How to Tour as an Indie Artist Before Anyone Knows Your Name ft. KELS

You have to be okay with five people showing up. In San Diego, I had five people show up to my secret show in October of this past year. I did another one in January. I had 250 people show up. Most artists think that touring comes after the momentum. After the song blows up, after the social media is booming, after the fans are absolutely demanding it. But today's guest, KELS, is proof for independent artists that touring can actually be how you create the momentum. I was cleaning houses while on those tour stops. Three or four houses a day, and I would have a secret show that night in Atlanta. This is not one of those polished success stories looking back 10 years later. This is happening right now. Twelve months ago, I was cleaning this podcast studio, to be totally honest with you. I mean, even three months ago, I wasn't even at 100k on Instagram. I had maybe 30,000 monthly listeners on Spotify. 411,000 as of this morning, by the way. And I know that when you hear that she did 150 shows in two years, you're thinking to yourself, oh, she had venues reaching out to her. She had a budget, she had a booking agent.

She had none of that. Instead of waiting for the traditional touring system to let her in the door, she said f it and built her own. So I was like, I'm just gonna do it myself. I'll go on a Peerspace or I'll contact like local business owners. Yeah. So my favorite is a diner. I've done a barbershop, a library. Secret shows, pay what you want tickets, plus one models, fan data, gas money donations at the door. KELS learned the business by doing it, and it got her out on the road earlier than most artists think they're allowed to. And the smartest part of it all, not only was it a cheaper way for her to tour, it accidentally made the shows feel way more special to the fans. You know what you're gonna get when you go to the same venue every single time in every city, and fans feel the same. Like, how many times are we gonna go to the same bar that everyone plays? It's just more of an experience and it's more memorable. So in this episode, we break down the real DIY touring blueprint from picking cities to selling tickets to reducing costs to harnessing fan data to content creation. And how she made people care before everything looked perfect. Because touring isn't just about bodies in the room, it's about making people feel like they're a part of something real.

There's different intentions around touring, and my intention was always I just want to share my music with you, and if you feel it, I want to feel it with you. That's it. Henry, we got KELS on the podcast. Let's fucking go. Wait for it. Oh my god. Let's go. The OG merch. I love that. I think did uh Brady make this? Yeah. Yeah, I knew I knew Brady from a while back. That's homie. So I bought this then though. So Yeah. He did some art for uh a friend of mine. You met him virtually? Yeah, I haven't actually met him met him. Me neither. Well, there you go. He's a mystery. In 2026, does anyone meet IRL? It's all virtually at this point, right? The amount of people that I work with virtually is insane. Yeah, um, but no, so I think this episode is gonna be incredible because honestly, we've had people like Nic D and LaRussell that have kind of gotten to a certain level of success, and they're almost talking about their story from like a in the past perspective, right?

KELS is an artist who I feel like is is like actively blowing up in real time as we speak. And no, this ain't some overnight success shit. She's been putting in years work of work. But I think that it's gonna be an incredible conversation because you know, our artist community out there, it's almost like shit that they can really relate to, right? And that hopefully, should they, you know, get the opportunity to be where you're at, like it just doesn't feel so far-fetched. It doesn't feel like theoretical, it doesn't feel like almost like you're in a classroom, right? Like this girl is doing the damn thing right now. Um, so just kind of paint the picture again, just so people can realize how much can change. Right. Like, where were you at 12 months ago compared to where we're at today? 12 months ago, I was cleaning this podcast studio, to be totally honest with you. Henry hit me up. He's like, hey, I'm like, I'll do it. I would love to.

No, I mean, even three months ago, so like I wasn't even at 100K on Instagram. I had maybe 30,000 monthly listeners on Spotify. 411,000 as of this morning, by the way. She gained 11,000 overnight. I checked yesterday, it was 400k. That was three months ago, by the way. And like 4,000 on Facebook, and now I'm at like 485,000. And it's it's really like it's just consistency because I also was doing secret shows all year, and I was like trying to figure out how to make that work financially because it was like 10 to 25 people per show, and now I have to find different venues. And so in three months, everything has changed. The the shows sell out. And so I'm in a very different spot. That's incredible. Yeah, literally, you've done you did over 150 shows from like 2023 to 2025. And then so far in 2026, like you said, basically everything has sold out. The venues are 25 shows have sold out, everything's bigger.

Like we're scaling. Scaling. Um, it's it's really incredible. So, you know, we're fresh off the Atlanta show last night. Yeah. And I feel like the Atlanta show was pretty traditional from what you said about like, you know, how the venue got booked, what type of venue it was, the pricing model that you use, um, the fact that it's just you on the bill, right? No openers. So it's it's a very like traditional model. So I want to just kind of dive into each component of that because I think it'll really paint the picture of like what the hell you've been up to for the last three years, right? Yeah, up until um 2025, I was doing showcases, so far sounds, and then my own shows. But then in 2020, yeah, end of 2025, I was like, why don't I just throw my own? And so um I'll go on a Peerspace or I'll contact like local business owners. Yeah. And I'll make sure that that's not over like seven to eight hundred dollars of my total price. And then basically I'll do a pay what you want model.

So people can pay $1, they could pay as much as they want. And and you you'd be surprised if you kind of cap those, it influences how much people will end up paying. Because I've tried both ways. I've done like a $20 minimum, but I've also done like a $50 maximum. Like I've tried everything, and the best way is just pay what you want because a lot of people know that it's going directly to you. And so another thing is a plus one model too, where people will bring a plus one because they don't have to necessarily pay for that extra ticket. But these people don't know what they're going to a lot of times, so they're pleasantly surprised, or they'll buy merch because they're like, I didn't buy a ticket, but like I had no idea what I was showing up to, and now I'm so excited because I found a new favorite artist, or you know, yeah, the plus one is interesting. The plus one is is what I do now. And so um I just was kind of sick of being on showcases where the other acts wouldn't make sense for me. I would have to scramble and find like local acts to like, you know, be my openers if I was on the road, and a lot of times they wouldn't sell tickets. So I was like, I'm just gonna do it myself.

I'm gonna just be me, and we're gonna do a little bit of a longer show, but it's just gonna be me. And the crowd seems to like that too because there's no anticipation. Like you show up, 30 minutes doors, I go on. You know what I mean? And then we all leave whenever. And I get to pick what time the show is. I don't have to go on at midnight. I can go on at 7:30. Yeah. Um, so like last night it was at a at a Baptist church in Lithonia, and crazy. Some people, some people were pissed because they're like, uh, that's not Atlanta. I'm like, well, if you don't want to drive, I'll give you your money back. Like oh, there were there were people that came out. Yeah, well, so it's interesting because like when you're on tour, especially with this tour, it's been like one or two days in every city, and I really didn't have a lot of wiggle room with like what day I could pick. Yeah. And so that was available. They had a sound system. I have a band in Atlanta that I can use. So it was a little more seamless on that end. Whereas like other cities, I'll like find a band in that city and like rehearse with them the day before or the day of. Yeah, how many bands have you played with even like probably at least 30 to 40.

Yeah, but I'm a jazz singer by trade. Like, I'm so used to like going to jam sessions and just playing with whoever and just super like clear with my signals on stage so they know when to stop, when to start, like all that stuff. So that's crazy. So did did you ever try the because I guess in a traditional sense, what people think happens, right? With shows as an emerging artist is either A, you get on as an opener yourself, right? Right? You're a smaller artist, you open up for a bigger artist, right? That's kind of like option number one. Or maybe it is these like showcases, right? Where it's a bunch of people on a bill, they don't make sense at all, like you said, right? It's just like just to fill the room, yeah. Sell as many tickets as the promoter can, and they just pick 10 people, whatever. It sounds like you tried the showcase thing. Did you ever try the like traditional like I want to open up for you route? Yeah, I've done that. I've headlined Smith's upstairs, I've headlined Eddie's Attic. All those shows went well.

It's not about that. It's like, how can I turn this into a living instead of just going to a show and like you know, that's it? Because fans want to support, but when you're going through a venue, you have so much red tape. Okay, and it's not going directly to you. And so I've just changed the model so that I can actually live off the shit. Okay, interesting. So it was like again to build your business. Right. It was like why not? control? And it was also to build my fan base. Like fans now know me, love me, they'll pull up to some random venue. If I'm just starting out and I'm like, hey, drive to Lithonia, they're gonna be like, bitch, please. They're gonna be like, what are you talking about? So, like, where's Lithonia? Exactly. But like, you know, in a lot of other cities, I've been pretty lucky with just finding a place that was easily accessible. But like I had a show in San Francisco that was in a terrible area, and I didn't know. People were like, I came because I love you, and like they probably wouldn't have come if I was still starting out and I didn't have that history. They saw the address, they got real nervous.

They're like, This is like, do you know that this is in a crazy area? And I'm like, Well, I'm not changing it now. So Peerspace venues books, so yeah, like I had no idea, but that's kind of the fun of it, too. That's crazy. Like, you know what you're gonna get when you go to the same venue every single time in every city, and fans feel the same. Like, how many times are we gonna go to the same bar that everyone plays? And it's like it's it's just more of an experience and it's more memorable. Can you give the people in like some of the examples that you played at? So, my favorite is a diner. I did a diner in Las Vegas, and they actually didn't close down the diner. So like my fans were on one side, and then people were there. I didn't know this. Okay. And again, Peerspace, like they're not telling you the whole story. They're like, diner. They're like, oh, you guys can be on that side. I'm like, I don't think you understand a hundred people are coming. So the customers got in where they fit in. Like, literally, they were doing eggs, and I was like singing on a car, like in a diner. I've done a diner.

I think the Baptist Church was one of my favorites just because like the sound and like just the atmosphere was really great. Um, where else? I've done a barbershop, a library, like what a library is ironic. Oh, my god. It's very quiet in there. Yeah. So what like what is the actual process of booking? So it's literally just as simple as like going on Peerspace, telling them, hey, I expect X amount of people. Yeah. And I have this many people in my band. Sometimes I'll just pull up with me in a speaker. So wow. And and okay, so what are some of the drawbacks, right? Because again, you do work with the traditional venue, like here in Atlanta, you work with like a center stage, vinyl, whatever. You kind of know what to expect. And I think you hinted at from a fan's perspective, that can kind of be boring. It's like I know what I'm gonna get, you know, been to a thousand shows at this venue, whatever. But from an artist perspective, you know what you're gonna get. You know the sound is gonna be X, Y, Z, you know, there's the green room, you know, there's you know, security provided, you know, to you. Obviously, you gotta pay for it, but like it there's just these things that are like there's the bar already set up, you don't gotta fucking stock it, you got a bartender, so on and so forth.

Like, what are some of the drawbacks or challenges that exist with like the unconventional, you know, Peerspace venue that you've been booking? I would say the biggest is definitely the sound, um, because you want a consistent sound for all your shows. Yeah. Security, yes, that becomes a little bit of an issue when people like don't want to leave or like they want to talk for 25 minutes. But again, like I feel like now that I'm kind of getting into a space where I have to worry about those things, I can transition to these larger venues more easily. And I could just do like, you know, a small intimate show the night before if I'm headlining somewhere. But I think again, those cons kind of are outweighed by the pros because content-wise, too, like you get such more memorable content. Like, I don't need another video of me just singing on a stage, like a random stage that looks like every other stage. So you need to be on a car in a diner. Exactly. Like or in a church. It's gonna be way more memorable.

And so the the other cons are obviously the organization part, like I'm sending out all the emails to 200 people, I'm answering the questions about parking, like I'm answering all of these. You're doing the ticketing. I am right. I mean, that's another thing that venues usually handle. I build out like ticketing for each city, and then um I but I have all that data and I own all that data. Yes. Whereas like other venues, they won't give you that data. And I'm like, why? You they literally bought a ticket to see me. Why can't I have their email? And they won't give it to you. Do all are all venues like that? They don't give you Not all of them, but a lot of them are because of you know, data sharing rules and things like that. So, how does the actual ticketing work, right? So again, he mentioned Stripe. Like, I go on, I put my info in, click pay, it's through Stripe. And then do I just show up with my Stripe confirmation? Or how does this work? A lot of times it's not a ticketing platform. Well, I started in people's homes. That's where the secret shows started. So like I didn't give out the address until I actually got the confirmation and the email. And then people would have to check their email two weeks before, and I would give them the address.

But now that I'm in like more public businesses, I'll sometimes share that if I can. But if you go into Stripe, you can like create different links for different cities. So I have like all my cities laid out. The data goes directly to that city link. So I can literally just open up New York. I can open up Pittsburgh. I can open up Philadelphia and like see all of the names and the emails of all the people. And then next time I'm in their town, I can send them an email. Damn. Great. And like Data, y'all. Data. Stripe is the best because personally, I've had so many other pl payment platforms that don't allow you to like pay with different methods. Like you can pay with Cash App, Link, a credit card, however you want to do it. And then I've also converted all of my merch like QR codes to the same Stripe link. So I know in every city who bought merch. Yeah. That's good, Guys, she's really fucking thinking this through, y'all. And I started Stripe like way before secret shows were a thing. I started Stripe because I didn't have merch in 2023 when I first started touring.

And I made a way for pan fans to pay and donate along the way. So I had like Stripe links if people wanted to donate a tank of gas, if they wanted to donate a night at a hotel, like there were different tangible things that they could contribute to my tour when I didn't have merch yet. And so I started using Stripe for that. And then I converted it to secret shows. Speaking of tanks of gas. If you guys that was a quick segue. Oh we want to encourage some of you guys to get out there on the road and start touring. This is going to be a very, you know, pretty touring heavy touring heavy episode. Yeah. We're gonna give away a hundred dollar gas cards to some random commenter. What do we want them to comment? Comment gas with the little gas emoji. Something more I want to we want to learn about the people too. Like comment like what where you want to go on tour with cities, you know, what venues you're thinking about, playing. Your dream venue. Let's go. Drop that. We're gonna pick a couple people, give away some gas cards. Let's go. Don't forget to like and the video and subscribe, by the way, as well. all right. I think everyone's thinking, like, I don't think I can do this. Like, I mean, this is you probably can't then.

You probably can't. Like, you cannot, like, you have to be so sure. People can feel when you're not sure that it's gonna work out. But like, what made you sure? Is it just the classic delusional artists? I'm delusional as hell. Like, I was cleaning houses while like in the interim of being on those tour stops. Yeah, wow. And you have to be okay with five people showing up. That used to happen to me. In San Diego, I had five people show up to my secret show in October of this past year. Yeah. I did another one in January. I had 250 people show up. But but but I could have just written it off like uh five people only showed up. Yeah, so I'm never gonna tour that again. But also you have to look at your data like in real time because in December is when people really started catching on. Same thing happened in Chicago. I literally canceled my Chicago show in December. Three people signed up. I'm like, I'm not flying to Chicago in December for three three degrees and there's three people there. I did a show in Chicago on like a two Sundays ago, 250 people.

Oh, some people couldn't get in, like, literally. Wow. And so, like, you have to trust that it's gonna work out because I'm I'll tell you, your whole your family is gonna call you and be like, if three people are showing up, that's probably not something you should be doing. And I'm like, well, I'm gonna keep doing it. Yeah, don't listen to the fucking doubters. But you have to build a business on the side that will be your security blanket so that you can kind of take those losses. Yeah. Because that's what the cleaning business was for me. Yeah, so you kind of alluded to this, but how did you or how do you make the decision on where to go? A lot of it was Spotify. Um at the time, that was where most of my fans were. And then also just I would use a lot of the Instagram polling to just make those decisions. And if I was like, hey, this poll got over 50 responses. Let me book like a 25 to 50 cap room. Okay, but what poll? Like, like give us like stories, yeah. So what were you saying? Yeah. I would just be like, Yeah, I would no, I wouldn't even leave it that open-ended. I'd be like New York, Philly, DC, Raleigh.

Yeah. And then I'd look at the votes. Yeah. And then I'd do another one for like the South. I'd be like Houston, Dallas, Oklahoma City. You know, and I'd look at the votes. And then I would just keep doing that until I was like, all right, I have enough people that want to go. And then guess what I did? I looked at who responded and I DM'd every single person. Every single person. Because Spotify is not giving you a lot, right? They just give you a number. for me it was correlating because I wasn't on any. I've I just got my first editorial playlist on Spotify ever. Congratulations. Two weeks ago. So it was real listeners of Kels. Exactly. There were no big playlists like driving my my cities skewed to like some playlist. Yeah, like oh, the Retro pop playlist has a fuck ton of Oklahoma City listeners. So I'm famous in Brazil, apparently. I don't know. Okay, well, that's just bots and I'm saying, like Indonesia. We know what you did. Indonesia. We know what you did. Yeah. Don't don't post your rap if Indonesia is your top city, bro. No, please don't.

They'll come after you. Feel bad because there's like music fans in Indonesia. I know they're real people. It's actually sad that we're doing this. No, but Lord forgive us. But it made sense for me because I wasn't A, I wasn't driving any ads, and I B, I wasn't on any like crazy playlists that could skew it. Still no ads? Still no ads. Wow. Fucking a. So I did do ads in 2023 and 2024 when I was starting out for those cities that I was touring for the first time, but once I had that data, I didn't anymore. Guys can do it too. You can do it, guys. This episode is literally. I hate when people say that though. Why? You can do it too. Really? Because you can't do that necessarily. Not everyone listening could. And that's why I give everything away. Because I know that only certain people are gonna actually do this shit. Yeah, that's a big one. You're not like opening the floodgates of competition. It's like the people that are already out there that can compete because they'll actually put in the fucking work and their music's actually. good. It's gonna be like one person.

The information is all out there. Please DM me. DM me. You can do it too. You just won't do it too. Oh It's how bad do you want it? Because like I was cleaning three or four houses a day, and I would have a secret show that night in Atlanta. Like it would happen. Wow. What do you think specifically about like the cleaning houses era, right? Do you think translated to like indie artist grind? Because I think I assume, you know. Yeah, I would play my music in the reels, and I would be cleaning a house. And that a lot of times would start that dialogue of like, why is she still cleaning houses if her music sounds like this? It's Like, you know, like it really bought people in and showed people like what I was willing to do to fund my music career. Because a lot of times, like touring in shows, you lose money on every single one when you're first starting out. And I do want to get to that in a second, because the financials, again, like people thinking about it, like, this has got to be expensive. She must have fucking mommy and daddy money, bro. Like, this is, you know, whatever. Um, but on that note, as far as like, I think more artists should be doing that whole like look at me and my day job, but still trying to promote my music.

Because I just think that like it's again, it's the narrative. You don't want to be posting that forever, right? Because obviously the goal is that you're not working that job forever. But it's like, bro, like that can be part of the storyline. It's like, I mean, we've seen it work for our friend Surf. He literally was a FedEx driver. He got fired from FedEx because he was making videos in the truck while driving, but it's like it went viral but it went viral as fuck. And again, like all of those FedEx videos were going crazy. I saw this other just you know, reel that popped up. The dude was working in Publix. He's literally like stocking groceries, promoting his fucking song. And those are the reels that would take off for me. And to be totally honest, at the time I didn't have money or time to film. So you had to do it. The type of reels that I wanted to make, like to really show off my song and like the artist world that I was building, I didn't have time. So I was like, this is my fucking artist world right now. Maybe The whole time excuse, too, bro. Yeah, that's out the window now. Kels just threw that shit in the trash. It's all ego.

Like, if you want it to always look pretty, always look a certain way, like it's gonna take forever. But then fans don't get to see the interim when they fall in love with you. You just want to be this perfect pretty artist, and that's why they get industry plant allegations. Because it's like, where's all the receipts of all the stuff you did to get there? You just want to show the end where you're triumphant, like, you know, there's no like story to buy into. You kind of have to. Kels has the receipts, bro. No, literally, when people when people comment industry plant, like it's almost a compliment, and I'll just be like, Google me, bitch. Like I I have a footprint on the internet of like 10 years, so I really don't care. Oh my god. All right, so from 2023 to 2025, and even actually, let's include this like you know, first few months of 2026. Yeah. Uh you've done, you know, again, over 150 shows, whatever. How much money do you think you've spent touring? Since 2023. Yeah. Any idea? I just like want to get in. at least 20k. Okay.

At least. That sounds light. But I was doing it all myself. I was driving to every city myself. Okay, give us some of the like, yeah, the like tricks. How did you keep it so low budget? Well, I'm saying spent, but like a lot of the times people would donate a tank of gas. People would donate for an Airbnb. Like I had ways for people to do all of those things in the in the beginning. And I think it was coming down to driving myself. Yeah. I didn't have any team with me. It was just me. So who am I paying for? No. No, just me. Your guests. I was a lot of the cities I was targeting. I either had family or friends, and I would be staying with them for you know X amount of days, eating at their house. Like, no, family dinners at 8. I'll be there. Yeah. What are we eating? Who cares? It's very family today. So uh it was a lot of that. Like artists think they need some entourage, and maybe you do, but like try it yourself for a while. I mean, obviously, like as a woman, like going by myself on all these tour stops, like I definitely know there was a risk, but it didn't.

I was like, it sounds very no, my parents were so unsafe. I was like, hey, I have my pepper spray somewhere in here. She literally relied on pepper spray. That was it. I need to get her a clock. Yeah, okay. For sure. YouTube, he didn't mean that. Um censored. Oh, damn. Okay. So so yeah, it was just a lot of like. But I was just paying for me. Like, touring can get expensive when you want to bring like five people. So, what was the show like then? Again, you kind of mentioned it was like bands that you found. Yeah, oh, and did they play it? And did they play it for free? A lot of times it was for no, I always paid my bands. I just didn't know. Like I'm like, because that's expensive too. I always paid my bands. A lot of them would either offer up their space for rehearsals, so I didn't have that cost. Yeah. Or they would do it obviously at like a discount because they knew that I was gonna bring like a huge uh like fan base to the show. Like they weren't gonna play to a room of five people. Yep. If if I did have lower ticket sales, I would just bring me in a speaker. Like I looked at the data to determine what type of show I was gonna have.

If if I only made a certain number on tickets, I'm not gonna hire a four-piece band. Yeah. So you're dialed in, you know, like what the expenses should be. And a lot of times I don't book my venue till I have at least 50 people signed up to know how big of a venue to even get. If I'm three weeks out and I still only have 50 people signed up, I'm like, all right, then I'll do a hundred cap room and double that. If I have like 200 people signed up, I'm like, all right, I need a 500 cap room. Like and so when you say signed up, is that literally like in my I'm in Atlanta? You tell me you're doing an Atlanta show on this date, but it's a secret location. Right. And it's and again, like I just do I pay? Yeah. I pay, and you just make it known that I send you an email that like you know it's a confirmation, and then a few weeks before, at least two weeks before, I'll tell you exactly where we're going. And that's when you know how much you're dealing with. Yeah, how many people you have? People are mad about it. I give them their money back. I'm not like, oh well, I told you it was a secret show. Like, I don't yeah.

How many times does that happen though? Literally like once or twice. Yeah, yeah. The risk of that is just so low. Yeah, and I'm not gonna like you know, if it's somewhere that's just too far, like I'm not trying to like fake people out on the location or anything. Well, yeah, like it's a big thing. Fake out, bro. But the ultimate fake out is Lithonia jumping up, bro. I think that was yeah, um we're just kidding, kinda, but let's. That was the two that I refunded. The Lithonia, Really? Yeah. Yeah, but that's that's understandable. I'm not about to be like, oh, well, just so you know, it was a secret show. Like, I I'm not trying to do that. Yeah, you're like standing on the on your ground. This was a secret show. I told you it would be a secret location. Never do that voice again, please. Jesus. I don't know. KELS is doing it to me, bro. Um, okay. But let's talk about because like again, people are really listening to this, they're like, okay, cool. But they're like, but how the fuck would I sell any tickets? Like, you know, that's where I feel like everyone, that's where my mind's going to be.

You won't. You won't then. Am I gross? Damn it. Okay. No, like, okay, okay. Okay. No. No, like you literally, you have to, you have to build something that people want to be invested in. Like, you can't ask, I don't ask people to buy tickets. So, how do you sell tickets? You have to build that world. Like, okay, so when I was starting out, the world that I was building was I'm a hustler, I'm cleaning houses, and I'm gonna show you. Oh, now I'm going on tour, but I'm gonna use that money that I made on my cleaning business to go on tour. Okay. And people are like, oh, I relate to that because I'm working a job that I don't want to be working right now, and I want to pursue my dream, and you're doing that, and I want to and I want to help with that. Yeah. If you're just like new single out now, come see me on tour. Why the fuck am I gonna see you on tour? The worst. The worst. And it's all about like the energy you put out because I don't even do this for the recognition. I want to just meet people where they're at, and I just love singing my songs and like feeling their energy in that room.

I don't know if every artist is doing that with that intention. I think they're doing it with, oh, I I gotta fill the room so that I can get that cool video to make sure people know I'm popping and like I'm just gonna text 20 of my homies to pull up and they're gonna sing all the words in the front row and the people are gonna look at that and say that everyone knows my single like there's different intentions around touring and my intention was always I just want to share my music with you and if you feel it I want to feel it with you. That's it. Yeah and that might not be everyone you know no and it and if it's not it might be a longer road to get people bought in because you can't just make it about you all the time. I think like even me talking to artists and that's why I don't have like a crazy amount of artist friends a lot of them and to be successful you do have to think about yourself a lot. But inherently there's like an ego thing that like you kind of have to take away if you're gonna go to a city and you have to be okay with like five people showing up sometimes like to build in the in the beginning. And it and if you want to wait until you have some viral hit you can do that too.

But when I do sell arenas there's gonna be plenty of people in the audience that saw me at the diner with a hundred people in Vegas. So no I mean I I love this because I think we can relate to it even right like we just did our first uh I say first I think it was second technically but it was the first like legit live stream with a guest exclusive like to our Discord community Q&A, They got to ask questions shout out one of our Discord uh community members in the building all the way from Toronto, Canada we got beauty in the riot in the building so appreciate her coming to to check out the podcast. But you know we had six people. Yeah. And again it's you have to be okay with that. We could get our feelings hurt, like, oh, we got all these followers and all of our episodes do not converting. Yeah, whatever. Like, let's fucking try something else. The fuck the fuck the live stream Discord Q&A, like that's bullshit, like whatever. But no, the six people that were in there, I mean, beauty can keep us honest after the episode, but like it was jam fucking packed with value. Like that I walked away, be like, holy shit.

If those artists didn't like hear what this guy was saying and be able to then like implement it on their own career, and like it's gonna be a very good use of one hour of their time, right? Um, so I'm excited for the next one because I was like, let's have the next one be a goal of 10 people. Everything's a rehearsal, and then everything's a rehearsal. Like, even when I'm going into because I'm putting my first EP out, I'm going into these meetings where they're like, Oh, just sing something, and there's five people in the room. If you've never done like intimate shows where there's like nobody in there, you'd be nervous. You built, you did some reps. Yeah, I've been doing this for years. So I'm like, okay, what do you want me to sing? Like, you know what I mean? Like, but if if you're an artist that's kind of waiting for that perfect moment to tour, you might not have that same calmness around like just being intimate and like having that intimate concert moment, whereas like I'm very familiar with it. Very that's that's actually something I've never really thought about. Yeah, is just the mental framework of just being in that moment, being able to share that.

Well, because bro, it's almost actually more intimidating with live people and like five. Like the lights are all on, like we can all see each other. You can see every five persons, like, face, stadium. No one's even real. It's like you know, what I mean? But but but if you wait till then, it's like so many of those shows, like I'll remember forever. And it's like if you wait till the stadiums, that also is like a big chunk of it that I feel like is so important to do just as an artist, and like after that. Don't miss that. Yeah, don't miss it. Yeah, but but so like there has to have been something like I don't know if it's a type of you know piece of content or some sort of like marketing strategy or whatever. Like, was there anything that you noticed that did convert the best when it came to actually selling tickets? Well, my live performance is like a huge part of my brand that I like sing live and that you know my stuff people sometimes prefer it live. Yeah, like you're not always doing lip syncing performance videos. All of my videos that go stupid viral are me literally singing live.

Okay. So I was like, why not use all of this live performance to my advantage? And that's when I started like really targeting like what type of videos I was doing, and I was doing mostly live stuff on my Instagram, and that's what was selling the tickets because people are like, I'm gonna pull up to a show, and she's gonna sound like that. I'm not gonna pull up to a show, and it'd be like, oh, the record was better. You know what I mean? So I doubled down on that, like content-wise. I didn't, I could have done more lip sync stuff, but those weren't doing as well. So I just I stuck to live and I like kept doing content shoots with live singing. How do you go about like uh figuring out how to post some of the live content? Like thinking about like title texts, you know, like testing different parts. Do you have any just sauce on the like how to chop it up, how to post it? Like figuring out for me, what has worked the best is figuring out how to get whatever genre name or mood that you're trying to capture on your heading caption. And you found one, I've noticed in the content.

This is the dirty blues, the dirty blues queen. Oh, princess? That's the name of the EP. Oh, but Dirty Blues. Who's the Queen. I don't know. Well shit. We just we just gave away queen. Yeah, we just gave it. She'll be the she'll be the queen. She's just she's humble. She's humble. Yeah, like I'm one EP in, Like, yeah, give us some time. Debut album, she'll be the fucking queen. It'll be dirty blues queen. We'll we'll have that evolution. It's a fire. Yeah. Yeah. That's good. Okay. So I found that randomly one day I was like, why don't I just say that I'm looking for people who listen to this type of music in my header? Because before I was like POV, those don't do well for me. Because my fan base is older. It's like 35 and up. So is ours. Love you guys. I love it. I love it. And the blues is like maybe a little too generic, you know. You can't just say hip hop. Yeah, because I'm not straight blues. I'm a trained jazz singer. I've been doing jazz my whole life, but I also played country music my whole life. And I feel like like blues, jazz, country, a lot of that storytelling all intersects.

So to go back to your point, once you find those keywords, I put them in every I've noticed. Yeah. And I don't care if it's annoying. Like I really don't. Because if you do like different videos and they're interesting, as long as the algorithm is like seeing what type of mood you're trying to capture, it'll feed it to the right people. Yeah, because you're just trying to just it's discovery. But I can tell you, I can tell you the one video that changed everything. Yes. In in December. Okay. Was it I thought she was about to rap? Well, that one does really well. Okay. Because my music does really well with people who like hip hop. Interesting. So that always hits. But the the looking for people who listen to Dirty Blues is my most popular one. Okay. The reaction video that Sam Buck did on the bucked up podcast. He called me white trash. And we're friends. I don't care if he calls me white. I am. And so, no, I really am. And so I was like, wait a minute. He posted it on Thanksgiving. And that was the one day I took a break from social media because I nothing was doing well.

And I like made a promise to myself, I'm going to go viral before the end of the year. Like gone. Still hadn't popped off. And I was like, this song is too good to not have traction yet. And he like sent me a text. It was either a text or DM. I don't remember. I didn't see the video till the day after Thanksgiving, and it had like 40,000 views. So I accepted the collab a day late. And he texted me, he's like, Happy Thanksgiving. And I was like, What? And then I like went to Instagram and I accepted the collab, and then by the weekend it had like 400,000 views and then a million views. And once those followers came to my page and like it directly converted, it was over. The algorithm finally figured out who to be showing my music to. Because before that, I was so stuck. I wasn't gaining followers. And he did that one caption of White Trash. And it changed. just clicked. Oh my god. It's so crazy. And I I've I've posted about it many times that I'm indebted. Yeah, yeah. Free tickets to Sam for life. For life.

More than that. I mean, I don't even know how to do it. Two lifetimes. I mean, however many. Yeah. Kids. I'm always I'm always reminding people that that's the video because I mean, keywords matter so much and like perception too. Like, I'm also comfortable. Like, if you want to call me that, I don't give a shit. Like, you know what I mean? So I think it just attracted that fan base that's like cares about the grit. And then they were able to go to my page and see that even though no one was watching it before, I was doing all of that work no matter what. Yeah. So little one more time, lore. If you guys watched the Stafford episode, he mentioned KELS having a video that someone did a reaction to. It's all coming together. Well, it was that one, right? That's that one. Yeah. There it is. Yeah. Let me take a moment to interrupt this episode and tell you about our friends over at DistroKid. DistroKid is easily the best DIY distributor on the marketplace. Let me tell you why. It's only $23 a year. That's less than two bucks a month for you to upload unlimited music to all of your favorite streaming platforms on the planet. It's so easy that it takes me like five minutes per upload, and that's when I'm multitasking dealing with my two-year-old son.

Hands down, my favorite part about DistroKid is how easy it is to add credits to an upload. I don't know what distributor you're using, but with DistroKid, it's super easy. You can put the artist, the producer, the songwriter. I'm pretty sure you can put like the junior associate engineer of a song. And me, I I want to know who's on the record. And if you sign up using this link, you're gonna get 30% off an already insanely low price. And you can finally start adding your collaborators because they are checking. They will notice when their name's there and they will thank you for doing it. Let's get back to the episode. What do you think? Okay. So for me, again, I've been following the journey, you know, for a while. We've met at you know, different like networking events here in Atlanta. Yeah, and they're small. Yeah, exactly. And so, you know, you've been, I can confirm she's been trying to do this shit and it's like active, right? Like really doing all the things. Um, but I feel like at least for me, what I've noticed is that your brand as a whole is like dialed the fuck in now. Now, yes.

Yes. After trial and error. Okay, and that's what I want to talk about, right? Because I think I don't know what your perception is, but I think it's a huge part of why you're seeing this really big hockey stick, you know, growth chart at this point, right? Is it like a lot of things are happening, but for me, like the brand being dialed in is like what kind of like sets the foundation for then everything to like grow, you know, you know, grow on, right? So how did you do that? Because like again, you're like in full character right now. We know it. No, I literally dressed like this though, bro. Exactly. This is kind of close. I like. But I'm just saying, but it's like I could have, I could have told you, I could have told Henry exactly what you would look like. Because it's like again, that that's why why it works. Um it's not but it's not just visual identity. We got the dirty blues thing that's part of it. We got the like white trash, visuals, like you're like on like kind of lower income looking housing and like kind of like country country type shit cigarette hanging out, cigarettes, spring break at the lake, you know, you know, jorts, like whatever, right? Um so how did you get to like where we're at now with it?

I just started being myself more, like honestly, I'm not gonna lie, like if you have a voice and and you're known as a singer, it's so hard to break into a brand because you just end up being known as that girl who can sing. And for me in Atlanta, it was that white girl that can sing. Yep. And and that's not a brand. And I think a lot of times artists get caught up in like trying to look the part so bad. Again, being dressed well is also not a brand. So just you know, being focused on looking cool and having like an aesthetic, like it still has to match a world. And so I was noticing that my music was matching this world of the jazz, the blues, and like the soul pop angle, and I was like, how do I capture that? Oh, I just need to dress like how my family dresses in the South, or like I need to go to these places like on my dad's farm, like where I can shoot content that's actually me, but fits in this world because sonically it aligns as well. Whereas before I was just wearing a pretty dress and just trying to look good, and that's not a brand.

Oh, yeah. And the things that's sticking the most too is now that I'm having this viral like cycle, I have a whole discography of 17 other songs that people can go listen to. Whereas I went viral in 2022 with my song Just Let Me Go. And that's why I ended up going on tour because people were commenting cities to go to, and I was like, no one knows who I am. I might as well leave. And I left for like three years, like on and off on tour. But when that song went viral, I had two songs out. Yeah. Who's gonna stay for two songs? You know, like the same one that we're gonna do. And and I didn't really understand, like I was happy for the moment, but I didn't understand how to build around that. And now that I do, because I have so much more music out and so many more visuals out that I know why people like me. Yeah. It's because I'm being me. Have you noticed like that because you have this brand locked in that decisions are just easier to make now, even? Yeah, like even just down to what to wear.

It's like the uniform. I can give you the throwback pics. I used to have a cheetah room, like a whole cheetah room, and I was always wearing these in high school because I don't like to do my hair. And I was like, why don't I just start doing that again? And even with the cleaning houses, like I was wearing the bandana because again, like I wanted to keep your hair not in shit. Yeah, exactly. Chemicals. but then people caught on that that was a part of of me, and like even just what I was wearing with cleaning, like a lot of like wife beaters and shit. Like, yeah, why don't I just put that on camera and like in a real content setting, you know? So self-awareness man always comes back, but it's hindsight. It's hindsight because when you're in it and you're trying so hard, like I remember being like, this music makes me feel a certain way. I really need to just figure out how to make it translate visually. And that's so hard for artists sometimes because we're not thinking about that. I'm thinking about the lyrics, I write all my own music, I co-produce my music.

Like I'm thinking about the production and the lyrics, and it's like there's so much more in between that that people relate to. Yeah, no, for me, something that I think is a huge disconnect for a lot of artists and why they get stuck at a certain level, right? Of success is the sonic identity is clashing with the visual identity. You know, it's like again, if you're in this like kind of well put together dress, but you're singing this fucking dirty blues type music, I can't, my brain can't do it. Like you know, you need to make it easy on our fucking brains as like consumers and listeners. Right. there's sometimes it works up in the opposite way. I was gonna ask you about this. If you're gonna do that, because I've had people be like, why don't you just try to be really clean cut, but then sing the way you do? Yeah, I'm like, but but then that's an act for me every day. And that's gonna burn me out. If I'm just being me, it's not an act, and I don't have to be burnt out by like putting on a character. That's why like KELS. like that's literally my nickname since I was a kid.

Like, I'm not like becoming KELS when I walk on stage and then someone else when I walk off stage. It's gotta be make life easier in general, It's just be you. Amplify yourself. Yeah, yeah, See, that's it. Figure out like what those little things are that you wear or what you do that like people can relate to, but also I hate doing the fucking Halloween. Oh, someone can do something. Everybody's no, it's true. No, it's true. No, it's very true, but that only comes from again, like you said, figuring out self-awareness and like what do I wear and what do I do that people really enjoy and want to replicate? Because I can tell you people wear these to my shows. Like that's awesome. And they wear like little jean outfits, like 45 year old woman in their little jean outfits. Have you made any of those as merch? Working on it. Coming, Henry. It needs to happen. Again, she's in it right now. Again, I'm the only person working on all this shit. Let me call my merch guy. Let me pick up the phone. Like no, that's that's fire. And yeah, I think um it's something that I I want to say, it was rough in the live stream that I was talking about, where you know, he mentioned some advice about like asking five of your closest friends to tell you what they think about like what they think your like biggest strengths are, or like things that define you, and then ask them also like five like things that they don't like about you or whatever, and then you can kind of like you know, you can kind of just like start to like really under because it's hard to understand like who you are You don't, we don't, it really is.

Or at least how other people perceive you. It's tough to get outside your own fucking body and mind and see yourself for what you are, both like personality trait wise, yeah, like visually, you know, like just appearance wise, clothing decision wise, right? Yeah, so you know, it it's great that you got to just. I would be way too fucking scared to do that. So I'm not going to ask anybody what they think is locked in, it's all good. I'm like so glad that we didn't get to that point. What I will say is you have to also be self-critical. Like when I was realizing that nothing was working, I was going through all my videos, all my comments. Like, what do people care about? What do people not care about? Just because I think this reel is cool, doesn't mean that it's giving my audience any value. So like you always have to be thinking about that and not just, well, my music is the shit, so this better pop off. Like, you know what I mean? And that that takes like self criticism too. Yeah. So what do you think that artists with great music, but little to no traction on social media? What what do you think they're doing wrong?

Or like what needs to be okay, brand. That's it. Great music is great music. Like, yeah, and it's a longer game. If you're just gonna put out great music and not care about anything else, then you probably need a major label to do the brand part for you, tell you how to look, tell you how to act. But then that comes with a certain level of disconnect with your audience because then you will be labeled a plant because it's like someone's telling you how to look, how to act, and it's really obvious when people go that route. And I think that brand is really like that missing piece though. Like if you need someone else to do it, that's fine, but it has to be done, otherwise it's not gonna reach the right audience. The brand is how they find you. So then do you think that you started seeing the most social media growth because you started understanding how the algorithm worked, or do you think that you understood who your audience was and then the algorithm started working for you? I stopped being afraid of coming off as anybody other than myself. Like once Sam did that reel and like I saw why people were coming to my page and staying, it was because of how transparent I am with a being independent, doing all the things myself, touring myself.

I was like, those are the videos that are popping off, and then this one where it's talking about white trash, like I'm wearing stuff that I really love. I just need to double down on what I love and what people are resonating with, which was the DIY, and that was my brand. And that's just what I stuck with. What do you think are like the ingredients of a artist brand, right? Like, just what are the different things that kind of make it all up so that people can start being like, all right, yeah, I need to take a you know, look at this, that you know. You have to have an opinion on something, like you have to have lived a little bit of life to have any sort of stance. I've worked so many types of jobs, I've been an Uber driver, I've been a house cleaner. I was the director of a nonprofit for like two years. Yeah, like director Kell. After school programming, like that is my passion. I I love education. If I wasn't a music artist, I would definitely be in education. I love it. Okay. And um, you have to have lived and to know like a story, and you have to know how to like translate what makes you unique into a story and not just put that in your songs because people are gonna love your songs, but they have to love you first, I think nowadays. Yeah, I think the days of just buying an album and loving the artist for the album is is so over.

Long ago. And and and that's good and bad because it's good that an artist like me with no label can do what I've done. Whereas in the eighties or nineties, they probably would have had to find me in some beat up karaoke bar in Milwaukee. Like it could have been like you know what I mean. That sounds tragic. Yeah, like anything in Milwaukee. Shout out to all you Wisconsin people, but it sounds like a good location for a show, maybe content though. Yeah. I don't know why Milwaukee just came to me. But um, but I think it's it's really like I don't even remember what you asked me, but that's okay. I'll move on to the next one. Oh, because I I need the answer to this one. So what are some like best practices though that you have learned about social media, right? Because I think you have started to like crack the code a little bit. Talk to us about like again to his point, like types of on-screen, you know, hook title text, like how did you figure out like what parts of the song to use? Um, just like anything that you can now look back on and and think about as far as like, oh shit, like yeah, that was what started to work, and now you've doubled down on it. Yeah, so definitely don't write off any part of the song because what happened with Gone, and this is another thing that I can attribute to Sam.

I wasn't testing the pre-chorus. I was testing the verses, I was testing the chorus, I was testing the post-chorus. I wasn't testing the pre-chorus, and I that was a blind spot for me. And so when he reacted to the video, he actually was reacting to the pre-chorus, which was arguably like vocally and lyrically like the funnest part of the song. And I wasn't doing that. And once he did that, I was like, oh my gosh, this is like the only part of the song I haven't posted yet. That's wild. She tested everything except the one. Well, pre-chorus. Like, you know, I was like, I was starting my videos at the verse, and then some of them I would extend through the pre-chorus. Yeah, but it's not how it works. But I wasn't starting with the pre-chorus. And so um I would say doing that and replicating like different types of visuals with each part of the song is so important. I get overwhelmed, but I just like I'm like, all right, I'm gonna film like five different reels with different outfits, but then I'm gonna do it in every single outfit, the same, like the whole song in the same outfit, so that I can like see if it's the outfit, is it the location, or is it really this part of the song? And for Gone, for example, it was it was that part of the song.

Um, so finding that is really important because you can once you have that part of the song, people will go and listen to the song. It's not like they're just gonna only hear that part, but if it's good enough to like get the people to the DSPs, like spam it. Like every time I post Gone, I start with that part of the song. How many? I do it in so many different environments. Yeah, but how many times have you posted Gone? Okay, so over 500 this year. But I post like six times a day. I post a trial reels, and then I post to my main page, but then I also, which I think we talked about this, like I didn't know my reels were going to my Facebook page. I didn't know, and it was a personal Facebook page, so now like my legal name is on all these Spotify playlists because fans thought that that was my artist name when I blew up. Like, and so um Kelsey Johnson. No. no, no. That was not real. That was that voice. No, no. and I'm so glad that we didn't guess it. But um making sure that that's turned on is number one, making sure it's a page that has all your links, because initially I didn't even know it was going there.

And then I signed into Facebook and I had a hundred thousand followers on a page that I didn't even have like my music on. But people like, because it was posting to that to that page, like obviously they were able to find the song because the song was there. They're lazy, but they wanted to do it. No, they wanted to. And um make it easy on yourself by posting to both at the same time, like every single day. Because if Facebook's getting it, that means Instagram's gonna get it, and vice versa. And I have some things do great on Facebook that don't do well on Instagram. Using trial reels, like my trial reels for the longest time did like 500 views. Even if the video went crazy on my main page. Which, like, the trial reels, I almost feel like is a separate algorithm that the more you do it, it's gonna start to learn it eventually. It just takes so long. It takes so long, and it's so it's so demoralizing. But oh no, don't say it to Henry. No, it is he already didn't want to do much. It is, but if you're doing both, like, so I'll do three trial reels a day, three, three regular reels a day. But I've been touring for three years, so guess how much content I have.

A fuck tons. So much. Okay, so it's not redundant because it's different stuff, and I'm also teasing my new song, like you know, and so you have to have even stuff from like your old catalog. Like, I'll just be like, oh, this did really well in 2023. Let's see if it has a new moment on trial reels, because they're not my followers. And has that worked? Yeah, sometimes. Okay. Yeah. See. Sometimes. But I don't enjoy, I don't enjoy this at all. The content part. And so I'm gonna use it. And TikTok is one that is interesting because I actually started making fan pages on TikTok, and in October, one of them blew up. Like the video started doing like 500,000 views, and then TikTok locked me out of that account because I was a spammer. No Gosh. So I like I kind of have taken a break on TikTok. Oh my god. For a while. But So are you using a scheduler or anything, by the way? How are you posting that much? Every post is just her fingers right here. I'm too scared to use a scheduler. I'm like, what if they've messed it up?

Adam Mosseri or whatever from Instagram has said that it shouldn't, but you know, who knows what that guy. I feel like people know. But then let's let's talk about the kind of like operations of posting that frequently, right? So like it's Sunday, right? Right. How do you like, do you know what you're going to do? No. It's day by day. Yeah, and like a lot of it is like I look at what's I hate that. I I I look at what's doing well, and I just double down on that. I don't like try to reinvent the wheel. If I'm really gonna experiment, it's usually with like a new song. And I'll just see like if something but like with Gone, like I'm not about to like start spamming the post-chorus just because the pre-chorus already blew up. Like I'm just gonna keep making different videos with the pre-chorus to my trials so that my main audience doesn't get exhausted. Okay. Because I'm not trying to make anyone listen to anything. Yeah, that's like a really big like I'm not doing the out now stream, never gonna do that. But if I can keep building on my trial reels, stuff that I've already exhausted on my main page, that's what I'll do while I'm like teasing my new single on my main page, and it also gives people incentive to follow the main page because it's going to be different content.

Yeah, and so as far as like the idea that people would get fatigue around like promoting the same song, just be realistic. I mean, I'm assuming you've at least gotten a comment about a million. Okay, so many. So many. Stop posting this song. Yeah. Yeah. Well, or just like, oh my god, like release a new song, and that's good. I like release a new song. That's a positive thing. No, no, no, no. It's usually that. It's usually not like, okay, I'm sick of this song. But like, think about when we were kids and we listened to the radio, every other song was the song that they were trying to push. And what was in our heads all day, every day. Those songs. Dance, with me dance, with me dance. with me, dance with me, dance with me, dance with me. Yeah. Just an example, but like, you know, if if you hear something over and over and over again, it's not necessarily a bad thing. My whole thing is like when God gone had its moment, I kind of paused on my other releases for a little bit to give it the traction. Cause I over Christmas, that's when it really did its thing.

I didn't go home for Christmas this year. I like stayed in my room and posted gone all the time until it went viral. And I was like, okay, I don't want to just follow that up right now with another release because there's so many new people. I like capitalized on that, and now next week I have a new song coming out. But like I didn't want to, I didn't want to like throw a curveball in something that was just starting to snowball. This is huge, you're able to you're able to pivot to the right thing at the right time. Yeah, because I have 13 songs ready for this year, but I didn't want to miss out on any potential like exponential growth just by being like, but now I have another one. Oh, but I already was gonna drop this one next. Yeah, no, this one needs attention right now. That's the beauty of being independent, too. Is like you have that no one can tell me like oh, you have to drop on this day, and it has to be this song, and it has to be, you know. That's right. So then it's safe to say between the time that you released gone, that was in June of 2025, correct? Yeah, and then you were posting it, Assumedly. It was at like a hundred thousand streams still in December.

In December, a hundred thousand streams in December. And I was like sipping, I was like excited about that. You know what I mean? You were on cloud nine, got that hundred K. Let's go. And so then you're you're like dead set though, like, no, like this one deserves this. Is like the one. Yeah. And so you start going crazy posting it in December of 2025. Sam Did the Thanksgiving Sam did Thanksgiving. And that snowballed into December, and I was like, all right, now that I know what part to do, and now that I know that people know I'm white trash, let me double down on that and just be that white trash dirty blues princess. Like and and so at the time of this recording, this is in mid-March, and so you basically gave it four more months of like consistently posting just about this song. Well, tour. I was like, wait, all these hundred thousands of people on my page, but they have no way to give you money. Not not okay. Sort of. sort of how can we engage other than just like being a follower?

Right, right? You know, I know. And we gotta give our but that was the first time after December. That was the first time I didn't have to sell tickets because people were already on the track. Demand was there. I before December, I was messaging people that I didn't even know, like in cities and being like, hey, I know you don't know me, but like I'm playing this club at this day, like constantly. Constantly. Or like going through old posts, like, oh, I was in Dallas this day. Let me let me everybody that commented from Dallas, I'm gonna send them a DM and let them know that I'm playing Dallas this day. Like I was, it was hours of the day to like get people out. We call it. hand to hand combat. Yeah, but the the crazy thing is in January I was at like 200,000 followers just from those three weeks. Yeah. And I was like, oh, I booked like 30 cap rooms, and then now I need to find 200 cap rooms. Like what is Peerspace's cancellation? No, they didn't.

They had thank God. Thank God Peerspace. But you know. Peerspace, if you want to sponsor this podcast, we'd love to have you on. But also, um I would some, some of them that I couldn't change, I would do double shows. Like I'd do a seven o'clock and nine o'clock. Oh wow, comedian state of comedian doing back to back. Damn. Yeah. Oh, I love that. And I just I just love the idea of acknowledging that there are gonna be a ton of people that tell you that you're posting the song a lot and whatever, and just fuck that. Like who cares? I mean, I've got I've got it ready to go to where like now I kind of know a cadence. Whereas before Gone, I would I would count December as its first month out, really, because that's when it was gaining a different type of traction. That also just leans into the whole, like, yeah, like once a song is out, it's out. You can choose to promote it forever, you know. You can.

I think we over-romanticize these release dates. But that's another thing about being independent, though, because if you are with a label and they put all this hype and they put all this money into something and it doesn't take off right away, they're like, Do you suck? Or and I'm just like, that that can happen. And if you're independent and you're your own boss, you're like, all right, I'm just gonna keep promoting it till it does well. Dude, because also there's like worldly events happening, right? Like wars or like Could be the wrong time. Yeah. Could be the wrong time, like so many things. And then like in hindsight, like I did everything I could over the summer. Like, I went on on the radar, I did bar for bar, I did like all the performance platforms that I could think of, and I was like, okay, but like I still know this is the one. So how do I? I just every day I was like racking my brain. Wow. And it was driving me nuts. Oh my gosh. And by the time this is out, you'll have a tiny desk. And I was like, I don't deserve Christmas. I don't deserve Christmas, till gone is viral. Oh my god, is it really that deep?

Yeah. Holy shit. Yeah. That is holding yourself to the highest degree. I'm not coming home this year. Christmas canceled this year. Dawn hasn't gone viral. Oh, yeah. The holidays are not happy. Um, you know, I I think I know because again, I've you know, I've had the pleasure of talking with tons of successful independent artists at this point. But I want to get your take. Like, what intangibles do you think that you know you possess and your peers in the indie artist space that are like seeing, you know, a degree of success? What are the what do they all have in common? Well, for me, I think it's that I don't like I'm not shit. Like, I don't have that crazy ego that I think I walk on water or that I'm better than anyone else, or even like that there's some wall between me and the fans. Like, I don't even view them as fans, and I think that's something that is invaluable. Like, even think about like Somber, for example, like just the relatability that he has, but you know, he's obviously on a different scale. Yeah.

He makes sure that people know there's no wall. Yeah. Between him and whatever reality people are discovering him from. So I think that's a huge thing. I think one of my favorite artists of all time is Dolly Parton. And she's always been candid. She's always been relatable. She's always just talking to you like you're her cousin or you're her niece and nephew. And that's always something that I have found is the most successful. If you're just trying to be some godlike, untouchable being, that could be really cool for certain brands and certain music, but that's just not authentic to me. And I think the only way I'm not gonna burn out is by being authentic. Because I'm not like putting on a persona, I'm just me. Yeah, I think specifically in the like climate that we're in now in the music business. I mean, you look at the LaRussell's, the Nic D's, etc. Like even, you know, um, you know, Matt Hanson that we had on the podcast, who's achieved insane like global success as an indie artist. It's like they all do have that kind of like relatability too, man, where it's like you feel like you know them.

Yeah, exactly. But like everyone can do that in their own way. Like some artists want to turn the camera on while they're eating dinner or breakfast and like just talk. Like, I'm not at that point yet. But some people that's how they show that they're relatable, like they wanna, you know, show fans like what everything looks like. I'm not there yet, but I'm I'm more so like here's my process, here's how I've had to clean houses and do all these things to make sure that things happen for me. Yeah, but I love that. Everybody's gonna show it differently. I love that. Henry, we've entered a final segment of the podcast. Oh shit. Oh shit. God, is it time? If y'all are finding value in this episode, please like, comment, and subscribe to the channel. Henry hasn't said it enough this time. Oh my God. Henry is always he's always about to get fired. I'm firing myself. He's literally. Isn't that amazing? Work for yourself so you can fire yourself. So that you can fire yourself. I fire myself all the time when Dawn, wasn't going viral. I had a whole HR meeting.

I was like, what are you doing? You have one month of God. Well, you've seen the show. You know how this works. Uh there's gonna be three parts. Let's just get into the short answer questions. Why not? Let's go. Um that's the wrong note, man. That's okay. This is the right one. Starting with On a scale of one to 10, how likely are you to recommend the one more time podcast to your independent artist friends? A 10. I used to watch you guys all clean. I would listen to your podcast. That's amazing. I'm not kidding. Love that. Oh, and her wife beat her in a bandana. Yeah, Bandana. I was like, oh, that's a really good point. Who is who is Nic D? Let me look him up. That's fire. What are the three most important parts of putting on an amazing live show on opposite day? On opposite day? I'm dyslexic. Don't do this. Bro, yeah, like it was such a good thing. I'm gonna ignore the opposite day, and I'm gonna say the best three things. I'm going to ignore that. This could have been so fun. This could have been so fun.

No, no, you're actually. hurting me. Just take your answers and you know, flip them. Negate them? flip them. Yeah. Like don't rehearse it. Don't tell great stories in between each song. There you go. Don't be funny and have a sense of humor. Yep. And here we go. Don't don't freestyle like any parts of the song. Just play them exactly how they are on Spotify. Ooh, see? All right, I get it now. Sorry. Good job. Good job. I took a second. I know. I do this all I you're I do this to him. It's just like, just say don't. Now I get it. This is literally my part. Let me do my part. I know I I I gotta I gotta stop doubting you, man. You always deliver. I we get there. We get there eventually. That was tough. Yes. Uh what are some types of venues you would not play in? Really like alcohol heavy venues. Like I don't drink, so I don't like necessarily promote that. A lot of my secret shows, it was like water and coffee and tea. That's Cool. That's cute. I'm not saying that I that's realistic to do everywhere, but a dive bar, I feel like fits your brand.

It does. No, I mean I love jazz bars, I love dive bars. Maybe maybe no cigar lounges, because I'm not trying to deal with that. Smoke. Ugh. Oh, actually, hookah's the hardest smoke to sing in, I would say. Oh. like I've sung in hookah lounges, especially in Atlanta. Like that fucks me up. Hookah lounges. It fucks me up. So let's go with hookah. Let's go with hookah. Hookah lounge. I love it. It'd be tough. If you had to start your career completely over tomorrow, what are the first steps you would take? If I had to do it all over again, I would just go back out on the road with the new songs. Right, immediately on the road. You guys go on the road now. I'm addicted. I'm addicted. It's really good. She's a tour addict. When I'm not on the road, I'm like, what the fuck am I doing? There's people out there that want to see me. I have to go. She's in TA instead of AA. She's in touring Yeah, literally. Yes. Anonymous. I need help. Give us uh something horrible or unexpected that happened on the road. It's like a horror story. Oh my gosh. I was supposed to drive to somewhere, I think somewhere in the south. I was living in Atlanta, and my tires like totally blew out, and then I had like a battery die.

And I was supposed to be at the show like that day. So I had to like scramble and find a shop. And I ended up finding one, but I like literally had to go on stage in the clothes that I was wearing while I was driving. And again, by yourself, right? Yeah. You're just in this car that tires flat. Thankfully, it happened like as I was leaving the city, so like there was a place I could go, but I was like, I'm not gonna have any time to get ready. So I just walked on stage. Damn. I think you were doing well enough to maybe expense like a triple A account to the business. You might need roadside assistance. He's right. I mean seriously. I'm cheap though. Well, that's fair. You've just been appointed supreme leader of the music industry with the power to do absolutely anything. What is your first order of business? Stop paying for followers, streams, playlists. Stop. What are we what are we how are we punishing them if they get caught doing that? Death. I mean, they I think they already are kind of sometimes. Right? Yeah. They take your shit down, right? Yeah. Shadowban type. Sometimes remove the content.

also like put an AI label on any songs that are out. Like there's Spotify artists that are suggested after me that are AI, but people don't know they're AI. Yes. And it's like it should say artist name and then AI artist. Yes. Like people should at least get the choice. I agree. To listen. You know. If you had to just like boil down, just look down the barrel in that camera right there and give all our independent artist friends watching one single just your best piece of advice. What would it be? Only you can be you. So double down on that and you'll see what happens. Let's go. Yeah, it's self-awareness, man. Put it back up. Who the fuck are you guys? Last one with a short answer. What is your favorite curse word? Fuck! Woo! Classic part one. She was excited to say that one. I didn't know if we could cuss on here, so I was waiting. People think that. Is that a I don't know. Is that like a popular practice on podcasts? Sometimes we want to be ourselves.

And we say some f words a lot. I did cuss, but I was like, as I was doing that. You cringed every time you said it. I love it. And the shit that's going down. Yeah. Part two is this or that. Let's get into it. Starting with. Drums or melodies. Melody. Atlanta or Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh. What? Fair. We're not gonna get into why I picked that. But my life is on the line. Okay. Oh whoa. Books or podcasts. Podcasts, because I can do shit well. packed tiny room or half full big room. Packed. TikTok or Instagram? Instagram. You pick your next single or let your fans pick your next single? Me. Me. Still me. Me. Damn, she had an attitude about it too, bro. I'm not gonna ask. Luxury tour bus or tour chef. Tour chef.

AI or AI. AI. Very clear. I thought that was dirty pop or clean blues. Oh my god, dirty pop. Clean blues is crazy. Clean blues are real clean. I love these. Like child, child friendly blues. I don't know what that is. We're struggling and we're sad. Most people dislike you, or no one has heard of you. Most people dislike me. And finally become a full time hip hop producer or leave the music industry forever. Full time hip hop producer. She's cooking beats, bro. I'll be like the Rick Rubin type, though, where I'm like, do this, do this. Yeah. I feel you should. I love him so much. I can't wait. My soul tells me you should remove that snare. I can't wait. I'm such a Rick Rubin fan. Yeah, I literally bought these glasses because I saw him wearing them. Did you read the creative acts? No, I haven't yet. Oh I got it. Oh, he's a poser, y'all. He's a poser. No. It's on my list.

I love him. Last part is the word association. I'm gonna say one word. You just give me the first word that you think of off the top of your head. Let's start with music. Live. Tour. Bags. Burnout. Real. DIY. Me. Content. Job. Millennial. Drinker. Shotgun. Farm. Famous. Did I say story yet? You can repeat. Okay, story. Sin. Inevitable. Cigarette. Um. Grandma. Red flag. Relationship. Green flag. Uh got dog. Secret. Show. Dirty. Blues. Let's go. This has been the Dirty Blues Princess. Soon to be the Dirty Blues Queen.

Yes. If y'all found value in this episode, please like, comment, and subscribe to the channel so we can keep bringing you value each and every week. All of them. All of the week. Shit, I love this episode.