An Empty Venue Can Be Like A Mirror And There are Days When You Don't Want To See Yourself
By Shannon Scott - 9/9/2003
I think disappointment is a rarely talked/written about but often-occurring topic within the local music scene. I sat down with my seasoned, veteran band mate Greg Goldman to discuss disappointment and some other related issues.
(Reader Beware: this interview was clearly an opportunity for me to process a recent musical disappointment but I also hope that some of the things covered will be useful to area musicians/bands.)
The usual suspect: Greg Goldman...
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...Bass player for local bands Todd Rooster and The Athens Fusion Collective, solo recording artist distributed through MP3.com, Lightning Capitol Music, and IUMA, arranger, engineer, producer, and owner of Cedar Studios.
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Shannon: After watching all the performers before us play to increasingly larger crowds as part of the Athens Community Music Festival, our band, The Athens Fusion Collective, played to about 5 people and that included girlfriends of band members and the Blue Gator Staff. That is not a lot of people for a very big room. Do you have any advice to Area musicians on dealing with disappointment?
Greg: I've played in a few bands and I've done some touring. I've been in a dive, biker bar in L.A. with four people staring at us saying "what the hell are you doing." I've always kind of thought of it as paying one's dues. I go in with the attitude that if there is a crowd, that's awesome, if not, that is kind of what happens. You do everything you possibly can to get people there but if they don't show up that is part of paying your dues. That is what every musician has to go through. I know a lot of really famous bands who played to rooms just as empty as the one we played to the other night. That's the way it goes.
Shannon: After the ACMF I was ready to sell out and play whatever people wanted to hear. I didn't want to struggle with learning Wayne Shorter, Dave Brubeck, or crazy Billy Cobham riffs when no one comes to listen. I was ready to play whatever the people would come to hear, whether it is ‘Brown Eyed Girl' or ‘Margaritaville' or whatever. What do you think it means to "sell out" and would you ever do it?
Greg: (Laughs) I think selling out is playing something you don't enjoy playing just so you can be successful. That's a pretty good operationalized definition of that. If I wanted to be a career musician I'd sell out. There's only two reasons I can imagine selling out: Number one because you are just dying to be famous and number two because you are just dying to make a career at music. If either of those are the case by all means go ahead sell out. Have fun. But I don't believe that you can ever truly be happy playing music that way and I think you'll always feel like there is something missing. The only way that I get anything out of playing music is when I feel challenged. Playing music that dares to me to do more and better things and change the whole way I think about playing. If it doesn't do that I think I'm wasting my time with it because I don't need to be famous or rich, I just need to enjoy playing music.
Shannon: After the show when I was lamenting you said something to the effect of "you have to take your lumps." What does it mean to "take your lumps?"
Greg: Again, a lot of great bands have played to a lot of empty rooms and I don't think that you can appreciate a full room if you've never played to an empty one because your whole perception, your whole scale of what's a good crowd, what's a bad crowd is skewed unless you've seen what the worst crowd you can play to is. You've got to go through both experiences to appreciate both. I would never feel so overjoyed to see a band I play in pack a bar if I had never seen my band play to an empty bar. When I see the room full I know that something really cool has happened and I'm glad I can appreciate that.
Shannon: While I was personally affected by the turnout, you did not seem to take the turnout personally. How did you not take it personally?
Greg: We had factors working against us. We were playing a late shift and there were 30 bands playing in town that night – 30 bands. A lot of those bands, yes, play "sell-out" kind of music or even music that is slightly more accessible than fusion. You go into a bar as a fusion band, you've got to expect that you are going to turn away some people. But those people who can appreciate what you do will like it that much more. So we've cast our own lot. If people don't show up that is to be expected. It's not like they said "that Greg and Shannon, I hate those guys. I'm not going go see their show." They probably said "well it's one o'clock in the morning, I should probably head home." And if they went somewhere else it was to see a band they really like. When you go to a bar to see a band you aren't thinking about the band's feelings. You're not thinking about whether you owe it to the band to stick around. Even devoted fans will make their own decision to go home early one night. People are out there to have a good time. It's not our job to force them to stay there. It's our job to entertain them while they are there.
Shannon: My guess is that musicians/bands will take success personally -e.g. if a band has a good draw isn't the thought going to be that the band is doing something right/good if the people come out like they do. But it seems like the reverse idea is not to take failure personally -e.g. if a band doesn't have a good draw, it may not be reflective of doing anything wrong per se. Help me understand this.
Greg: I'm not sure I fully understand the question. Are you saying that since if a band is good more people will see them you would think that if a band is bad less people will see them but it doesn't work that way?
Shannon: No, my guess is that musicians or bands that are successful as far as a good draw, it will be personal to them –they are doing something right, they are doing something good. It (the good crowd) is reflective of a product they produce. So they internalize that. "I am doing something well." But the reverse idea doesn't seem consistent to me: if you don't have a good draw it's not reflective of how well you are doing something.
Greg: There are a number of reasons why you may have a bad draw. There are a ton of different factors that determine how many people are going to show up at a bar one night. From the minutest thing like the temperature or whether it's raining outside to the band's reputation or success of the last show or whether there is a market for the music they are trying to produce. You don't know, if you have a bad night, what that was. Whether it was because people don't like your band or whether it was because you're in a bad time slot. It could be a million different things. It could have nothing to do with you. So I think it's counterproductive to think you should change something. That being said, if you know that you didn't advertise well, which we didn't, if you know that you had a poor time slot, those are things you can do something about the next time around. "We need to advertise better and we need to get a better time slot." But to say something I'm playing or doing is all wrong because people aren't coming – I don't see that as productive because you could be changing something you are doing and still get no crowd.
Shannon: So is it consistent to say that, given all the factors that go into whether people show up or don't show up, if you have a good draw does that mean you're doing anything right?
Greg: If you have a good draw one night, great, be happy about it but don't think that means you're the best band in the world. If you draw consistently every time well then yeah, maybe you are doing something good. But there's also, this is going to seem a little out there, but we're thinking about this linearly – like a teeter totter. I think it's not really linear but exponential. I think you start with a very small crowd and as your band becomes more popular, the speed with which that popularity comes, quickens as it goes because of the very nature by which people work. One person tells two people, those two people tell two people. Exponential growth happens in this context. You could play for 15 years to empty rooms and then within the space of six months make it all the way up to playing Carnegie Hall or Madison Square Garden. It's hard to compare successful bands to not successful bands because it could be just a question of time. If you check back with the same unsuccessful band ten years later maybe they'll be incredibly successful. Things aren't static.
Shannon: What is a band/performer supposed to think when they fail to draw a crowd?
Greg: "That sucks." "I hope we get a better crowd next time." I'll tell you what a performer isn't supposed to think: "We must suck if nobody comes to see us." That's the last thing a performer should think. It's not necessarily the quality of your music. Hell, look at MTV: those people are terrible musicians, terrible musicians. And yet they are immensely successful –all because of image. You don't see jazz musicians on MTV. Those are the best musicians out there. Do they tell themselves, "I must be doing something really wrong because I'm not on MTV?" No. They probably tell themselves, "There's no market for what I do but I love doing it anyway so I'm going to keep doing it." Think about what you want to get out of it I suppose.
Shannon: What should a band do when they fail to draw a crowd?
Greg: Go out and shoot everyone who didn't come. No, they should probably sit down together as a band and brainstorm things that they could do to draw a better crowd and if they can't come up with anything they did wrong, if they were playing a Saturday night at a popular bar on a night when there weren't that many other bands and there are a lot of people in town and they had an excellent time slot, then it sounds to me like they just plain had a bad night. Just try again next time. I'll give you an example: Todd Rooster, we get a good draw but we've been playing Tuesday and Wednesday nights at O'Hooley's for a year…well, ten months. I recently said to the guys," there's no reason why we should ever play a weeknight again at O'Hooley's." We've filled that place on weekday nights enough times to prove that we deserve weekends. So, at that point the band should say to the bar manager, "Listen, we want a Saturday or Friday, or even a Thursday. And we think we deserve it. Put us in there and we'll fill it for you." So I think a band always has to be pushing forward to try and move on to the next level but I don't think they should necessarily change their music if their draw is poor because it could be a million other things.
Shannon: I've heard a few people say that you have to be popular to have a good draw. Any tips on how to get popular?
Greg: (Laughs) I am the last person you should ever ask that question because I've never been popular, personally anyway. I've been in popular bands before. I've found that any personal popularity I've enjoyed has been as a direct result of being in a popular band. In my opinion it goes the other way around. In my opinion you have to be in a band to be popular. I know that's a little skewed perception of this world. The other guys in Todd Rooster are fairly popular and I think a lot of people come to our shows because they know them. I don't know if there is much you can do to make yourself become more popular except go out more often and try to meet people. I wouldn't know the first thing about how to get popular because I've never done it.
Shannon: What or when is the difference between getting a thick music-business-skin (taking your lumps) and thinking that maybe you are not good at what you are doing?
Greg: A matter of consistency. If you've been at it for a long time…
Shannon: What's a long time?
Greg: Let's say a year or two, somewhere around there. And you are still not filling rooms and not getting very decent gigs, ever. Consistently getting poor draw. Then at that point maybe you should consider changing up your set a little bit and throwing in more of a crowd-pleasing kind of style in there. Not all at once though. I would say throw 3 or 4 covers that people would recognize in there and see how that works. I see bands go through these huge miraculous changes when sometimes all it takes is a few different songs or sometimes it's a matter of a line-up change. I've seen bands that were terrible the first time from a musicianship standpoint and from a relating to the crowd standpoint, but then after having switched up one or two members were like incredible acts to go see and were packing the rooms. Small changes, small changes.
Shannon: At one point should a band call it quits based on external factors such as failure to draw, failure to get booked, failure to get signed?
Greg: When they're not getting any enjoyment out if it anymore. It comes down to this, because a lot of these questions have tapped the same root/matter, which is this: if you are playing music in order to get popular and get signed then be prepared for your music career to be exactly that – a career. Not fun, not a matter of playing music that you enjoy. Be prepared to practice six hours a day, be prepared to play weddings, bar mitzvahs, be prepared to bust your balls in order to make a living at it. If you don't want to turn it into a career, then chances are you are always going to be a smaller time band. But you're going to have a hell of a lot more fun. I've heard interviews in which the Rolling Stones themselves have said "If I hear such and such song [one of their own] again I'm going to vomit." That is not what I call fun. That is what I call doing it because it makes you money, not because you love what you are doing. You've got to do it because you enjoy the music, or you're just a drone. That's my opinion. But (laughing), never quit your day job.
Shannon: Alright, speed round.
Determinism or Free Will?
Greg: Both.
Shannon: Freud or Jung?
Greg: Neither.
Shannon: Subaru or Honda?
Greg: Honda.
Shannon: Fusion or Jazz?
Greg: Jazz?
Shannon: Rock or Rockabilly?
Greg: Rock.
Shannon: Metal or Ninja Metal?
Greg: Ninja Metal for sure.
Shannon: Satellite or Digital Cable?
Greg: Probably digital.
Shannon: Dennis Miller or Dennis Leary?
Greg: Dennis Miller.
Shannon: Quantum Mechanics or Physics?
Greg: Quantum Physics.
Shannon: Gibson or Fender?
Greg: Paul Reed Smith.
Shannon: Grilled or Fried?
Greg: Neither.
