164 – How to be a Happy & Profitable Live Performer – with Robonzo of The Unstarving Musician

Do you wish you could play better gigs? Do you want to engage in the type of projects and work that will leave you feeling happy and fulfilled? In this episode of The New Music Industry Podcast, I pass the mic with Robonzo of The Unstarving Musician, who’s got a podcast and a book of his own. He shares how he was able to build a profitable live performance career and how he helps other musicians do the same. Podcast Highlights: 00:34 – The podcasting journey 01:39 – How did you get started with The Unstarving Musician? 04:59 – The value of subbing 08:20 – Being a good hang 09:18 – How can musicians better leverage live performance? 12:34 – Having too many lines in the water 15:57 – Taking care of yourself 17:41 – Depression in the music industry/success doesn’t make you happy 20:44 – Who do you know that isn’t a starving musician? 24:48 – The Music Entrepreneur Code 25:49 – Why did you get into podcasting? 31:14 – Current social media marketing trends 36:19 – Making new music 37:52 – Why did you write a book and what impact has it had? 42:11 – Are there any books that have helped you on your journey? 43:49 – Wrap up Transcription: David Andrew Wiebe: Today I'm chatting with host of The Unstarving Musician Podcast, Robonzo. How are you today, Robonzo? Robonzo: I'm great. That was like one of the smoothest intros ever because as we were just saying pre-episode, we've just been chitchatting, ice breaking. I love it. I'm doing great. Thank you. DA: Awesome. Yeah, we just been chatting away. I don't know how many times I've said the intro like that now but I guess something people wouldn't know necessarily is I have been podcasting since 2009 with the David Andrew Wiebe Podcast, which quickly turned into David Andrew Wiebe Interviews, a music business podcast, which then became DAWCast: Music Entrepreneurship. And then, when I realized that nobody understood the cleverness behind the name of DAWCast: Music Entrepreneurship, I temporarily quit, and then reboot it. And that's The New Music Industry Podcast, which is also the namesake of my book. But it's been an awesome and fun journey. We'll be getting into that too because you're also a podcaster. Your website makes it fairly clear that you're passionate about helping musicians, especially in the area of live performance. So, where does that passion come from? How did you get started in the space? Robonzo: Yeah, that's where I started. I am a lifelong gigging musician, drummer, and singer. I recently confessed in another conversation with the podcast that I years ago used to play guitar and just stopped and picked that back up because I think it's from talking to so many songwriters. I'm like, “Wow, I'd like to write some songs.” So, I picked that up as well. But it did come from gigging a lot and being very proficient at it in terms of being… I was fond of saying, you know, when I was in the markets, where there are the opportunities that I could gig at will, you know, when and where I wanted to and get paid. I guess, you know, the story I usually tell is one December, a while back, I realized my gig calendar had one or more gigs per month in the coming year. I was like, “Oh, that's pretty cool. I should maybe share that with some people.” Eventually, it drove me to write a book called The Unstarving Musician’s Guide to getting paid gigs. Once that was done, maybe during the process, I thought, “What can I do to make this a little bigger?” Because if this does help musicians, surely there's, you know, I can take it to a broader audience over time. Though, from talking to a number of songwriters, musicians, industry people, content creators that are in the music space, and learning all these other things that we're able to share, I'm able to share, you know, even outside the podcast. So, my new thing I'm fond of saying is, “I feel like a curator of you know, expertise, mistakes,