Welcome to the first in what will hopefully be a grymm and epic series of interviews with inspiring creatives. Every Monday, I’ll be posting an “Epic Interrogation” with someone awesome who’s made his or her creativity into a business. We’ll drink cheap beer and talk inspiration, money, promotion, and all that jazz.
This week, I’m talking to Sam Browne, a kiwi musician and entrepreneur who has created a series of unique websites – Findaband, Findadj and Weddingbands. Sam’s band, Black River Drive, have been doing amazing things here in NZ, but I’ll let Sam tell you all about that, as well as game shows, wine in the evenings, and opening for Bon Jovi!
Welcome, Sam!
General:
Firstly, we just want to know who you are, and what you do:
I started playing music properly when I was 13. but as young as 3 I was pulling pots and pans out of the cupboard to play along to my parents’ music collection (which, happily, is vast). They are not musicians but are music lovers and so miniature instruments appeared soon after – a ukelele and then a tiny drum kit. So the seeds were sown early on.
At age 13, I remember sitting at the kit for the first time since I was a little kid and playing a beat (poorly). I remember thinking it was the most fun I ever had. Over the next couple of years I did more and more music (staying after school to just play the drums or guitar til the cleaners came and turned out the lights). I don’t believe in natural talent (no one is instantly good at any instrument) but I think I loved the instruments so much (I was playing both guitar and drums equally in those days) that I put a lot of hours in over a short period of time, which resulted in my music teachers giving me a lot of positive feedback about how talented I was – which I suppose I was, but it was through sheer hard work rather than any inherent natural ability on my part other than a love of music.
Somewhere along the line, I must have told people that I was going to be a professional musician, as I can remember a lot of people telling me I needed something to fall back on, by which they meant, get a real job! I actually did study a diploma in audio engineering for two years at MAINZ with a view to being an engineer (and eventually producer) during the day and a musician at night. But I pretty much knew I wanted to be a professional musician (well, let’s face it, I wanted to be a motherfucking rock star) at about age 15 or 16. We did ok in rockquest and I had my first experience of girls going crazy during a guitar solo (during a performance at an all girls’ school, can you imagine it?). I’d say the die was cast at that moment!
As far as the business side of things goes, my first proper business was teaching guitar from about age 15, all cash of course. During my time in Dunedin I met a young aspiring musician named Jonny Love. From memory I think I was teaching Jonny guitar for a bit, which he could barely play, but he was already a very talented singer especially for how long he’d been doing it. After hearing there was a residency available for an acoustic duo, Jonny and I basically said we had a duo (we didn’t) and the bar manager hired us for a trial run. We went home and practiced hard!
He was a fantastic singer and mediocre guitarist. I was a pretty competent guitarist but a really awful singer. In spite of this, the gig went ok, the manager hired us and we started performing regularly, eventually doing three gigs a week and playing in all kinds of great places – wineries, on skifields and of course, many bars and pubs around Dunedin. The covers scene really opened things up for us and made both of us much better performers. It must have been about this time I started formulating the first website I did, www.findaband.co.nz, though I didn’t action it until years later. Jonny and I went our separate ways eventually as our musical styles are very different, but we remain friends. He has had a lot of success on More Fm and Classic Hits and has just released his second album. We still do the odd gig together.
When I moved back up to Auckland from Dunedin upon completion of my degree, for some reason I decided not to carry on with the covers thing and got a real job at Vodafone (I can’t remember why I felt I needed to). I bought a bunch of lame office clothes and went off to my 9 – 5 job. I lasted about 5 weeks.
A job came up at the Groove Guide selling advertising, which I took, and stayed at Real Groovy (where it was based) for maybe two years. That was great, though downloading was already hammering the industry and I saw record labels literally lose their receptionists as they could no longer afford to keep them. I got headhunted to Yahoo!Xtra which was a very corporate environment and I began to dread going to work very quickly after the creative environment of the Groove Guide, though there was nothing more for me at GG other than a paycheck so it was good to get a firsthand look at NZ’s burgeoning online advertising landscape. Yahoo!Xtra was about 5th on the list after Trademe, Stuff.co.nz, the Herald and MSN so it was a pretty tough sell but I learned a bit. However I realised I was not cut out to be a cog in a machine.
I had already begun saving money towards starting my own website, had about $10k saved, and then went on a gameshow and won another $10k. The gameshow was “Are you smarter than a 10 year old?”. Apparently not, because winning the whole thing meant you got $100k! But I was pretty stoked with an easy ten grand. I left Yahoo not long after that and started Findaband.
Around the same time I moved back to Auckland (2005), I auditioned against my better judgement for the tv show Rock Star Supernova (the one with Jason Newsted). I didn’t get a callback but a record label A&R man saw me performing there and asked me to come and see him with my demos. I had one or two things recorded but he felt I needed more development (and he was right). Over about 18 months I kept going back and back with new songs. Eventually I had about 8 tunes we felt were pretty good and he organised for me to record a song (at my own considerable expense!) with a record producer at York Street recording studio.
The song was “Everywhere” which was Black River Drive’s first single. It was released in late 2008 (I think). The A&R man became our manager (Ashley Page) and we went on to have a number one hit on rock radio in NZ with our second single, Bullet for Your Gun, in early 2010. 2010 was a big year for us with 2 x #1 hits on NZ rock radio (Bullet and Call The Doctor), a nationwide tour with I Am Giant and Luger Boa and support slots for Bon Jovi(!) and Ed Kowalcyzk (of Live). It sounds so simple and great now but it was hard earned. Building a band is much harder than building a business, in my experience. Much harder and the money sucks! The beauty of my situation is I don’t care about the band making money – my income is from the business, anything the band earns goes into a band account for buying more merch, or paying for a photo shoot or whatever. As a result, we operate without the need for record label backing (in New Zealand at least). We do have distribution from Rhythm Method but I own all of our IP.
As of today, right now, how’s business going? What are your current projects? What are you excited about?
Things are very good. My main business currently is www.findaband.co.nz though I’ve just launched a new site, www.weddingbands.co.nz, which is an upgraded take on findaband specifically aimed at the wedding market. I’ll be shifting www.findaband.co.nz towards a purely corporate and conference event focus so the two sites will take of the two sides of the market I focus on – namely weddings and corporate events.
Clik here to view.
Sam's band, Black River Drive
I also have www.findadj.co.nz which has worked ok but I believe has much more scope than what I’m currently doing. I plan to give it a bit of an overhaul when time allows though it’s a low priority in a very long queue of “to dos”.
I am currently working a much larger real estate based site which is shaping up really well. I am doing this with the Icehouse business incubator which has been a good experience thus far. I can’t get into the details too specifically. as it’s all under contract but it takes all the skills I’ve developed as a web entrepreneur to date and uses them to their fullest capacity. If we pull this off, it’s going to be big. I also have plans to do more in the wedding industry, probably starting with a photography site.
How long did it take you to grow your business from the initial idea to where you are today? Was there any one event that served as a catylist for your success?
I probably spent about 2 – 3 months really working on the (extremely detailed) brief that I gave to my web designer with which to build the website, and then about 18 months tweaking. It’s been much the same for at least the past 12 months, and is in need of a rebrand at this point as it’s starting to feel a bit dated. The web moves fast and it’s important to keep up. I remember staring at the ceiling when I woke up in my shitty Ellerslie flat one morning and knowing that I could not go on feeling that way – and then continuing to feel like that day after day for weeks. My business was borne of a desire to not have a job, rather than a passion for money or something. These days I operate under my own rules and that’s how I like it.
Did you go to university? What was your experience like? How useful has your degree been in getting you to where you are now?
I did a Bachelor of Music (contemporary) at Otago graduating in 2004. Aside from honing my skills as a songwriter (thanks to Graeme Downes from whom I learned a lot), I would say I would be in much the same position today with or without having done my degree. My real qualification has been playing in bars for ten years (and by that I mean covers gigs). For musicians, that is what separates the men from the boys. Similarly, I’d say just starting a small business and running it has taught me more than doing a business course would have.
How did you learn about the business side of your industry? Do you have a mentor/business coach/critique group/association or did you learn it all yourself?
I suppose I learned it all myself. I do now have a mentor but he’s more of a sounding board than someone that gives me actual business advice. I read a lot of self help stuff in the early 2000s – Brad Sugars, Robert Kiyosaki, Antony Robbins – which doesn’t spell out the details on how to do it, but did motivate me to learn what I needed to learn. I am a voracious reader and that has served me well. I am now working with the Icehouse and they have definitely been great for upskilling me and giving me skills for future projects I undertake, especially big projects that require investment and boards of directors etc. I think business is a state of mind, it’s a personality type really.
Who or what has been a support or inspiration to you throughout your journey?
My Dad has always encouraged me most, both in business and as a musician.
Making Money:
You have a diverse range of income streams – from your websites and your band. Did you intentionally set out to do this? What are the advantages and disadvantages of managing so many different projects?
Short answer, yes. The business was started as a means to an end, the end being to have the time and money to work towards becoming (and now, maintaining) a career as a recording artist. Ultimately I would like to be in a position where I have to sell the businesses to go full-time as an international recording artist, but my present position is not so bad really!
Advantages: It’s fun, exciting, challenging and never dull. The big wins can be very big indeed. If I am struck by a creative period (as I am maybe once or twice a year), I can pretty much ignore my inbox for a few days and work on a song that is gnawing away at me. If I want to work til 1am, I can. If I want to sleep til 11, I can. If I need two hours for lunch with a friend who is visiting from overseas, and it’s Tuesday, that’s not a problem! I highly recommend it. I seem to be programmed to have a lot of things going at once, in spite of how overwhelming it frequently is.
Disadvantages: No workmates has been a big one, it can be quite lonely working on your own. The good things can be bad things – I often DO work til really late just because there are emails staring me in the face that “need” answering. I pretty much never stop working and have to force myself to take time to relax. I have not travelled as much as I would like due to being so single-minded in pursuit of parallel successes in business and as a musician. It can also be very stressful – I have a massive gst bill at the moment, for example. I’d say the fact that your business stops when you stop, and you wouldn’t want to just chuck it in like a job, can mean it makes sense to really get stuck into your own business after you’ve done a few years overseas experience. If I could change one thing, that would be it.
The upside and the downside to being on your own is the fact you don’t just swap hours worked for money earned. How are you finding this? Do you earn more now or less than when you worked a normal job? Do you work more/less?
I pay myself a pretty modest salary compared with what I’d get in a large corporate. I work more, but I am building a business rather than just sitting back and watching the money flow in. Each year for the past 4 years I would probably kick off at least one new major project, and my current main project is bigger than everything I’ve done to date in business combined. I only have the skills to do it from what I’ve done over the past few years. It definitely takes longer to make money with your own business, but it’s much more enjoyable getting there than just making someone else money your entire life.
How long did it take you to earn enough to go full-time?
I started paying myself an actual salary after about 3 years. Before that I just took what was left after everything else was paid for. I guess I was probably earning about $25k a year for the first couple of years.
What’s one thing you’ve done that dramatically improved your earnings?
Learned SEO. If your business is online, you should make it your mission to learn everything you can about SEO.
What are your tips for managing money as a full-time/part-time entrepreneur?
Keep an eye on your cashflow! And drive a shit car. Any fool can finance a flash new Audi, it takes balls to rock a shitty Toyota year after year (I actually have an old VW but am wanting to trade down to a Toyota).
Promotion:
I’d love to talk about promotion. What have you done to bring new viewers to your websites and listeners to your band?
Business – Adwords is the big one, much moreso than offline media. Band – Facebook. I do about one post a day and really think about it as you don’t want to annoy with too much posting, or the wrong “message”, but you don’t want to post so seldom that people forget about you either.
What have you tried that doesn’t work? Why do you think that is?
Nothing really springs to mind. I am pretty careful and cautious with how I market. Adwords are just a guaranteed win, you can’t go wrong.
What promotional activites give you the greatest return?
Live showcases are very good. That’s something I am planning on doing more of.
Networking:
How important is networking?
It’s important but it needs to be real, not standing around like a tool handing out business cards. It’s forming actual relationships with people you like. If you don’t like them, but they can help you in some way, my advice is let them go by. Regardless of how much money/power/opportunity they have and can offer you, if they’re a dickhead, they’re a dickhead and that’s that. The only networking I do tends to involve a lot of alcohol.
Do you get more out of face-to-face or online networking?
I guess they are two very different things. Social networking has been great for a few things such as new and unexpected friendships or getting back in touch (for better or worse) with past relationships, but hasn’t really had much of an effect on my business.
How do you approach online networking? What tools and techniques do you use? Do you actively seek out people you’d love to get to know, or just let the whole thing happen organically?
A bit of both. I am very conscious of not wanting to be too “in your face” with it but if I believe there is real synergy I will pursue it. I guess because of the way I am things do tend to happen reasonably organically.
The Entreprenurial Life:
What are three tools of your creative business you absolutely could not live without?
Good question! Ok these days in terms of writing an album’s worth of material, I could do it if I had to with just a laptop with an internal mic. The original demo for one of the album tracks (Pass You By) was done entirely in midi, with each note painstakingly drawn in on a piano roll. It sounds like ass but you can hear the song within the shittiness.
But in terms of my ideal situation – my current setup (which is great) is a good macbook pro running Logic with an Apogee duet interface. I use my favourite electric guitar + a bass guitar and write drums using Addictive drums (which are rad!) I am looking at getting NI Komplete but Logic is pretty fucking good these days really. In terms of pure creativity, demoing etc as opposed to actual finished sounds, my current setup (Logic + Duet + Electric guitar + Bass + Addictive) is great. I also need my Sennheiser HD25s for monitoring.
I write all my lyrics in MS Word as opposed to having a physical notebook.
What have been some of the best things to happen to you because of your business?
Hmmm … well I guess the freedom to really pursue the band properly is pretty directly linked with the business. That’s a bit of a lame answer. I met Geoff Ross recently as he’s now running Moa Beer and they’re working with us a bit. He was a Black River Drive fan which was a huge buzz, I’m planning on giving him a t-shirt, haha. A bottle of Jim Beam arrived at my home today because they like rock bands to drink their bourbon. That was nice.
Describe your typical day
Wake up about 9am, do emails/Facebooking in bed til 10, make one or two coffees, maybe a meeting approx 11, lunch out usually (and read the paper and try and RELAX) or lunch meeting, emails and phone calls all afternoon (and let’s face it, a shitload of Facebook) or work on songs/singing practice, maybe a meeting at 2pm, another coffee 3pm, work on songs for a coupla hours, first wine about 5pm, continue working on song through second and third wine, emails intertwined with Facebook and possibly a movie til midnight. If it’s a Friday or Saturday I often perform at corporate events so there’ll be a setup at 4pm and then the performance from 8 – 12 or something to that effect, as well as dinner with the band. I also have my little girl Poppy two days a week.
This sounds eerily similar to my days! Are you a workaholic? How does your business impact your personal life?
Yes, I definitely have a pretty unbalanced attitude towards work. I am working on getting a lot more balance.
What have been your priorities when setting up your business? What were the reasons you’ve set things up in exactly this way?
First few years I was probably figuring that out myself but these days I am all about creating things I am proud of and pushing myself creatively moreso than anything else. My new site, weddingbands.co.nz is a massive aesthetic step up on Findaband. My next album will be a massive step up on my first musically. We’re also putting a lot more time and effort into our music videos from here on out.
Do you set goals for yourself? What kinds of goals have you set for the coming year?
YES! I am big on goals. I am really into S.M.A.R.T goals because they work. All the goals I set a few years back while at university have come to pass in spite of some of them seeming very large at the time. I highly recommend goal setting and then checking in with them once a day (ideally) or once a week (at least).
My most important goals this year are to get overseas for at least two weeks on holiday (hopefully somewhere that will push me way out of my comfort zone i.e. not Fiji) and to get 8 songs written for our next album (I have 2 so far).
Working for yourself, how do you deal with procrastination tendancies?
I have no good answer for this. I am as bad as anyone with procrastinating I would say.
Have you ever had negative press or coments made about yourself or your business? How do you deal with them?
Nothing major. A few comments on internet forums etc but they are massively outweighed by all the great emails I get from clients as well as all the glowing reports of my bands that people post on the very same forums!
What’s the best thing about being Sam Browne?
As cliched as it sounds, my favourite thing in the world is to inspire someone to just take a leap of faith and follow their heart. People should do what they want to do not what they think they SHOULD do. I guess I am also pretty happy that 15 year old me would have been happy to see where 29 year old me ended up. A lot of people freak out about what they haven’t achieved by 30, especially in their careers, but that’s nothing something I worry about because I’ve been able to tick a couple of my “must do before 30” boxes (like releasing an album).
What do you think the future holds? What exciting prospects loom on the horizon or in the back of your imagination?
Band: I’d like to see us build an audience in Australia and eventually in the US, and I have plans for at least another 2 albums after the one we’re working on.
Business: My real estate site is what I see going massive, maybe global and certainly Australasian over the next 5 years.
I have a few wedding based sites in mind that I am keen to flesh out.
I would really like to get a kick ass, naturally lit warehouse somewhere and put a team of great people together to work in my business.
Thank you Sam for being awesome and answering so many questions! If you’re keen to hear some awesome kiwi music, head over to the Black River Drive Facebook page. If you’ve got any questions for Sam, add them to the comments below.
Email me if you’re keen to participate in an EPIC interrogation. And don’t forget to sign up to receive blog updates by RSS or Email, and while you’re in a signing-up mood, don’t forget the Grymm & Epic Gazette, which, in addition to the FREE ebook “Unleash the Beast: Release Your Inner Creative Monster”, you’ll now be getting a weekly dose of creative inspiration.