Lakeland PBS presents "When the Music Stopped" made possible by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural heritage fund with money by the vote of the people November 4, 2008.

Minnesota Governor Tim Walz announced further action today to curb the spread of Covid 19 in Minnesota.

We are at a critical point here.

If we get beyond that curve where community spread accelerates to the point that our hospitals can't keep up, that our respirators are not be able to and some of the things that we need to get to folks.

It becomes a really critical situation.

We need to stop congregating.

We're going to close the bars.

We're going to close the restaurants.

We're going to close the places where we gather and understanding that this is the magnitude of what we're doing is not lost on any of us.

The impositions that it will cause on people are not lost on any of us.

It was gut wrenching honestly.

I mean this is not only something that I love to do and it's just a hobby but it's my living.

I mean, I have a family and this is what I do.

So, it was so much of how long is this going to last?

Do I collect unemployment?

I don't really want to do that.

Do I get a different job?

Well, I could but I have everything invested into what I'm doing here.

So, it wouldn't make a whole lot of sense.

So, it was extremely disappointing and frustrating and depressing.

I think a lot of folks would say the same thing.

If we want to survive and continue living that has to be through music.

We're used to kind of getting beat up as soul artists and learning how to navigate atmospheres that might like to beat on us a little bit but you know this is just one more.

I know I was driving to Duluth to go produce a concert with the band Wilco and like everybody else I listened to Dr. Michael Osterholm on a podcast that day and it was March 10th and while I was driving up to Duluth and after listening to what he said knowing who he is, knowing he's a Minneapolis guy, by the time I got to Duluth I knew that, you know, all right I'm going to get through this show.

Tomorrow I'm probably going to grab stuff from the office that I need to work just in case.

I don't know what this timeline is going to be.

While we were in Duluth we were all watching, you know, the news and what was going on.

There was hand sanitizer everywhere, half the people that had tickets didn't show up to the show and that night the band backstage had a meeting and decided that they were going to cancel the rest of their tour, that it was time to go home and ride this out.

So, I drove home the next day.

It was March 11th.

I talked to Dana Frank, the owner of First Avenue and kind of told her what was going on as far as what had happened that, they Wilco, they were done until Covid was under control and we just had a conversation that, you know what, we're not going to dodge this.

We are going to end up with some sort of a shutdown but, guess what, it's going to be a couple of weeks and starting probably the next day was when we started getting a lot of bands calling and saying they wanted to postpone their shows.

I have one unfortunate email, I'd say from I think March 12th, where a band we had playing that weekend on Saturday asked me "So do you think we're gonna be okay?

And, I go yeah, we'll get the shows in this weekend.

That's not gonna be a problem.

It's not bad here yet but who knows what it's gonna look like and of course it was the very next day that the the shutdown mandate came through.

It must have been late February of 2020, we started kind of hearing things but it didn't seem like, it seemed like it was far away.

The album came out in mid-February and then I kind of went on the road for a while and I did some shows in Wisconsin and then we did a show in Chicago.

I think it was March 9th actually.

It was a Monday in Chicago and we did that and that was the last show I did.

Came home and everything was just done.

Well, when we first shut down, I gotta say we really thought that this was a couple of weeks.

It was a very short window where all of a sudden it seemed inevitable that we were going to shut down and by March 13th, we were pretty sure that we knew that the governor was making an announcement.

So, we actually had a band show up and wanted to load in.

We're like we don't think we're gonna be able to do this show.

So, just park your bus, chill out and we're gonna wait until this, whatever, I don't remember what, two o'clock press conference or whatever it was and sure enough that was when Governor Walz put, you know, the initial shutdown order.

So, we had to say, sorry guys we're canceled, get him some meal money and go home.

But, I got to tell you and it's, I don't want to say embarrassing but like when you look back, we knew so little about COVID and what this pandemic was going to be, that it kind of happened in little waves.

Everybody in the music industry sort of came to these realizations at the same time.

So, it would happen in waves and then at that point we kind of blew out our entire summer and started moving things into the fall of 2020, thinking all right, this is going to be real safe but that was also the time when we realized, we don't know when the end of this is going to be.

It's going to be at least two three months?

That's what we're planning on right now but this is really bad and that was kind of when I remember having a phone call with, once again I was on the phone with Dana Frank and our executive team and we're like this is, we don't know how we're gonna do this.

The one thing you never thought could happen but the complete rug pulled out from underneath us so.

It was a range of, you know, some of the bands just didn't feel comfortable.

Some of the venues were closed.

We thought about doing parking lot shows and we did one of those but as far as bars, nobody was doing inside shows at least for a year and a half and some of the outdoor festivals that we were doing I remember we went to Zoom conferences for Mississippi Music and made the decision pretty early on.

We started doing our planning in January and February and we had all the bands booked for 2020.

By April, we decided we're not holding it and we would have started middle of June but we just thought with everything going on and all the restrictions that it wasn't the safest thing that we we could have done and so we decided to take the year off.

Personally and I'm sure it was that way for a lot of musicians, it was super hard to go from maintaining your life, your home, whatever, you have to work or you don't get paid and when you can't work you don't get paid.

So, that was really really hard.

It is work.

That's the thing people a lot of people want to say "oh you play in a band do you"?

Whatever, I was like well, yeah but there's a lot behind what you have to do to make these things work especially if you do it yourself.

You don't have agents or managers or whatever, like I don't even know what those people do honestly.

I've just done it myself for so long but yeah there's a lot of work that goes into it.

Travel time, sometimes you got to be away from home, be away from people you love.

So, I think that's probably the best part of Covid is we got to stay home.

We all got to stay together for an extended period of time but also we gotta go out there and play or we're not gonna eat.

I got really hard on myself for a while actually because I wasn't writing anything.

I thought this is the time when I should be writing.

All my shows are cancelled and then I just, I wasn't.

I don't know if I was depressed or just extra bummed out or what but I didn't but then yeah I did sort of hit a stride mid-summer.

I wrote a couple songs, a couple days in a row, went a little while without and then kind of got the feeling that I was kind of on to something and so it went from there and I did end up writing an album during all that.

So, not a complete loss.

I think during the pandemic a lot of artists realized their power amongst, you know, themselves and with each other, as a group and as a community and when I say their power, also their worth and ways that they can collaborate with one another to make our community stronger and better and make our arts community thrive even more and it was like a lot of, you know, we're gonna tough this out.

I think, you know, looking like we're almost on the other side of this, we as artists collectively like realize our worth more than we did before and I think that's important.

Well, when Covid started we were home.

We had to be home and that forced me into more songwriting.

I've been using all my time to practice my guitar and try to get better, learning different styles of guitar which kind of opened it up to writing songs.

Everything kind of like, got shut down in the cold but when it warmed up we all were singing outside.

We're all playing outside and that was a lot of fun and I don't mind being outside playing shows.

There's something about it that I like better than singing inside.

I don't know, a lot of emotion came out of this too.

It kind of forced me to do more happy, more positive songs, more let's move along and let's work together, let's be more community.

Post Covid music for me has been a really important time of self-discovery and reconnection with the initial spark that drew me to music.

I was guilty of maybe getting a little burned out, trying to do original music that was maybe not paying the bills but was edifying and and great with my friends and then doing, you know, all of this session work that was also really fulfilling in a different way.

That was how I was making my living and trying to do that all at once and saying yes to everything and great opportunities with great people.

And I was on that treadmill for a number of years and I absolutely loved it and was very grateful to be able to do it but when everything stopped I had a chance to say "wow like i haven't rested in a while".

Maybe I'm getting a little burned out.

You lose a little bit of that initial spark, you know, as you get older but with Covid and everything stopping, I actually came to terms with the fact that I do love it as much as I did when I was younger and I got time to sort of repair my soul from maybe a few too many bad gigs on the road and stuff like that and now I think I'm in the best place that I've ever been in creatively.

I'm not in terms of output but just in terms, I righted the path and now I'm approaching music making with a more reverent feeling that I haven't had since I started and I'm gonna take that with me for, you know, the rest of my career.

There's no going back.

I'm not grateful for it because it's a absolutely like horrible thing without getting into the, you know, the politics of, you know, human loss.

I don't want to sound like I'm profiting from it but the break in creative action has allowed me to, you know, reconnect with that initial feeling and it's great and I'm never going to go back.

I have noticed there's more pickin'.

circles.

I have noticed that more musicians are just, let's do, let's just play tonight and do like an improv hootenanny.

I'll notice a lot of the folks from Kind Country, Feeding Leroy, Mississippi Mike Wolff, Jacob Mann and Owen Mann from the Salty Dogs, myself, we're just collaborating and let's just play together.

I would say that it was strange, that during Covid when none of us could get together and see each other and do the things that we like to do every night which is go out and see bands.

Strangely enough it did show how strong the bond is between the music fans and the audience and the musicians and like I always like to make sure that we give a nod to the people behind the scenes, the crew guys the, you know, audio technicians and light techs and bartenders and security staff and just how we all are in this together and how important it is for everybody that's involved.

Being one of the, you know, behind the scenes type of a person which is I am and you know not a lot of people know what we do and things like that, yeah the musicians were, you know, the visible ones that were being affected but there's production people, you know, there's front of house sound guys.

There's monitor guys.

There's lighting guys but then there's also riggers.

There's the truck drivers driving the equipment around.

There's the suppliers.

There's the venue people, the ticket takers, the people selling concessions at venues and it wasn't just music.

It was theater.

It was sporting events.

I mean it's huge.

There's thousands and thousands of people that were directly affected and right now when you look at a lot of these help wanted sites in if you search out sound production and things like that they're clamoring for people because some people got out of it, found a different job and they're not going back to do it and so now there's a huge glut in the market looking for help for people learning how to do this trade.

Yeah, like sound guys, you know, setting up the sound.

They're not, you know, they probably weren't getting paid.

The venue wasn't gonna getting paid.

One thing that I was real proud of that we were able to do was, we were able to maintain a connection to all of our furloughed staff.

We made sure that we sent out like a weekly email which doesn't seem like a lot but just trying to like maintain a connection with everybody while they were spread out, you know, some people went and stayed with their parents and some people, you know, we're all over the place and we didn't want to lose the sense of community we have just amongst our staff and amongst the the people here that put on the shows and so even though we couldn't do that, we couldn't have them come in, we made sure to stay in contact with everybody and stay a resource whether it was helping them navigate unemployment or find eventually connect people with vaccines or connect people with testing opportunities and things like that but then we also, you know, we wanted to maintain a connection with the audience and the community.

Unfortunately, we were able to do a lot of that through non-stop constant show postponements so anybody that had tickets for shows here got a lot of emails from us over the the real shutdown time.

We really wanted to get through Covid and get back to normal.

So, we were trying to mind all of our p's and q's.

We didn't want to, you know, if there was social distancing rules, we were going to enforce them.

If there was masking rules, we were enforcing them because we want to get through the other side of this thing.

So, when we came and really figured out how many people we could have in the venue, even though we normally at like in First Avenue, we can have 1,700 people on a normal concert.

During a Covid concert with all of the various restrictions, we got it all the way up to 62 which is just not enough people to make any money at all.

It costs us almost as much to open the doors for 60 people as it does for 1,700 because you still kind of have, you're still paying rent.

You still have all the other things, the utilities and the audio and light techs and whatever but regardless, it was a way.

We had musicians that really wanted to find things to do and so thankfully we were able to team up with some live stream companies and we did a few different models like we had some where artists came in and they didn't want to do live, so they would come in and on a kind of closed set, record shows.

Some of them came in four days in a row, recorded four different shows and then they had their live streams set up for, you know, a month later and then yeah we transitioned into doing some really lightly attended shows while we passed the time until we could kind of get back to business which happened this past July and now we're just hoping to stay in business.

Having live streams, there's a fella that just had live streams every Thursday at his house just to keep musicians playing and the Venmo tip jars and the PayPal tip jars were out there.

So, I feel like there's a lot of people that were trying to help artists make money during this time.

Venues were having places, private shows, Covid, nobody there, you know, live stream because a lot of us this is our job.

This is the only thing that we had going and there's some venues that are just reopening and they were struggling too and there's musicians that, let's not get paid right now, let's just get this back, you know, let's just get our feet back going both of us.

I'll put a tip jar out.

We can live stream it or we'll just have a tip jar out, don't pay us.

You need to get your feet back too and I think there was more of a teamwork with that.

More recently we've kind of peeled back on the live streams.

We felt like we were kind of overdoing it, felt like we were kind of getting into a rut because it was the same thing, staring at our camera and we missed the people and I started to kind of get down about not getting to perform and the challenge was real and at that point I made a very conscious decision, I said if we're going to make it through the pandemic or if I'm going to make it through the pandemic as a musician and keep my fortitude, I need to play my instrument every day.

I need to sit down and touch my guitar, use my voice and that's been getting me through.

That's been kind of a blessing in disguise where I get to experiment with the sounds in private.

It's challenging for me and I've only live streamed a couple times.

It's just such a turn off for me to try to reach people that way.

In person is where I can really thrive to connect with other humans.

So, the live streaming thing has been a bit of a challenge for me.

You know, people don't really understand.

If we're not out there playing, we aren't making any money.

We can go online and play a live show and put our tip jar up there or try to put up pictures of our t-shirts and hope somebody buys it but once everybody in the world is online doing the same thing, everybody's just washed out, you know what I mean, so it doesn't matter.

You've got to go out and reach out to people where they are and you can't do that if people are sick or getting sick or if you're not being careful.

Artists need to be out showing their art in whatever form, you know, or they're just sitting there starving.

As a community we all really missed those opportunities to come out and bond over music and their favorite bands and it's just hard to put into words like how amazing it made you feel when you saw this outpouring of support at a time when you couldn't do the one thing that you're supposed to be doing so.

I recall having a conversation with Dana Frank, the owner of First Avenue.

We were talking about, this is going to go on longer and be more painful than we ever really could have anticipated and we knew that at that point in time some of the big players in our industry namely Live Nation and AEG, it was being reported I don't know if I saw it in the Star Tribune or in Billboard or something, you know, it was being reported that they had a seat at the table, at the White House.

Trying to figure out how we're going to deal with this and how the industry is going to deal with this and if there's going to be any support or government relief and I remember very, very well standing in my basement, on the phone and Dana said "well we need a seat at that table" and I said "Dana, like First Avenue doesn't have a seat at that table, you know, like we don't, we're an independent concert business.

We don't get invited to the White House."

She's like "but we need to be there."

"What can we do" and I just told her, I was like, I don't know that organization does not exist.

One of the things about independent concert promoters and independent venue owners is they are independent and we're all friends but we all do things different ways and we've never been good at organizing for our collective good and Dana said "well, now is the time, we got to do it because otherwise we're not going to get represented and we're not going to get help" and I got to tell you, it was the most amazing thing because in the matter of 48 hours after that conversation, they had a name and I think they had maybe up to a thousand venues had already signed on to the NIVA and over the course of the next week, it just kept ballooning to I don't even know how many venues are involved at this point but I know it's several thousand and the speed with which Dana and those original people were able to put that organization together was honestly amazing.

I've never seen anything like it.

By organizing and getting a collective effort, they're able to go to our Senator, obviously Senator Klobuchar has been a gigantic hero of this whole effort of helping us small to medium-sized operators that really just, we had nothing.

We had no income.

We still had all sorts of expenses and really no idea when we were going to get through this pandemic and of course there was PPP money in the beginning which was really a loan and the way it was designed while it was really helpful, we really couldn't be in business and so it's designed as a way to you know keep your employees working but we really didn't have anything to do because when we can't have shows, we also don't need bartenders or any of those other people.

So, it wasn't designed really for our industry very well and Dana and NIVA, they just had a singular focus.

Well, I don't want to say singular, they were doing other stuff as well but they just had this dogged focus on the Save Our Stages Act and that it had to get through and that it was the only way that it was going to save our industry and I fully believe it is the only way that they were able to save large parts.

I don't think there would be hardly any independent concert promoters, independent booking agencies.

I don't know how anybody would have gotten through this pandemic without those efforts and without the Save Our Stages Act getting passed.

We were just always steadfast that what we were going to do is, we were going to follow the best guidance that we were able to get by the federal government, by the CDC and by our elected officials here in the State of Minnesota and what they were recommending and until we got to that point locally, we weren't going to open because we didn't want to do anything that was unsafe.

We weren't interested.

It's not feasible for us to operate in limited capacity.

For a million reasons it doesn't work.

We wouldn't been able to do social distancing.

We wouldn't have been able to do things responsibly and we wouldn't have been able to make any money on reduced capacity so we knew that we were fully in an industry that was kind of the first to shut down and kind of by design going to be the last ones to reopen but once again, it wasn't just us.

This was us and thousands of other operators around the country and we stayed in contact, regular contact with all of the booking agents and the band managers and anybody else who is in kind of like the behind the scenes ecosystem of putting these tours on the road.

Even if Minnesota was great, if Covid went away in Minnesota, well, it really doesn't help a touring ban because they're not driving from their home to First Avenue.

They're driving from their home to Chicago, to Milwaukee, to Minneapolis and so we knew that this was a national thing, that it had to be a national effort and so we all kept watching the best doctors we could and like trying to like be optimistic and look at where predictions were as to the course of this virus.

Of course, once vaccinations came out, we all started realizing, all right, it looks like fall could be pretty good and I would say it was around January of 2021, after the holiday break when we all decided, all right, and when I say we all, it just kind of seemed industry-wide, everybody started looking around saying, all right, fall, the numbers of vaccinations and the way things are going it looks like it would be safe to book tours in the fall.

So, we all just circled Labor Day and said okay that's when we're going to reopen and of course things happened a little bit sooner than that.

One by one, all the states kind of started allowing people to open up for business with either no restrictions or much more lacks restrictions or whatever and so as a company we decided in May that, well we can't go full bore anyways.

We can't open.

We have to bring back all of our staff.

We have to do new training.

Obviously, not everybody's coming back.

So, we're gonna have a lot of hiring to do and so we made a deliberate plan that, all right, we're gonna do this in phases and we started by opening our restaurant and we did that only around events.

So, if there was a Twins game and then we'd open the restaurant.

If there wasn't, we didn't and we kind of just timed it out.

We're like, let's start small.

We'll start with 7th Street Entry, 250 cap room and let's do that in July.

So, even though we got the go ahead the end of May to open back up for business, we actually waited all the way out until July 2nd before we started actually doing concerts and we just wanted to be deliberate and we also didn't want to start bringing staff back and be like all right you can work Friday and we don't have another show for three weeks and so see you then and so then we just kind of realistically, we went one a week kind of, we opened the 7th Street Entry and then the next week we were able to open The Turf Club, then we opened First Avenue during Pride Week and got to have a couple of great big, really super fun dance nights and yeah Fine Line Palace and Fitzgerald kind of just fell in line.

So, over the course of six weeks, we opened up six venues.

You know, the show's coming back was as soon as they started kind of opening things up it seemed like, people were getting vaccinated, then I started getting calls like "come play".

Can you start the open mic again, things like that.

That was a little scary at first I guess but exciting at the same time.

But then it seems like, you know, everybody's getting on board here.

We're gonna have live music back but then it kind of exploded more than I thought it was going to.

Well, when things started opening up, I didn't play too much inside.

It was more slow and I was taking it slow too, you know, I wanted to make sure things were safe for everyone but then once the weather started getting nice and folks were, you know, there was a lot of venues especially in Duluth that were making patios, you know, outside.

They were making stages outside and I noticed that it was opening up more and that made me more comfortable and more people were coming out.

I think it was a slow progress.

I noticed that it was going to be really tough to get back out there because venues were struggling to pay their bills.

So, I didn't want to be the one to go "hey pay me money that you maybe don't have".

I think the very late April, I got an offer and kind of started from there, it just kind of snowballed.

So, picking up in May I got, I've been pretty busy since.

I mean and it was kind of hit and miss.

Some of the annual things that I would do every year it was half and half.

Muskie Days happened last year but it was at a much smaller scale.

Muskie Days this year was a big deal and I was contacted in February that that was happening.

Mississippi Music, we decided to wait until July to start because that's when a lot of the restrictions opened up.

So, by July I felt pretty comfortable that, you know, things were going to go and start happening again and then they slowed down again.

So, I've been very cautious too about myself, picking and choosing which events that I want to do.

I wasn't exactly ready for it, is the thing and I started getting emails and calls from places I've played quite a bit and then, you know, a bunch of places I hadn't played before and so because I hadn't started booking at all, I was just waiting, you know, to see when things were going to be safe and smart to do it.

I felt like I was in a spot where, hopefully I wasn't going to get anybody sick being vaccinated so I was all about it.

And they made adjustments and they wanted music back and well anywhere.

In the past year, I've worked a show at First Ave.

I did production for it and I've also been a spectator at a show at First Ave. in the past year and they're taking a very strong stance on it with being vaccinated or you know testing and their response to me was is that they are one of the biggest venues and owners of a lot of properties in the State of Minnesota and they want to, you know, set an example.

They don't want to have to shut down again.

Yeah, I would say that through a lot of this, while we've gotten a lot of help, we've also had to make some decisions on our own and be a leader.

There was no real guidance.

I know in some states or municipalities, there was a little bit more but especially here in Minnesota, we just went from you're essentially on lockdown to there was the next day, it was all right lockdown over and no mask mandate anymore so just go about your business and so we just had to take a step back and say we got to figure out what's best for our business and it might not be popular but we're going to be leaders in this effort and I'm proud that I work for a company that feels that way first and foremost.

But, I also think that it's a great sense of morale for the people that work here besides myself or the staff at large to see First Avenue kind of step out and be a leader in this area and just say look this is what it's going to take for us to do shows safely, that's what we're going to do.

Honestly, it's a matter of safety, you know, I mean if you go into a store and you don't have pants on you're getting kicked out, you know, that's and it's not necessarily taking the freedom away.

It's just making sure everything's sanitary and everyone's okay in there.

I hope that that continues and does because if it doesn't, we're going to be back in the same boat as we were you know.

I've seen different venues taking different approaches to that.

I can't argue with either way.

I mean private businesses, you know, they have the right to run it the way they want.

If they want to require vaccination, well they have the right to do that.

If they require no changes or no precautions like that's up to them and whatever the audience chooses to do.

I mean, we all have to make our own choices right?

Honestly, I'm for it and they don't want to spread it more and if people are willing to get vaccinated, it is more safe for us to be out there if you're vaccinated in my opinion.

I'm sorry for the folks who don't believe that they don't want to get vaccinated but we got to watch our backs and they got to stay alive and if they feel like this is the safest way to do it, I'm for it and I'm going to take what I need to do to keep myself safe.

I'm vaccinated.

I just want this to be over so we can go back to normal and people as artists and bars and venues can survive and if they want to have you got to show us a card, I think that's great.

If they feel that's the way we're going to keep everybody safe and we can still do this, I'm for it.

We have had some bands that aren't happy with it and they're allowed their opinion but it's not going to sway how we feel about this issue.

We still feel we're doing the right thing and even now I'll say a lot of artists are all making their own policies and so it's still a little bit confusing in that night by night you might have different rules at different shows or different venues or whatnot but it feels to me that the industry is coalescing around some basics which would be either you need to be vaccinated or you need to provide a negative test.

It's more is it 72 hours or 48 hours?

Do you accept rapid tests or no but I think we're getting there and once there's kind of a general set of rules in place, I think a lot of that confusion will just go away especially with time as time marches on.

My first show back at Live I felt like I had a fire in my belly, you know, I just, I was so excited to be with people and sharing my story, sharing my song because I've needed that.

As a performer that's what we want to do.

We want to at least for me, I want to connect and having that physical connection was amazing and I was nervous but I was so excited to be able share it.

So, I was pretty excited at my first show.

I had lost my stride.

I was so used to just doing this, unload, packing the van, unloading the van, doing my thing.

It was like clockwork and I had almost forgotten how to do that, you know, and so I felt very nervous about that but it came back pretty quick.

Well, of course it took me a minute to get like, you know, I was like well I can't believe I used to play this long but that was really kind of fast, you know, you get back in to it right, you know, real quick.

The crowds in the places, it was kind of surprising at first because sometimes, you know, there's always like certain tables or whatever that are doing their own thing.

Fine, sure but it seemed like when, especially at first and it's still there, there's that whole excitement and everybody's just jacked.

The other thing I've noticed is people are listening more to like slower more involved songs or sad songs and just really like letting you know they enjoy it.

Yeah, audiences have been very receptive ever since.

I feel like they were just happy to be out there again.

They've been missing out for so long, just like I had and other musicians have.

We needed an audience.

They needed the music so yeah it's been very good.

There's such a spiritual experience when you go to a live performance and your with all these people and you're singing along to these songs that all of you know.

It's a church.

It's a religion in a way, you know.

It's that's where music through music fits for me and all of us.

I think we're all kind of craving that.

I've seen a huge change in appreciation post Covid and I think that part of it is just the post Covid exhalation that everybody's gone through but no I do think that people really have understood that we have a special thing here.

In the spring when vaccinations started to be commonplace, I mean I booked my entire calendar in like three weeks.

You know I do my own thing and then I play in two other bands and literally within three weeks I was booked all the way out to like now, which is like November and obviously us as musicians were thrilled to be back on stage but the audience members were kind of having the same experience and I had a lot of people come up to me this summer and go oh my god I don't, I had no idea how much I was gonna miss this.

I have no idea how important.

This was the bigger thing than I thought it was in my life and I don't think that's unique to Minnesota at all.

I think that's just a natural human reaction to what we've all been through together but absolutely we felt it, all of us musicians felt it.

Yeah, it's interesting.

I find I'll hear from people and from listeners that some of the songs on this album really stick out to them as being a soundtrack for what they've been feeling during lockdown and during this big huge shift that we've been going through and they're always surprised when I say, well actually the song was written before the idea of the pandemic was even in any of our minds and I think that is in a way feels like it can highlight the fact that if a song can touch you and resonate with you and you can find some meaning within it, that means that the song can be transferable from the artist to the listener and sometimes as a writer that's what I really strive for.

I want people to be able to relate to my songs in whatever framework they're sitting in in their lives.

The audiences are just as rabid for music as the musicians.

I think even more so.

I think that was also the initial push with the venues was they had people when are you going to have music again?

I've noticed, you know, tip jars filling up more, CD and t-shirt sales are, you know, people are excited to have it back and respect it a little more.

It's actually a person that they can connect with and people are listening and really having a good time.

I feel like there's a bigger energy.

I feel like, kind of what they've been experiencing during this time and it was tough and it was tough on a lot of people and I feel like their energy and what they've been missing during Covid was coming out, like I could feel, I could feel their energy coming back.

I could feel the love.

I could feel that they were happy to be back and listening to music and I do feel like they were connecting better.

There was more empathy.

There was more "man I was struggling and boy do I need to hear that song right now" even if it's not what I was trying to come across and they had their own interpretation of what the song is they would come and tell me that you know that really touched them or I can see it in their faces.

It's overpowering and it's something that I strive for in every song that I sing, every word that I sing.

Every gig is the most important gig in the world.

I've always known that intellectually but, you know, if you're working seven days a week for, you know, years and years at it, you kind of forget that.

So, I feel like I'm in a really great place now because of Covid.

Financial issues aside because that's, you know, a problem for all artists right now but I think as a creative, Covid actually saved my life in a lot of ways.

And if we ever did take for granted getting to perform for people, I don't think we do anymore.

Art, music I think that might be the only thing that got a lot of people through.

I know it helped with me.

Even with music, man if you're out playing all the time and you just come home like it is a grind, you know, just like anything else but once people sit back and can take time and start feeling, because live music really affects people whether they're there for it, whether they claim they like it or they don't like it, those vibrations get to you, you know, one way or another and then if you take the extra step to really get in there and listen, I can really do some stuff to you sometimes, you know.

Before the pandemic, it just kind of felt like music was this constant, like we were entitled to just have beautiful songs around us and not think much about it and it feels now like people have a shift, where they are more tuned into the music around them and more tuned into the art that people create for others to hear and to enjoy is not something to be taken lightly or not something to take for granted.

It was really fun when we first started reopening and everybody is so glad to get back to it which is why it's so important that we don't lose track of what we can do to keep concerts safe and not that there's anything wrong with live streams, I love a live stream too but it is not a replacement for being in a room watching a band live in the flesh in front of you and being packed into a crowded room.

So, whatever I have right now and whatever shows I have right now, I'm going to make sure that I project that it could be like my very last show for the day, you know, for a long time again.

So, but I think I every show I play I try to give it my all at every time.

Really it didn't take long to change your idea about a party in the little town in the hills, me and the boys shot through Before I was doing so many shows, three hours, four hours by myself which I was just kind of used to and I thought that's just kind of the way it is.

Well, due to sort of the camaraderie it was shared between so many of us, I've been booking a lot of stuff like split bills with other musicians, you know, where they'll play for an hour and a half.

I'll play an hour front or whatever the situation may be but that's really helped me and the other musicians be able to really sort of give those songs our all because we have a shorter set, we're sharing it with somebody else who's passionate about what they're doing.

So, it's just it's elevated at all honestly.

And, I mean being on hold like that it seems like everybody was just so excited to be back playing and kind of like well we went through that and look at us now.

Let's really get something together and make a scene happen, make it play, you know and maybe not just as much do your own thing but try to come together and do shows together or whatever so I mean yeah that's a very nice positive outcome from the whole thing is that people are wanting to do more music, wanting to do music together more.

In general we've all, as a society we've talked a lot about how we all miss seeing concerts and we talk about all the out-of-work bartenders and staff at all these concert venues, all of which is very, very true but not enough I think has been talked about the artists who really were sidelined.

One thing, if you pay attention to music business you know how important touring is to the livelihood of a musician these days.

Streaming and while it works out really well for maybe the, you know, the top artists, the vast majority of working musicians rely on income from the road that just completely disappeared so it wasn't just that lack of connection with their audience and that lack of connection with their bandmates and their crew but there was also just a lack of connection with a paycheck this whole time.

So, we know that the artists are very, very excited to be back out on the road but there's a lot of anxiety around this whole situation because especially with people getting breakthrough infections.

Well, when you're out on the road you're going out on stage in a room full of, you know, hundreds or thousands or tens of thousands of other people then after you get off that stage you're getting onto probably a small bus and riding around the country in a small enclosed space and so we saw like the bubbles for instance that the NBA did last year for out in Disney World where they're able to kind of like put everybody in a chamber and kind of make their season work.

Well, it's pretty difficult to do that when you're a band on the road playing a different city every single night and it doesn't work the same on television and so it's an absolute mix out there on the road of total excitement, total excitement to be back, back out on stage performing in front of fans and and having that connection but also just absolute anxiety that we need to be able to do this.

We need to be able to do it safely so we can keep the show on the road because if you're stuck in Omaha and suddenly one of your people comes down with Covid, well, you know, you're canceling for the next week or 10 days or whatever it is and what do you do?

Do you go home?

You still have shows booked probably beyond that so it is a real balancing act out there right now and everybody from the venues, to the artist managers, to their agents, to the artists themselves we're all just trying to work together.

We want to keep all of the fans in our staff locally we want to keep everybody safe and having a good time but we also are working on an individual basis with each individual artist to make sure that we're doing everything in our power to make them comfortable.

So, we have our standards of what we're doing like everybody that works here is vaccinated and you know for the fans you got to be vaccinated or take a test at this point to get in.

This is constantly evolving.

This could change next week, if we learn more about best practices but then we also want to work individually with each artist to do whatever we can so that when they get to our venue they feel safe and they're not thinking about Covid.

They're not like walking out on stage with like, you know, one half of their brain being an artist and the other half of their brain just worried about what that next moment is.

As a good concert promoter, what you're trying to do is you're trying to make sure that when that bus pulls into the garage or wherever it is and the band is loading out onto stage, you want to set the scene so that all they are thinking about is their art and their performance and not worried about whatever else is going on and so I'd say with the Covid protocols and Covid safety, it's another added thing that we're trying to do our best at to make sure that not only are they safe and secure but they feel safe and secure so that they can, you know, keep the show on the road.

Keep the energy and the love coming back because we want to give that to you.

The safer you are, the more the venues can stay open.

The more that people can keep their business open and a place for us to play and we appreciate the support they're giving us already by coming out and doing what they can and what they're willing to do.

The amazing thing about music in Minnesota is there's a lot of talent and it doesn't just come from the Twin Cities or Duluth.

There's bands all over this state.

I'd say go out and support local music.

I mean, if anything just buy their CD's or buy a t-shirt or something like that, that helps because there's a lot of talent and if we don't keep supporting that, that talent pool is gonna go away.

Go to the bars or go to Mississippi Music or go to any of these art fairs that have live music at it.

If you enjoy music, if you enjoy art go out and support it when you can.

If it's not safe to do so, find a way to do it, you know, if it's within your budget purchase the t-shirt, purchase the painting.

If it means something to you, which I hope it does get out there and support it yeah because they, you know, things are going like this and who knows what's going to happen tomorrow.

I'm hoping they realize that musicians and artists are an important part of life whether the larger social construct believes it or not you really need it.

I think that's what's going to get you through.

We're here for you just got to listen, that's it, just got to listen.

Try to be part of it because we're here trying to bring you in so and please just, you know, try to keep people safe, you know.

Keep yourself safe, your family and everybody else if you can.

You don't even have to spend a dollar to support a musician.

You can get on the social media and give them a like and a share because you never know who's gonna become a fan.

Time to fight or time to die.

Knew my smile would cry.

I noticed that I sell a lot more merchandise and I've noticed that when I go to shows people are putting money in the tip jar more.

I feel like people are buying merchandise more, coming to shows more, are willing to pay a cover fee because some of the venues have to because they're trying to get back on their feet again too.

I just feel like there's more support out there.

People are more supportive and it's fantastic.

You just feel the love when you're out there.

You feel it.

You feel it with the venue.

You feel it from the people that are appreciative that we're playing and us musicians that people are coming out and listening.

Well, you know, one thing we did learn for sure during Covid is that we don't know a lot about this virus and we're so happy that we're open right now.

We have a full calendar at all of our venues and we're loving seeing everybody back but we also know that if, you know, we're not careful things could take a turn for the worse and while we hope to never have another shutdown we know it's a possibility but at least if we get to that point, we have the experience of how we dealt with it so we wouldn't be I guess writing the book for the first time.

We would know how to proceed.

It'd be a lot less questioning about how deliberate we need to be with each one of these steps and also as it pertains to postponing shows.

Unfortunately, we got really good at that like both our team and virtually everybody else in America that does this job.

So, we're optimistic we're not going to get there.

We're optimistic that people are going to continue to get vaccinated and we're going to continue to learn more about how we can safely do shows and keep these bands on the road and keep everybody safe while they're doing it but if it gets there, we're gonna buckle down and get through it and you know just do our best to stay.

Like I said stay optimistic, keep our heads up and if it does get back to another shutdown, unfortunately we know what to do.

Lakeland PBS presents "When the Music Stopped".

Made possible by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund with money by the vote of the people November 4, 2008.