Even Though All His Gigs Were Cancelled - This Musician Made More Money

(Transcription)

Musician Scott Foster
Salt Lake, Utah

How did you start making money with your music?

Scott Foster (00:03):
Probably I might’ve gotten paid once or twice to do something at a wedding as an 18 year old kid. But other than that, I didn’t really ever make any money at it until I was probably closer to 21, 22. And, uh, I performed and performed in a bar or two. And, and it was funny because I, at the time I was working construction and I’d go work for like, you know, 15 bucks an hour and I’d work 10 hours a day to make 150 bucks. And then I would go sing in a bar for three hours and I’d come out of there with, you know, two or $300 and was like,

Ann Rea (00:41):
Yeah.

Scott Foster (00:42):
What am I doing?

What changed?

Scott Foster (00:45):
And it wasn’t until just a random set of events in 2008, I was running a gold mining operation up in the Bering sea. Pretty random.

Ann Rea (00:55):
Okay. That is, that’s really neat. Random and fascinating all at the same time.

Then what happened?

Scott Foster (01:01):
How am I going to make some seasonal cash that’s not going to conflict with the gold mining that I’ve got going on and push came to shove. I, I heard about performing on cruise ships. I made a little video to be my, my demo, right? My audition and I sent, I sent that in and push came to shove and I became a cruise ship entertainer. And that was my first time jumping in to where I wasn’t doing anything else for income. It was just, just singing.

Ann Rea (01:34):
What’s interesting about that is 2007 2008 was when we experienced the last deep recession. So I just want to point that out. That you were making money from making art and you were doing it during a time you weren’t supposed to be able to.

Scott Foster (01:53):
right? Yeah. You, you would think that, you know, whenever there is a time of recession, it’s all the frugalities that get cut out first. And so you’d think that an artist or a musician or some sort of talent or entertainer would be the first people to be without a job. But it turns out there’s always going to be people going on cruises, you know? And, and there’s, to be honest, there’s the people in my experience, a lot of the people that actually have the greatest appreciation for the arts. And when I say they have the greatest appreciation, meaning they’re willing to put their money where their mouth is, they’re quite affluent and they’re going to be the last ones to decide not to go on a cruise or to decide not to go to the ski resort or to go to up to Park City where there’s all kinds of galleries and entertainment.

Scott Foster (02:49):
And it’s a place that’s really rich in the arts and there’s always going to be a place for artists there as long as people are allowed to go there. So right now, this unique situation we’re in right now is, uh, is the first time where I thought I was completely stuck out of luck.

Have you felt sorry for yourself?

Scott Foster (03:11):
On Monday of last week. And this has been my thing. Whenever I, whenever I’m on the verge of feeling sorry for myself, I think, you know, I was brought into this world to make people happy and to, and to spread my music. And, and I’ve always had a good sense of being able to help people feel something from that. And so I was like, well, rather than sit here and complain about not having a job, I’m going to get on Instagram Live and I’m going to just give free entertainment to everybody. So if I’m miserable, I’m sure they’re miserable and maybe I can help out with them.

Scott Foster (03:44):
So I got on there and I sang for an hour. And like, one of the first people that pop on was Jason Everett and he’s made, he’s hired me in the past to perform for various, yeah, some of them were like in person and some of them were just online, but, um, and he’s like, “man, I don’t know why I didn’t think of this before, but I’m doing this thing this week and I’d love you to, or love for you to, to do like a virtual, uh, corporate show.” And I was like, sure, let’s do it. And so I got hired to do that and then I’ve had uh, several other clients from, from my past that have reached out and asked me, Hey, this is a great idea. Can you perform on this virtual thing? And at the very least I have been mentioning on my, on my live stream that if you want to help support these streams, then please feel free to shoot me a tip via Venmo and I kind of

Ann Rea (04:49):
good idea. I love that. Thank you for sharing that strategy. That’s great.

Have you made more money since the virus?

Scott Foster (04:55):
Uh, the silver lining is I ended up making more money this week off of streaming than I would have made it all the gigs that got canceled.

Ann Rea (05:05):
Yeah! Take that iTunes.

Scott Foster (05:08):
Right. I had no clue that I could have been doing this the whole time.

New Speaker (05:16):
How did you create your online following?

Scott Foster (05:16):
I’ve got that many followers because I was proactive about growing a follower base. I didn’t, some people think, well if it’s, you want it to be organic so you just let it happen. And it’s like usually when you just let the soil do its thing, it gets full of weeds.

Ann Rea (05:38):
This is a great analogy, right?

Scott Foster (05:41):
If you want it to bear fruit, you’ve got to work. It got to work it every day.

Destruction gives birth to creativity.

Ann Rea (05:50):
I know people feel scared, but what happens is when there’s disruption, it actually ignites creativity and ingenuity, which is what you just demonstrated. And so, you know, stay open and, and you’ll know, you know, you, it’s, it’s surprising what you can think of. You know, when push comes to shove. The other thing that I wanted to point out is that I did a whole series of paintings for the Montage Deer Valley and in Utah.

Scott Foster (06:24):
I performed there for like five years.

Ann Rea (06:26):
Oh, you did? Yeah. Isn’t that a beautiful place you have there? Do you know they have their own branded scent? Yeah. So everybody, this is a really fancy place. So like Oprah Winfrey has a place there and

Scott Foster (06:45):
Tom Hanks, Michael Jordan.

Are people still going to buy art?

Ann Rea (06:49):
The affluent still have their money. There’s a famous, it hasn’t burned in a big fire and they actually do want to support artists. And there’s a famous saying by Oscar Wilde, which is one of my favorite quotes, which is “When bankers get together for dinner, they talk about art. And when artists get together for dinner, they talk about money.” So here we are.

What’s your advice to artists?

Scott Foster (07:15):
Simply I would say to, to fear not fear, not I think, and that’s so cliche, I almost feel bad saying it. But if I could go back

Ann Rea (07:29):
It right for the times actually.

Scott Foster (07:30):
yeah. If I could go back to my younger self and I just, I had a tendency to carry the weight of the world and sometimes I would see an obstacle and I just, I would, I would tend to turn inward and like, Oh there’s, there’s no way I can pass that, you know?

Ann Rea (07:48):
So let’s, do you mind if we dive into this? So like, no, no one wants to, no one wants to really feel fear. Like it’s not something we desire. Right? So when you, we can, and so when you say fear not, how do they not or how do you not, what do you do?

Scott Foster (08:07):
Well now I just, I think about what I really want and I think about what’s getting in the way. And then I think about like bef before I sit here and mope about things being in my way. Let’s, let’s think of every possible thing we can do to remove that thing from our way. And if we can’t remove it from our way, then how do we just change our path a little bit to sidestep but or skirt around it.

How do you know that your art matters?

Scott Foster (08:37):
I can tell when somebody’s appreciating my music and then when after a show or a concert, they reach out to me, I’ll usually get something like, man, I like that. That one song you played, it just, it really evoked some stirring emotions. And I’m like, good. That’s why I wrote it. Cause that’s what I was feeling at the time I wrote it.

Ann Rea (08:57):
Yeah, you threw a dart right at their heart and it was actually, you know, it’s very healing for people to feel. It’s really, I mean that’s, that’s our, we’re humans we’re supposed to do. And so our job as artists is to inspire and to connect people with their humanity. And I just want to end by saying, you know, that’s our job right now is to help people connect with their humanity. And I think we need it more now than ever and that this too shall pass. And, um, I just want to thank you for taking time out of your day to share your story and unwittingly share your four part code.

How can your art make a difference?

Ann Rea (09:42):
Um, if you think about it, I mean, artists are this, some of the most dismissed people and uh, and they’re also the most adored. We have this strange polarity, not a lot in the middle. Yeah.

Scott Foster (10:02):
And just what I, the only thing that I could, you know, even add on to that is when I think every artist needs to remember that. I think the, the, the truest and best form of your art that you can manifest is that which has a message that is unique to the beholder.

Ann Rea (10:24):
Exactly.

Scott Foster (10:25):
You’re too specific about the message you’re trying to put out there. You’re not an artist. You’re a propagandist and you’re just trying to, you’re trying to make somebody’s mind up for them. Your art needs to be free of all that. It needs to be something that when, when every person who sees it gets something different out of it, something unique to them, it needs to, it needs to transcend idealism essentially.

Ann Rea (10:48):
And it needs to come from your soul’s truth, your soul. It’s, it’s from your, your, the factory, right? Your soul is the factory that, that generates this inspiration. And then I think some of it, you know, there’s inspiration is just fed to us, right? We just receive it. It’s a combination of things.

Scott Foster (11:09):
Don’t try to convince them, try to move them.