The Unstarving Musician

Kevin Breuner of CD Baby joins me in this episode to discuss music distribution, education for the DIY musician, his journey with CD Baby, his band Small Town Poets, and the DIY Musician podcast.

CD Baby started out as a place where musicians could circumvent the middleman by selling music CDs direct to fans. It has since evolved into an artist-services platform that helps independent musicians to distribute, promote, and monetize ...

My conversations with Cozi and Ezra Vancil did not reveal the mystery of the flounder that is Cozi Anda Flounder. I assume that Ezra is the flounder, but they weren't exactly forthcoming about the meaning of the flounder. Ezra implied that the band has vowed never to speak of the flounder.  The duo are the founding members of Cozi Anda Flounder. In this episode, I speak with Cozi and Ezra in two separate conversations, which we...

Stick to your guns and your vision is what Harrison Marcello of the rock band TEMPT recommends to young bands. This, he says, helps bands stay ready for whatever projects may come their way.

He’s a founding member, guitarist and one of the songwriters in TEMPT. The New York City based band has a love for the old school 80s rock sound, which I believe gives them a melodic and pop sensibility. TEMPT reminded me of Def Leppard upon fi...

Peter Wilson and his bandmates in Four Trips Ahead have been showing up again and again to build a following around their music.

The New York based hard rock band punched their way through the pandemic by releasing new music and preparing for the return of live music.

In this conversation we talk about Peter's vinyl collection, his band's journey into self producing, comparisons and genres used to describe the band's m...

Celebrating The Wins And Struggles Along The Way—Mawk Phoenix (Ep 131)

Today’s Indie Musician—Mawk Phoenix (Ep 165) Marc was living in Malta, but ha...

David Andrew Wiebe thinks about creativity, music, entrepreneurship and leadership in everything he does. He is a musician, composer and published author with three best sellers. Among his books is the 2022 edition of The Music Entrepreneur Code, which David says is more ninja than its predecessor. He is also the host/creator of The New Music Industry Podcast, and he wants to share what he knows with musicians that want to get ahe...

Jared Judge is dissecting everything that goes into being a successful gigging musician. He’s doing this on his Gigging Musician Podcast, in his book Gigging Secrets: The Underground Playbook to Making A Living Performing and with his music business app BookLive.

We think very much alike about gigging and Jared’s story is great. He graduated from music school with a Bachelors in Music Education and a Masters in Orchestral Conductin...

Ori Winokur is Head of Music at Artlist, a stock music licensing company that was in 2021 named one of the hottest startups in Tel Aviv by WIRED.  Stock music isn't for everyone. The concept may in fact be a turn off for many musicians. This episode may change some minds. 

Artlist’s platform provides users with straightforward licensing agreements and AI-powered recommendations. Ori has two decades of experience as a producer a...

Seth was taken by surprise with his TikTok success, but he embraced it. Today he's more focused on new music releases and Spotify. With over 300K plays on Spotify, Seth is planning a 13-song album release in the New Year. This will follow his 2021 EP and singles rel...

Michael Gilbride of telco has translated perfectionism and passion into his latest release please come home. He joins me to talk about his musical perfectionism, getting a late start on his music endeavors, and how not to have fun while making an EP. These are all themes with which I can relate. This is our second conversation for the podcast.

Hear our first conversation in episode 198.

Most of our conversation for this episode fe...

In this conversation Otto details his excitement over t...

Bradford Loomis has a 2019 song release called "Tried To Love A Woman." It was written as a compliment to his prior release "Righteous Kind." That song was placed in the movie Still Water, featuring Matt Damon. Rock isn't Bradford's main thing, although he admits that he likes rock. He in fact tries to include at least one rock song on each of his albums. His primary style is more that of a folk singer-song...

Brooksie Wells is amplifying female voices over 50, including her own. She and I met in a thing called Music Marketing Method.

I’ve mentioned Music Marketing Method on the podcast before. It’s a program designed to help musicians find our fan base, grow our audience and make a consistent income with our creativity.

Learn more about Music Marketing Method

Brooksie has had a rich music career. She has a new release called Stops Time,...

Andrew Chris' music explores influences that range from 60s guitar rock to modern hip hop. His list of early musical influences read very much like mine. Yet he's no less than 20 years younger than me. When I asked about his infatuation with artists like Hendrix, Zeppelin and Ten Years After, he gave the expected answer–his dad turned him on to them. The only difference in our early music tastes is how we listened. Andrew s...

R...

Recording artist Amiena joins the podcast to talk about defeating a creative rut, her latest release, the stories behind her lyrics, changing producers, touring and working with producer Lars Deutsch (the good, the bad and the ugly).

Amiena and I were introduced by producer Lars Deutsch, who was featured in episode 204 of the Unstarving Musician. At the time of this conversation, Amiena and Lars were looking forward to the release...

Lynz Crichton is the creator of Music Marketing Method, a program that shows musicians how to make money with their music. She is also a friend and mentor to me. I am part of the student body that is her Music Marketing Method program.

Lynz believes that generating an income with music doesn’t have to be about just playing live. She first appeared on this podcast in 2017, when she estimates her Twitter following was about 5,000 fol...

JJ Lovegrove is breaking the codes of social media and playlists and discovering lots of new friends followers in the process.

JJ Lovegrove is cracking the codes of social media and Spotify playists. We discuss this and much more in our conversation for the podcast.

Among the topics we cover are our shared experience within Lynz Crichton's Music Marketing Method program and the beautiful connections we can make through conversa...