heavy rotation for months at that point and they and doing a lot of grassroots marketing and on air. Even if it wasn’t our format, if that was
had to start moving it down. So we got number promotion on our own. It wasn’t the label the biggest station in town or one that would let
one exposure with that, but we only made it up doing marketing campaigns, it was us. In us come on the air, we would do it.
to three or four in the charts. every city we would probably have anywhere from five to eight appearances on average in [WM] You were acting like an indie artist
So that was our funny experience with radio, a city where we would go play acoustic sets at before there was an indie artist movement?
the label telling us that radio would never play college campuses or book stores, we even did it and then the stations basically forced the Walmart. We would go play acoustic sets, talk [Kevin] Absolutely, a lot of that stuff we were
labels hand and they released that to radio. We to people. Tell them about our shows and our doing at the time that was causing success had
had a bunch of radio hits off of that record. We music. People who had influence at that time, nothing to do with our label to some degree.
had a rock song that went to number one. The we would stop by maybe a big distribution The label at that time solved a big problem
song that we thought would do well, that the warehouse, or bookstores and music stores. for artists, and that was distribution. Even if
label had planned to promote went to number Way off the beaten path, but we would stop they didn’t put any marketing dollars behind
one. We had a couple others get into the top by and meet them and play an acoustic set for you, you had to have a label to get distributed
five and top ten. So it became very important, them. So next time a store called they’d be like, and get some shelf space. They did do some
and especially at that time it was how a lot of “These guys Smalltown Poets just came by, marketing and radio promotions, which helped.
people were discovering music. It was basically you should buy some of their music, they were A lot of the stuff we saw really working and
the Spotify play list of its day (laughs). So it was great”. Anybody who was like that, we would making fans of our music was stuff that you can
really important, we got on some big tours, and go there. Our manager helped us do all of that, still do today, and stuff that I teach artists when
did some sold out tours of our own, it really not just the label. So of course, we would stop I’m speaking for CD Baby. When you’re on tour,
took off. by radio stations during morning and evening and you’re in a town, and you’re sitting around
drive times. Even stations that weren’t playing playing video games or you’re sight seeing,
our music, we would go and play acoustic sets you’re doing it wrong. If that’s all you want to do
A lot of what we did was just getting out there
is make tour being on vacation that’s fine, you
can do that, but when we were on tour we were
working non stop. It was exhausting but we
saw the benefits of if by the amount of fans that
we created from doing all of those activities.
[WM] So how is it going financially for you
guys at this point?
[Kevin] We were doing decent, we were
making enough to have what I would consider
a full-time living, to pay our bills. And then
the band started going our separate ways
and that’s when we took a hiatus, we were
exhausted. It was three and a half years of just
non-stop work. A lot of it was exciting, but a lot
of it was the reality that it’s work and it’s not for
everybody. Our band, we love it, but you realize
why some people hate being on the road. It’s
grueling and it’s sort of like being in Groundhog
Day, it’s the same day over and over again. But
you tie that on top where its like, we should
have been making enough income just to
set some aside to take like a month off, we
couldn’t’. We had to be playing shows. Even
when we were recording our second record, on
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June 2019
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