145 – Becoming a Full-Time Musician – with Producer, Singer-Songwriter Malcolm “Bubba” McCarthy

Full-time musician. Doesn’t that term have a great ring to it? Wouldn’t you love to pursue your passion full-time? In this episode of The New Music Industry Podcast, I chat with UK based musician Malcolm “Bubba” McCarthy and ask him how he rose through the ranks to become an established and in-demand musician. Download the PDF Transcription Podcast Highlights: 01:01 – Who is Malcom “Bubba” McCarthy? 02:48 – The deficiencies of traditional education 05:57 – Side hustles 06:50 – Playing well vs. social media marketing 08:10 – Revenue streams and taming the tiger 09:12 – Establishing yourself as a quality musician in UK 12:23 – What sort of gear are you using? 16:42 – Getting repeat gigs 19:05 – Being versatile in the music industry 20:32 – How important are music sales for you? 22:24 – The duality of being prolific and perfectionism 24:20 – Michael Jackson and Thriller 25:15 – Are there any books or resources that have helped you on your journey? 27:28 – Building relationships in the industry Transcription: David Andrew Wiebe: Today I'm chatting with UK-based musician, producer, and songwriter, Malcolm “Bubba” McCarthy. How are you Bubba? Malcolm McCarthy: Hello! I'm good. It's four o'clock in the afternoon and we actually have some sun here in England. So, that’s good. I'm happy. David Andrew Wiebe: That's great. It's like about -1° Celsius here in Calgary, which is not too bad for this time of year. I think it should warm up a little more through today. I've had the chance to read up a little bit about you and your bio and everything but I think first things first, I'm sure for my listeners, they would love for you to share your story and how you got to this point in being a full time musician. Malcolm McCarthy: Hmm. Well, long road, I would say. But really interesting road. I actually went to university to study history. I was going to become a lawyer. I was going to become a lawyer. I finished my degree in law school, and I just decided I want to take a year out and go to music college, me in front of people and just you know, enjoy music for a year before I went off to law school again. But then, actually, in that year, I was like, “Oh man, I need to give this a shot.” I started meeting a ton of people who then started hire me for the gigs for a little cost and so… Actually, you know what? Let me put all the law stuff on hold and go for it. So, in that time, you know, I didn't get a ton of gigs, probably the first year. So, I did a bit of peripatetic teaching. I taught piano at secondary school or high school as you guys would call it. That helped me go and help me afloat until I got tour that cometh that came in that would be a bit more sort of consistent. And so, I think that's when I was like, “Okay. Let's go for this full time.” And yeah, I’ve been doing it for the last, I guess, six or seven years. That's been a fun, testing, exciting, you know, all the above. It was pretty cool. David Andrew Wiebe: You know, something that I'm regularly on about is this whole thing about school. No doubt, I'm sure it had some benefit in your journey, but there's also some fairly apparent, I think deficiencies in school. I'm wondering if it equips you and left you with all the tools you needed to succeed in music or if you found that there was a lot more that you actually need the skills you needed to pick up or experiences you needed to have to become a full time musician. Malcolm McCarthy: Yeah. I think I agree mostly with you on that point. I'm not 100% sure, like the necessity of going to school. I think the main thing for me that was able to… Two things. I was able to pull out my technique. So, I played the keys and I played the drums, but when I went to music college, it was the drums that I specialised in. So, I was able to fill out my technique, which was horrific. That actually was something that I needed to fill up. But I guess you know, if you had a private tutor or whatever, that could be sorted out. And the other thing was, I was able to meet a ton of people. I think that really was, for me anyway, that was super important. Coming from the schools in London, I had been in London for three years coming back just to have an immediate network of people to kind of know and who would give me gigs that I think that was one of the biggest things about going to college. But there's a ton of other things you can do. You know, with jam nights, you can go out and meet people. You know, there's other ways. David Andrew Wiebe: Absolutely. You know, it's the same thing I've heard from other musicians as well, like school helps you work on your technique and you also get to meet a ton of people so you got like an established base of basic contacts that you can tap into for gigs and opportunity and all that. You need that foundation no matter what. Obviously, it still kind of leaves you not knowing things like how to manage your money because most people actually don't know how to do that. Or like social media marketing or any of that kind of stuff. Malcolm McCarthy: It's so crazy. Now I think back to it. I'm like, why do you school? Like I remember when I had to do my first year of taxes? I had no idea so I was asking fellow musician, who got a few years of taxes and asked, “Well, what does this mean? How do I do this? What can be claimed as expenses?” It's just I still don't get why schools don't really invest in that. I guess it's the less glamorous side of being a musician, so maybe they didn't want to invest as much into it. But yeah, I mean, it's silly really. David Andrew Wiebe: Yeah, I think schools or vast majority of them are sort of based on a 200-year old system of pumping out factory workers. It's changed a little bit through the years to be fair, but for the most part that's what they're trying to create is, you know, employees who are submissive and will do their job. The thing is things are changing, right? The culture is changing. We're kind of in the gig economy now, and a lot of people have side hustles. Malcolm McCarthy: Yeah, side hustles. And what I realised when I came out is there are actually a lot of different alternatives in the music industry to see. Like, I knew nothing about, you know, writing for adverts. That wasn't really, when I was at school, I was only there for a year. It wasn't really something I thought about. It’s all about being a session musician, you know, doing big gigs and things like that. So, there's loads of different alternatives as well than have to just stick to a thing that is seen on Instagram, you know, drummers on big stages with endorsements and all that sort of stuff. David Andrew Wiebe: Oh, yeah. Like I have friends who are sort of crying about this whole thing of one-minute videos on Instagram and that's the new thing in the music industry. You can't capture people's attention for longer than one minutes. So, they’re like sore about this. I said, “Well, if you're on Instagram, I guess.” but I've not really… I don't participate in the social media world overly much and I'm not too concerned about it, I realized the importance of a following because I'm also an offer but, you know. Malcolm McCarthy: Right. Yeah, exactly. I mean, first and foremost, just playing well, you know. I'm friends with actually this guy. He's a fixer for a lot of the TV stuff that I do. And, you know, a lot of people hit him up and, you know, “Hey, man, have you got any gigs going? Here's my resume. Check it out. Here's my Instagram, check it out.” And he always goes back to the root of that if I want to hear you play, I want to hear you play live. I want to actually… even invite me on the gig and invite me to play so I can play with you and see how you sound and you know. That's an interesting aspect as well. David Andrew Wiebe: Absolutely. Definitely. I think that's what people ultimately want if they're going to consider hiring you. And to your point earlier about there being many income streams in music like I have people constantly coming to me wanting to guest post or advertise on my website or get their links on my website and I swear to you the communication some days is just like I'm trying to tame the tiger as it were, because these people expect me to be on call and have a ton of questions and messages and come back to me later wanting to change their content and all this kind of stuff. I'm just trying to set this tone that like I charge for everything, guys. So, unless you’re going to pay me, it's not going to happen. Malcolm McCarthy: Right, right, right. Yeah. I get that. I get that. David Andrew Wiebe: I've had to tame that Tiger because there's so many people coming to me for this. But it's you know, it's an opportunity. It's not a pain. Yeah. Malcolm McCarthy: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's great man. It is exciting because things are going up. David Andrew Wiebe: Exactly. Yeah, it's just a sign of success in a way. Now, you can certainly correct me if I'm wrong in saying this, but it occurs to me that some of the best rock bands have come out of UK, which tells me there's a pretty high standard for musicians, right? But you have people saying stuff like you're one of the best out there. So, what did it take for you to rise to that level? Malcolm McCarthy: Oh. I mean, first of all, it’s always quite humbling if people say that about an individual, if they say that about me. It’s something I'm not at all really, but it's nice. It's a nice feeling because I know there'll be a lot of guys out there that have put in hours and hours and hours, trying to perfect their craft. For me, it's doing scales and in playing for click and all these sorts of things. So, there's definitely been… I feel like years of investment both on my craft but also interesting things like gear, you know, for me getting the right keyboards, the right synthesisers, or the right unit for my kit,