Indie Artist Interviews: The Break Down
Cats: interview| No Comments »On August 3rd, we were happy to hang out with The Break Down, a 5-piece Toronto-based Funk/Jazz/Soul band comprised of Jay Jones, Lilly Mason, Demetri Petsalakis, Rich Itzkovitch, and Jay Sussman. We chatted about what their music is like, what they’re doing now, and how they feel about the current state of the Toronto indie music scene. Coming from completely different backgrounds, they pull five different performance and writing styles together to deliver a rich musical experience to mainly Toronto audiences. As a self-proclaimed DIY band, they’ve played at all sorts of events. They’ve also released a new CD, which they funded primarily through earnings made from shows, merch and previously released CDs, they’ve submitted music for an upcoming release of Rock Band, and this year they also organized a mixed media festival called SunFunk where people could go to enjoy stand-up comedy, improv, visual artists’ work, dancers and music. Thankfully they were blessed with a very large turnout… so much so that they’re considering organizing another SunFunk for 2011. Below is a condensed version of the interview. Enjoy!
ES: Based on your own experiences, how have you found the scene in Toronto, from networking with other musicians, to meeting or working with bookers and promoters, and the general vibe that you’re getting from other artists out there?
TBD: Wow, that’s a good question. We find that people are saying that they don’t find Toronto to be a very musically appreciative city, and that people don’t really go out to see live shows, so we can definitely feel the effect of that, but at the same time, we’ve had great experiences during shows where everyone really put in a lot of energy and made it a great show, so we think it really depends on the people, the atmosphere of the place, and the elements in general.
As far as booking agents go, well, most of our shows help us create excellent relationships with the venue owners. Whenever we want to do a show, we can work it out with the people who run Clinton’s, or the Rivoli… it’s kind of hard to get someone to go out and book shows for you in Toronto unless you’re catering to a larger audience or making more money. Most of the time it’s harder for a booker to work on finding shows for a smaller band. Most of the places too that you try to connect with, they’re not very open to new artists, and they just assume that they can find (or they already have) a band of slightly lesser quality that will play for free.
It would be nice, actually, if promoters looked at independent bands instead of just working for the big name bands. There’s nobody out there as far as promoters go who try to bring together the ultimate indie show. There’s also no connection [in between the indie scene and the major scene] really, it’s either an indie showcase put together by an indie promoter trying to get where he wants to go, or there are the guys who are more well-off who promote for major bands but instead of looking at the indie scene to find a band to open, they bring bigger acts in from wherever they can find them. Even if you put all your effort into connecting with the big promoters who do huge shows, you can’t even get through to them – you talk to them, give them CDs, and they tell you, “I’ll keep you in mind,” and they promise you big things, but that’s about it. They have the power to help indie artists, but they don’t do it because it’s all about the big moneymaking show, so it’s really hard for indie bands to progress into that world.
The good thing about the Toronto music scene though is that there’s a lot of talent, and it’s so easy to connect with other talent. If you have an idea, it’s up to you to collect members and do what you want to do. But now because of so much competition [to play], the places start asking [to pay you] less, and then they ask the band to essentially rent the venue from them. That’s the one big element that’s changed – instead of them hiring us to fill the place, we’re hiring them… consequently, it makes things harder for us. We have to put on these larger events to make the shows worth it to everyone, but we’ve realized that it makes it a much bigger success when you bring other talent into the show. Plus it’s really great for networking. It’s unfortunate because some bands don’t realize the potential in doing shows with other acts because they’re not doing very well and they’re more concentrated on helping themselves as opposed to joining in with other groups. It would be nice though if artists supported artists more.
We’ve noticed too that in smaller towns, there are only a few things that anyone can do on a Friday night so the support is a lot better, where in Toronto, it’s kind of like when you have too many options, you don’t want to do anything – you can go here and see these guys, or you can go there, or there, so you just decide to stay home.
To add to that, cities like New York are full of activity, like people are always out so in a way it almost has something to do with the architecture of Toronto. It seems like it was designed to be a commerce city, so there’s a certain energy that goes along with that, which makes people want to make money. It doesn’t have the kind of energy of a place like Montreal, where lifestyle is number one. Here, making money is number one.
ES: Out of all the promotional stuff that you’ve done, what did you find worked the best?
TBD: In order for promotion to work, you have to do absolutely everything. Putting yourself in every possible situation to play, Facebook, e-mail lists, updates, free listings, flyers… if you have all of these things together, it works. E-mailing works really well though because it’s a way to connect directly with the people who want to hear from you. The plus side to that is that they tend to pass the word on as well, and they may not always attend, but sometimes you pass them on the street and they say, “Hey! I got your e-mail! Sorry I couldn’t be there!” Not everyone notices event postings on Facebook, and most people are willing to part with an e-mail address more than anything else. It’s more personalized too. You can’t just send one email either – you have to send them strategically, like keep on sending them so that it reminds people. The biggest success is to make it an event, not a show. Our CD release party was packed because it was an event.
ES: So what are you working on right now?
TBD: We’re recording a song called “So Real”, and our goal is to record song by song and come out with a smaller EP. We kind of want to focus on polishing our new songs, and releasing them as singles first, and then maybe put out a full-length album. We want it to be the best that it can be. Maybe then someone will listen to it and then give us a chance.
ES: Do you have an idea of when you’d like to release something else?
TBD: We’d like to have maybe at least three songs by the end of the year. We recorded a DVD too and it’s just us playing in our element, doing our thing, and there’s also an interview in there where we talk about the creation process. We want to sell that and we want to use it to our advantage as well in doing business. It’s the live feeling that will hopefully put the viewer in the crowd. We think we’ll have a party too for the release of the next Rock Band.
We encourage you to check them out live, and on their websites too at www.myspace.com/thebreakdownband, or www.thebreakdownband.com.
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