May 6, 2025 · Episode 19
1Hr, 1 Min, 01 Sec 

Summary

Join Brea, Lyndon, and special guest Ricki Wood, a seasoned traveling musician, as they tackle the often daunting topic of self-promotion for independent artists. How do you get your work seen without sacrificing your sanity or soul in the age of social media? Ricki shares his experience booking gigs across Australia, emphasizing the power of authenticity, integrity, and real-world connections over chasing viral moments or algorithm approval.

Discover strategies for building a sustainable creative career based on genuine relationships, understanding your value, and connecting with your audience, whether online or face-to-face.

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Transcript

Lyndon: I’ve been babysitting one of your guitars and shamefully only really played it yesterday, unplugged, and was like, this actually sounds really good. You can hear how an electric guitar sounds okay, unplugged. Is that not true?

Ricki: Yeah, I agree. Yeah.

Lyndon: And it’s top heavy, but it sounded very nice. But what did, do you put a strap on when you,

Ricki: I’m probably a little top heavy as well? Got the old beer gut going on. I don’t even really drink beer.

Lyndon: And such a, not a heavy neck, just a normal neck on a light body. Yeah. Anyway, so I’ve been babysitting that. So hopefully, I did a good job.

Ricki: I appreciate you looking after it. Yeah, very much.

Lyndon: That’s what I was looking for. Thank you.

Breallyn: Welcome to Pain In The Arts. I’m Brea.

Lyndon: I’m Lyndon.

Breallyn: And we’re so glad you could join us.

Lyndon: Oh, you gotta wait.

Breallyn: Oh, okay.

Ricki: And I’m Ricki.

Lyndon: Yes. Yes. That’s how we, that’s how the professionals do it. Did you hear that? That’s radio voice right there. I know. Yeah, perfect. I know that between the three of us, we’re gonna talk about so many things, so let’s just get stuck into it. Yeah. Because you guys are keen. I can see that. Definitely. I’m getting death stares.

Breallyn: You’ve been holding out on us with this topic.

Lyndon: Okay.

Breallyn: So it’s the surprise secret topic.

Lyndon: This week we are joined by Ricki Wood, a traveling musician who’s been booking his own gigs across Australia for forever. We throw him straight into our usual format with a surprise topic that he didn’t see coming. And the topic is…

Breallyn: Ah, how do…

Lyndon: Independent artists get their work seen without losing their soul or their sanity? Yes. So self-promotion, but before you say anything more, let me say this. Our last few episodes have been like fairly heavy topics. We’ve tackled death.

Ricki: I would much rather talk about that. Yes.

Breallyn: A lot less uncomfortable for a solo musician than self-promotion.

Lyndon: What was last week’s purpose? Your Life’s Purpose? I don’t know how…

Breallyn: The last three have been pretty heavy.

Lyndon: I don’t know how we get into these. So it’s good. I had so many different topics that I thought, ooh, we could really get into these things with Ricki. And then I thought, you know what? I need something lighter. I think it’d just be nice to do something that’s, I mean there’s so much in this though. Yeah. We could ask you so many things. Self-promotion. Yeah. Sorry, I did interrupt you. You were going to say…

Ricki: Oh, no.

Lyndon: As our guest, you are allowed to speak.

Ricki: I, no, I was just thinking I would be fascinated to hear this topic with somebody who’s really good at it.

The Authenticity Approach to Self-Promotion

Lyndon: Ah, isn’t that interesting though? I know, I’m terrible at it. That’s a, that’s an absolute fact. But you can’t be that bad at it because been working fairly consistently. Yeah. For a long, time. Yeah.

Ricki: Yeah. Look, I have. And I think that it would boil down to whether people want to hear the, how to make yourself Instagram famous and big on YouTube and all that kind of stuff, which is not what I’m about. Because that’s not my core value. My core value is just wanting to connect with people through music, through performing. And I suppose I in the real rather than the online world.

And I think a lot of people these days expect that promotion is all evolved around social media and so forth. Which on a large scale in the music industry these days, it is. Yeah. And it’s, it’s got its amazing factors and then there’s a whole bunch of really soul destroying factors to the online world, as far as promotion goes too.

Breallyn: This is great because we have actually done it an episode on slow marketing. ‘Cause we also are not into…

Lyndon: Calm marketing.

Breallyn: Calm marketing, calm marketing market…

Ricki: Are you doing a Haka right now?

Lyndon: I’m correcting Brea because she’s corrected me in the past though, so I just… Yeah, I’ve, I made the mistake of calling it slow marketing.

Ricki: You just feel that because there’s another man in the room. You’re just feeling a bit more empowered at the moment.

Lyndon: No, I would’ve done it either way.

Breallyn: So yeah, we also are not that into trying to produce just stuff, endless stuff for an algorithm. It’s a nice dovetail to hear what you do and how you go about it. Yeah, very keen to hear what your approach is and what your, philosophy about it is.

Ricki: I think the the part that might resonate for you as well as me is, coming from a place of authenticity. And where there’s honesty and integrity involved. And honesty and integrity have been my two core values probably since around 2010.

Breallyn: When…

Ricki: I got them tattooed on my hands in Kanji because I wanted to remind myself that these are my values and that I got them for multiple reasons.

Breallyn: Yeah.

Ricki: And, that was due to my own shortcomings and failures as a as a man in relationships and as a father and all these kind of things where I wanted to remind myself that just always be honest, and to be truthful because, I went through messy times in life where deceit was involved.

The result of that was terrible. And I think in, by applying that to almost any factor of life, if I try to be something I’m not on a musical level or if I go out there and try and write a song for the sake of it, trying to be a pop song or put on a performance where I’m acting as a performer or something like that, I, to me, that’s, it’s, good for people who do it. But for me it’s just nah, I just prefer to be gut level. Just be straight up and let that be the authentic moment.

Breallyn: Yeah.

The Pitfalls of Online Promotion

Ricki: And I’m the same with the online thing. You look at Instagram and stuff like that these days and, the stuff people are doing just to try and get attention. And they’ve got hundreds of thousands of views and followers, and yet there’s no talent to what they’re doing whatsoever. It’s, I don’t know. Yeah. It’s disheartening in one sense.

Lyndon: Do you look at something like that and go, what is it they want? Is it just attention or is it…

Ricki: I think it is. I think it is. We live in a world where, because of social media platforms, everybody’s now got their five seconds of potential fame. And we live in a world now where there’s talent agencies out there that are deliberately scoping out videos that become viral. So that they then contact that person and basically manage them. About that one moment in time of their viral popularity. Yeah, yeah.

And it’s like the Charlie Bit my Finger thing or, or multiple other videos that have become iconic viral videos. They have people who manage them now. Manage their content and make sure that they make money out of it and all that kind of stuff. I don’t know, it’s all a bit silly and that’s why I really love coming back to when it comes to true marketing and getting my name out there.

It simply is, putting on the best show that I can put on while I’m doing it. And hopefully that the audience that’s there are the people who carry that forward and talk about it. Yeah. Contact me for another show and slowly expand out that way as well. Yeah.

Lyndon: Do you think, if it wasn’t for the pandemic, like in terms of shutting venues down and your livelihood, that you would’ve stepped into the social media arena?

Ricki: Oh, you mean the live streaming?

Lyndon: Just generally, did you dip your toe in the water of social media and online marketing and all that, before the pandemic, or was it…?

Ricki: Yeah, yeah. I used Facebook and Instagram. Yeah. Usually just to tell people where I was going to be doing a gig. I wasn’t really, I’m not really great at uploading the content that the attention grabbing content, I think is what it is for me. I just put up a little poster of where I’m playing or something like that. Yeah.

And look a lot of the time, and I’ll be honest here, a lot of the time I really only do that these days just so that the venues see that I’m making an effort to tell people about where I’m playing. Yeah. Because venues wanna see that now. Once upon a time, it used to be the venues became a popular venue and they would book artists into perform.

That they would then go, if you’re a good artist and you keep people here drinking and, all that kinda stuff, we’ll, we’ll keep giving you gigs. ‘Cause we didn’t have the internet. Yeah. You were just good at being a band that people wanted to come and see again. So they’d come back week after week to watch you play.

Breallyn: Yeah.

Ricki: Or word of mouth or where you put posters on the street.

Breallyn: Yeah.

Ricki: You went around sticking posters to walls and stuff like that. I was thinking about this the other day.

Lyndon: Do you remember Brea, Merv O’Grady? Yeah. He was like our first, or my first patron. Wasn’t he really? Yeah, because he owned a mailout company and he was he was a guitar student of mine.

Breallyn: Wonder how his business folded and what happens?

Ricki: He was, he was a mail out, so of course everything got folded.

Lyndon: Yeah. That’s very nice.

Ricki: Boom-tish!

Lyndon: He is a very clever guy, so I’m sure he in, he pivoted in the business. Speak pivoted. Yes, that’s right indeed. But yeah, he was like, oh, have you got a mailing list? I’ll handle it for you. So I would type up something on the.

Breallyn: That’s true.

Lyndon: The electronic typewriter, the Brother typewriter, print it out, give it to him. He would photocopy it and have his workers fold it, put in envelopes, put stamps on it, and send them out. Yeah. And I’d send it out to, I don’t know how, many people mailing this, not many, 150 or something. And out of that, five people would come to my gig. Yep. Thank goodness I didn’t have to pay for the mail out.

Breallyn: No. It was how lovely calm marketing was back in the day. For.

Lyndon: Calm marketing. Yep. So each envelope, that would’ve been 45 cents, wouldn’t it? For yeah? Each envelope?

Breallyn: Maybe not back then.

Lyndon: 30 cents maybe. Yeah, yeah. I reckon let’s, okay, 25. Have I got any takers for 20? I reckon it was 30 cents for a stamp. Yeah. So that would’ve been cost $30 or, $45 or whatever it would’ve been just to mail them, let alone everything else. So things have changed, whereas…

Ricki: Nowadays, obviously you can pay for your, Instagram ad or your Facebook ad to go out and they tell you that it’s gonna go to thousands of people and they tell you that thousands of people have seen it.

Lyndon: Yeah.

Ricki: You don’t know if they have or not.

Lyndon: No, yeah.

Ricki: The last time I did an online promotion was when I came back to Melbourne recently.

Speaker 6: Yep.

Ricki: And was just putting the feelers out for getting some more gigs around Melbourne. So I ran a really basic video of me just saying, Hey, I’m back in Melbourne, and if you’re looking for some music for you, party, whatever. If you just want someone walking around looking cool, I’m your guy. Because I thought it would be funny. Yeah. The only, I got a few responses who were from people who were already friends, who obviously Facebook quite happily told my friends about it.

Yeah. Which I’d already told them anyway. So I paid Facebook to tell the same people I’d already told. And then the only other people who reached out and commented were absolute trolls. Yeah. It wasn’t even, it was just bots or something. Yeah. And they weren’t saying nice things. Oh. They were just going to these nasty things.

Breallyn: Oh, wow.

Ricki: And I was like, okay.

Lyndon: So you want them to be bots in that instance? Not actually real people, nasty people. Oh, it’s devastating.

Ricki: And and that’s, again, that’s, there’s no real proven stats behind the numbers they give you. That’s just numbers they give you. Yeah. If they say, oh, you’ve made 1,208 impressions. Okay. But even, what did that turn into?

Lyndon: But even, but in the earlier days of, say, Instagram and, Facebook, where there would be, okay, this is how we do it and this is how the algorithm works. And so all these experts would pop up telling you play to the algorithm basically, or how to how to use it to your benefit so that you could leverage platform. And you go, all right, that’s what I’ll do.

Then a couple months later, they change it. All the algorithm changes. And so it’s keeping these other people in business, the educators of the algorithms. Yeah.

And then us artists trying to promote our work on platforms that weren’t designed for us to promote our work on. It’s just, you’re chasing your tail all the time. And so that’s what got us into kind of going, you know what, we are not good at it, and we don’t want to be.

Ricki: Yeah.

Lyndon: Let’s just steer, let’s just stay away from it because we wanna be in this for the long term. And we won’t be able to sustain it because it just makes us feel icky.

Breallyn: Yeah.

Ricki: I think there’s a lot of things to remember with the online world, and one of those main things is that Facebook and Instagram and TikTok and all these other things, all they want is people logged on. Watching.

Breallyn: Yeah.

Ricki: Because that equals advertising dollars for them. It means people are maybe potentially just spending longer hours staring at a screen, not really engaging in real world.

Breallyn: Yeah, yeah.

Ricki: Getting a little bit more dissociative. Yeah. Anxiety goes up, all these things. They start comparing themselves to everything that’s going on online. They start thinking, I’m not successful because I don’t have X amount of followers or this or that. And so what have I gotta do to get attention?

People seem to think that they will all become famous on these social platforms, whereas fact is probably 0.001% might make some money out of it.

Lyndon: Yeah. If that.

Ricki: And that was how the real world was as well before it all existed. Yeah. Your top artists, out of all the musicians in the world, very few were actually at the top and potentially making money. Record companies made a lot of money. They made stacks.

A Career in Music vs. Viral Moments

Breallyn: I guess what I’m interested in what you’re saying before about, having managers that kind of gravitate to a video that’s gone viral. So then they’re really just managing that moment in time. Whereas what I know you and Lyndon have been doing, all your careers, is not managing a moment in time. Like obviously songs are like a, an encapsulation, they’re like a, way to record a moment and a feeling and a, an idea.

But career-wise you are having, ups and downs and a flow, a period of time, of a lifetime of creative expression, which is completely like the antithesis to what’s going on a lot with, this more Instagram style marketing.

So yeah, the way that you’ve been able to decide, I’m not even gonna go down that line because I’ve got a different purpose here and I have to approach it a different way. That’s, I think that’s really great. Because as you said before, it’s that authenticity that comes from, just doing the thing that you’re doing. And not having to put that into a different style of marketing.

Ricki: Yeah. For me, ever since the age of eight is when I knew I wanted to do music.

Breallyn: Wow.

Ricki: On some level.

Breallyn: That’s amazing.

Ricki: As a for my life.

Breallyn: Yeah.

Ricki: And from the age of, I mean I was in bands from the age of 15, 16 onwards.

Breallyn: Yeah.

Ricki: And as far as making an income goes, I was probably about 22 when I joined a covers band. I went from playing original stuff through to doing covers. And that was mostly ’cause I just got roped into a gig. That they needed a keyboard player of all things. So I learned all these eighties keyboard parts.

Lyndon: ‘Jump’.

Ricki: Yeah. All that kind of stuff. And then I was given a week’s notice to be the guitar player. So all of a sudden I’m learning, same things, all the Guns and Roses and Bon Jovi and, ’cause it was an eighties kind of tribute band. So there was all this stuff.

And that kind of turned into being, look, you are really good. You wanna stay in the band? ‘Cause the other guitar player’s talking about leaving anyway. And so next thing I’m just playing three shows a week as well as managing guitar stores back in those days.

Breallyn: Yeah.

Ricki: But this was when I was living in New Zealand. And from there it was 2005 when I was playing five nights a week, in an Irish pub in New Zealand, which turned into a seven year stint.

Breallyn: Oh wow. Yeah.

Ricki: And wow. I just went, it’s a marathon, don’t need to be working a day job anymore. So I gave that up and I haven’t worked a day job since. I’ve done snippets of contracts where it might be whether it was through NDIS support work or.

Lyndon: That’s right. Yeah.

Ricki: I did a bit of shelf packing. Yep. Stuff like that from time to time. But I’d go a specific two or three week contract and then I’d be out again.

Lyndon: So as needed kind of basis? Needed a bit of extra cash? Yeah.

Ricki: ‘Cause I traveled a lot. It’d be those moments where like I did contract work on like Mount Hotham for example. I do winters up there where I’d play kinda six to eight shows a week. And so when you’d come back down off the mountain and come back into Melbourne, I’d be like, I had to get my name back out there again.

Lyndon: Yeah, okay.

Ricki: So I had to allow for this little transition time whilst I got people used to the fact that I was back in town. And it’s kinda the same now. I’ve been away four years effectively. And yeah, we, yeah, we’d come back every few months, but I’d still only do one or two shows and then be gone again. Whereas now we’re settling back into Melbourne for a period of time, so I’ve gotta just slowly put my name back out there.

But, I think there was a core to the question you asked, and it slipped my mind. Sorry.

Lyndon: All I heard was you were touring New Zealand when you were eight, is that right? I, I truncated it a little bit.

Ricki: No, yeah, definitely. Yeah. No, I was eight years old when I decided music was my future.

Breallyn: How did you decide that?

Ricki: It’s just something I knew.

Breallyn: Yeah.

Lyndon: This is interesting ’cause we’re effectively the same age, mid to late thirties, whatever. And when’s your birthdays? New Year’s Eve. Oh, New Year’s Eve. But it’s the same year. Yeah.

Ricki: You’re not trying to scam me are you? You’re just not trying.

Lyndon: And what street did you grow up on?

Breallyn: Your mother’s maiden name?

Lyndon: Yeah. I, in true me fashion, it has nothing to do with my point, which is I knew what I wanted to do when I was seven. And I have the same answer as to that question, is I just knew. Knew. I just knew. Yeah. And then I spent all my education years trying to keep at arms length, all the adults that are telling to do something different. Was that your experience?

Ricki: My report cards would indicate exactly that.

Lyndon: So you weren’t a people pleaser then?

Ricki: I was and I wasn’t. I was, I, just wanted to entertain.

Lyndon: Okay.

Ricki: Rainy days at lunchtime, school days and stuff like that, I was putting on shows inside to keep kids entertained. Wow. Whether it was guiding them in singalongs or getting people up share jokes and all that kind of stuff. Okay. And this is in primary school? Yeah. Grade six and stuff like that. Oh, no.

Because I just, I was terrible at concentrating on class. Heavily distracted ’cause I’d finish work really quickly and then I’d just want to, my brain would go off. If, if I was, if the world of diagnoses was around back in the eighties as much as it is now, I probably would’ve been classified as ADHD or anything like that.

(You right? Just headbutting the microphone. You’re okay? Yes, I hit it. This guy’s boring!)

Yeah, I would’ve, and they probably would’ve put me on things. But mom had me on a steady diet of three cheese sandwiches a day. So a tube of sweetened condensed milk. Oh, whoa. Yes. ‘Cause she worked for Nestle. Come on. So a whole tube of that. We had it in the tin, a one liter red cordial and, some biscuits. And, but I don’t know why.

Lyndon: And you turned out fine.

Ricki: I was fine. I don’t know why I was a little hyper in class. From that young age, I knew I wanted to do music. Yeah. And or some level of entertainment.

The Start of a Musical Journey

Lyndon: So what was the, first, not even album, but what did you hear? ‘Cause I’m assuming you heard something before you even picked up a guitar, or was it only when you had the guitar in your hand that you went ah, and you made that connection somehow?

Ricki: Funnily, and no rude intention, but funnily, I started on the organ. And I was eight. And there was always one in, sorry, you can edit that.

Lyndon: No, that’s fine. I just, you didn’t need to preface it with the, it was only because of that. You knew that as well.

Ricki: I was eight. We had some musical instruments around the house, but my family, I’m adopted and my adoptive family, none, no one was really musical, but there were instruments ’cause it was a time when somebody learned the organ or somebody learned the guitar or recorder or anything like that. It was just the go-to thing that happened in the late seventies and early eighties.

Lyndon: Yeah.

Ricki: And so I’d muck around on the organ just making noises and stuff like that ’cause it was fun. And then eventually my dad said, he goes, I don’t know much about music. He says, but I know that’s a C note, and I know that on the sheet music, that’s a C there. Yep. And so from there, I just figured out the rest. Yeah. And then I went for some lessons. I remember her name was Jan, her last name escapes me, in Sale. She owned a music center in the, Sale shopping mall. I think they called it a MAL back then.

Breallyn: Oh, wow.

Ricki: And so I did maybe three or four months worth of lessons with her. And then again, I just went back to, doing what I wanted to do. And then…

Lyndon: Was that on organ? Was it, yeah?

Ricki: Yeah.

Lyndon: I had organ lessons too. Yeah. I reckon it would’ve been Carnarvon and it would’ve been about 10.

Ricki: Yeah, yeah.

Lyndon: And it would’ve only been for a few months.

Ricki: Yeah. Yep. Similar paths. And then we moved to New Zealand. My adopted dad was a Kiwi. And we moved over to there. And as I hooked in to the a few mates who played music over there. Yeah. There’s guitars around. And all of a sudden I was like, I realized girls never gravitated towards keyboard players. So I was like, I need a guitar.

Lyndon: Why is that?

Ricki: So I got a guitar. And then it turned out girls actually only dig attractive blokes. So I figured, oh, well I’ve…

Lyndon: It was nothing to do the keyboard?

Ricki: Too late. I’ve got a guitar now. And for me, my decision about music was never, I never had this desire to be famous. And I still don’t.

Lyndon: It was just to entertain? Yeah?

Ricki: My desire was to have a career. Yep. If you wanna call it that. Yeah. My fa, my dad would say it’s not. But to have a life in music. Yes. And yep. And that’s how I’ve carved my path.

Lyndon: Which you’ve path. Yeah. You’ve done it.

Ricki: Yeah. It may not be the perfect path. Everybody’s individual, but it’s one that has suited me perfectly. Yeah. For me. Yeah, yeah.

Breallyn: Which is great. And it does come back to what you’re saying about being authentic. And our topic last week, we were talking about, life purpose and essentially saying it’s a bit of a, it’s a wrong steer sometimes because you’ve got this ideal, of how something should go down. But a better question is, what do I want? What am I interested in at the moment and what’s, inspiring me and what will I wanna pursue for this next little bit of my life? Or this, the moment for now.

Which does take you on all sorts of twists and turns and helps you to approach like your creative endeavors. At the same time as being authentic in other areas of your life and, working on the other things that you need to, or attending to the other things that you need to in your life. Perhaps you’ve done that a little bit more than just having this ideal of it has to be this way and doing it like that.

Ricki: Yeah. I think ’cause I’ve kept my focus and path pretty minor. I don’t, as much as I have other little interests here and there, my main focus has always been music. Yeah.

Staying Focused in a World of Distraction

Ricki: And I think we live in a world where we are bombarded with so many options these days, so people find it really difficult to know what they want to do. Yeah. And so that can chop and change a lot.

But now, you get to the end of the day and you look at your phone stats and you go, all right, I did seven hours of watching stuff. I don’t know what I learned. I don’t know. All I did was look at a whole bunch of other stuff that I’m not, and I’m now finding myself, comparing myself to all of that stuff. And in the process I’ve then spent X amount of hours not doing something actually creative.

Not doing something that’s soul filling. Not doing something that is reaching out and finding me work. And I’ve gone through that. I’ve, had that massively. I find it easy to be distracted. Yeah.

And I have to, every now and then go, that’s it. I’m turning all this off. Yeah. And my focus is going to be contacting venues. Yeah. That means emailing and all sorts of stuff. Then you’ve gotta be pretty strong to be able to handle the hit back of getting no responses at all.

Lyndon: That’s, I was gonna ask you about that. How do you handle that? Because when you realize, like you’re talking about that point of going, oh, I’m just consuming so much stuff and I want to be creating, I’ve gotta hit the road and do more gigs. And so you make that deliberate decision, put in all that effort, to, contact these venues. How do you handle the, yeah, that silence?

Ricki: I’ve become pretty good at just knowing that it’s an odds game. In some regards. And I know that I have to go, I’m just gonna canvas this area. I know I’m gonna send out 30 emails and I know I might hear from two. And that’s as far as just the email world goes.

Lyndon: Yeah.

Ricki: Then there’s the option of going, all right, I’m gonna canvas these venues and then I’m going to follow it up with a quick phone call in a couple of days time. And say, Hey look, I sent through an email and just checking in case it went into spam folders. Most of the time I’m usually just contacting a venue saying, look, I’m wondering who’s best to talk to there with, in regards to live music bookings.

Some venues are great and just say, yep, just contact the manager on this email address. Some are great, but a lot just don’t. They really don’t. And I think that’s…

Lyndon: They don’t give you anyone to talk to or they don’t pass it on, or…

Ricki: No, they just don’t respond.

Breallyn: Yeah.

Ricki: And in this world with Instagram and Facebook, when you can message ’em directly on their pages, you can see that they’ve seen it, but they don’t respond. Yeah. And I used to get upset about that, but all I do now is just go, oh, it just, it’s clearly not somewhere I’m meant to go.

Lyndon: Do you go, I’ll hit them up again next time?

Ricki: Look, if it’s a venue that I see as supporting other musicians that might be in a similar ilk, or that I think as a vibe, I think would be a really good fit, I might pursue them a bit stronger. But if I’m, and this is for covers, gigs. Yes. So if I’m just going out there and just trying to pick up a covers gig again, I, don’t take that personally at all because I’m one of many. Yeah, I’m one of many doing what I do.

Lyndon: So you don’t look and go, hang on, maybe I didn’t word my press kit properly. I’ll change this and…

Ricki: Yeah. Look, I think again, that’s another thing too is that we, live in a world where venues, I don’t know, I know some venues that won’t look at anyone who hasn’t got more than 5,000 followers or something like that. And ’cause it’s gone to this point where venue’s gonna go, we’ll only book a band if they bring along their people. And you think, okay. Whereas my twist on that is…

Lyndon: No pressure.

Ricki: Listen, I know that I’ve, I have a few people who might be pretty reliable if I’m in areas, certain areas that they’ll come along. True. But I can’t guarantee you I’m gonna bring a hundred of my fans along. Yeah. Because, because I say to a venue, you as a venue, can you then guarantee me you’re gonna have a hundred of your fans there?

Lyndon: Yeah, that’s right.

Building Relationships with Venues

Ricki: So I, I make it really a big point to point out to venues that, A, I’m a business. In a sense, I don’t like looking at what I do as work.

Breallyn: Yeah.

Ricki: I don’t say I go to work anymore. I just, I’m going to gig. I’m gonna have fun. I’m gonna enjoy myself. Yeah. I’m going to serve my purpose. Yes. But I like to point out to venues that as a business, I understand that they are a business and they’re in the business of selling, alcohol, food.

I like to make sure that they get to do that with a safe environment where I go in with 30 plus years of experience of reading crowds, picking the person who’s gonna be a problem two hours before they’re a problem, and navigating how that might play out. Making sure that if I’m looking over and seeing staff twiddling their thumbs, that means the bar’s not making money, so I’ve gotta do stuff to make them money.

Some bars think that means if you’ve got people on the dance floor that makes it successful. I’m like, no. Again, if people are buying things, that makes it successful, right?

Breallyn: Yeah.

Ricki: So if I’ve got a dance floor filled with people and the staff are twiddling their thumbs, I’ll change to a slow song. And I used to get venues go, oh, ‘why do you do that? Boy, you lost the vibe’. I’m like, ‘because everybody then went to the bar and bought a drink, and you made money’.

Lyndon: Yeah.

Ricki: So just on that principle alone, going in with that angle of saying, I’m not just a musician about me. I’m not about my ego here. I am about creating a great, fun environment. If it’s a covers gig or creating, if it’s a restaurant, I might say, yep. Look, I’m just a nice background vibe.

Lyndon: Yeah.

Ricki: Because I can tailor what needs to be done for each venue, but my concern is making sure that people are enjoying themselves, safe. And that that they are consuming.

Breallyn: Yeah.

Ricki: Because I want the venue to be successful. Yeah. Because if they’re successful, I by proxy get to have maybe some regular work. Yes. Yeah.

Breallyn: Very much a collaborative approach then that you would…

Ricki: Well, I think it has been.

Lyndon: Yeah. I, know what you’re saying though, because so many venues that I’ve gone into over the years, this is how I feel, so I don’t know if this is entirely true, but I’d feel like they’re going, oh, here’s the muso. It’s not like a business to business. Sort of transaction. It’s just the guy.

Ricki: So they haven’t….

Breallyn: Made that switch in their head of we’ve got certain elements here we need. Yeah. We need the bar stock. We need the, I think when service to be serving. We need the chefs to be producing good food. No. And we need the entertainment to work all well together.

Lyndon: They might have in all the other areas, but then the entertainment comes in and it’s, and, it’s more of a singular kind of idea of what they’re there for. And, how it’s gonna look. Yeah. It’s a little bit like the old days of going, how many people are you gonna bring into the venue? But that was the metric or the KPI.

But like you’re saying, like when you’re going in as a solo covers act. Yeah. You are going in as a business, really. So that’s a really good point.

Valuing Your Work and Relationships

Ricki: Yeah. There’s two ways that I always look at gigs. Actually, there’s three ways that I look at gigs. Firstly. Is this a venue I wanna play in? Yep. Or is it, am I playing with some artists that I really wanna play with?

Lyndon: Yeah.

Ricki: Or if I’m doing a covers gig, that I may not wanna do? Are they paying me a lot of money? Yeah. And when I say a lot of money, I don’t want people thinking out that I’m making $5,000 a show or anything like that. It’s not like that. But for example, I don’t do as many weddings as I used to. Yeah. And in fact, I haven’t, I cut doing weddings last year. Yeah.

And it’s not because I don’t enjoy them, it’s just that they are incredibly long, stressful, draining days. Yeah.

Breallyn: Yeah.

Ricki: And people think, oh no, you just stand there singing songs. It’s no, I’m there to make sure that everything runs to plan.

Lyndon: Yeah.

Ricki: To make sure that Uncle Ted hasn’t gotten so drunk that when he grabs a microphone to do his speech, that he’s all over the place. That, if I play the wrong music and cut the vibe. Yeah. I’m the blame for the failure of the wedding. Yeah. There’s all those things.

Lyndon: There’s more pressure, more demands, isn’t there?

Ricki: There is. You’ve got a lot of people who walk up to your face now and throw their phone in your face with a song name on it.

Lyndon: Yeah. While you’re playing.

Ricki: But yeah, yeah. And as somebody wears glasses and I’m shortsighted, so as soon as they put a near me, I can’t read a thing. It’s just a blur anyway. There’s all these things that you have to deal with where I go, all right, if I’ve gotta deal with those things, I have to have a value to that.

Breallyn: Yeah, absolutely. Because it’s, because I’m.

Ricki: Technically compromising my, if I’m gonna compromise my my, foundation of what I love to do. Then, yeah, there’s gotta be a value to that. Yeah, yeah. But for things where it’s these, there might be certain venues where I go, geez, they’re an iconic venue. That’d be great to play there. Especially with original music. Yes. Or an opportunity to play with certain artists comes up where I go, that’s, that to me is another golden opportunity. I don’t mind compromising. Doing cheaper prices or…

Breallyn: Yeah. ‘Cause there’s some value for you.

Ricki: There is.

Breallyn: Yeah, yeah.

Ricki: On, multiple levels, whether it’s exposure or whether it’s just self-fulfillment, all those kind of things. Yeah.

Lyndon: It’s different too when that thought is coming from you because where you are at in terms of your career and your core values. But if someone else was to say to, Hey, come and play for a hundred bucks. It’s not much, but you’ll get some good exposure. Ooh, what do you think about that?

Ricki: I can tell them I’m happy to expose myself for a hundred dollars.

Lyndon: It’ll be really, quick.

Ricki: Yeah, look, I know that’s, that’s, a very common conversation, thread through online music pages and stuff, like that. It isn’t, yeah. And the quip back to them is obviously to say to venues, look, I’m hosting a party and we need some food and booze at it. And I think if you came and provided the food and booze, I think all my friends would be open to coming to your venue in the future. And, it’d be great exposure for you. Yeah. Look, I think when…

Breallyn: As soon as it’s flipped, it’s put into context then. And it is, people don’t get it a lot.

Ricki: Yeah. I, I think when I deal with venues where if they’re treating their music like a redheaded stepson, I go, this is not the place I want to go. And then there’s, look, some of the, my favorite venues to play…

Lyndon: Just wanna apologize to all the redheaded step-sons.

Ricki: Really. I’m a redheaded adopted child, so going gray was, I don’t know whether that was one of the benefits in my life or whatever, but yeah. But it is that thing of going when there’s some venues I play that they may be small and they may not pay me as much. But I just love the people there. I love the owners.

I love the connection that we have, like. And I think especially as, we’ve traveled over the last four years, my wife and I in our caravan traveling around doing gigs in caravan parks and whatever small venues that I can find along the way when I’m trying to plan ahead. And I don’t plan ahead as much as I used to. I used to be eight, I used to be booked 18 months in advance.

Lyndon: Holy Moly.

Ricki: Solidly prior to Covid. So when we got out on the road, it was very much like, where are we gonna be next week? Yeah. And a lot of caravan park, she’d be going in and saying, look, I’ll play for free, but I’d like a site for four or five days or something like that. And my wife does remedial massage, so this is how we make our money and we want to add value to your right park.

So that people walk away having these great memories of going, oh, we saw this musician there, and we got Oh, yeah. Because they bring that back to being associated to the park, not me or, yeah.

Lyndon: Yeah. So it’s a different economy then for you when you’re traveling.

Ricki: Very much. Yeah, yeah. I’ve learned very, much in the last four years about the value of bartering. Yeah, yeah. And it can’t be all of my business. I have to, like anybody else, I need to function as a business.

Lyndon: You can’t barter a hot chook from Safeway, can you?

Ricki: They weren’t into it.

Lyndon: But you can stuff one pants, down your jumper.

Ricki: Yeah.

Lyndon: The small one that’s been there since the morning. Yeah. It’s shrunken a little bit. That’ll fit. How do you like the heat in the groin?

Ricki: Do children listen to this?

Breallyn: It’s stop now. Our children ever do the no, it’s too bad.

Ricki: But, it is that thing of going having that, I think we learned a lot, with energy exchange became a part of our. Okay. Our way of moving around the place.

And that, so that wasn’t really from an income perspective at all? For us it was more that case of saying we had friends or whatever, or parks where we developed really good relationships with. Where they’d have no problem with us coming in and staying for a bit. And if it was at friends, I’d be like, yeah, I’ll mow your lawns and I’ll paint this and do whatever. Like. It became, that became a value. It, has a value. But it became shared moments with people and creates relationships and builds long term, solid relationships.

Breallyn: Yeah. It’s much more of a connection than just handing over money for a product or a service.

Ricki: Yeah, absolutely. I think there’s, two things that are really bad in the world. Giving away things for free. Because people don’t value what they get for free. They didn’t pay for it, so they don’t value it a hundred percent. You could walk up and say, here’s a CD. That’s great. Thanks. Yeah, yeah. I do that. Don’t get me wrong.

Lyndon: Throw people’s CDs away when they hand them to you.

Ricki: Yeah, no. I’ve…

Lyndon: The true nature of Ricki.

Ricki: I’ve given away CDs, but it really, does come down to the moment. I won’t just do it to anyone else. There’ll be just, if there’s just certain moments where I feel like. Somebody said something and I know that they maybe can’t afford it, even if it’s five bucks, 10 bucks, whatever. I know sometimes it’s just, sometimes I just go, look, just have one. I want you to have it. Yeah.

And then if people undervalue what they’ve got, that can be a, real shame as well. Yeah. But I think there’s, real value in developing the relationships. And I think that’s what, for me, creating a career in long-term, performing live and so forth. It’s really been more about rather than online promotion, it’s really mostly come down to one-on-one conversations and connecting with owners of bars, developing a friendship and a relationship with them. This is in the cover scene. Again, very different with the originals world.

And that’s how I’ve created those foundations to have gigs that have booked up enough that I can go, okay, I’ve got a safety net. For surviving. Yeah, yeah. I know I can, I know I can pay for the rent. I know I can pay for, food and fuel for the car and taxes and all those kind of things that have gotta be done. That’s covered. Yeah.

Lyndon: And was that safety net more of a big deal when you were actually like a resident in anywhere as opposed to on the road?

Ricki: Absolutely.

Lyndon: Or Yeah. Yeah, yeah. You still have a safety net on the road, but it’s not as crucial or it’s not as, it doesn’t extend out as far, or…

Ricki: You need a bigger fuel budget. True. But then we had a much smaller rent budget. Yeah. Like we went from paying, maybe $20,000 a year in rent. To not. Yes. Yeah. But all of a sudden, because we are pulling a caravan. And sometimes doing four or 5,000 kilometers for a trip over the course of a couple of weeks. Yeah. That’s a lot of fuel.

Lyndon: Yeah. It’s, yeah. And I suppose too that you were talking about that it’s a different economy when you’re traveling on the road and that’s the lifestyle and, so on. I guess if someone was to do that, but they were still paying their mortgage or something, then I guess…

Ricki: That’d be a bit tougher.

Lyndon: It’d be tougher because maybe they wouldn’t be happy to, do a gig for five nights at a caravan, for five nights accommodation at a caravan park. They go, ‘well, I still need some money to pay the mortgage’.

Ricki: And look, we had that with some caravan parks. Like quite often I’d offer to do a free gig. To show them what I can do. And then I’d say, if you want me to do a second or third gig over the course of the week, then there’s gonna be a fee involved in that. And this was again, much like reaching out to normal music venues. Yeah. Where I’d canvas all these caravan parks. Some were nice enough to respond with, oh look, we don’t do music here, but thanks for asking.

Lyndon: Yeah.

Ricki: Others were you can come and play, but you’ve gotta pay to be here as well. And others were like, oh, we’d love to take the opportunity. Let’s just do it. See what happens. And that we’ve seriously got so many great relationships. There is about, on average, I think about 38 parks between Melbourne and up there, East Coast and across into Central New South Wales and Queensland and up through to Darwin, that I could consistently go and play.

With great relationships with people I still talk to on a monthly or so basis. Yeah, yeah. Just check in, see how they’re going. I’m, not going up there in any time soon. Yeah. But I still like, just touching base. Yeah. And seeing how they are. They’re people who’ve become friends.

Lyndon: Yeah. That’s nice.

Ricki: Yeah. And that helps build the longevity of both the friendships and my career as well. Booking.

Breallyn: Yeah. Which I think is not, and like what I hear when I hear that is like you’ve touched on that your, I guess self promotion and marketing plan, which was our original thing that we started talking about. It is that face-to-face, one-to-one connection. Conversation. But what, and ’cause I have to write about this a lot for businesses that I write for, it’s like, what is that backed up by?

When I’m hearing you, what I hear is: You absolutely know what you’re doing musically. You’re obviously very good. We’ve, heard you’ve, been here recording, done some amazing stuff. So professionally you bring the goods with your music. But also you are looking out for those venues. You, would be showing up on time. You’d be, delivering on all your promises. And being a genuine and good person to deal with.

Which are like, it’s like the delivery of all the promise is in all of these other things that you do. It’s not just about connecting to have a conversation to book a gig. It’s what’s, what else is coming with that? So yeah, that’s what I am getting from your, ethos there of authentic self-promotion. Is that it? It’s the whole deal. It’s not just in the booking of the gig there.

Ricki: No, absolutely. And, I think the, like you’re saying, the key there is that one-on-one conversation. The real world face-to-face talks. Because, I, find I, I get pretty, I can get pretty down sometimes if I was to look at all the email type communications or stuff like that and go, I never get responses. What was I expecting?

Because for one, the written word is, it takes, a pretty special writer, as you’d know, Brea, takes a very special writer to actually convey emotion through writing. Yeah. Most people read, emotionless so, and so words can be incredibly emotive as we know.

Breallyn: Absolutely.

Ricki: Or for some people, they just go, yeah, I don’t care. It’s just something written. I’m, I don’t have to say no to this person.

Breallyn: Yeah.

Ricki: I don’t have to reject their face.

Breallyn: Yeah, that’s right.

Lyndon: Or I don’t have to reply at all.

Ricki: I don’t have to reply. I’m just pretending they don’t exist. Yeah. So that’s the part about the online world. That I find very difficult to deal with.

The Value of Connection and Collaboration

Ricki: Now, the people who do the online thing well for self-promotion are people who are genuinely probably surrendering a fair amount of their emotions and time and stuff like that to put themselves online. And some are very good at it.

Breallyn: Yeah.

Ricki: And they can have that. And I think that’s where the individual needs to really calculate what is right for them.

Breallyn: Yep.

Ricki: But I think for me it’s really about just getting one-on-one with people having a chat. It takes a bit more effort. It takes more effort to go out for a walk, walk around the venues, go in, say good day, find out who’s doing what.

Breallyn: Yeah.

Ricki: The biggest thing you can do for self-promotion is, with music. Connect with other musicians. ‘Cause there’s still a lot of competition within musicians. Yeah. Some kind of get really defensive. Oh, I’m not telling anybody where I’m playing, I’m not gonna give them that name or that number, or anything like that.

Whereas I’m more, the more we share information together, the more that we’re open about what we’re potentially earning.

Speaker 6: At venues.

Ricki: And saying, look, let’s actually work together to increase our value. Yeah, yeah. As musicians. Yeah. It’s, both musically and financially what we take to a venue.

Breallyn: Yep.

Ricki: Because literally every other industry in the world has gone up in value with hourly rates or.

Lyndon: Yeah.

Ricki: Industry standards. Yeah. As a musician, technically a lot of musos are still making the same amount per gig that I was making in, as we were saying earlier. Yeah. Before this chat. In the late nineties. In the nineties. Yeah. And in, in the, nineties $300 dollars went a long way.

Lyndon: Yeah.

Ricki: In today’s terms, $300 doesn’t go very far.

Lyndon: Not at all.

Ricki: I respect that. A lot of venues only have certain budgets and so forth, but musicians have, often through pride of not communicating and trying to defend their territory in a sense, haven’t really opened up to the potential to say, let’s all work towards upping our fees by 10% this year.

Breallyn: Yeah.

Ricki: Because we all need to. Yeah. Because we’ve all gotta survive here. And we wanna make the best of it. And so some of the best gigs I get, and the way I get work is by having great relationships with other musicians. And helping them get work just as much as they help me get work. Yeah. Because that, to, to me, real power in that connection and, expanding that way as well.

Speaker 6: Yep.

Lyndon: That’s, really good. I do wonder whether I guess a millennial or, someone maybe in their twenties or thirties that’s grown up with technology, whether their reaction to dealing in the online space isn’t the same as ours. Like it’s a little bit like second nature for them and not a big deal. Whereas for us, we are craving, not even that we’re craving the human contact, but yeah, it’s just, we’re more comfortable sort of doing that.

And if we are going playing live, it makes sense, doesn’t it? That it’s about us being in the room with other humans. So that would make sense. But if. If the online world makes up a lot of your world, then…

Breallyn: Well, connections are different, aren’t they? It’d be really great to have somebody in and talk about that. People that are, operating a lot in the online world, they’re very good at creating a community in that space and interacting with that and shaping it and, setting their own kind of guidelines for, how how the speak goes. And…

Lyndon: There’s autonomy there.

Breallyn: Yeah, there is. Yeah. Obviously they’re not in control of what everyone says, but there’s a lot more of putting out, this is the vibe of, this channel. Join it if you want. Otherwise, scroll on by.

Generational Differences in Promotion

Ricki: Yeah. It’s entirely a generational thing. It’s, no different to. Yeah. I’ve got a song called Back in My Day. And, all it simply is, a turning into my dad. When he, when I grew up, him telling me my music was Ya Ya Music and made no sense. It was terrible compared to his music.

Breallyn: I remember my dad saying that too.

Ricki: Yeah. And now I listen to some of the stuff my kids listen to and I go, okay, I don’t really personally get it. I’m probably a little less judgey than my dad, but at the same time I still go, ah, nah, it was better in the eighties and nineties. Yeah. And, but, and I think that’s the same with communication levels, all sorts of stuff. For, me the way people communicate today online as you’re saying Brea with creating video content, doing all that stuff, it’s not that it’s wrong, it’s just different to what I know. Yeah, that’s right. It’s just different to what I grew up with.

So I do have a method of doing things, which works for me. Doesn’t mean it works for anybody else. Yeah. Or everybody else.

Breallyn: Yeah.

Ricki: And I’m not gonna go outta my way to try and. I don’t personally want to go outta my way to try and try to keep up with the 20 year olds.

Lyndon: Yeah.

Ricki: I don’t need to, no. Because the longer I spend comparing myself to other people or anything like that, it’s just less time doing my thing. Yeah. And just being me and doing my art and creativity and stuff like that. Yeah, yeah. If I spend too much time focusing on trying to hold, why aren’t I like that? Or that and that? Then I’m just not being, I’m just losing me. I’m just giving, yeah. I’m giving pieces of my soul away for no reason. Yeah.

Lyndon: Yeah. And what you’re saying earlier about you’ve gotta work out what’s important to you, what lines up with your values, what feels right, in your soul. If you can work out all that stuff, it’s, it does help you understand okay. I want spend more of my time over here. Otherwise what are you doing? You just go, oh, this is what I have to do in order to get a gig, or, this is what I have to do in order to get a following.

Do you put any concern or thought into building a following at all? So I guess we’re talking about original music, maybe more. Like actual feet on the ground followers, like fans. Yeah. Fans. Is that on the radar at all?

Likes Don’t Equal Dollars

Ricki: No. Look, I’ve got people who connect into what I do. Yeah. And they’ll go, oh yeah, we are here at this gig. ‘Cause we saw that you were playing here. Yeah. But in all reality, I always say to people likes don’t equal dollars in the bank. Yeah. You could get a thousand likes on a post. That doesn’t mean anything.

Lyndon: Yeah.

Ricki: Unless all of a sudden everybody sent you a dollar per, yeah. That’d be nice. Yeah. What’s, if you wanna like my post, it costs you a dollar. There you go. But that doesn’t translate into money in the bank. No. For very, few people. Yeah. So it’s, just a weird goalpost to be even. Part of chasing, so I, was crap at sport. And I’m crap at chasing, the goalpost. Goalpost as well.

Lyndon: That’s a good analogy actually.

Ricki: Continue to come back to the best promotion you’re ever gonna have as every show you put on. Yeah. Yeah. It’s that old saying, you’re as good as the last show you put on. Yeah.

Lyndon: Does that put some sort of pressure on you to be doing? Your original music to where there’s already ears, already listeners. So like a, festival or something where people are going there because they want to hear, they want to hear some acts that they’re already familiar with, but they know that they can canvas around the stages and see some new artists as well. A hundred percent. A hundred percent. Is that where it’s at?

Ricki: Yeah. I, think that for the original side of music, which is where you’re generally probably going in with the less intention of saying, I wanna make money out of this.

Lyndon: Yeah.

Ricki: You’ve really gotta go in with an authentic position there. A hundred percent. Yeah. There’s a good chance you’re not gonna make money out of it for quite a while. Not saying you won’t. If you’re just canvasing your original music, and that’s why I was going back to that gig ethos before of it’s either gotta be a venue I really wanna play or with somebody else I wanna play with or for a lot of money if I’m gonna sell out my soul for this, for the gig.

Promoting Original Music

Ricki: For the festivals and stuff like that, it’s great because most festivals will still pay you something.

Breallyn: Yep.

Ricki: And you can be pretty honest about the costs that it’s gonna take to get you there. And if a festival thinks you’re gonna add value to their festival, they’ll, pay it. They’re really good. And it is a great way of just people connecting in because there are a lot of people out there who still love to go and find original music. Whether they just wanna say, I heard them before they were famous. It’s, Yeah, that’s right. Or whatever. It’s, it’s really great, but it’s hard getting into festivals too.

There’s a lot of people vouching for them. Trying to get into those very few spots. Yeah. But start local. Look for the small community festivals. Things like markets, Sunday markets, Saturday markets, all that kinda stuff are great. Yeah. If you can put your hand up to go and play a gig at those. I love them. I love ’em because I’m playing to all of a sudden two or 300 people. Yeah. That would never have heard of me otherwise.

Lyndon: And you can put the hat out, can you, in those?

Ricki: You put the hat out. Some markets will pay you a base rate fee. Stuff like that. For me, a lot of it’s about if I’m gonna make the sacrifice to go and do a gig at, a market, for me, it’s mostly just about getting my name out there. I’m not too worried if the hat doesn’t get topped up.

And it’s usually those kind of gigs where I get to play my, own music more. ‘Cause there’s no judgment. There’s no expectancy to go, Hey, you’ve gotta keep this pub cranking for the next three hours. Yeah, that’s right. Yeah.

And there’s so many avenues, wineries and stuff, there’s just so many avenues that musicians can be pursuing. Where especially with original music, you can sneak it in a bit, have a few covers up the sleeve. Yeah. And then throw the originals in as well when it suits.

Lyndon: And when you do that, say somewhere, yeah, like a winery or whatever, and you put in some original songs, what are you hoping? From that, as opposed to just going, I, I won’t bother. I’ll just keep it as a covers thing.

Ricki: I’m hoping, with the original stuff, I’m hoping two things. Yeah. That people will either come up and go, Hey, that was a really great song. Who did that one? Which has happened. Yeah. A few times. And all the other alternative is that they say nothing at all.

Because if they seem that, oh, that’s just a song I’ve never heard before, that’s a good song. I like it. If they come up and go, that song was terrible. Who did that? I never want to hear that song ever again.

Lyndon: Yeah. Which they’re not gonna do.

Ricki: Yeah. But anyway, yeah.

Lyndon: That’s so it’s, yeah. It’s just a little bit of exposure or, yeah. Okay. It’s like you’re handing out a bit of a business card or something. Is….

Ricki: Yeah.

Lyndon: But at the same time it’s, you’re getting to play your original song.

Ricki: Yeah.

Lyndon: It, you can replace one of the ones in the set that you’re tired of doing.

Ricki: Yeah. You look at a lot of artists who have become famous over the last. Especially since Covid, we’ve had the online world boomed. It went nuts. The exponential growth of online presence went ballistic since 2020. So YouTube’s now were uploading what, a million videos a day?

Lyndon: Yeah.

Ricki: Something ridiculous. And more. And one of the main strategies that they say for artists, original artists to get attention is do a ratio of nine covers to one original song. This is how a lot of artists have done it.

Lyndon: Yeah.

Ricki: There are a lot of artists who owe themselves to their covers of famous songs before they became really famous. Yeah. And then threw in an original or two here and there. And also people, they just by proxy, listen to it. And that grows that side of things. Teddy Swims. Yeah. Look at Teddy Swims and Jelly Roll, guys like that. Yeah, they’re great at what they do. Great performers. That’s how they did it.

Lyndon: And I suppose in some, way there’s parallels to, the start of the whole record industry. That’s what people were doing. They were, there’s so many versions of the exact same song in the fifties and the sixties.

Ricki: 100 percent. Yeah.

Lyndon: So it’s not all that different.

Ricki: Yeah. And it was all just singles. People go, our bands don’t release albums anymore. They didn’t back then either.

Lyndon: Yeah.

Ricki: Albums became a thing in maybe the sixties and seventies, eighties. The album thing became this big journey. But mostly, music started off as just singles. Yeah. And touring on a single. Yeah. And that’s most of what people do now too. Yeah.

Anyway, sorry, I’ve….

Lyndon: No, it’s all good. ‘Cause we’re getting onto your music. So the album you did, Live At, Hello? Did you just release that? When was that released? That was pretty….

Ricki: February.

Lyndon: Oh, okay.

Ricki: Yeah. With no marketing really at all. At all. Okay. And as a consequence, it’s mind blowing that it’s had barely any listens.

Promoting Ricki Wood and Bands

Lyndon: Now seeing as we’re on the whole topic of self-promotion, is there anything that you want, you wanna self-promote? Ricki?

Ricki: $1 likes.

Lyndon: $1 likes. Yeah, that’s right.

Breallyn: That’s a great idea.

Lyndon: That is a good idea. I just imagine people going, what? A dollar. And then unliking.

Ricki: I think the, the, easy come, easy go. The the big thing I like to promote to people is how to spell my name.

Breallyn: Oh, tell us how do you spell it?

Ricki: Which is R-I-C-K-I. Wood. I spell it like a girl? I’ve had people show up at gigs going, oh, I was expecting a female artist. It’s just how I spelled it. Ricki Lee. Yep. It’s how I spelled it.

Breallyn: Being your kid Ricki as well, with an I. Yeah, yeah. Yep.

Ricki: Yeah. I’ve got four ‘eye’s ‘. There we go. I’m wearing glasses for the listeners. Yes.

Breallyn: Plus your I in your name. Yeah. Okay. That’s right. So Ricki with an ‘I’, Wood.

Lyndon: Is it rickwood.com?

Ricki: It is, but look, I don’t, I, do little updates on my website, but not a lot. Mostly I just, it’s, about people. If they wanna find my music, they can go and have a listen. Hopefully they enjoy it. Yeah. And if not, they don’t.

Breallyn: So we can find you on your website, on Spotify. Bandcamp.

Ricki: Bandcamp.

Lyndon: Bandcamp. That’s a good one, isn’t it?

Ricki: YouTube, all sorts of stuff. There’s also my band Loose Unit. Now there are two, there’s a couple of Loose Units as there is these days. You always find there’s multiple Loose Units or multiple, this band name or anything like that. But that’s some of my old middle stuff from when I was like in 19 and 20, which, we’ve just released that stuff out. Loose Unit. Loose Unit. That’s cool. If you look for an album cover with a sheep on it with a question mark on it, that’s the album.

Lyndon: Was it a nice looking sheep?

Ricki: It was. I was living in New Zealand at the time. Yeah. And we called the album, You’ll find it Under Ewe because Loose Unit. We thought it’ll be under U for Unit. Yeah. So you’ll find it under Ewe. And then we thought, let’s put a picture of a sheep on the album cover.

Lyndon: I like it.

Ricki: Yeah.

Lyndon: How’d that go?

Ricki: Good. Actually, I tell you back in the day, that sold well. And then, and then I’ve got a band called the Voodoo Kreepers. Yeah. And in the tradition of spelling things incorrectly, Kreepers are spelt with a K instead of a C. Nice. And that’s an old album that I’ve put back out there as well.

Lyndon: That’s how I was first introduced to you. Now, I don’t know if you know this. I got handed that CD Voodoo Kreepers by, Oh, ah.

Ricki: Norm.

Lyndon: By Norm, yeah.

Ricki: From the Hot Rod show up in the Nagambi.

Lyndon: Yes. So he gave it to me because I was Norm’s coffee guy.

Breallyn: Yep.

Lyndon: And he goes, this is who’s gonna be playing? He’s awesome. ‘Cause that’s all part of the rockabilly scene, isn’t it? The hot rods and so on. So I went up there to serve coffee and that was the first time I saw you. Yes. And you bought coffee from me.

Ricki: I did. Yeah. Yes. And if I had any idea you were the musician, you are, I would’ve put my guitar away and just stood there quietly and not embarrassed myself.

Lyndon: No, not at all. No, that was that. I, saw a few different acts over the years at Nagambi, and yours was definitely the standout.

Ricki: Oh, thank you.

Lyndon: Yeah. Not just saying that too, it was the most memorable for the musicianship and for the entertainment. That came with it. Yeah. And that, that was in the heyday, I think of that particular event too.

Ricki: Yeah. We were doing a big thing back in the day, you know, it was again early in MySpace. And we were doing quite well with getting a lot of attention in the rockabilly scene around the world. But then when I decided to hit the road in 2009 and left New Zealand to come home to Australia, yeah, it put an end to the band. Yeah. And we only recently played our first show in 12 years in New Zealand. Back in New Zealand. Yeah. That’s great. Yeah. Boot chop. So that was really cool.

Lyndon: So you stayed in contact with those guys all the time?

Ricki: Yeah. Yeah. We’re still mates. Same with my heavy metal band. We still talk. Yeah. We live in different parts of the world. The bass player was in, oh, what was the name of the band? Dragon Force. Okay. He played with them for a while, just before they became famous. We stay in contact and it’s cool.

Lyndon: That shows too that when you’re saying earlier about the importance of relationships to you, and it’s not just about having a relationship in order to get a gig. It’s more than that. They’re true. The fact that you’ve got these bands that you up and left and then you’re still friends.

Ricki: I’m still friends with my ex-wife too. So there you go. It’s pretty incredible. Done. Anyway. Yeah. So there you go. But yes, Ricki Wood with an ‘I’.

Breallyn: Thank you so much for joining us today. It’s been a pleasure to have you back in the home and definitely on the podcast, and we appreciate your time.

Ricki: Thank you. Hopefully you can edit it down to about a three minute conversation.

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