This is the fourth installment of my Very Interesting Blogger series (you can read about Tonya, Eric, and Jeff as well). For this interview, I talked to one of my good blogging friends, Ian from The 30 Something Student. I spent a lot of time with Ian at last year’s FinCon and he’s a seriously awesome guy. When you’re done reading his interview, make sure to check out his blog.

Me: You’re a pretty busy guy, Ian. You work, you blog and you’re finishing grad school. You also play guitar in a band. Can you tell us about that? 

Yeah, it’s just something I get to do with some of my real good buddies on weekends. When we play a lot, like we have been this past year, it can definitely make things pretty busy and something ends up suffering from a lack of attention. Typically, we play shows on the weekends but we usually practice during the week. If we are writing new material practice becomes fairly frequent. It can make getting to all my other obligations tough. I usually try to have way too many things going on at one time. It’s usually a bad idea but that’s what I do.

I understand that completely. Having too many things going on at once is a way of life for me. 

Me: How long have you been playing guitar for? When did you first join a band? Is that band still together or are you in a different one? 

Ian: I have been playing guitar for quite a long time now. I suppose something like 18 years. I definitely should be a lot better, but hey, I play in a punk band so no one is really expecting much. When I was young I was kind of off and on. I would play for a while, get discouraged and quit, and then start playing again when I got motivated.

I joined my first band as basically as soon as I got a guitar. It was super fun and I remember we had to have older friends drive us to our first couple of gigs because we weren’t old enough to drive or we would get one of our parents to give us a lift. We didn’t last that long maybe a year or so but I still know all the guys that were in it. Two of them are basically my best friends. Being in that band also was the first time I had ever been booed onstage. I like to think that attributes to my thick skin.

The band I am in now has been together since 1997, so really only a year or so after my first band called it quits. We have had a few lineup changes here and there but for the most part the core guys are still in it. Usually it’s just life stuff that makes people have to quit. I only think there was one time when stuff got bad and uncomfortable between members, well maybe twice.

Together since 1997? That’s longer than the shelf life of most bands! And marriages. Quite impressive. 

Me: Do you do it for fun, to earn money, or both? If you do earn money doing it, at what point did you decide to make the switch from hobby to income earning opportunity? 

Ian: It is definitely for fun. If I was doing this for money it would be a serious planning error. There isn’t a lot of money in being in a punk rock band unless you are one of the lucky ones, but that doesn’t really matter to me. It is one of the most fun things I do now or have ever done. I get to go out of town with my buddies, hang out in a new place and meet new people or see people I know from other cities on a fairly regular basis. Another thing is that it is all basically for free. The band will cover food, gas, etc. and plenty of times the bars or clubs we play will give us free food and beer.

Like I said, we don’t really go for making a bunch of cash. If a lot of people decide they like our band a lot and want to pay us, that’s great, but if not, we are fine with that as well. We do make a few bucks though and have lately been taking a little better approach to our finances and investing more into merchandise and what not. It allows us to not be in as much of a pinch when you want to record new music or drive farther away to play a gig. You definitely can earn money playing, you just have to be on the road for 200+ days a year or something crazy. I would actually be ok with that if we were taking a more serious approach. In the last year we have picked things up and hope to play around 50 gigs or so next year. That’s basically like 4 a month or two weekends a month, a very doable and realistic number.

Free food and beer are pretty good perks. However, not good enough to be on the road for 2/3 of the year. I commend your choice of a reasonable number. 

Me: What’s been your most memorable gig so far?   

Ian: Wow, over the years there have been quite a few but I think the most memorable one was with this band called Strung Out. They were pretty big in the late 90’s early 2000’s and actually are still doing very well. Anyway, I was like 19 and our band in general was pretty bad. Somehow we talked our way onto a show opening up for these guys. The place was pretty big and packed, I would think somewhere close to around 1,000 people. I remember walking onto the stage and just being like “oh shit” what did we get ourselves into? I mean honestly, we had no business being up there. It was the first time I had been on a stage that you could run on. I was used to tiny little stages where everyone is packed together and on this stage the other guitarist was like 20 yards from me or something silly. Anyway, it was a lot of fun and we got yelled at for eating their food in the backstage area. We thought it was for all of the bands, but it definitely wasn’t.

I seriously cannot get over what punk bands name themselves. 

Me: What advice would you give someone who’s thinking about starting to play guitar or join a band? 

Ian: If you want to start playing guitar I would say learn how to play a powerchord, just Google it and you will figure it out. It is essentially the basis for rock guitar. Then I would start doing the other practice techniques that you find in books and what not. When you get tired of playing “Three Blind Mice”, start busting out the power chords and play some AC/DC, Green Day, or whatever. Once you know those chords you will be blown away by how many songs you can play.

If you want to join a band I suppose there are two ways of going about it. You can be a career musician, which means you better have some damn good chops, and just be a hired hand and play with bands that will pay you well. Or you can get some friends together, figure out how to play an instrument just enough so it sounds somewhat like music and have fun. I have noticed over all the years playing, you get the best crowd reaction when you are actually having a good time, even if you are screwing the songs up. People like to have fun and if you are having a good time on stage it gets infective with the crowd. That’s pretty much it.

He’s right. If you know about 4 chords, you can have a very long and lucrative career in music, particularly punk music. Just ask the remaining members of The Ramones.