music, they put their record out, especially
sandwiches. Yeah, it was full-time.
when it was still a CD world, they had it on a
one of them somebody came out to see us,
an A&R guy, and we ended up getting signed.
CD and they didn’t realize that the revenue When I started playing with them they were They had been sending our music around, our
being generated by that CD is actually fulfilling coming off a tour that they had done with a demo tape, shopping it to different people.
financial obligations for multiple hats on band that was on a label. Not a huge label, but that album. But they own them all, so it just they’d come off tour and already had a pretty [WM] When you play a big festival with 50,000
isn’t apparent. decent tour schedule. Enough where you people there, that doesn’t mean that you get
couldn’t get a part time job. It’s so much easier to play in front of all 50,000 people. You could
So just having that understanding about the now because of the gig economy. Now I would be on a side stage, or a morning stage, or an
publishing side, an in depth study of that was have just driven Uber or something in town and early time slot.
really helpful to really understand where the been fine. But all of that didn’t exist back then, money making opportunities are in music. it was either you’re in or you’re out unless you [Kevin] That was the neat thing, that show
Because if you don’t understand how each had connections through a family friend who that I mentioned was the Alive Festival in Ohio.
right can be exploited to your benefit, then you would give you work while you were in town. It The stage we were playing on had torrential
could be missing out on revenue. was really challenging. downpours like three days earlier, massive
flooding and I think they even moved the
[WM] So you joined Smalltown Poets, was We were doing it full-time, and we had some grounds. There was mud everywhere, the stage
this a full time thing that could support you right festivals booked because they had been we were playing was just these little risers, it
out of the gate, what did that look like? working with a booking agent for a long time. was a side, side stage that was literally sinking
But that summer we became Smalltown Poets into the mud. We also played Creation that
[Kevin] It was a full-time thing if you consider when they added a different bass player and year, but we played the stage that the puppet
being supported as couch surfing, living in myself. We had some slots at some of the show was on earlier that day (laughs).
cars, (laughs) and eating peanut butter and jelly major Christian festivals that summer, and at
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June 2019
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