In this episode of Backstage Money, Jason K Powers sits down with Stevie Rachelle, lead singer of the band Tuff and founder of Metal Sludge, for a wide-ranging conversation about taking risks, betting on yourself, and doing whatever it takes to make a music career happen.

Stevie shares the early chapters of his story, from leaving home with little more than belief and determination to landing major opportunities in the Los Angeles music scene. He talks candidly about mindset, sacrifice, and why waiting for permission is often the fastest way to never get started.

This first part focuses on the decisions, risks, and mentality required to chase a career in music, long before record deals, MTV, or industry recognition entered the picture. Stevie offers perspective that is especially relevant for musicians at the beginning or middle of their journey who are wondering whether to play it safe or go all in.

This is Part 1 of a two-part conversation. Part 2 dives deeper into the business side of music, including touring, merchandise, money realities, and long-term survival in the industry.

Backstage Money is real-world finance for musicians, where music and money collide through honest conversations with artists and industry professionals who are living it.

Connect with Stevie Rachelle

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/StevieTuff

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100050872071674

Metal Sludge

Website: https://metalsludge.tv/

Tuff

Official website: https://tuffcds.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/StevieRachelle

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Welcome to Backstage Money, real World Finance for Musicians.

I'm your host, Jason K. Powers, and this is where music and money collide

with honest stories and practical lessons from people who make it work.

So let's get to it.

Today I am joined by Stevie Rachelle, front man of the band, Tuff, the force

behind RLS Records and founder of Long Running Rock News site Metal Sludge.

He's worn the hats of, of a lot of things, artist and label and

media, which he's seen how the business really actually works.

So Stevie, welcome.

I'm so glad to get you on here.

Thanks for having me, Jason.

I appreciate it.

Yeah, man, it's fun.

It's fun watching kind of all the things you do online.

You've got your hands in a few different things and seems like

you're keeping pretty busy these days.

Yeah, I mean, trying to as things as life goes on, you know, you go

through d different phases, you know, starting out as a musician.

In your teens or twenties.

And then as you become an adult you become a father, you become older,

Yeah.

you, you gotta kind of, you know, adjust on the fly, so to speak.

So I, I'm trying to keep busy, you know, still doing some shows and

trying to keep myself out there, you

Yeah, yeah.

That's great.

Well, so I always like to start off with, you know, let's go back a couple years

and give us synopsis of how did you get hooked up with Tuff and how did you,

how did that go at the very beginning?

You know, tell us your kind of origin story, if you will.

Well, I'm from Wisconsin originally, born and raised in Oshkosh,

Wisconsin, which is south of Green Bay, north, north of Milwaukee.

And it's.

The name is famous for the kids' overalls, you know, Oshkosh

b'gosh, the little overalls,

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

So that's where I was born and raised and grew up loving the Packers.

And at some point I became obsessed with skateboarding

Mm-hmm.

young kid.

So, originally in the seventies and late seventies into the early

eighties, I was, I was a skater kid and always listening to a lot of music

that was relevant to that, that, that activity, that lifestyle, you know, the

Yep.

the BM Xers were all listening to the punk rock and the New Wave, and all the

Yeah, that's right.

Oingo Boingo, Divo, the B-52's.

So those were all the bands of my early youth that were, you know, my loves.

I mean, I, I love those bands, I

Mm-hmm.

and that's all I listened to.

Until the very end of high school.

I was literally days away from turning 18 in my senior year in

the spring, just a couple of months from graduation when I went to my

first rock and metal concerts, which

Okay,

KISS on the Lick It Up tour in February of 84.

that's not a bad First Rock concert.

And Ozzy with Motley Crue on the Shout At The Devil Bark

at the Moon tour March of 84.

That was the turning point for me.

I just became obsessed with I wanted to be a singer and that Motley led

to Ratt and Van Halen and Dokken

Uhhuh.

and Blue and Sammy Hagar and Knight Ranger and just one right after another.

I just became immersed in that whole world.

and then that soon led to, you know, hanging out with friends and jamming and.

Getting a, a, you know, a teen band together and playing arcades

and different things like that.

I did that for a couple years and when I was 21, I had this opportunity,

I found out about Tuff in Los Angeles, looking for a singer.

And so I flew here on a one-way ticket.

June 20, I dunno, fifth or something like that of 87 and track the band down.

And,

And

weeks later, I'm auditioning for him

Yeah.

I'm the singer.

And you didn't, you didn't actually know how it was gonna pan out, right?

You bought this ticket at out to LA and were like, I'm gonna, I'm gonna do this.

This is, this is this.

What, what you just said is exactly what I thought.

Yeah.

I am going to do this.

I didn't say I want to

That's awesome.

do it.

I didn't say, I hope I can do it.

I'm gonna do this.

Yeah.

a singer.

I'm gonna be in a band, I'm gonna go on the road, I'm gonna get signed,

I'm gonna be in these magazines, MTV, tour buses, the whole deal.

And,

Yeah.

I was, you know, very focused you know, I come out to LA no, there was

no guarantee I hadn't talked to them.

They didn't know I existed.

But just said to myself at that point, it's, it's 1987.

I had just turned 21 and all of my favorite bands, everybody that I

was looking at in the magazines, everybody was coming from, you

know, the, the Sunset Strip,

Oh yeah.

Ratt Dokken and Black and Blue Wasp, Armored Saint.

All of these bands that I went to go see were all you know, van Halen

Mm-hmm.

They all came from the Sunset Strip.

Of course.

Some of them, like black and blue was from Portland, Oregon.

Some of the guys in different bands, obviously Nikki Sixx, I

think was from like Washington or

Mm-hmm.

and he moved down to LA in

Mm-hmm.

late seventies, but.

I knew that if I wanted to make this happen, to pursue

it, that I needed to be here.

Yeah.

when I bought the one-way ticket, I really don't know what I was thinking.

Like was I thinking, what if, what if I don't get the gig?

Or what if I don't meet them?

Or what if they have someone else?

I didn't really, I didn't really take that into consideration.

I, I kind of bet on myself and I just said I'm going.

Yeah.

within a couple of days of finding out they were looking for a

singer, I moved outta my apartment,

bought a, bought a one-way ticket and was on the way, literally within days, it was

that's wild, wild.

I, and I want, I bet that's kind of though an pretty important mindset

for musicians who the guys who really make it, you know, who not

so much the buying a one way ticket thing, but the I'm going to do this,

right.

know, and, and that's probably a pretty important mindset versus the, well,

let's try it out and see if it works.

Well, and exactly.

I can tell you that even going back to 86, 87, 88 when I was 20, 21, 22 years

old, and once I'm even out here and I'm talking to people, you know, Tuff is

starting to do shows in different cities, in different states and I would meet some.

Musician like myself, some guy, guitarist, drummer, whatever, 20 21, 19 23.

And a lot of times you would hear the, yeah, you know, I'm gonna, I'm gonna,

I'm gonna work all summer, I'm gonna save up my money and I'm gonna get all my

equipment together, and I've been working on my riffs and, you know, then next

year I'm gonna, I'm gonna make the move.

You know?

And then you talk to that same person a year later and they're like, well,

you know, I decided I was gonna take this summer course at this college,

and, you know, my dad wants me to work for his plumbing company, and

I'm just gonna save up more money.

I mean, know, my car broke down and, you know, I don't really have a guarantee.

Like, what if I go there and no band wants me, or I don't

know if I have a place to live?

And a lot of guys would say things like that, and it was,

it's, they're making excuses.

They're procrastinating.

You know,

Mm-hmm.

I'm not saying that I'm a success story, but if you.

Ask that, that have, you know, entertainment, you know, dreams,

aspirations, Schwarzenegger, ex for ex, for example.

The guy came here from Austria.

What, at 20, 21 years

Mm-hmm.

You know, I don't know the whole history.

I've seen some of his stuff.

I've read some of, you know, some stuff from some of his books.

I'm pretty sure he came here with nothing.

Yeah.

here with a duffle bag and probably a hundred bucks and

Mm-hmm.

and all he wanted to do was go to the Nearest Gold's Gym or

Yes.

Yes.

all he

Mm-hmm.

care what his clothes looked like.

He didn't care if he had a

Mm-hmm.

bed.

He didn't care if he had his own bedroom.

He was probably sleeping on floors and couches and you know,

paralleling what Arnold did 50 years ago in, in the seventies.

To what happens with the UFC fighters and MMA fighters today,

Mm-hmm.

a big fan of MMA and UFC and I watch these stories about these young guys that are

20, 23, 25 from these random countries.

And when they get a chance, they come from nothing.

They'll live at the gym, you know, they're literally training two, three

times a day and they're sleeping on a mat in the training area.

And as long as they get a bowl of rice, you know, a protein

Mm-hmm.

of water, the they're willing to, that's their goal.

Yeah.

Yeah.

be in the UFC, I'm gonna, I'm gonna live at this gym, I'm gonna train at this

Mm-hmm.

They're not chasing girls, they're not worrying about going out to

parties or what kind of car they got.

They wanna put on those gloves and they wanna get in the ring

Yep.

Yep.

whenever their vision is to go forward.

Yeah.

kind of what I had.

So, ultimately, I guess to some aspects it worked out, you

Yeah,

to

yeah,

to some level.

It worked out.

yeah.

That's right.

Well, so, so early on as, as you guys were ramping up, what what was maybe

one first big break that happened that you guys are like this, it made it feel

real, you know, it made it like, okay, we're gonna, we're gonna kill this.

It's gonna be awesome.

You know, I, I've never, I, I can't put my finger on that, you know, there,

there's a lot of things along the way.

I could recall a million shows and, but there was never any point where I

said, wow, you know, now we've made it, or now this is to, to another level.

There's.

There is levels to it though.

You know,

Mm-hmm.

get in the band, I get in the band, we, we start rehearsing, we open up, you know,

for a couple bands within a few shows.

Then we headline, you know, we go from selling some tickets

to getting paid 500 bucks and

Mm-hmm.

from playing first or second slot to headliner.

Mm-hmm.

and then, you know, within six months or a year, we're starting to do shows

in Tucson and Phoenix and San Diego and Salt Lake and San Francisco and Vegas

and Oakland and Fresno and Anaheim and, you know, not just Los Angeles,

e every, every little step of the way was some kind of a. Okay.

Another notch in the belt,

Yep.

another city.

You

Yep.

like first time we ever played, you know, Albuquerque, or the first time

we went to Texas and we played Dallas, Austin, San Antonio, Houston, El Paso,

you know, first time we went to New York City, or first time we played

Chicago, those were all little steps.

But there was never a moment where I, you know, woke up one day and went, holy cow.

You know, I, I got a half a million dollars in the bank like

Yep.

that.

That never really happened, you

Yeah.

Yeah.

know, when we got signed, you know, you hear about some bands having

a signing party and there's like, you know, the record label and the

president and the a and r and some big cake and some big, you know, some

big room with all these suits and

Uhhuh.

then four rockers going, Hey, we're signed.

That

Yeah,

for us.

Uhhuh

our drummer got a FedEx package.

It was a, you know, 30 page contract and he.

You know, over and met up with me and Todd and George, and we all signed our

names and we gave it back to Michael and, you know, he filmed it with his

video camera on the, on the table as we signed and it got sent back.

went back and that was that.

celebration.

I will say this, going back to what you, your exact question, you know, in

July of 1991 when we turned on MTV and we watched Metallica's Enter Sandman

video, you know, end and fade and all of a sudden the next video is Tuff.

That was definitely a little bit of a moment, you know, wow, we're on MTV

Yep.

3 0 5 in the afternoon,

Yeah.

later that night we're on, and, and the next day and the next afternoon and

Yep.

later on the countdown like that, that made it seem more real,

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Finding your, your record in the bin.

I recently watched a podcast where somebody was talking I think it was

maybe Paul Lidel from Dirty Looks, and he said, you know, they were assigned to

Atlantic and he said, seeing their record that Atlantic Records logo, the same

one we see with AC/DC or Led Zeppelin or

Yeah.

or Rush, you know,

Yeah.

wow.

Now, now I'm looking at a Tuff record with the Atlantic Records logo on it,

Yep.

the, the vinyl with that paper disc,

Yep.

in the middle, the label that you're used to seeing from all the

records I had in the seventies and

Mm-hmm.

So there's little points like that, but I can say that I, myself and

the band, never rested on that.

In other words, we didn't like, well now we've made it,

Yeah.

Yeah.

Sure.

And,

everything is done.

and

gonna sit back and collect the checks

can't you take your foot off the gas, right?

No, we, we were still like, okay, great, that happened.

What next?

I

Yeah.

Let's

Yeah, yeah.

Well, and I think that's what powers musicians and

furthering their career, right?

Is not taking your foot off the gas it's not doing that.

Like, yes, it's nice to take, sit back and relax for a minute and

celebrate those moments, but then.

Let's get up and do it again.

Right.

exactly.

And I, and I like how, you know, you mentioned a lot of people and, and I hear

these stories all the time about, we're gonna do this one day, we're gonna do

this one day, we're gonna do this one day.

But then one day comes and they're like, okay, but I, this has come up and now

that's come up and this has come up and, you know, and I always think of

the quote and I can't remember who, who first said it, you know, but the idea

behind it was, you know, is it one day or, or why don't you make today day one,

Right,

you know, and get to it.

Make today day one instead of keep saying one day, one day, one

day, one day, and, and get on it.

I always love that.

So

let's talk about, you know, as you guys were building up your band and.

Riding that wave, you know?

And, and what in the playbook of music, so to speak, what worked

that maybe doesn't work today?

You know, what worked back then and what doesn't work today that, that

would generate publicity, generate revenue, you know, anything like that.

Well, know, there's a lot that's different because when I was coming

up or we were meaning the bands of the eighties per se the idea was to

get a record deal with a record label.

you wanted to make a record, which literally was a record, you

Yes.

record.

You wanted to get on the radio, you wanted to be in a magazine, like a hit parade

or circus or faces or whatever it was.

You wanted to be on MTV.

That was just a huge, lofty goal.

And obviously getting a tour bus and tour and go not around, not only

around the US but around the world.

Yep.

in, in, in, in modern day, there's not really, I mean, record labels still

exist, but it doesn't exist the way it used to, you know, and they don't sign

bands the way they used to magazines.

There's still magazines out and magazines in the store.

But that form of, you know, media is kind of went away just like newspapers.

Mm-hmm.

old enough to know that when we grew up, there was, you know, our

local town newspaper, and then you had the, you know, the New York

Times and the LA whatever, daily

Mm-hmm.

or major newspapers, you know, I had a paper route at some point as

a kid and would deliver you know, the Penny Saver, which would be

Yep.

in Los Angeles, like classified

Mm-hmm.

So newspapers and magazines went away.

Radio doesn't really exist the way it used to, especially since we

have these now satellite stations

Yeah.

can not only say, I only wanna listen to this kind of music, but you can

literally make these platforms where, you know, these playlists where it's

like, I only wanna listen to, I think some serious channels only have, what,

is it Ozzy only or is it Van Halen only?

Or it's, I

Yeah.

channel that's just Pearl Jam.

Yep.

You know, just the Beatles.

So that didn't exist in the

Right?

seventies, eighties, or even the nineties.

And MTV obviously at some point became reality tv.

Mm-hmm.

And then with the advent, with the invention of the devices,

meaning laptops and cell phones

Yeah.

iPads and things like that.

Now all of that stuff is used to distribute, whether it's entertainment,

review news promotion, advertisement, you know, for local bands, you

would play locally in clubs, put up, you know, little flyers or promo

Mm-hmm.

and in a scene like Los Angeles or New York where there was more of a

scene with clubs and what whatnot.

Obviously the Los Angeles scene was huge for the flyer situation.

Yes.

was making those flyers, you know, some of

Sticking them up.

You

Yeah.

have these, these are, were

yeah.

to, to put on billboards,

You got 'em all over your wall.

for, you know, there's one from the Troubadour, there's one from the whiskey

there's, that's my, that's a G'S one.

So all of these promos, these hand bills,

Mm-hmm.

we would plaster those all over the city, you know?

Well at some point that became you know, old hat and the city didn't

like it 'cause it was defacing stuff.

So at some point it was kind of outlawed, you know, it was

Uh.

Um, so the things that we did to, to build our brand is most

of that doesn't exist today.

You know, kids start a band and they're like, Hey, we have our

Facebook page, or here's our Instagram,

Yeah.

our Spotify,

Mm-hmm.

account.

You know, so all of that's completely different.

But at the end of the day, the, the thing that still stays the same

is, you know, you got someone that can sing or someone that can play

guitar, drums, bass, keyboards.

You get in a room, you make music, start to record it no matter how

prehistoric, whether you did it with

Yeah.

know, tapes and whatever.

Uh, and now you can, modern devices, people can record stuff

that sounds, you know, great.

The production sounds like, you know,

Mm-hmm.

would've recorded with a six figure budget

Mm-hmm.

in the back in the day.

Providing the person knows how to, to

To utilize it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Be an engineer and know how all that works.

Yeah.

it's not as easy as just plugging it in and saying record and

make me sound like Motley Crews,

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Although that technology is surprisingly advanced nowadays.

It's getting scary, you know?

Yeah,

And Yeah.

Yeah.

What's, uh, so, so what do you think, like in today's day and age,

what do you think bands should be doing to get their name out there?

I mean, you, you just gotta play.

Yeah.

the, the more you play, the better rehearsal is great.

I know that when Tuff was together as a band and we lived together as a

band, we literally rehearsed not five nights a week, but least two or three,

Mm-hmm.

know.

And so literally, you know, Tuesday, Thursday, and maybe Sunday,

Mm-hmm.

know, we'd go out to you know, the Strip or a club on Friday and Saturday.

And if we did rehearse on a Tuesday, maybe we rehearsed from six to nine

and then we go to the Cathouse after.

'cause the Cathouse was always on Tuesdays.

But is imperative.

Getting out in the public eye, you know, going to clubs and shows,

whether it's your own or others And obviously with social media, kids,

young people, musicians, entertainers, those platforms, you know, that is

the way to put yourself out there.

You

Yeah.

make handbill anymore, but you can you know, hashtag our band name,

you know, our club or our city, or our catchphrase or our song title.

everybody's gotta just collectively do it,

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

it down everybody's throat,

Yeah.

Yeah.

You think do you have an opinion on whether, because you mentioned it early

on, like back then, like the, one of the major objectives was get to a label, you

know, as fast as you can and get signed.

right.

and, and now you've got this influx of indie artists, you know,

approach who are realizing a lot of 'em could do it on their own.

And so now there's a little bit of polarization on opinion on

that, on, should we get a label or should we do indie, you know,

what are, what are your thoughts?

The one thing I think, and looking back is as much as Tuff was very

DIY and we did a ton of stuff.

We did a ton of merchandise, we did tours, we did runs to the Midwest and rented

Mm-hmm.

and were self before we had a record deal.

You know, we went from Los Angeles to Texas, Kansas City, St.

Louis, Minneapolis, Chicago, Milwaukee, green Bay, Denver, Albuquerque,

salt Lake, all over, you know, everywhere east, or I should say,

everywhere west of the Mississippi.

We did it in a tour bus before we had a record deal,

Yeah.

we were always about just doing everything ourselves.

Mm-hmm.

one thing I regret that we didn't do is that we at some point just didn't

say, take this five or $10,000.

Let's lock out the studio for five days and go cut two songs

a day and make a 10 song record.

Mm-hmm.

self-release it imprint, you know,

Yeah.

imprint like Motley did with Too Fast For Love or you know, the

original Metallica Kill 'em all.

Record.

I mean, I think they signed with that label.

But those budgets for those few records, you know, whether it's Metallica,

Motley whatever, rats, ep, it's like, you know, a glamorized demo,

Mm-hmm.

dollars in a weekend or a week, and you go in there and you knock it out

Mm-hmm.

and, you know, some of those records now went on to sell a few million

copies as their career built.

But we continued to wait for a record deal.

And even though we had a big name and we were selling you know, a lot of tickets

and selling clubs, you know, selling clubs out and, and playing in cities all over

the Midwest and the west coast we still didn't have an actual physical product.

Mm-hmm.

You know, people have had bought the sixth or the eighth different Tuff shirt and,

Yeah.

and home videos we made on VHS and we'd replicate 'em like from one VCR to

Yes.

we're selling them and panties and hats and beanies and hoodies, just

branding ourself, you know, like what KISS would do, like anything

we could put our name on, we did,

Putting it on.

we didn't put it on our own record.

Yeah.

I look back and think we should have done that.

And maybe that would've we would've probably started to sell enough that

some label would've said, Hey, these guys just released this and, you

know, six months later they sold, you know, 8, 10, 12, 15,000 copies.

Yeah,

know, if they can sell this on their own, well let's let, maybe if we get behind it,

we can help them go gold or platinum, you

yeah.

so that's the one thing we didn't do that I look back and think we should have.

Mm-hmm.

for any young band is.

You gotta be productive.

You know,

Mm-hmm.

music writing shows, recording, yourself and just continuing to, to pile

Mm-hmm.

You know, if, if you're always waiting for everything to happen,

well, let's wait until we get signed.

Let's wait until they tell us what to do.

Let's wait until they, you know, they give us the money.

Let's

Mm-hmm.

you know, there's a lot of procrastinating.

What happens if somebody doesn't like this song?

This shirt doesn't look right, that maybe someone's gonna be

offended, they don't like the slogan.

Mm-hmm.

some point, you have to do it for yourself first.

Yeah.

We like this.

We,

Yeah,

support, you know, we, we support what we do.

Hey, and if you go, if you're gonna like it as well, if a fan likes

it and you wanna buy this shirt or come to the show, or buy that tape

or CD or song, then that's a bonus.

But

yeah,

I think the idea is that you gotta be productive.

You

yeah.

for somebody to come to you,

Yes, yes.

And we hear that in some of the other, some of the other interviews as well,

is, is that very thing is, you know, some of these artists are, you know,

we just did one the other day and, and she said that exact same thing.

She said, I'm, I was tired of waiting, and so I finally just decided

I'm gonna go ahead and do this.

Myself, myself, you know?

And if the label conversation comes up, fine.

If it doesn't, I will have already started something,

Yeah,

and I'm, I'm that much further down the road, you know, rather than just stalling,

you know, the, just like we just talked about, you know, one day, one day, one

day, and then you wake up and 10 other things have gotten in your way, you know?

Well, and that goes back all the way back to June of 1987 when I found out

Tuff was looking for a singer, and I called this phone number on the flyer.

It was their phone number.

It was disconnected.

But then I called another number that was the rehearsal studio that they endorsed.

It was called Rocking Horse Studios in Canoga Park, you know, where Music Rocks

or whatever, and it had a phone number.

So I called that number and a lady said, Tuff's not in right now.

But if you wanna send a package, you can.

Here's our address.

Send your, you know, your demo, your promo photo, your press packet,

you know, resume, whatever you got.

Bio.

So at some point after I hung up the phone, I started putting this together

in my eye, you know, in my head, you know, Hey, I could send this, I

could, you know, this is a couple of songs I recorded, here's some photos.

But at some point I just said, I didn't think it was gonna be, it didn't represent

me as, as well as I, it, it could

Mm-hmm.

I'm from a small town, you know, in some small local band.

Mm-hmm.

I had some killer professional photographer that did,

you know, great photos.

So at some point I just said to myself, I'm not even gonna send this.

I'm banking on myself, I'm betting on myself.

I'm gonna buy a ticket and go there.

Had I not went or bought the ticket and said, let me send the package and

I'll wait for them to call me back,

Yeah.

wait for them to say, Hey Steve, we heard you're interested.

Well, you know, and again, there was no guarantee.

They didn't say, Hey, come on out.

You can stay with us.

Hey, we will audition you on this

Yeah.

we'll, we'll, we'll let you stay in our apartment if you

don't have anywhere to go.

Like, none of that was there.

So I just threw it out there, for it.

And I didn't wait

Yeah.

I

Yeah.

And then it, it became something.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And it became something, it wasn't all for not, and then you'd have probably spent

the next 20 years going, what if maybe

Yeah.

if you didn't go right.

If they didn't call you and you didn't go, you're like, well, I don't know.

Maybe we'd be, our conversation would be a little bit different.

Be like, I probably should have flown out there though, you know?

Yeah, that's right.

Well, so what else works for artists?

Do you see working you know, things like, you mentioned

merch, you know, how important is merch, you know, in your eyes?

How important is even side stuff, like doing collabs, uh, and things

like that with other artists?

Well, you know, collaborating with another artist while I, think it's,

it, it's not that it doesn't work in rock, but it's in, in pop and rap and

hip hop it's a lot more prevalent.

You know, it's, it's,

Yeah.

You know, and a lot of times what happens is, you know, this artist

becomes big and sells a lot of records, and this artist becomes big.

And at some point they say, Hey, let's do something together.

Mm-hmm.

collab, you know?

6ix9ine and Nicki Minaj or

Mm-hmm.

and so and so,

Mm-hmm.

by doing that, you're like, okay, all my fans are gonna buy the, buy

this and all their fans will buy it.

So collectively we kind of both now gain some fan base, like

Yeah.

base might go, yeah, yeah, I like 6ix9ine, or I like Nicki Minaj, or I like Jay-Z

Mm-hmm.

Insane Clown Posse, you know, an old school, you know,

Mm-hmm.

two piece rock rap, man from Detroit, the, you know, insane

clown posse with their crazy makeup.

They at some point started doing collaborations with,

you know, vanilla Ice and

That's right.

Sister

right.

Dogg or whoever.

Yeah.

I again.

There's, you know, in, in the music world, it'd be like, Hey, special

guests, like Cece Deville played the solo on Cherry Pie for warrant,

you know, when that record came

Okay.

But a good way to, you know, to build your awareness with someone else's fan base

Mm-hmm.

the merchandise thing, you know, I swear by it,

Yeah.

Kiss as an example and that band Insane Clown Posse, a lot of those bands, you

know, have, some of those bands have taken merchandise to a whole nother level.

Yeah.

it's a whole business within itself.

Then there's bands that still tour today.

I've been on festivals where I've showed up and it's 10 bands for the

day, and I go to where the merch tents are, and there's only three

bands that are selling merchandise.

And I'm like, would you guys not have merchandise here?

There's 10 bands, there's 5,000 people here.

Why would you not have somebody sitting here with a duffle bag

with, you know, 50 shirts or

Uhhuh.

CDs, or 30 vinyls, you know, for a medium level band, you know, you're

basically away, uh, potentially thousands of dollars of revenue for the day.

Mm-hmm.

And if

Mm-hmm.

Friday and Saturday and Sunday, and you didn't bring merch, and I've heard some

bands go, oh, that's a pain in the ass.

We don't want to carry shirts.

You know, some guys just wanna go to the airport with their sunglasses

on and their leather jacket, get on the plane, land, walk on stage,

play their show when they're done.

Go do a meet and greet, go to the hotel.

You

Yeah.

don't wanna count in shirts.

I don't wanna have to be responsible

Yeah.

up the merchandise,

Yes.

but meanwhile, there's money that's being left on the table.

And like I said I've showed up at some of these places where there's

been 6, 8, 10, 12 bands, and literally three or four of us are selling merch.

And the other five or six, seven bands, they didn't even bring

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Or

even,

we ran out.

It's like, well, you know, hey, if, if a restaurant runs out of

hamburger buns and they're selling hamburgers, well somebody's gotta

make the call to go to the, you know, Costco and buy us another, you

yeah,

200 hamburger

yeah, yeah,

run out.

It's imperative.

We

yeah.

for the day, you

Go to go to the, go to the photo lab and print a hundred more eight

by tens and sign 'em all, and yeah.

Yeah.

Exactly.

and online too, right?

I mean, you do, you've got quite a online presence and online store,

and, and that's gotta be advantageous.

I've been doing online, or I should say, been doing, you know, sales to

fans, starting with PO boxes back in the eighties and, you know, since

the internet in the late nineties.

Yeah.

I've always had a store, you know, and even so having your stuff on eBay, Amazon,

Discogs, you know, all these outlets.

The, the one thing a lot of bands don't understand and maybe they do, but, or

they're just lazy, is some guys don't even want to pay the or whatever a

year it is to have their domain name,

Mm-hmm.

rock band.com.

Yeah.

who's gonna pay that $30?

You

Yeah.

by using the free platforms like the Facebook or the X or the

Instagram, you know, you can have a, a, you know, a profile.

Mm-hmm.

Rock band, you know, here we are, this is our picture, this is where we are, this

is, here's links to our videos and our songs, and here's where we're gonna play.

But at the end of the day, it's, it's Mark Zuckerberg or whoever owns that

platform that is really, you know, benefiting from, from your fan base

because you're not getting any ad, you know, you don't, sell advertisement to

have people look at your Facebook profile.

Sure.

have a website you can do that.

You also, you know, have to have you know, KISS online.com has always had, you know,

Hey, this is what's going on with KISS and I, and I'm sure it's, there's links for

every member and all the things related with KISS and merchandise and stores

and cruises and how to order and where to, you know, what country are you in?

Pick the language.

A lot of that is important.

You know, having a website is, that's like having your, you know, that's

like having your own place of business.

So.

I think that the merchandise across the board, you know, the music

itself, physical music, whether it's CD or vinyl merchandise for

men, women, all the accessories.

And there's a lot of things you can do that helps keep perpetuating

the brand name with your fan base.

And I think it's worth it to have it available, you know?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I agree.

And I think the website is important.

Social media is greater.

That's where people are finding people right

Yep.

then but you want to point people to the end user, so to speak, right?

Which is you and your band and, and, and sell merch on there.

Have ways for them to follow you on there, get a mailing list going,

right.

capture that information, you know?

And, uh, so, so back on merch what kind of scenarios, because you're still playing

and, and you run into various scenarios where, you know, you hear about, do you

keep a hundred percent of the revenue?

Does the venue take some, you know, how, what kind of scenes have you seen

on the merch sales, onsite merch sales.

Well, that varies, you know, uh, a lot of

clubs in general, they don't always take from the bands.

And for instance, there's, there's some venues that'll have a policy

that says, if you are gonna sell in our venue, we're gonna take 20%.

But a lot of times they'll say, we're gonna take 20% of just your soft goods,

meaning your shirts or your hoodies or your baby dolls that you sell.

When it comes to music, a lot of the clubs or some of the clubs have said.

We don't take anything from your music.

Mm-hmm.

if I sell 10 CDs for $10 a piece, that's a hundred bucks.

They're not gonna take anything.

Mm-hmm.

your music.

You have the right to keep it, blah, blah, blah.

So some venues will take a percentage, some don't.

how that works, it just, it varies.

You

Mm-hmm.

a club, you know, there's a club manager, owner, promoter, Hey, blah, blah, blah.

Nice to meet you.

Okay?

We're gonna open the doors at seven.

There's four bands you're on at 11.

We wanna count in your merch.

Where's your duffle bag?

Okay, bring out your stuff.

Okay, you got 30 of these, 20 of these, 10 of these, and 20 of these.

Mm-hmm.

at the end of the night, they come back again.

Let's count 'em all out.

Okay.

So you sold six of these, nine of these, and then we're

literally with that calculator.

And then they're taking times, you know, 20%,

Yeah.

here's your 85 bucks.

Mm-hmm.

we walk with, you know, 400 or something.

And, and that goes all the way up.

You know, the biggest promoters, all these huge events.

There's, that's why a t-shirt costs $45 at a

Yeah.

Yeah.

venue's probably taken a third, they're probably taking 30 or 35%.

Mm-hmm.

Some states, some counties, some places have where they'll, you know, take

taxes or, you know, different countries.

There could be some VAT fees and, you know, it's

Yeah.

But all of this is part of the learning process.

Like when you go on their own, you play 30 shows in 60 days.

Every show's not the same.

Yeah.

not the same.

Every

Yeah.

not the same.

Every PA system's not the same.

Yeah.

currency, you know, when you're traveling from country to country,

Mm-hmm.

So you've gotta be able to adjust.

you know, one night you're playing a club in front of 400 people and you know, it's.

backstage, you're sharing with a couple local bands.

They bring you a couple pizzas, there's a little card table in the corner

Mm-hmm.

your merch.

Mm-hmm.

days later, you're playing on a festival where there's 20,000 people there.

There's three stages.

There's 25 bands.

Yeah.

you know, 15 dressing rooms.

There's a common merch area where you go and you turn it all in.

They count it in and then they sell it for you.

You know, they might say, we sell everybody's stuff.

And at some point for an event like that, they might say, Hey, there's 30 bands.

You can't have 10 items.

You get three.

You get a men's shirt, a girl's shirt, and one auxiliary item, and then

Okay.

item.

Auxiliary meaning a hat or a necklace or a

Yeah.

something.

You know, one of each of the shirts.

And then you get one music item, which could be a

Yeah,

a vinyl record because it can't have 30 band if, if.

If there's a local crew that's running it, they 30, you know, 30 bands and

everybody had 10 items, well, it'd be

that's, that's a lot.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

The merch lines are always so long anyway.

it, it, they are, and, and also when it comes to merch, again, an another

little tidbit of advice for people, and this goes for not just shows, but

general I've had people contact me and say, oh yeah, I'm in this band, or

we're selling this, that, and the other.

And we're trying to sell these items.

And I say, okay yeah, I'll buy one.

How, what?

What do you take?

Oh, we just do PayPal.

Well, why not Venmo?

Oh, I don't like Venmo.

Okay, well, what about Zelle?

Oh, I didn't set it up yet.

Okay,

yeah,

Cash App?

Oh, I never use that, but I'm like, listen, if you went into a restaurant

and they said we only accept cash.

yeah.

You're like, well, I have a visa.

Nope.

Sorry, I have a MasterCard.

Nope, I have a American, I have my phone.

Ca We don't take any of it.

It's only cash.

Yeah.

you're like, okay, I guess I'm leaving.

Yeah.

I'm gonna go to the restaurant where I can pay one of 10 ways.

why when you go online and you're buying something and you're checking

out, you know, in a shopping cart, a lot of times at the bottom it's

like, do you wanna use PayPal?

Do you wanna use Venmo?

Do you wanna

Right.

American Express?

You know,

That's right.

American Discover, all the,

Yeah.

have to have available options.

So, and I know for the longest time, you know.

Technology has moved ahead.

Of course, 30 years ago, people weren't showing up at clubs

going, here's my credit card,

Yeah.

a shirt?

You know,

right.

now with the advent of stuff like Square and Swipers and you know,

Mm-hmm.

have an iPhone, you can literally just touch your

Mm-hmm.

certain devices, all of that, it's imperative that the band is able

to accept payment across the board.

So if the fan doesn't show up and doesn't have a bunch of money,

Yeah.

meaning, or if they don't have a credit card, but they

say, Hey, I've got Apple Pay.

Mm-hmm.

Nope, sorry, not taking it.

Well, they were just gonna buy two shirts in a, in a vinyl record.

So you

Yeah.

you just walked away from $90.

Yeah, yeah.

So.

Well, and, and I think a lot maybe early on are going Yes, but the fees.

Yes.

But the fees and, and I think e even I show up at places now and again where

they'll have a little sign up front that says credit card transactions.

We add a 2% transaction fee.

And, and I'm like, whatever.

You know, it's, it's not that I'm like, whatever, you know, so

if you have to do that, do that.

I think people are generally understanding of that and or just

mark your price up a little bit so that you cover that spread, you know?

Saying you don't wanna pay the fees is just, it's ignorant.

It's ignorant.

You know, if you go through the grocery store and they're like,

Hey gallon of milk is 2 99.

Well, you scan it and then when you get your total, it's not 2 99,

Yeah, yeah,

3 3 27. So

yeah.

Yeah.

say, no, I'm not paying, I'm not paying it.

I'm not paying those fees.

I'm not paying those taxes.

I'm not paying that

Mm-hmm.

cents.

Sure.

leave and I don't have milk.

It's

Yep.

wanted the milk, it

Mm-hmm.

but you're gonna pay a

Mm-hmm.

a surcharge, whatever.

It's the same thing with anything.

If you buy online, whether it's a ticket for a concert or if you

buy a flight, you know, I was just looking at flights right now.

I've got a couple of things coming up in 2026.

Yeah, the flight's 300 bucks.

you have to pay this fee.

You know, if you want to carry a bag, it's

Yeah,

Do you wanna sit in the back or do you, do you wanna upgrade?

Okay, it's another $30 if you wanna better seat.

That's just part of it.

yeah.

you know, if, if a band goes into a club and says, we're not paying

fees, not doing that well, so they've essentially said no to the credit card.

And if there's 20 people that bought merchandise, but had you

accepted credit cards, you would've had 30 people buy merchandise.

Well, 10 times the average sale, let's say the average sale is a

t-shirt and a cd, it's 40 bucks Time.

You, you just gave away 400 bucks because you didn't want

to pay what, 12, $10 in fees?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Sure.

Sure, sure.

it's like, here's your option.

You're a band.

I can give you $390 for that.

$400 worth of merchandise.

Well, where's the other $10?

Well, that is to go for the fees.

Nope, sorry.

We're not selling you the merchandise.

We're not doing it.

Mm-hmm.

so now you've just walked away from, you know, if, if I gave you 400, you're gonna

take it, but you won't take three 90.

Mm-hmm.

like you have another show tomorrow.

You've gotta fill the gas tank.

You got hotels to pay for and food, you know, faces

Mm-hmm.

food, get to the next city, take the three 90, the $10 is the cost of doing business.

yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yep.

How about what are your thoughts around, uh, offering any, we'll

say meet and greets too, but VIP whatever, you know, with your shows

I, I personally, I don't believe that a meet and greet

is a one size fits all thing.

In other words, yes, if you're gonna go see Motley Crue, or Kiss,

or Bon Jovi or Aerosmith, or one of these bigger bands, they're playing

in front of thousands of people.

It, they can't meet everybody.

right.

you supported them for 40 years, even if you bought every record and went

to every concert and stood in line, you know, from your teens to your

twenties, to your forties, not, it's not possible for them to meet everybody.

Mm-hmm.

when they invented this, hey, you can pay 500 bucks.

You can come backstage, you can meet all the members of kiss, you

can get a photo with everybody.

You can get two signed items.

And here's your memory.

Mm-hmm.

with, with Gene Simmons, you know, and all

Yeah.

with his costume on Sebastian Bach, not as big of a, a star as Kiss or

Motley Crut, but he was a big star.

And even

Mm-hmm.

artist, people still wanna meet him.

Mm-hmm.

that.

I think it's kind of goofy when relatively unknown bands or a band

that's just really low down the totem pole tries to sell that.

Because for the most part, when when you're at that level, you should

be going outta your way to meet everybody that you possibly can.

can't stay backstage at a club with 150 people and go in the dressing room

and go, well, I'm only gonna go out there and meet the people that paid

me a hundred dollars for my autograph.

Mm-hmm.

might have one or two suckers out there that paid for it, but

there's another 150 people or 148 people that, that won't meet you.

Mm-hmm.

if you went out and mingled with them and said hello and took some photos

or signed some stuff, maybe out of those 148 people maybe 10 or 15 are

gonna go, Hey, he was pretty cool.

I'll buy a shirt.

Yeah.

Yeah.

record.

Yeah.

now by you offering yourself to meet with fans and

Mm-hmm.

you know, you're building you are building sales at your merch table.

Mm-hmm.

what the meet and greet is.

Basically a more, it's an expensive version of with the band only.

You're not really necessarily getting anything other than to

That's a great way of putting it.

Up, up, up, close, you know,

That's a great way of putting it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, I've seen all sides of it from my side of it.

You know, I've been the, as you put it, the sucker who will pay to meet

some of the guys in the smaller bands I've paid to meet some of the big guys.

Right.

and, but I also royally appreciate the bands that hang out at the merch

table afterward and just chat with people and take the photos and sign

whatever you wanna sign and they're just hanging out and having a good time.

Like, like I appreciate that, just as a fan who goes and goes,

Hey, that was such a great time.

Oh, and I got a photo at the end, you know?

Right.

Uh, and, and I think I, I think it, it brings some, I don't

know what the word would be.

It repertoire maybe would be, uh, for lack of better words.

Like, like people really appreciate that.

And the memory is that much more.

And so, yeah, you're gonna, you're gonna keep listening.

You're gonna keep buying, you're gonna keep, you know, uh, and doing that.

But I think people can see through.

The motive behind it.

Pretty easy.

If your motive is, I'm gonna hang out here so that you'll buy something, right?

That's different.

Right.

Then I'm gonna hang out here because I appreciate my fans and I'm only

here because of my fans anyway.

You know, and there's a, there's a different, there's a different

kind of mindset and, and it comes off, you know, pretty quick.

I've met, I've met some, you know, like that.

And it's, it's not a fun experience, you know, you kind of feel a

little used and and yeah, that band appreciation, I think is golden as well.

Well, the thing is, there's different ways to do this.

Like I recently was watching an interview with Chris Jericho interviewing

Bruce Dickinson of Iron Maiden.

He can't get much bigger than Bruce Dickinson Iron Maiden.

Yeah.

played stadiums around the world.

But

Mm-hmm.

talking to him about, Bruce had recently appeared at one of these ComicCon kind of,

uh, ComicCon or horror convention kind of thing, where you go and people, you know.

Come and meet you and then they pay to get a photo or pay to get an autograph.

And Bruce at first said, I don't know, you know, he had never done one.

He said it felt a little weird sitting at a table and having people pay to

get his autograph or get a photo.

But then after he was there and he was involved in it, he said he

understood it a little bit more.

Like for instance, when Iron Maiden or AC/DC or Motley Crue or whatever comes

out of a five star hotel in whatever city they're in, and there's a shuttle van

waiting for 'em and they're getting rushed out and now there's 20 or 30 fans all

Yeah.

around the van, you know, like with Guns N Roses, axle, axle, axle.

And then at some point, Axel or slash decides to step away from the security

guards and go up to the line and sign

Yeah.

or eight or 10

Mm-hmm.

And those people are all like, sign mine, sign mine, shoving 'em in their

Yeah.

a lot of those people are professionals and they're really

just going to eBay with it.

But the thing that Bruce said is, in that setting, it's a

little bit more controlled.

You know,

Mm-hmm.

he's sitting at a table or two, there's a line of, you know, meet Bruce sign, you

know, a line of 10, 20, whatever people it is, and they come up one at a time.

There's usually a couple handlers.

Hey.

You know, and then there's a price list.

You can get this and this and this.

If you wanna buy, you can get this and this and this,

Yeah.

and this is how it works.

And it's organized and it's steady.

And now it's also in a, a little bit more of a controlled atmosphere.

It's not outside, it's not rainy or windy, or it's midnight after

the show and they're trying

Yeah.

hotel and they're, you know, with a towel over them.

They're wet from the stage and

Yeah,

sign this.

He's like, okay, quick.

You know,

yeah.

a photo, you know, is

Yeah.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

or 90 seconds, that they shook Bruce Dickinson's hand.

They got a nice, clear photo with him.

He signed a couple of their items and he gave them, you know, that, that

courte courtesy to spend that minute

Yeah.

him.

But at the end of the day, they had to spend a hundred bucks

for a couple of autographs,

Yeah, yeah, yeah.