Manitoba Hal Brolund has been an integral part of the Manitoba blues scene for a couple of decades. A fine slide guitar player for years, Hal is developing a niche for himself by specializing in blues ukulele. The hard work he puts into his craft has helped him build a fan base across Canada, and he is presently adding to that base in the Eastern USA and Europe. Hal graciously took some time out to answer a few questions many of us ponder as we decide where we next want to take our passion for crafting music.DS: For how long have you been earning a living solely from your music?
MHB: About a decade, but it hasn't been in a solid line. I believe the reality of this career is that you work for a while at music and then take a rest, then work again at music. There are many friends of mine who manage to work all the time but there are many more who must do other things to get along. In my case I had a year and half recently where I was driving a bus for the city of Winnipeg, but that came after six years of solid touring and performing.
DS: How's it going so far? Are you making a living?
MHB: I am, but that might also be a different answer depending on who you talk to. I have no dependents and no debts, so my income can be small and still be plenty. Currently I'm getting established in a new marketplace (ed. note: Hal has recently moved to the East Coast) and I haven't been making as much here as I'd like, but that is just a matter of time.
DS: Like anyone who is self-employed, there must always be pressure to book that next gig/fill a tour, or come up with some creative way to market a new CD. Musicians have to convince the customer their art is worth getting. How do you manage the pressures?
MHB: My grandfather always told me to find a job you love and then you'll never work a day in your life. It's true that there is always something to do, either booking, writing, planning, promoting, performing, etc., but all of it falls into that category of doing what I love. The fact that there are so many different jobs to do keeps me from getting bored or lazy at one or the other. For example, on a day when I don't feel up to calling anyone or writing a grant proposal, I can work on updating my website or dig into writing new music. When I am feeling uninspired musically, there is always a phone call to make or a press release to write up about an upcoming tour.
DS: What's the music biz thing you hate doing most, and why?
MHB: For me the thing I hate to do most is booking shows. It's not that it's difficult or that I can't stand cold calling, it's the frustration of trying to get through to people when they don't know you. Imagine you book a club or venue, people are calling you all the time for shows and many of them you've never heard of. You respond to the choices that you know make sense for your venue. For a guy like me, that means that unless I have a relationship with you already, I have to work harder just to get you to take a look at me and my craft. It's the part of the business that demands determination AND a pleasant demeanor because you don't want to sound pissed off when you finally do get through to the right person to book you into a venue; it can take several phone calls over a few weeks to reach some people and they may never answer your e-mails.
DS: You seem to be a real DIY guy when it comes to the business side of your music. What have you learned to do out of necessity? I'm thinking of the whole gamut here... the tech side of recording, graphic design for albums, cold calling for tour bookings, distributing CDs, managing mailing lists, web site design and maintenance - do you do more-or-less everything yourself?
MHB: I am the chief cook and bottle washer around here. I do it all. What have I learned out of necessity? All of it. I began doing video production as a side business in the 90s and that led to graphic development for title screens, which led to web design and poster design. All of that was invaluable to me over the past 10 years as I developed websites for myself and others, did my own CD graphic layout and design (saving thousands of dollars over the years) and learning the skills of business management helps me as I plan tours and write grant requests to fund projects. It would be very difficult to get some things I do off the ground if I had to rely on paying someone for every thing that I did. I have worked with a manager to help me coordinate and plan some specific projects on a project by project basis and am in fact currently developing a relationship with a manager in Ottawa.
DS: How do you decide what to farm out and what to do yourself?
MHB: About the only job I farm out these days is publicity. It takes a lot of time and skill to ensure that journalists cover your event either by simply including it in an article or a blog or by showing up and reviewing the event after the fact. When I'm on tour I don't always have the time to spend on the phone setting up the next town's publicity and I am happy to have someone handle that for me. That way I can respond to the requests that matter where I am,. i.e. doing local radio interviews or following up on future bookings. Rather than spending my time researching each marketplace to find out who I should be contacting I develop the basic publicity of the tour (the images, the press release, the story as they call it) and then contact a publicist who knows an area well to do the forwarding to all the appropriate media outlets and follow up for any requests for interviews/features etc...
DS: What percentage of time do you spend on the business side., and what percentage on the creative music side?
MHB: Someone once said to me, "Working for yourself is great. You get to work half days. Whether it's the first 12 hours or the second 12 hours is your choice." I basically spend all my time doing all the jobs on both sides. If I were to be totally honest though, I probably spend more time on the business side than the creative side. But that is only true when I'm not working on a record. On the road to a new recording, the music takes over and I hardly get any of the business work done. It's kind of like a pendulum. It swings from side to side and sometimes there is more of one job than the other but other times it switches around.
DS: For your most recent album, Huckster (player to the right), you advance-raised the money for it by pre-selling albums using a service called Rockethub. How was that experience, and would you do it again?
MHB: The experience was fantastic! One of the challenges of making a record is the cost of recording and manufacturing. It is a huge hurdle for just about every artist I know, and just about every artist I know engages in fund-raising to some degree. Asking your fans to pre-buy a CD or donate to your work isn't a new concept, however in this age of iTunes and credit cards it's sometimes hard to get people to casually drop you $20 for a product that doesn't exist yet. Rockethub figured this out and created a site that lets you manage the fund raising. You detail your project, set up reward levels and then market the site to your fans and friends. Rockethub allows them to donate via credit card to your project with the security of knowing that should your project not receive 100% funding all the funds will be returned to the donors. This means that a stranger who likes your music but doesn't know you, can have confidence that you will complete the project and live up to the rewards or they'll get their money back. I think that is awesome and on my first project with Rockethub I received money from people I don't know, who heard about the project from others. I had sizable donations from people I haven't even performed for. It was incredible!
DS: In an age where selling single tunes for 99 cents seems to be the trend, do you think there still is a market for a whole CDs?
MHB: Even though the majority of the people are buying music online I think there still needs to be a way to deliver your music directly to fans at your shows. It all comes down to who your market is. In my case the majority of my fans are in their late 30s to 60s. A large portion of these people aren't downloading music, they are still buying CDs when they see the artist perform. Even though my downloads have gone up, more than half of them include mailing out the physical CD to them along with their purchase. There is no doubt that the volume of CD sales has fallen, though, and I think artists need to keep that in mind as they order inventory. Thankfully there are more short run options than ever before and you can get quality manufacturing in five days for 100 copies for a cost comparative to manufacturing a large run. Back in 2006 I spent $3000 ordering 1000 CDs in a digi-pack format. That got me a $3.00 cost price for resale. Now I can order 100 copies at $3.59 each for the same format. So you see, depending on the volume you'll think you can sell, you no longer need to order 1000 or more copies. The price difference isn't that much.
DS: How may true fans (those that go out of their way to see your perform and have all your CDs) would you say you have? Can you paint a composite word picture of a true fan?
MHB: Wow. That's a tough question to answer. I think there are probably many more than I am aware of. Or put another way, there are true fans in just about every town I've ever played. I hear from them as I travel and they often remind me of older recordings of mine by asking for songs I haven't played in years. I believe that the secret to success in the folk/roots world is to develop a relationship with the people that support your music. That relationship is the key to ongoing success. As for a picture of a true fan...someone who knows your music and your style, who comes to your shows and brings in others, who is there over the years time and time again, who buys your CDs and shares the music with others. (ed. note: Readers wanting to know more about this topic may want to take a peek at Seth Godin's book, Permission Marketing, Simon and Schuster. Though it was first published in 1999, the principles are still valid.)
DS: You are pretty active on various social media platforms. Is that making a significant contribution to building the Manitoba Hal community?
MHB: I hope so. I don't always know what I'm doing with the various platforms and have even considered lately dropping one or two. (I actually dropped my MySpace account earlier this year after years of maintaining it.) It comes back to relationship. I can't tour everywhere all the time. So if you are a true fan in Calgary or Vancouver and I haven't been around for a while how do you stay in the loop? So I maintain a good website, I have a Facebook page and a YouTube channel, I have a Twitter account and I have a blog on my website which is maintained as I travel with photos, music, musings etc. I hope that it helps people stay connected with me until I return to their community to perform again.
DS: You're a gifted musician and a stellar guitar guy, but you've chosen to focus on the ukulele. What's behind that passion?
MHB: Thanks Dan, for saying that. As my friend Wendel Ferguson says to me, "You really need better taste." The ukulele is my passion - that is a fact. My grandfather was (and is) a huge influence on me. He played piano (and various other instruments) in orchestras throughout Southern Manitoba. He was part of the big band era of Winnipeg when people flocked to the great dance halls and heard a great orchestra play. He gave me my first ukulele and made me promise to learn to play it. I did, and it changed my life. It opened doors that I didn't even know existed. I will always be grateful for that gift. When I play, I think of him. When an audience applauds I sometimes I think he is standing there knowing that he started me on that particular road. That sounds kind of corny, but it's true. As for choosing to focus on it, well that is more practical than you might expect. Doug Cox from the Vancouver Island Music Festival (himself a stellar slide guitar player) said to me once that there are a million middle aged white blues guys playing slide guitar. There are hardly any blues players performing on the ukulele. So that makes me much more bookable. Plus it's a whole lot easier to get on a plane with!
DS: Is your audience following you along that ukulele road?
MHB: Some are following me for sure. The core music stays the same it's just the instrument of performance that has changed. The real plus has been the growth of an international fan base though. I have definitely seen a growth in internet fans and in online orders for my ukulele work.
DS: The moniker Manitoba Hal testifies to your roots, but you've recently chosen to live in Nova Scotia. What contributed to that decision?
MHB: One of the biggest factors that makes the music business hard is the cost of living. Every week, every month without fail we need money. Winnipeg, my former base, isn't very expensive but it is more expensive than country living. As an artist I can live anywhere. After all, travel is travel and unless you're living in Toronto or New York, you gotta travel to make a living. I had the opportunity to change my life. I found a house two blocks from the Atlantic ocean that I could buy mortgage free and I was moving closer to a new marketplace for me that was expanding. It costs less to fly to Europe from Nova Scotia than from Winnipeg and the whole eastern US is now less than a day away. I have fans in Boston, New York, North Carolina that were costly to get to from Winnipeg and now they're not so far away. It made sense is what it comes down to, and I love living beside the ocean. The climate is moderate and the air is wonderful.
DS: On your latest CD, Huckster, you made a deliberate decision to record live off the floor (loopers excepted). What was behind the decision to do away with multi-tracking? Have you noticed any post production limitations to this approach?
MHB: Actually it was Art Turner that kicked off this recording style for me. In 2002 he produced a record for me called This Condition. It was a live-off-the-floor recording done over 18 hours in his studio in Winnipeg. He believed that I was a solid enough player and that my sound would benefit from less orchestration. He was right. That CD is great and the performance stands up even today. So fast forward to Huckster. I was working on the CD and had recorded about one third of the project with overdubs, bass, percussion etc., and was planning backing vocals and had even contacted some singers. In the middle of production I had to go to Cape Cod and Vermont for some shows ending in Ontario. I went down and played solo as I usually do and the audience response was huge! This got me thinking that maybe I should be making a CD that sounds and feels like a live performance. On that road trip I heard Neil Young and Daniel Lanois talking about Neil's new recording Le Noise and I was inspired, so I scrapped the earlier sessions and set up five mics and just went for it. The result is an honest reflection of what I do and it sounds live. If you listen closely you can even hear cars going by on the street outside and a raven cawing in the background. It's great.
DS: What's on the horizon that excites you right now?
MHB: I think what excites me the most right now is just getting to play more and more. Moving here freed me up to spend more time making music and making my life all about music. I've begun work on a Christmas show for next year, I have a recording idea that I'm developing with a friend from Halifax, and I am hoping to visit Germany in August 2011 to do some playing there.
DS: Thanks a lot for the interview, Hal. I wish you all the best on Huckster. Readers - and especially blues fans - you owe it to yourself to get this CD. Huckster is a great listen!
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