for us to just rent a mini van and then use one of our cars.
And, you know, with the roof rack and everything, and we make it work one way or another.
I love that.
I love.
So like, I listened to a few interviews that you've done with other people.
So I don't want to be like too repetitive because I know how annoying it is to like answer questions over and over again that you've already answered like in super depth before.
But why, you know, what is it inside you that's like, I have to do this.
I have to bring this big band on the road, even though it is this big logistical nightmare.
Like, you know, no one, no one asks you to do it.
Basically, you're like, I'm choosing to do this.
And this is really hard in a lot of ways.
But like, what, what is it inside you?
Or is it just something you can't explain, that you're like, I just needed this big band?
Um, I mean, it's a little, I can, it's at the same time, it's like something that I can explain and something I can't.
Like, the easy answer for me is that like, the bands that I looked up to and sort of modeled my band after are bands that I went to see in high school.
I don't know if you're familiar with like Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings or Ante Ballas or is all these like New York Soul Revival bands that, you know, there'd always be two guitars, there would always be a horn section and stuff.
And I just remember seeing those bands a lot when I was younger and being so enamored by the sound, because it's like no single instrument is excessively loud, but the sum of everything was just big.
It's like, you know, I love, I love doom metal and stuff like that, where it's just, you know, three people making big sounds by themselves.
But it's just a different kind of big because, you know, especially with the horn section, the, the timbre of it is something you can't recreate on any other instrument.
It just kind of like cuts to your, to the core.
So there's that.
It's just, for me, it's just fun being on stage with that many people, because it's like a lot of people to play off of.
It's an exciting sound when we have the full band.
because we also like, we have solo sections in a lot of our songs, so people can kind of like cut loose and we stretch songs out.
And it's also, when I first started recording this project, it was a lot more stripped down.
It was more just like guitar, bass, drums, and vocal.
But as I kept making more records, I had brought a lot more musicians into our world.
And I would put them on the records and then the sound and the arrangements that I was putting together.
I was like, I can't imagine these with less than, you know, eight is kind of like my minimum where it would be minimum two guitar, it's always two guitars, bass, drums, but then it'd be like a two piece horn section and two vocals.
So it's like vocal harmonies, either horn harmonies, or just like a little extra support rather than just having one.
And that's just kind of how that's where my brain's been.
It's like I've come up with this sort of gold standard for what the experience I want to deliver is.
And it always involves a lot of people.
And I, you know, it would be hard for me to cut it down and feel like I was giving what I promised.
Also, this is something that I try to not think about too much.
But the fact of the matter is there's a lot of photos of us in the world with a gigantic band.
And sometimes I feel the pressure to always have that because that's what's the most out there.
There's photos of us with 10, 11 pieces.
I'm like, we can't do that everywhere.
But if people are expecting it's going to be bigger than a four or five piece, there's a little bit of pressure for the folks that are buying tickets that, yeah, we're going to bring a lot of people.
It might not be the same number that's in this photo or that photo, but we do promise a large band.
So there is a little bit of like, this is what people signed up for, if they're coming to the show.
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.
It's super fun.
I love that.
I love that you're just like, this is what I want to do, this is what I'm going to do.
And even though you have way more hurdles than a normal, not that you're not normal, but a three piece, a four piece, even a five piece, it's a lot and it's super cool that you're just sticking with it.
because you want to just make it happen and then, people are expecting that to happen too, so you're keeping up with it.
But I love that, it's so cool.
Yeah, and the thing is like, for all those things, for all the hurdles that having the large band has put in place, for all the hurdles I have to jump over, the large band has also helped us grow in, you know, call it notoriety or respect from booking agents and stuff like that.
because we deliver, when we have the full band, like we can deliver a pretty, a pretty great show, I think.
And, you know, it's not, in the beginning, being like a quote big band felt a little more gimmicky.
But now it's like, no, it's, I think we've made it clear that having that many people on the stage is essential to our sound as a live band.
And the more that we do it, and the more that we've kind of like proven that we are a well-oiled machine.
It's definitely, it has helped us like, you know, the guarantees go up, which makes things easier and we get better support opportunities, which, you know, there's benefits there.
So, you know, for everything that's tough about it, it has also helped us get more recognition.
Mel of the future here, if you want to become more of a well-old machine like Ghost Funk Orchestra, I suggest you check out SORRY Cables.
SORRY Cables is a rad instrument and microphone cable company based out of Los Angeles, California.
They're a small business.
I use their cables when I'm doing this podcast and when I play guitar and when I'm singing.
I love their cables.
They have all different fun colors.
You can even get your name engraved into the ends of them.
And I personally asked SORRY Cables to team up to do this podcast because I love their company and they've been so helpful for me and my bands.
And I really appreciate them.
So go check them out.
And thank you, SORRY Cables, for sponsoring this episode.
I bet that helps with, like you said, with the guarantees, because I bet it's an easy line to just be like, we have so many people, we need a lot more money to do that.
Yeah, 100%.
Yeah.
Has that been like something that you've been working with by yourself, like to get these guarantees up, or do you have a booking agent right now?
We've had a booking agent for a couple of years now.
The first tour we went out on in 2021, we didn't have any agency.
It was just, we got picked up to do some dates with a band that's on our label.
So they just, they knew us through the label.
They hit me up directly.
I asked for, I asked what they could offer.
They offered us what they could.
I had no bargaining chip.
So I was like, great, that's it.
We did it.
And then we hooked up with our agent, probably like less than a year after that first tour.
And he's been, he's been with us, this dude, John Matson from the Anniversary Group.
He's been our agent for the past few years.
And kind of like my game plan, if there ever was one, I'm always flying by the seat of my pants because I never know what's gonna hit the inbox day to day.
But the past few years, the game plan has been, I will, you know, I feel like I have a decent barometer for what offers and opportunities are worth our time in my like sinking my credit card into further debt.
But we went, you know, we've gone pretty hard for very, for pretty low money for a few years, but it put us in front of a lot of people and we had a lot to show for, you know, just making it work on a shoestring.
So that, you know, kind of going into 2024, I said to our book or like this year we need to, we need to ask for more.
And it's like, we did a lot.
I feel like we did a ton in 2023 that proved, helped to prove our worth.
So it wasn't a hard battle to fight, thankfully.
But that, you know, there was a conscious effort to be like, okay, there's a lot of higher profile stuff that we're being asked to do.
The money is not going to, I'm not going to make personally any money on this, but it's something I believe is worth doing.
And in the long run, it's going to be, you know, it's building relationships.
Like we, you know, we played Levitation in austin, Texas last October, which is a festival that I've been aware of for a long time.
And like the lineups are always insane.
It was like getting that opportunity was a no brainer for me.
But it wasn't in the middle of a tour.
We were no, we were in New York.
The only way to make it work, because we had a New York hit like two days later, we had to fly, fly down there and fly back.
And, you know, the guarantee was gone immediately.
It was, yeah, it's like the guarantee didn't even cover all of us flying down there.
I lost a lot of money on doing that.
But it was a great show.
And, you know, we put Levitation Fest on the resume.
You know, we had the room we played was sold out.
That's pretty great.
Like that's super worth it in my book.
So it's like stuff like that, that I can take a calculated risk on.
You know, I know that I'm losing money, but it's a great opportunity for us to play to new folks, put something cool on our resume.
And then when we come into the next, you know, the next round of booking, be like, just adding another thing to our resume that people who are in the industry will like point to and say, I know what that is.
That has helped us to bump the guarantees up.
And, you know, I could pay the band better and just make things a little bit easier to book and put together.
Do you pay everybody for the shows?
I do, yeah.
Myself, not always included.
If I can break even, that's kind of like...
The goal.
Yeah, because it's tough because the thing that is, I think, pretty unique, at least in the scenes that you and I are both affiliated with.
I think the thing that's probably the most different about my band, I would assume, is that it is my band, which means I am solely responsible for the financial risk.
And we also, our lineup fluctuates a bit based on availability, so I have to treat it...
I have no choice but to treat it like a contractor situation where I'm the band leader, I'm the contractor, I piece together the band to make the tour happen.
But part of that piecing together is I have to offer the rate.
You know, especially if I'm taking folks out for two and a half, three weeks.
Like, I got to get them, at the very least, their rent money.
And I'm also working with folks who are mostly career musicians, so I have to be somewhat competitive to keep them available.
So are you, I know you're taking losses on some of these shows, but how do you personally make that work?
Like, when you're home, you have a job that you do so that you make some money while you're home, or is it all just from the guarantees that you've been getting or selling merch, or how do you do it?
It's a combination of a lot of things.
So my other, we'll call it the day job, even though it's freelance and kind of the touring and the day job work around each other.
But I'm a colorist for TV and film.
So that's like, that's how I make most of my living, or at least like half of my living at this point.
And then on the other side, it's like sometimes I personally profit from shows.
I sell merchandise through band camp when we're not on the road.
I get royalties from streaming and syncs and stuff like that.
And then I also work for an agency that contracts me to compose music, original music, or do like sound-alikes for commercials.
So it's like a really piecemeal existence, but it all adds up to a modest lifestyle.
Mel of the future here popping back in to let you know I was chatting with Seth after our conversation because honestly, there's still so much we could talk about even though we do talk about more on this podcast, which is coming up.
But I just wanted to pop in and share something that he said I can share with everyone which is about their most common deal that they do with the venues that they go to, and that is called the versus deal.
What that is, is there's either a flat guarantee that they get no matter what, or there's a provision that if they clear a certain number of ticket sales, the pay is then converted to a percentage of the door.
For example, it might say $1,500 versus 80 percent.
That means you either get $1,500 no matter what, or you get 80 percent of the box office, so whichever is higher.
So he told me when he's budgeting for a tour, he bases everything on the low number, and that could be random depending on the venue, depending on what his booker works out, or what he works out, and you'll hear more about that later.
But basically he budgets everything on the low number, and then from there, anything higher goes to lodging or to gas, and also the merch sales goes to lodging and to gas.
And he also shared with me that they base, most of their tours have been based on a festival date, because typically festivals can pay a much higher flat guarantee than a regular club show, so they base their tours around that festival date, and I know a lot of bands that do that, and even the bands that I'm in do that.
So, that's a huge help for bands on the road.
Sometimes you get this boost when they go to the festivals, and also catering's pretty good at festivals too, not gonna lie.
So, yeah, he said without fail, almost every Ghost Funk Orchestra has done, every tour he's done has involved at least one festival date as an anchor date for the rest of the tour to be based on.
All right, let's continue on.
Well, okay, that brings me to my next question, because you have a studio at your house, right?
Yeah.
Okay.
So you're able to record at home with like no cost, right?
Yes.
That's huge, I'm assuming.
Yeah.
So the nice thing about that is with rare exceptions, I'll sometimes go to somebody else's studio to add like bells and whistles.
I'll go to Studio G to play with their fancy keyboards if they have stuff that I'm after for my records.
But 90, maybe 80, 90% of my records, I record myself at home with no producer, no mixer.
Which means that whatever advance that I get to make the records, I'll pay the musicians that contributed to it, and then the rest just goes in my pocket.
That's amazing.
Yeah.
That's another place where keeping it super DIY has benefited me.
I feel like saying I'm a control freak would sound more aggressive than it actually is, but I haven't felt comfortable.
I've thought about what I might gain if I let somebody else mix my records or sat in the producer chair.
But I'm both confident enough in what I do and also am enough of a control freak.
I'd rather just figure it out myself.
If my mixes sound a little off, then at least it's my fault.
You know what I mean?
It's like, I didn't make somebody to make something that I'm not happy with.
So, you know, the DIY spirit is alive and well.
It's like, I do as much as I physically can myself until I literally run out of time.
I tag somebody else in to help.
Yeah.
No, that's huge.
And mixing, the mixing process when you're working with someone else is so stressful, I feel like.
And when you could just do it by yourself, it's just like, oh yeah, turn this up, turn that down.
Yeah.
Like you don't have to email back and forth a million times.
And, you know, it's helpful to have a fresh ear on it though, occasionally because someone might be like, what's that sound?
It's like a bookshelf fell over something and you just don't notice it anymore in the recording.
And I think the thing that I sort of learned this on the last record that I put out because for the first time, you know, I always will submit my mixes to the label and then go through like months of crippling doubt until it actually comes out and I can't do anything about it.
But this last one was the first time that I sent it to get mastered and while we were in the process of mastering it, I said, stop everything.
This is fucked up.
I have to fix these mixes, which I've always had that thought in my brain.
It's like, what if?
because you always start hearing it differently once it's out of your hands.
And for the first time, I actually pulled the trigger.
I was like, I have to fix some stuff.
I can't, this is not going to get sussed out in mastering.
It's like, this is mixed problems.
So it's probably a blessing and a curse that I flex that muscle, because now I know that it exists.
And, you know, it costs a little bit extra, not a ton to get it mastered twice, but I think it was better for it.
But, you know, there is that, that there's kind of a mania about doing everything yourself because you're always thinking about what you could have done or what you can do.
Yeah.
I understand.
Yeah.
So in that sense, it's like it would have probably, I am thinking more actively about, you know, you get into your own bubble and it would be nice to have somebody with an outside perspective to maybe trim the fat.
You know, my stuff ends up being pretty dense.
And I'm sure somebody would suggest like we don't need X, Y, or Z.
Like we can simplify and the songs will be better.
But so maybe the next record is where I start tagging in a mixer or producer or somebody to just like make sense of the weird stew that I put together.
The music stew.
Yeah, I mean, it's working though.
And it sounds, what's really cool about your recordings is they have like such a specific quality to them.
Like I know it's yours.
Like I could, you can hear it.
It's like unique in its own way.
And that's what's super cool about them.
Thank you.
Oh yeah.
Yeah, I love that.
I love when musicians record themselves because I feel like they're the one who they know like exactly what they're looking for.
And unless they find that perfect person to be their teammate on that, who could just like make it happen really fast or, you know, streamline the whole thing and make it easier on the actual musician, like until the musician finds that person, I feel like it's more of a headache to work with someone until you're like, you got that person.
Totally.
And I think a big part of like, at least for me, the mindset of DIY recording is that I started playing music in earnest.
Like when the Mad Doctors started, it was really kind of a boom for all these garage rock bands recording themselves and doing all the, like lo-fi was the aesthetic, and everyone was recording themselves in their bedrooms, on little tape machines and stuff.
So it was, it was normal.
And I feel like now I see a lot more bands that maybe 10 years ago would have been recording themselves.
They're all going, they're all saving their money up and going to fancy studios, which honestly their music is better for it.
But it's just interesting because it's not, it's very much not the same.
Like all the bands that lasted from that DIY era to now, their recordings have cleaned up so much.
It's like nothing.
People aren't going for the like really blown out, blown out, screwed up sounds anymore.
With like rare exception, but like the Thai Seagulls of the world.
Even though OCs, those were the bands that from a recording perspective, I was very, I idolized when I started doing the home recording thing, and the Black Keys as well because they were like home recording champions.
From the early aughts to now, it's just a very different sonic quality.
I've been trying to challenge myself to also get cleaner sounds and just record in a way that I think flatters my arrangements better.
because after a few records that were pretty distorted and whatnot, I realized that I wasn't necessarily doing myself any great service by taking songs that I think are pretty good and just making them blown out for purely aesthetic reasons.
Like that only goes so far.
because if the song is good, it will, you know, it'll shine through the the sonic quality.
But, you know, I think after the dust settled from the Mad Doctors slowing down, I realized that not everything needs to be, you know, slammed in the red.
Yeah, I totally come from that world.
I've always loved that sound, but I've also come to realize, like, not everybody understands what it takes to record at home.
And it's like, even even if you did an awesome job and you're like super proud of it, and you've recorded every instrument, and it's like this amazing feat that you've done, and it kind of sounds like a little crazy.
It's like, you know, some random person off the street will be like, this sounds like shit.
And you're like, I worked so hard for this.
It took me like two years to figure out how to make that guitar sound like that.
And it's just not something that everyone understands.
And I think a lot of bands that you're saying who are saving up their money, they're kind of thinking along the lines of wanting people to just understand or hear it, how it is in their head, you know, and not just this, oh, you can figure it out.
Like, it's kind of like, I feel like the blown out thing, it's kind of like you're recording potential sometimes, and not like the complete idea for what it really is or what it feels like, or you're not giving it the full flattering service that it deserves.
So I feel like bands are picking up on that and they're like, I guess we should get a little notch it up, like the respect of our songs, you know?
Yeah, because I think there is like a longevity to the higher five stuff, because everything is cyclical.
I feel like the 90s recordings were pretty hi-fi, and then the early aughts, everyone was like, it was like a distortion war.
You got bands like Bass Drum Of Death, where it's just like white noise and waves and stuff like that.
But now we're back to like, I think we all got tinnitus and started craving nicer sounding recordings.
But I think the fun thing about that is like, in the same way that people would challenge themselves to self-record and come up with these really interesting blown out sounds, now at the same time, the people that are self-recording are trying to challenge themselves to figure out how to make really big and impressive sounding records, which is just as admirable as the scuzzy stuff.
I think it's like a time and a place thing.
It's like there's a time and a place for the really screwed up recordings, but then there's also a time and a place for higher fidelity stuff.
I mean, the gustav records are pretty hi-fi.
They're pretty clean, but the band, the sound of the band dictates all the aggression.
It's like you didn't need to slam the mixer or the tape machine to get that across because that's just what you guys sound like.
So it almost would do a disservice to screw it up for no reason.
Yeah.
I've learned a lot from being in that band because, like I said, I come from the super fuzz out DIY stuff, and then I'm like, wait, we recorded in this nice studio with zero effects, super dry, very simple everything, and it sounds awesome and big.
I'm like, that's cool.
So I've definitely pulled from that band a lot being in it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Did you ever do the Converse rubber tracks?
Were you around with them?
I've heard about those.
You could do your drum and bass or something for free.
Yeah.
It was kind of an amazing service that they were doing.
I don't know how they lasted as long as they did, because it was like a big old space, fancy little studio.
And yeah, it was free, no strings attached.
They gave you free sneakers and stuff.
It's wild.
But the mad doctors got the opportunity to do one.
And we did it.
It's like, why not?
And we had only ever recorded in my bedroom with my little cassette recorder.
So we were very used to that sound.
And then we recorded in the big studio.
And we were like, we don't know what to do with this.
because it sounds too hi-fi.
It doesn't make sense to us.
So in that circumstance, we hit the wall where we're like, okay, this band is not made for this environment.
It sounds nice.
The engineer did a great job at his job.
But we are not a band that is meant to exist in a fancy studio.
Like we are meant to record in our bedroom with cheap mics to cassette tape.
That's what this band was built on, and that is how we are meant to exist.
So that was like the most tangible experience I personally had where I was like, fidelity, there is like a fidelity that is sort of tied to the band, at least the way that we saw it.
Like our vision for it did not exist in a fancy studio.
Totally.
I know that feeling very well.
That I would hit that with my other band too.
I'd someone be like, come in for this overnight session, you get this free recording and we do it.
And then it would just freak me out.
Like this is way too clean.
I don't know what to do with this.
It scares me.
And I didn't know at the time, like give me the tracks and I'll just like stuff distortion all over them, you know, and then make it sound kind of like it was recorded the way that I liked it.
Yeah, we did.
We did that once where we recorded in a friend's studio.
He gave us the stems and I mixed it.
And I basically, you know, he miced.
I was always micing my drum kit and I still only miced the drum kit with like two or three mics max.
But, you know, he did, he did the thing, he probably had like eight or nine mics on the kit, which is like, you know, for a big studio, it's kind of standard.
But when I was mixing, I was just like mute, mute, mute, mute, mute, mute, and only I used the bare minimum because I'm like, that's, that's what we sound like.
Nothing is supposed to be like too upfront.
Yeah, it's snare and then everything else just kind of bleeds in.
Yeah.
That's awesome though.
You got, you got your studio at your house.
That's huge.
I feel like that really helps the cause with the keeping costs down because studios cost a lot and mixers cost a lot too.
Like a good mixer is, yeah, lots and lots of money per song.
So it's awesome that you could do that.
I bet that helps the band in like so many ways.
And go ahead.
Yeah, no, it's, I think it's, it's helpful.
I mean, having the home studio, honestly, the biggest advantage of it, aside from any financial stuff, the biggest advantage is like, and part of the reason why I've been able to be as prolific with releases as I have been is because like, literally, if I have an idea, I'll just roll downstairs, start building it.
And because, you know, the way the band operates in the studio is I record, I layer myself, I play the whole rhythm section, you know, until I run out of instruments that I know how to play.
And then I bring my friends in to help.
But like bass, drum, guitars, hand percussion, keyboards, like I can do all that.
And I have done all that myself.
And I have those tools.
So like, I can take a song pretty far, just rolling downstairs whenever the moment strikes.
So the like barrier between my brain and a recording is a flight of stairs.
So that's been huge.
And that's been the way that I've, that's the only thing I've known for a long time, because Mad Doctors 2 is like, all the instruments in the tape machine were in my bedroom.
So, and that's where we rehearsed, that's where we recorded.
It's like, you got an idea, just go, just walk a few feet and record something.
So I do feel, I think pushing myself to learn the recording process and figure out how to get sounds I like has made it so easy for me to just keep writing.
because, you know, for Ghost Funk, the recordings came first.
Like I had put out two EPs before I even had the thought of doing a live band.
So I kind of established in a very, in its infancy, I had established a bit of like a sonic quality to the name of the band, you know, the non-existent band, before we even hit the stage.
And then as the live band has become its own entity, it's kind of flipped where it's like in the beginning, I was trying to make the live band sound like the recordings.
And now I'm trying to make the recordings benefit the live band because I know what the musicians I work with sound like.
So there's all these different things that can influence what I'm doing, whether it's just how I like to record, who I work with, just...
And again, like the barrier between me and making something has gotten smaller and smaller.
It's like, it's almost immediate that I can go from my brain to writing.
Yeah, I love that.
That's amazing.
That's the best when your stuff's just surrounded around you and you can just pick up the instrument and just go.
because that is even just like if your guitar is not plugged in or something, sometimes it's enough to be like, I'll remember that idea later and then it's never there again.
So just having a whole studio setup is awesome.
I wanted to ask you because you mentioned before, you said you have a booking agent and just for the people who are listening who might be curious, like how the heck that happened because it seems like for bands, that is one of like, how do I do that?
It's so far away.
So did this person, your booking agent, did they come to you or did you go to them?
They did come to me, which was awesome, but also means I have no advice.
That's the upside and the downside is that we got lucky.
So are you familiar with the Space Agency?
I've heard of it, but I don't know.
They book a lot of like modern psych bands and then international acts like Osh Mutantes and Witch and stuff like that.
Our agent, he's from a band, he has his own band called The Matson Two, and he started doing the booking agent thing.
I think to make money, he has a kid, so I think it was probably to make income when he can't go on the road.
Briefly, he was with the space agency right before the pandemic, and he reached out to us.
I guess it was just through the grapevine being generally in the same orbit or in the same scene-ish, that he found out about us or heard our records through the label.
But he reached out to us while he was with space agency, the pandemic hit, and we were like, all right, we'll shelf this.
When things were lightening up, and after we did our first little run, he reached back out and he was just an independent booker, not affiliated with anyone, he was just John Mattson.
He reached out and he was like, I would still like to work with you guys.
I was like, all right, let's try it.
And he booked our first tour which was to play, we went out to play Tree Fort Fest and then kind of hook all the way back around to New York.
And it was awesome.
And we've just been working with him ever since.
And now he's, he got absorbed by an agency called the Anniversary Group.
But the thing, yeah, it's hard for me to say though, like, I don't know what I did that got his attention aside from, honestly, it was probably just being on the label we're on, that he was just a fan of the label.
And it's tough too, because I've had this conversation a lot recently.
I have a few friends, bands that are objectively good, but they're having a hard time pinning down an agent.
And I don't know what the secret is.
I mean, it's probably just, you got to get the opportunity to play in front of them, or at least get the thumbs up from another band that's on their roster.
Right.
But yeah, I don't know, because we did, the Mad Doctors never had an agent.
We were DIY.
We made no money, but we were DIY, we were just booking, or Greg was booking it all.
And honestly, in a way, like the legwork that he put in and that the Mad Doctors put in did lay a little bit of a groundwork for Ghost Funk, because it meant that we knew people all over the country who were at least keeping up with what we were doing.
So when Ghost Funk started going out, we already had a little bit of a crowd because of all the people we met doing the Garage Rock thing.
But as far as I can tell, the thing that's really tricky right now and is fortunate, but is just sort of the case is that I think a lot of agents who don't know bands intimately before they pick them up, all they really see is numbers.
They'll see followers, they'll see streams.
For better or worse, that can be a barometer for whether they will be successful with an act.
It's a little tougher right now to find agents that are willing to like build a band and take a swing.
because everyone is sort of struggling to make a buck and things are expensive.
So I think for us, it was just being affiliated with a label that has a strong following was sort of the thing that I...
And this is all speculative because I really don't know.
But I have to imagine that was the thing that put us on his radar and gave him the confidence to be like, there's label recognition.
When we go out, we can slap the label on a tour poster.
And people that are into our genre will know what that means.
But, you know, it's for a lot of bands, it's like so much social media gaming comes ahead of like successful touring now, which there's ways to have fun with it.
But it's also you can get burned out so hard trying to battle with social media to get, you know, to get attention.
Yeah, too many TikToks.
TikTok, and some bands figure it out.
Some bands figure it out and have made it easy.
And it's not a grind.
But, you know, there's a lot of up and coming bands.
It's like figuring out how to break through all the static and, you know, show off that you're worth getting picked up for like a support tour or something like that.
It's tough, you know, you kind of have to go out and rub elbows.
You know, there's a lot of like knowing, it's a lot of who you know, which is not new, but I think even more so now because there's so many bands.
Yeah.
Yeah.
How did you get on your label?
What's the story with that?
I had, so I self-released the first few EPs that we put out, just like Bandcamp, and then Greg and I split the cost on pressing cassettes.
And I was working on a full length, and it was like 70% done.
And I just started reaching out to labels that are in our scene.
So we're on a label called Karma Chief, which is like the bigger label is Coal Mine Records, and Karma Chief is sort of an imprint.
But we reached out to them, this label Big Crown, Dap Tone, Freak Out, I think as well, maybe one or two others.
And I got no response from most of them.
But I got a response from Coal Mine, and they were interested based on the unfinished thing that I sent them.
So they took a swing on it, and we just kind of did a, we've been doing an album to album deal where it's like, I'm not on a multi record situation.
It's just like every time I've got something to release, new contract.
But they've been super good to us, because they get, they're into us being sort of shape-shifty and genre bending.
You know, the first album we put out with them is called A Song For Paul, and it's pretty all over the place.
And so the fact that they're, their followers, the people that had been with them for a while were into it, I think kind of proved that, you know, we could be shape-shifty and try a lot of different stuff, and people were on board to take the ride.
So we definitely, I think we found the right home for what we do.
But yeah, no, there was definitely a few submissions that I never got a single response from.
Yeah.
No, that's huge to hear.
Like, that's amazing that that's how that happened, because I feel like a lot of bands are sending a lot of stuff out and then they don't even get one thing back.
So that's so like really cool and probably gives people hope out there who are sending out the emails and not hearing back that like, they're reading the emails, they may be listening to the stuff, they might not have answered you, but keep trying.
I think it's kind of worth noting too, that I didn't do anything fancy in this email.
It was literally just, I typed a short thing, it's like, here's an unfinished record, we want to finish it, we're looking for a home SoundCloud link.
Thanks.
That was about it.
There was no fancy EPK, the bat didn't exist, so there were no photos.
There was like, I think I had some vague album artwork idea maybe.
But yeah, there was like, it was as bare bones as an email can be, and that's all they needed.
That's not to say that that works for everybody, but it is to say that you don't have to dazzle a label with a big PowerPoint presentation.
It's like, they're going to click, just make the link to the music as quick to access as possible, because that's all that matters.
They're going to read like half the words that you typed, if that they just want to hear it, and if they like it, then they will respond.
Which on the flip side, it can be pretty disheartening when they don't get a response.
You don't know if it got lost or they didn't listen or they listen, they're like, not for me.
I hope that get dignified with a rejection or something like that.
But there's a lot of bands that are all vying for the same thing.
Right.
Yeah, they probably get hundreds of e-mails a day, just like that, or maybe not.
Maybe bands just gave up and they're not shooting their shot anymore.
I don't know because there's a band that I'm friends with that they've been trying to pin down a labels and a booking agent.
I was talking to them about what they've been going through and I did ask, what is it that in the year of 2024, the age of band camp and everything is pretty democratized, what do you want from the label?
I think nine times out of 10, what people want from the label is just association to just be like, we are on the same roster as X, Y, and Z band.
It's like anyone could feasibly self-finance pressing records.
I mean, it's a headache.
It's a lot of money, but it's not unattainable.
I don't even think getting the physical media is really the hook of being on a label.
It's just getting your name next to bands that you look up to.
Maybe you get the opportunity to support them on tours that you're not big enough yourself to play those rooms on your own yet.
I just don't know how a lot of labels are judging the merits of up and coming bands beyond just social media stuff.
I don't know how you prove your worth.
It's tricky.
It's a tricky thing.
because there really is no magic bullet.
It's like it's luck.
Nine times, if you caught somebody on a good day, and they're like, their ears are fresh, they haven't been listening to too much music.
They're like ready to click on the SoundCloud link and check you out.
It's like that could be different from day to day.
If their ears are already burned out and you sent them a lo-fi record, then they'll hear it and be like, ah!
So it sucks to get the draw.
Do you guys have a manager?
No.
No.
You manage everything?
I manage everything.
That's cool.
I have resisted so many, adding so many team members for as long as possible.
Like I manage, I tour manage.
I, yeah, I do everything but book at this point.
It's like the booking agent and the label are the only outside forces we have.
I would kill for a front of house engineer.
I would get a front of house before I would get a manager, honestly, for a band hour size to have somebody that's just prepared for it every single night.
That would be worth so much more to me than, like I know how to answer emails.
It takes so much of my time, but I feel pretty confident in how I've guided the band and decided what opportunities were good for us and which ones we didn't need to kill ourselves over.
So I know there's doors that managers can open that I have no access to, but it hasn't felt like we're missing out on too much yet.
Maybe a manager can get us some more festival stuff, but our schedule is busy.
We're doing all right.
I saw.
You have a lot coming up.
We do.
Yeah.
I'm trying to save every bit of percentage of our show take that I can.
because I would rather just either pay the band better, maybe pay myself.
So yeah, that's one.
And I've had so many conversations with friends of mine who have gone through bad manager situations where they were either putting them up for weird gigs or just, I don't know, just representing the band poorly.
You know, and I'm not willing.
I'm not yet willing to like give up certain aspects of how we manage our own, I guess, branding.
Yeah, I don't know.
Yeah, you guys, you guys have a manager for Ghost Funk?
Yeah, we have like this manager team.
Oh, wow.
Yeah, it's like mostly these these two guys, they're called the Brilliant Corners Management.
And they've been mostly good for us, but I completely understand why you would want to keep your cut basically of everything because it adds up a lot.
We have like a booking agent and then you have your managers, and then you got to like pay back the label.
And in the end, you're like, where did the money go?
And you're like, oh, yeah, it went in all these different places.
Yeah, I don't even know what a typical manager cut is, but we're all ready for our shows.
It's 10% to the booking agent, which is fair.
I have no problem with it, but if I started piling on more percentage, if I started removing more cake from the pie, so to speak, more slices, it gets real hard for me to pay the band and break even.
And for us, what has worked out really well, which I don't know if this is something that a manager would get for other bands or whatnot.
But we have a lot of booking agents are fans of us, like good booking agents.
So we get probably more offers to do support stuff.
We get more than we would just from if our agent himself was the only one that was aware of us.
Like we've got friends at Space Agency and Arrival Artists and some others that are aware of us and what we do.
Like we got thrown on a tour with Grace Potter last year, which is pretty left fields.
Like you wouldn't assume that Ghost Funk and Grace Potter makes sense, but they took a swing on us and it was, it worked out weirdly well.
But that's to say, it's like whatever, I don't know what we're missing out on by not having a manager, but at least for the time being, the fact that a lot of booking agents like us has worked really well.
We get a lot of opportunities and it fills our schedule up plenty as much as we can feasibly handle, to be honest.
Yeah.
No, from my perspective, I think you're in an amazing spot with being able to make your own records, mix your own records, and then manage yourself.
To me, that's the dream spot where you have all these DIY aspects that you were doing your whole life anyway as a musician so you know how to do it.
I don't think musicians give themselves as much credit as they should sometimes with how much they are managing and the experience that they are getting from that.
And yeah, I think you're doing a great job, honestly.
It's amazing that you're making it work, but I can see how now that we've talked, like how all the pieces fit together and you're being smart with it.
You're not just like, yeah, I'll work with this person, that person.
You're holding it close and you're taking care of it.
It's kind of like you started this garden and you're, you know, you're taking really good care of it, it seems.
So that's really awesome.
Yeah.
Thank you.
It is really, I mean, I will say like I have pretty extensive Google Sheets go and that's kind of how I keep things organized.
So like I live, I live in Google Sheets when I'm not actually on stage playing music.
But yeah, I think it would have been, it would have been very easy for us to bring a lot of folks on board right away.
And like we could have, we could have taken on a manager.
We've had offers from managers before that I've, you know, obviously refused not, not be like, yeah, I don't know.
Maybe, maybe we'll talk later.
But yeah, like manager is we sell the merch ourselves.
We work with whatever front of house is at the venue.
Like we're keeping it as contained to the band as physically possible.
You know, we're trying to go to Europe next March, which means that we're going to have to bring on people like we're going to need the driver and the TM and whatnot.
So that's like, you know, I'm mentally preparing for that experience, but it'll also be nice to have somebody that is running the show a little bit more than me.
That's like more in charge of dealing with the venues and settling and stuff like that.
You know, it's not the most fun to play a show and then immediately get off stage and have to be like signed W9s and checks and everything.
It's like, well, I'm just a sweaty pile.
It would be nice to just kind of like sit for a moment, but or like run straight to the merch table and sell stuff to people while you're like physically falling apart.
I think it's good for us and I like that.
I like that the bands, the folks that are on stage are the face of the organization.
It's like you go to the merch table, you're going to be talking to members of the band, which I think is a good thing.
because sometimes for higher merch folks, can't answer questions that people who just saw the show might like to ask.
There is a very personal element to it.
Also running our own socials.
I know a lot of bands that grow to a certain point, they relinquish the task of running their own socials to a manager, and it just changes the tone of everything.
So the fact that when people send a message to one of our pages, I'm the one that's always answering.
I think that has helped us in a lot of ways.
The fact that we've resisted making it a really business-feeling venture has kept it feeling honest and grassroots.
Not to say it's dishonest to do it the other way.
But because it is my baby and I'm so close to it, I feel like a hefty responsibility for being the one that maintains the reputation, whether it's both how we present the show on stage, but then also how we're parsing out info and talking to people online and responding to comments and stuff.
It's like I am not at a point yet where I trust somebody to do it the way that I want to, and I have no problem doing it myself.
So yeah, it really is DIY or die.
That's Ghost Funk in a nutshell.
When you said before you would want a front house person, are you not bringing them because they're expensive or?
Yeah.
Okay.
Yeah.
Like literally, if you can think of any person, that's any team member that we don't have, and wonder why, it's because expensive.
Yeah.
Everything we haven't done is because expensive.
Yeah.
We're figuring it out.
But yeah, we've played a bunch of venues where the front-of-house person will give me their business card and be like, if you ever need somebody for the road, let me know.
And I've always wanted to be able to say yes, but we're just not there yet.
And honestly, we do fine.
I'm sure if we were standing in the crowd, I'd have nitpicky stuff, but...
I know they are expensive.
gustav hasn't brought one either, because it's a big chunk of change.
I don't know, it's a few hundred a night or something for most house engineers, for those of you who are wondering.
And then maybe they want their own hotel room too.
You never know.
Yeah, that's the thing.
I think about that so often whenever I consider bringing more people on the tour, I'm like, my bandmates are, they know the deal, like everybody's doubling up on beds.
But then if I brought a somewhat stranger in, it's like, is the cost going to go like way beyond just their day rate is like, now I'm buying more hotel rooms and are they expecting I'm buying all their meals?
And like, there's just too many question marks that I feel okay with not having to answer just yet, you know.
We've made it work in a lot of different scenarios, like we've played big stages and tiny stages, and I think we just kind of know what we need at this point so that we can dictate to whatever front of house engineer what we need and get to a point that we feel as comfortable as possible and can give the show that we want to give.
But yeah, that's the quality control element that I would love to have when we get to the next level.
Yeah, that'd be awesome, especially with the band your size, I could imagine, just like not having to explain all the different intricacies of the different volumes and the effects even, just and everyone's monitoring remix, I can't even imagine.
Yeah, honestly, I think, I think the element that doesn't get executed the way that I wanted to most of the time is I don't want the vocals to ever be like bone dry.
And I it's hard to know from where I stand on stage if they actually did what I asked for in the house.
So that's that's one thing it's like, I would love to have a front of house just if for no other reason, then to just dial in the effects for the vocals and stuff the way that I like them.
So we don't sound like really sterile.
But that's nitpicky stuff.
And we've tried using vocal effect pedals in the past.
I was just going to ask, yeah.
Yeah, I had these TC Helicon Echo, vocal echo pedals that work well.
But it was just more stuff to set up.
And a few sound people complained about them, which I was like, I don't understand what the problem is.
It's not doing anything.
It's like it's not doing anything that you wouldn't be doing, but it's just taking one thing off your plate.
They thought it was creating feedback.
I don't think it was.
I don't know.
But I was just like, you know what?
It's okay.
I just put it in the tech writer.
It's like, put some echo on the vocals.
Please.
Thank you.
Yeah.
Yeah, I know.
It's hard when you hear the Instagram stories the next day and you're like, dang it, I asked for echo and it's just the driest vocal of all time.
Yeah.
What?
Go ahead.
I was going to say, I may have gotten over my obsession with blown out recordings, but one thing I can't let go of is putting reverb and echo on everything.
That will never go away.
I don't think my recordings will ever be bone dry because it freaks me out.
Good.
Yeah.
No, it sounds cool.
It works so well with the music too.
It's perfect.
I have just a couple more questions for you.
Before I let you go.
So you're doing a bunch of these amazing shows, looks like dream tours that you're doing, you're opening for these awesome bands.
Is there anything from the time you started that you're like, I want to play music and now you're in this position where you're on these big stages, you have this big band?
What was the difference between the dream and the reality or something that really shocked you about it?
Now that you're in this spot that so many people covet, they want to be in that spot.
What's something that you notice that you're like, wow, this is so different than I thought, if anything?
I think one thing that I learned, that's very specific to my band.
When I was young, and I was going to see these big bands, I did take notice that sometimes the lineups would look a little different when I went out to see them, and I didn't understand why.
And now leading a band that's this size, and having to manage the schedules of so many people to make the shows happen, I'm like, oh, okay.
It's not that 10, 11 people just drop can drop everything and be available for every show.
It's like sometimes you have to replace people when their schedules have a hiccup or a conflict.
So that was a big thing I learned and had to get used to and figure out how to make sense of pretty fast.
Honestly, it's like I got to make sure that I have materials ready, like charts and recordings and everything anyone would need to have access to, to learn the songs.
I need to have those available at all times because I never know when I might have to replace somebody or sub somebody out.
So that was a big learning thing where I was like, the band is going to, the membership is going to change.
And the only way for another, this kind of leads into the next thing I learned, at least for a band where it's like, I'm the center of it and I piece it together around me, versus like Mad Doctors, which was, we were the holy triumvirate, like we did everything.
We were all in.
For a band like mine, the only way for me to get things done is that, once I had enough people to call on that, I had options for how to piece the band together.
I just have to take the shows that I want to take and then figure it out.
It's like if I waited, if every time I got an offer, I waited for like the entire lineup to be able to say yes, we would not be at the point that we're at now because we would have had to turn down so much.
So I had to figure out how to explain to new folks what the band is meant to feel and sound like.
You know, it definitely flexed a lot of my muscles for just being public speaking and confidence as a band leader to be able to say definitively yes or no, or comment on questions that people might have to make the band feel somewhat consistent, even if the faces on stage change from time to time.
So yeah, it's a lot of things that are very specific to how to maintain a band of our size.
But, and then, you know, playing the big stages, it's honestly the big stages are just so much easier for us because we can, you know, the infrastructure is better, we have better monitors, like the sound is better.
Yeah, I don't, there's been like a few specific shows we've played where it felt, it felt like we were doing the thing that I sort of like dreamed in my head, like, I remember we played a big show in Montreal last year at a club called Club Soda with our friends, Techie Techie, who are local to Montreal.
And it was like the record release, I think it was like a 900 or 1000 cap room that I believe was sold out.
And if it wasn't that, I don't know where they would have squeezed anyone else in, but that was one where we were, I think we all had the same feeling on stage that night.
We were playing well and it was also like, this is sick.
This is it.
This is what we were trying to do.
That's awesome.
So there's been some like specific experiences where it feels like the band is, you know, realized, fully realized, or at least, you know, it feels like a marker of like we have we've ascended to the next level.
Yeah, which I got to imagine you guys have probably had.
I mean, you've toured with some like crazy acts.
I can only imagine what the experience was like with idols.
I was super jealous of that.
Yeah, it's just surreal, you know, especially, I don't know, just from the drummer seat too.
It's like you're I get to really, really watch it, you know, because I'm like behind the rest of the band too.
And I'm like, what is going on?
It's very surreal, but, you know, it's also cool to feel like, okay, some of this work is actually paying off, but also knowing that like, it's so lucky to be in that spot, you know, and there's like millions of bands that could have just as easily been in this situation and doing just as well, you know?
And you just, I just sit there and I just go enjoy it, enjoy while it's happening, enjoy it while it's happening, enjoy it while it's happening, because I'm like, I don't know if this is going to happen again.
I don't know what's going to happen tomorrow, you know?
So I just, when I'm in that kind of situation, I just go, yes, yes, yes, just take it in.
For sure.
But I think, for me, an interesting thing that I started to realize, because like when we started playing shows, opening with folks that are like, you know, legends in their own right, and have been doing it for a long time, and you kind of go, I've always gone into it very skeptical of like, are they going to be cool to the opening band?
Like there's always that thought in the back of your head, like, are you going to be paired up with somebody who doesn't care that you're there, you're just kind of playing while people fill the seats.
But we've been, I will say, we've been very fortunate that everyone that we've shared bills with that we've opened for, who's bigger than us, has been very inviting.
Like, if you are willing to have an eight to 10 piece band open the show for you, then you have to be into that band because that's a weird thing to do.
That's not normal.
You know, like, you put it, generally speaking, you would put a band on before you that sounds smaller than you because you want to get people, you know, you want to rev up to the headliner act.
You don't want to, like, actively blow yourself, blow yourself away with the opening act.
So I'm like, I think that has worked really well for us because everybody that takes us on the road must be into what we do to be accepting of that.
But it was also what I'm trying to say is that I was surprised, but also kind of elated when we started interacting with the folks we were opening for and realizing that there is, like, the mutual respect, like being able to talk to them as peers happened a lot faster than I thought it would.
Like, I thought we were just going to be like the young whippersnappers that, like, running around with our heads cut off.
They're like, these guys aren't ready for the gig.
But, you know, the fact that we were just shaman around with Grace Potter and, like, Sergio Diaz from Most Mutantes, and we're just talking like equals, it's like, I didn't anticipate that, or at least the way that that felt when it was actually happening.
It was like, this is a part, like, these are people that are somewhat household names, depending on what household.
And here I am just, like, hanging out with them, like, it's no big deal.
And, you know, it took me, it caught me pretty off guard at first, when I was just talking to them, like I talked to anybody I know.
But then after the fact, I was like, I was able to reflect on it and just think, that's a really cool position to be in, where you're talking to people that are several tiers above you in the industry, and they're talking to you with respect and admiration and appreciation for what you brought to the evening.
That's been a really cool thing.
That's one of the reasons that I love being support on shows, is that you get to learn a lot from bands that have been doing it a while or have just a super dialed in show.
It's like I'm always taking mental notes watching the bands that we open for.
But it's, you know, you just kind of like it's validation that people that you're doing something that's worth rubbing elbows or rubbing up against like more established acts.
I don't know.
I'm kind of rambling now.
But yeah, that brings me to my last question though, because it's, yeah, you're recognizing you're in this position and you're like, wow, I can't believe I'm here.
These people that I look up to are just talking to me like I'm an equal.
But my last question for you is like, what did you sacrifice in your life to get in this position?
Like what, you know, jobs, money, whatever, like what did you because you are the the main constant in the band.
So all these other people have might have some scheduling conflict, but you are making it work and making it happen.
So like, what did you do in your life to make yourself available to these opportunities?
because I feel like a lot of people, they're like, I wish I could have the opportunity to go on tour.
But like you did DIY tours forever.
So you must have just got up one day and booked a tour, you know, when you were younger.
So what did you do?
What did you sacrifice?
What do you miss in life, if anything?
I mean, this will come as absolutely no surprise.
But I think the biggest thing you sacrifice is, well, at least while you're getting up and running, the financial security of having a regular job.
You know, the color work that I do is freelance.
So I can say yes to a gig if I'm available, and I can say no if I want to do a tour.
But, you know, sometimes saying no hurts because I'm like, I know that I needed that money really bad.
And it happened a lot last year.
I said no to a lot of gigs while we were out on the road.
I was like, oh no.
It's like how many nos is going to turn to radio silence, and then I have to figure out a new source of income.
So yeah, it's the financial security.
And I think, you know, it's a hard thing to do.
But if you believe that you can take your band to a point where it's going to, where it's all going to work out, then you kind of, you have to take that leap.
And the thing that I did, which is like another detail as old as time is like, while my credit score was looking good, I signed up for a really good credit card.
That's just for the band.
And when it's tour time, I just run it up to the ceiling and then pay it off as the tour makes its money back.
But, you know, being able to just put all the lodging and if there's car rentals and merch up front and everything, just put it on the credit card and pay it back.
because then I also get, I'll get the, I got a good points card.
So I use those points then to book our flights.
And it's just becomes this like, it becomes a machine.
So yeah, it's really like, you know, there's, there's definitely a stigma or not a stigma.
There's a stereotype of like indie musicians that are independently wealthy and it's like no big deal.
You know, they just take, take family money to go out on the road.
And, you know, for, for me, it's really like, it's just running up the credit card and then trying to call together as much regular work when I get home as I can to pay it off before the interest goes crazy.
But yeah, it's, I mean, it's brutal.
It can be really brutal.
But if you believe in the thing, it's like, you just got to do it.
And we're also very fortunate to have a label, you know, since the fact that we do it so DIY, we cost the label way less than a lot of other bands because we do all the recording ourselves, which frees up a lot of money for them to help us out on the tour.
So that's like, that's a big thing.
I can ask for a chunk of money that will get a tour off the ground.
And then, you know, if that's to come out in the wash somewhere, so that just delays royalties, but it's like cash in hand to at least get us on the road, it goes a long way.
So yeah, financial security.
It's hard to do in your position.
Oh yeah.
Well, yeah.
Thanks for talking about that because it is a thing.
And, you know, it's the story.
A lot of people are, they're just like chugging along somehow.
And that's why I started this podcast because I'm like, how?
And is, are you okay?
Like, everything will be okay.
And I'm thankful to say that I am okay.
And it's getting easier.
It's getting, I'm figuring stuff out.
Like, you know, we put in the legwork.
We, like I said, we went out on the road for cheap.
We proved our worth and now we're able to earn more.
And, oh, and the biggest thing of all, honestly, is have a lot of merchandise.
You know what I mean?
Yeah.
Merch is huge.
Yeah.
It's everything.
It is everything.
And I, I think I was stingy about Merch early on.
And then our trombone player James was like, you gotta get, you're leaving so much on the table.
It's like, you gotta make more stuff.
In different colors.
Different colors.
Like we're doing hats for the first time.
So yeah, there's, there's so many ways to make it work.
But you know, you just have to, you have to be willing to put in a lot of elbow grease and like, do as much as you possibly can yourself before you start bringing in people that are just taking percentages out of your pockets.
Like the more that you can do yourself on the road, the more you can keep and the more sustainable it is.
This is kind of out of line, I think.
For sure.
Well, thank you so much.
This was so insightful and helpful.
And I'm really happy I got to hear about like how it all goes down and it's super admirable.
Honestly, I love to hear that.
I love, you know, your band's awesome.
They're willing, you know, they're not being annoying about sleeping in the same beds together.
Like we did that with gustav a lot too.
Like we'll double up, triple up sometimes.
We have three in a bed sometimes if we need to.
So we've been there and I appreciate that you're doing this and bringing your music to the world and taking the hit time and time again.
But then, you know, the hit's getting less and less hard each time.
So thank you so much, Seth.
Everyone listen to Ghost Funk Orchestra and buy Ghost Funk Orchestra hats, minals, t-shirts, DVDs.
I don't know if you have a DVD.
You should do a DVD.
Thank you, everyone, for tuning in to the second episode of What It Takes To Be A Rockstar.
I hope you learned a thing or two or three from Seth, because I did.
I love that conversation.
I hope you did, too.
And tune in next week, where I'm going to be talking to LG from Film In The Sleeves.
Film In The Sleeves is an all-female, queer, southern rock and roll band established in 2010 by LG, who has brought over 35 female musicians around the country and runs it all herself.
And she has a very interesting story to tell.
She's very funny.
And on top of that, you get to hear her chat with her mechanic fixing her van before they headed out on a tour.
So, check back next week for that.
And if you have any questions, comments, concerns, you can now email me at whatittakestobearockstaratgmail.com.
All right, bye.
See you next week.
