Successful Musician Podcast Episode 80
Interviewee: Sean Monahan
Interviewer: Jason Tonioli
Jason Tonioli
Welcome to the podcast today. My name is Jason Tonioli and we are with Sean Monahan. So Sean is based out of South Carolina down in Charleston, where they have the best pork chops and best pig pickings ever. Actually lived right down near where you’re at, Sean, but Sean is part of a group called Gale Bird and they have been releasing music. They’ve been doing a lot of kinds of shows as well. What I think is interesting is Sean and the others in the group are parents. I mean, got kids, you’re trying to do the music thing. You’re also doing some marketing type of stuff as well. So you’re kind of one of those musicians that juggles things on multiple levels, but you guys are doing some very cool things and I’m excited to have you on the podcast today.
Sean Monahan
Man, thank you for having me, Jason. I’m excited to be here.
Jason Tonioli
Well, Sean, let’s dive right in. You guys have this kind of band. Let’s start with, give a quick overview of what it is, the group that you guys have, and then let’s kind of rewind back to how you ended up getting to where you’re at.
Sean Monahan
Yeah, so our band is called Gale Bird. We are like a rock southern country style band where we play country. We found that out when we were pitching the playlists. They call us country, but our show is a rock show. We have a ton of fun. It’s me, my friend Joshua Gale and his wife Melissa. And then we typically have a great band behind us.
We had a good time. We’ve been playing together for a long time too. So me and Josh go back to college, gosh, probably 15 years ago now. We’ve been playing, writing, playing around town. And we took a little break, got married, and had kids. I have two kids and he and Melissa have four. And we started back up a couple years ago, got signed with a label locally and are just trying to make this work with the family and it’s not the easiest thing, but we think it’s doable.
Jason Tonioli
Yeah. Well, so, as you were growing up, I mean, did you have this dream that you always wanted to do the music thing? I mean, was it, one of those like, Oh, maybe this is just kind of fun in college. Like where did this all come from?
Sean Monahan
I think it kind of just, I never really actively thought about it. It just kind of made sense. I loved music. I was very involved, both at the church I was at, I was playing four or five times a week there. I was taking lessons. I was competing in classical piano competitions. I was picking up guitar throughout my whole childhood. It was kind of a central thing for me and it was kind of who I was seen as. So I think I just assumed that was where I would head.
So I went to college and I started in both music and then I also did a math degree as kind of just in case and I don’t know what this will look like. So did both degrees and ended up kind of navigating towards jazz performance and theory and then also did composition. And I think once that was finished, I kind of dipped my toe a little bit in some software design stuff to see if that’s where I wanted to head. I quickly realized that I wanted to do music full time and it was an important part of my life and I think I had the business sense to make it work. So right after college I was starting to teach lessons, I was starting a gig around town, I started working at a church running some music there and kind of had to go to multiple streams of income for a long time. Actually, it’s still how it is now, we got a lot of things going on. But yeah, I think it just made sense and that’s where I wanted to head.
Jason Tonioli
Yeah. Well, so you talked about the business side of things because I know you’ve been a marketing guy a little bit as you look at musicians, cause you’ve been around them a lot over the years. What advice would you have for musicians when it comes to learning business or learning marketing that you think might be helpful?
Sean Monahan
I think when I was younger and this narrative was kind of projected to me of, know, if you want to be a musician, you have to sell yourself fully to the art, to the craft. And what that craft was defined as was either technical ability or, you know, opportunity at all costs on a stage. And I think that for a long time, I subscribed to that. There was a year after college that I didn’t get paid a whole lot and I practiced five hours a day.
Because that’s what I was told you had to do and I’m grateful I did. It definitely helped me, but I think I discounted a lot of opportunities I had to learn things that now I’m realizing were extremely valuable as a musician. So, you know, I’m getting into the marketing stuff a lot now and I’m realizing that such an important part of being a musician is learning, you know, how to show my stuff to the world.
At the end of the day, I could make the most beautiful thing possible, but if no one sees it, all it is is therapy. It doesn’t do anyone a whole lot of good if they don’t ever hear it. So I think for me, that was a big thing that it took me a while to learn. I could spend all my hours on technicality, but there are these other aspects that create success in musicianship that maybe don’t always look like music, but they’re equally as important.
Jason Tonioli
Yeah. What, I mean, if you were, you know, 20 years old and sitting in school now, is there specific things, you know, for somebody who wants to do music, you know, what specific things would you recommend to yourself to focus on now that you’ve had to be thrown into the fire and you had to figure it out the hard way over the last many years?
Sean Monahan
Yeah, I go right back to the… I had an ear training class and this professor, who was a Russian pianist and as good as they come, she was just one of the best. And she said something that has stuck with me. She said, at the end of the day, all music is entertainment. And so as a musician, your goal is not to be just a technical player, but people want to be entertained.
And that can look a lot of different ways in a lot of different genres, a lot of different venues. But once I realized that that was the goal, that changed a lot of my mindset. So obviously, I want to be authentic and true to the sounds that I hear. But going back to earlier, if nobody hears it, it doesn’t matter. And if I’m at a gig singing my heart out, but people aren’t entertained, they’re not as likely to help fund this to continue.
And so, yeah, I think I would just say, I would echo her and just say, at the end of the day, this is entertainment. And the more I can learn about stage presence and how to, you know, sell my craft, how to tell a story well, those are just integral elements to the communication that music is.
Jason Tonioli
Yeah. One of the areas where I see many people kind of be hesitant to do that is they might be good on stage, but then it seems like a lot of artists these days don’t think about trying to get more than just their Facebook likes or their TikTok likes or their YouTube, whatever it is. And they don’t build that email list or the list of people who were fans at the shows or the people who did engage with them. And, and, and I see, you know,
That’s great. You went to do that show or the gig, but if there’s not, if you don’t walk away with a list of at least several dozen people, what was the point? Like there’s no lasting or lifetime value that was, you know, generated from that engagement that you did from entertaining them, right? They just move on to the next one. They forget about you tomorrow.
Sean Monahan
I think the modern musician has to think in two different directions. One direction is the online aspect, the digital streaming, and social media. I do think it’s important and especially with creating reputability as original music artists, sometimes it’s hard for us to find venues to play in until we kind of have some momentum and some networking. And so having the ability to say, hey, we got, you know, 10,000 people on social following us, we’ll promote. That stuff is super helpful. So I don’t want to discount it, but that stuff doesn’t pay our bills. At the end of the day, what pays us more is things like merch sales, things like, you know, live venue ticket sales, local vendors that want to be a part of our festivals, whatever that would look like. And so we’ve realized that there’s a second target we almost need to focus on separately, that’s the local audience. And I mean, those are the people that are going to be the most loyal. And so having something tailored to them, yeah, it’s so important. I love that idea, like an email list. For us, a lot of it is creating pop-up events that we maybe will push ads to within a targeted region, doing things within local groups, churches, different clubs and things. Yeah, building that local audience to help sustain us as we then try to build the digital audience.
Jason Tonioli
Yeah. I had the opportunity to spend several hours one night with Rick Barker. He was Taylor Swift’s manager for the first several years of her career. And he was sharing stories of things that he helped. I’m sure there was lots of overlap and different people doing different things, but he would talk about how she would perform at a show and she was opening at the time for some big name country people. And yet she would be the one sitting at the table signing autographs and doing CDs and just engaging with that audience. And I think from a musician standpoint, the engagement, not only when you’re on stage and you’re entertaining them, then having that engagement or making an effort above and beyond what the other guy’s doing to engage them after the show and spend as much time as you need to, to.
kind of become friends with them. Like, like you need the audience members to feel like they know you and they need to like you. And the way you do that is through connecting the hard part is you can’t, think, you can go sign CDs and you get that little 32nd or two minute moment with that person after the show, but you can’t do that with 60,000 people or 5,000 people or even a thousand people. And so having that list, I think any musician listening, it’s very important to think about, okay, what’s the ideal customer journey.
You just had one person who could be your fan, what would you do for that person? If it’s like your career, it was make or break. If this person is going to fall in love with your music and you don’t want to listen to you forever. So, if you would, you would probably go drive to their house and go sing them a song on their porch with your guitar type of thing. Right. And so I think as musicians finding, finding those ways that we can connect, whether that’s maybe somebody bought merch from you at the concert you were doing, if you’re a gigging musician. Well, do you have anything to take that purchase that they either Venmo’d you or paid you somehow? Are you taking that name and then are you following up with a thank you note? You know, maybe you could mail them a note. Maybe you send them an email. Maybe you send them a text and just say, Hey, this is Sean. just, you know, saw you were at the show. I just wanted to say thank you. Maybe there’s, you want to get as personal as, Hey, I you bought this hat or this t-shirt from us and just wanted to say thanks. I hope, I hope you get some cool comments from people, but just finding ways to engage, and going back to kind of the Taylor Swift comments and just kind of things that Taylor would do when she was, you know, young in her career, where she would be online on the social media platforms, just chatting and responding to people or doing something nice for somebody or, know, I think it’s just absolutely key as an artist to find those moments and they’re all around us. And you mentioned earlier, like you felt like you had to sell yourself. And I think the sooner artists can get over the idea of selling, you’re not really selling anything. You’re there to entertain, but in a lot of ways you’re there to serve and kind of be there to help that person. Whether they’re needing to feel better or they just want to sing in their car and be happy. What are the ways that you as an artist can be there when they need you?
And I feel like that, that type of thing is, the real game changer as a musician of knowing, know, Hey, I’ve made a difference, you know, for even if it was just that one person, if it’s the only fan you had, you know, how can you make that difference? And then how do you scale that and do it for two and four and 10 and just do it for more and more. Right.
Sean Monahan
Yeah, think realizing that people when they come in to see you, they might not remember every song you played, but they’re going to remember how they felt either in the show or afterwards when you’re talking to them. So yeah, I think that’s exactly right. Creating those touch points with people, being very specific with it. And then I think that that is an area where you can overlap with your social media, where you’re not just reaching a giant universal audience, but you have a lot of local followers as well. And so doing shout outs that make…
Jason Tonioli
Absolutely.
Sean Monahan
Yeah, making them feel like, you know, they’re a part of my journey because I did a shout out to Charleston and like, yeah, I think about a band like Need to Breathe. They’re a huge band now, but they came from Charleston. And so, you know, they post something about Charleston. Charleston folk get excited. And so I do think that there is an overlap that can be really helpful too.
Jason Tonioli
Absolutely. And I think what’s cool, you you rewind back 20 years ago and there was really no way to be, to show behind the scenes and show who you were. It was really, it was a lot harder to show who you were. So you had to go to a concert to know what was going on in that artist’s life. And today with all of the different social platforms, I can put a video and I can show you, I mean, somebody can walk into the grocery store and I guess if you really had an engaged enough follower, they would think that was cool. I think there’s a whole lot of better ways to do it.
There’s that fine line of what’s, what’s an interesting thing to show about the behind the scenes for an artist versus posting a picture of your food on your plate that you sometimes see or cat videos or whatever, whatever thing it is. I think it’s a challenge that artists need to kind of step up to the plate and just share the behind the scenes story. You know, is it a story about your guitar? Is it a story about how you wrote this song? Is it a story about how you went to an event and how you felt and how it impacted you when you came. You know, those stories of growing up as kids, there’s so many stories that I think every human being has. And the sooner artists can recognize that they actually are more interesting than they think they are and be willing to share the stories and, you know, it’s not just to entertain, but it’s just really to become, you know, a friend with that person so that they really feel like they know who you are and fall in love with you as a person and care about you.
And the way you do that is you have to care about your fans and that needs to come out in the storytelling. If that’s the type of artist you want to be, I guess there’s a lot of artists that don’t care too, but I think the most successful ones actually very much engage and care about the people they play for.
Sean Monahan
I wonder if there is a negative stereotype for a lot of artists that they think if they feel like they’re acting in a performance or on stage that they’re not being true to themselves. But I think that that almost should be recalculated because you could say the same as, if I practice my instrument, I’m being inauthentic. It’s not how I really play. But reality is, is no, you’re practicing your instrument to get better at your craft. And I think it’s the same with storytelling, with your stage presence, your live show. It’s not that you’re being inauthentic when you’re working on those things. If you’re practicing singing in front of a mirror to look at your facial expressions and see how you interact with people and what you respond like, that’s just building your craft. It’s not being inauthentic. And I think a lot of people, especially someone like myself growing up would have felt like that was taking away from the artistry, which I don’t know where I got that from. It’s kind of silly.
Jason Tonioli
Yeah, I think it’s one of those where artists think that there’s a certain way to do it. I think the real, I don’t know, for me, a measure of success is one, are you happy? Are you enjoying what you’re doing? And then I think the next, I think once you’ve become content and happy with who you are and what you’ve, you know, your music and, know, what you’ve been able to do, I think the next level in the video game, if you want to think of it that way is.
How do I help others be happy? How do I, how do I bless and help others? And I think what’s cool is when you start doing that, you start realizing, man, I felt way better blessing that person’s life or helping that person feel good than just me doing the thing. Like, you know, it feels good when you’re playing that guitar, but when you have like 10 people that you literally touched and they’re like, it helped me so much. That’s where, you know, it’s just the next level of video games.
I think a lot of people hold themselves back where they think, Oh, I can’t, I don’t want to, you know, build the website or I don’t want to have, you know, this, I don’t want to send a text message to my people. don’t want to, they don’t want to hear from me. I don’t want to email them. Well, the reality is, you’re going to bless a whole lot more people. And it’s just, you know, art, think as artists, we just need to ask ourselves, are we ready to, to level up our game? And do we want to have a bigger impact and reach and help more people? And, and at least from everything I’ve found every time I do something nice for somebody or help somebody. It feels really good. And it feels better than just me doing something only for myself. so, well, Sean, I, I’m curious your definition, I guess, of, of a successful musician. If, if you’re asked, you know, what is a successful musician? Do you, what would you say that is?
Sean Monahan
Absolutely, I love that. Man, that’s a good question. I think it’s definitely changed over the years. I think at this point, being a successful musician is giving my best effort to telling the story. I’ve really shifted what music means in my life. And I was an instrumentalist for a long time before I started singing. And so it was very much like, is this riff cool?
And I still love that aspect of it. I love it. But now it’s kind of morphed to: does this riff tell the story that this song is trying to communicate? So to answer your question, I think that a successful musician is someone that is just able to do their best, whether it’s, you know, getting paid full time, part time or not at all, but doing their best to tell their story in every opportunity that they get.
Jason Tonioli
That’s great. Well, Sean, I think we’re about out of time. For people who want to go check out some of your stuff. You guys have some really cool songs. If you’re listening to this, you should absolutely go check out their songs. Where’s the best place for them to go, go find a Gale Bird and what you guys are doing.
Sean Monahan
Yeah, all of it is on Galebird.com. G-A-L-E Bird.com. We’ve got songs out and kind of our niche that we’ve kind of found ourselves in is we’re all married and we’re all figuring out what being married is like too, and what a successful marriage looks like. And so a lot of the songs come out of us just what do we need to remind ourselves of? So like me and Joshua Wright, a lot of them are you as a husband. How can I encourage myself to love my wife better? Or relationships around us, friendships, how can we be more intentional? We just had a single come out called Roses and the concept is, don’t want to hold my roses until your funeral. You know, I want to give them to you now. And so, whatever that looks like in your life, I want to be encouraging now before it’s too late. So, I think that that’s a little area we found that it’s ministering to us but we found it also is really encouraging to a lot of other people. So I love that you were talking about the service aspect of music because I think that one of the most rewarding things I’ve seen in my career is having people that are moved and encouraged by the craft that we’ve spent so much time working on.
Jason Tonioli
Yeah. All right. I love it. so, so again, go to galebird.com and if they go on Spotify or iTunes or wherever they’re listening, they play music by Gale Bird and then, and then go check out your stuff too. So, definitely, thank you so much for sharing with us. And I hope those that are listening, I know they’ve definitely gotten some great advice, today. So thanks so much, Sean.
Sean Monahan
Everywhere. Yep. Thank you, Jason.