Brad Cooper: Just Win, From $200 Bar Gigs to $3,000 Weddings

Brad Cooper, what's going on? I am so excited. You don't know what it means to like, come across a Facebook thread like the one you posted yesterday. It's like, you know, I love musicians. I. I love musicians, but God bless them, you know, it's like, trust me, I know you're just shooting themselves in the foot.

Well, the thing is it's almost hard to blame them because we're sold to musicians that. Just so targeted and like, now that anyone can make apps with vibe coding and, you know, all that stuff. Yeah, it's just, it's rampant and they've got a good nose for it. I think musicians are pretty savvy and they've got a good detector. I'm not going to say bs. It is a good BS detector. Unfortunately, you get lumped in with it, even if you're just bringing value.

Right, right, exactly. And I mean, just like narrowed down just to the gigging thing. And, and I'll ask you this question later, but. Or maybe now, because we need to get to who you are. But the music scenes, like, as I've interviewed people from all over the country and now the world. But the music scene situation, like Cincinnati, I've been here my whole life. Is not the only music scene. And it is not, I would not say it is the archetype music scene either. Like Portland different. Los Angeles different. So let's get into that a bit. So you're Brad Cooper. Great name to have, by the way.

You're from Toronto, Canada. Why don't you start off with who you are, what you do and where you're going with things?

Sure, yeah. Thanks, Cliff. My name's Brad and so I'm from Toronto and you know, I went to university. Like a lot of people my age kind of was just what you did back then. And I didn't really have a clear direction with it. So when I got out of that, I was kind of going through different entry level jobs. And you know, when I was about 25, I kind of just decided this isn't who I want to be. It's not the identity I want, it's not who I am, it's not what really drives me, and I just knew I wasn't going to be happy. I already was unhappy at this new job very early on, so I ended up quitting it to become a full time musician.

That sounds reckless when you put it that way. But you know, like being from Toronto, I had gone to open mics my whole life, you know, my whole adult life. And I just called up all the people I knew in the music scene and I got connected with some booking agents, I got connected with venues who were booking, looking for music and I was able to book out the next like two, three months worth of gigs. So having. Having all my obligations financially covered was huge. So, you know, basically I just kind of rolled on through and I was performing for another five years. And to your point about music scenes being different, I had the opportunity to go move overseas and I lived in Edinburgh, Scotland for two years from, yeah, from 2015 to 2017.

And it was a totally different vibe, different kind of music scene, but you know, I was still able to go out there and thrive and I think it was because of a few just attitudes that live inside of me. And some of that came through, I'm sure, in the post that you saw yesterday.

Yeah, I love that. And I think I carry those same sort of attitudes most days. I mean, I'll be honest, yesterday I played a gig and I had a headache and you know, so I'm not always going to be 100% and right now why I'm playing is different than why I was playing 30 years ago. But for sure. What, how would you unpack those attitudes though?

Well, you know, it's like every job has its good and its bad days. And when you commit to doing anything, you know, it's like working at an office or, you know, being in retail or being a musician, it's the same thing. You're a human being. You're allowed to have, often you're allowed to have days where you're just like, I'm not into this, I'm not feeling it. It's like, yeah, you know, you're, it doesn't mean you're not grateful, you don't have gratitude and that you don't love it. You know, like we just all have to give ourselves that grace basically. But, you know, true north is still true north.

And if, and if I have days where I'm deviating from my own standard, it's not like I think that's going to become some new habit. I never let that happen. I'VE always got my true north. I know what professional is and I. What has brought me to this point where I still play pubs, you know, they're great for filling in those pre dates, but I do a lot of private parties and corporate events and especially weddings and yeah, so it's like at the end of the day, it's what you make it. But you know, I think musicians have to give themselves grace.

Definitely pointed question. So I've noticed musicians by and large, what I call us and them relationships when they get involved with a restaurant or bar. You know, it's. I'm the musician and they are the venue owner and there's that us and them relationship and I feel like people that have experienced the wedding thing and agents are now in a different mind frame where it is the musician and the bar and restaurant are working together. It is a partnership. Did you ever have that feeling of the restaurant owner's demand and is actively working against me to make income and stepped over it at some point or where has that been internally for you?

Yeah, that's a good question. Definitely pointed. But you know, I've worked for bar owners who screwed me over and didn't pay me the full amount. I've had, you know, my share of bad experiences, but that was on account of them not holding true to their word. Didn't change my attitude towards it. I think I've always, since the beginning, always had that us, we're doing let's do this together. Because, because that's kind of what comes through in my copy when I'm writing about myself, when I'm pitching myself in an email, when I'm going in and talking to someone in person. Like to me, if I see someone walking in, walking by me as I'm setting up and they say, hi, I'll talk to them.

Oh, hey, you're joining us for supper. Joining us, right? It's us. And, and I compare what I'm doing kind of to like a plumber, you know what I mean? A plumber's going in to go do a service, you're being hired, they don't have to select you. It's hard enough to get gigs and to make a living at it. Just win. Just make it easy for yourself.

Just win.

Just win, man. You know what I mean? Just go in and just think of people in any venue that you're at as guests because they are, they're guests and they're your guests too. You have to take them on as you're serving them. You don't want to be too loud. It's not about you playing this AV guard, whatever type of stuff you want to play. Look, there's a time and place. That's why I'm so big and why I lean in so heavily in getting out of bar gigs and pub gigs and 200 to $300 gigs. Because once you get into $500,000, 2000, $3,000 gigs, like a wedding, you're basically opening up your time.

So if. If you do want to be an original musician, won't, you know, you work one or two or three weddings a month, make more than most people make at their day jobs, 40 hours a week, and now you're in a position where you can have some capital to strike with that original project and some time to do it with. So all good things come from being partnered with whoever you're working for.

Definitely. What did you go to college for?

I went for sociology.

Wow. That's so powerful. That's actually very powerful. When I went to uc, when I went to Cincinnati, that was one of the perfunctory Sociology 101s. And I think that's a bad thing, because then you kind of downplay it as, oh, Psychology 101, Sociology 101, Philosophy. These things are just giving these to me because they're freshman courses, and I think that really undervalues how important those things are. You later realize this 20 years from now, oh, I could have spent more time learning those things. But interestingly, you also said you didn't have clear direction coming out of college, and I think that's an indictment. I feel that way about music programs.

They focus a lot on you honing your craft and getting good at being a musician. But that is. There's a cap of about 50% on how important that is to your music career. Your product is, at most, 50%, because there's another guy out there that can do exactly what you do on the guitar or the piano. By the way, are you a guitarist?

I am a guitar player and singer. That's right.

And a singer. Okay. I just want to get that out of the way. So how do you feel about that?

With.

With college going in, you're paying all this money, and you're getting. Spending a lot of time on that, and you're coming away with no clear direction.

Yeah, it's tough, you know, like, whatever you do in life, you should be. If you're. Even if you're not into it, you should be in some way giving an effort to extract something out of it. Like going back to when I worked at Burger King when I was 16 years old. I don't know what it was, but I literally wanted every single person that came in and ate a burger, ate a whopper that I made to think it was the best whopper that they ever had. Right. So that's just an attitude. It's just kind of a work ethic thing. So I went to university. Yeah.

Maybe I didn't know what I wanted to do with it, but I tried to apply things that I'd learned. So with a sociology degree, you know, I'm not going to become like, I don't know, statistician or anything like that. But what it kind of, what my takeaway from it was just to kind of not always look at something and judges judge a book by its cover, there could be outlying variables influencing things. So I always, because of my degree and because of this attitude, I said, I'm going to extract something from this. And what that was just kind of this whole, you know, step back and take a look at things from a bigger picture.

So when it came to school specifically, that's kind of, I just think like you extract what you can from it. Yeah. There was something else that you had said, by the way there that I kind of wanted to unpack. Do you remind me the music? Oh, yeah. And when it comes to, I think you're saying when it comes to musicians, they. Yeah. Maybe refresh my memory there.

I'm not sure because I'm lost in your words. But after college, you. I don't know if it was right after college, but this trip to Edinburgh, what spawned that, what made that happen?

Yeah, my wife, who was my girlfriend at the time, went over there for university to do her master's degree. So, you know, I knew she was the one. So I got my guitar, got a two year visa and I went out there and when I landed there, I had like under a thousand pounds to my name.

Wow.

And ironically enough, I was there to help and support her financially, you know, while she's involved with her studies. So it was pretty scary and pretty stressful and it spawned this whole other side of like a whole other methodology when it comes to getting gigs. Because up to that point I was using this kind of like social musician framework where I'm from Toronto, just networking, seeing what I can get that way. I didn't have that luxury in Edinburgh, so I had to go door to door every single place where they Were selling food and drink, hotels, whatever, and just pitch myself. And off the back of that and just being relentless, I got myself fully booked up where I was playing.

Incredible.

Yeah, I noticed countries though, they do have like unions and stuff like that. Did you run into any of that or is that not existent in Scotland? Okay, well, good.

Well, probably just like the, like it is in North America where the venues themselves have to pay to like ASCAF or SOCAN or bmi, whatever it is. The, the people who manage like artists rights.

Right.

And royalties. But, but that's up to them. So they pay their fees and I can go in and play all the covers. But there was nothing, no red tape or anything like that. They just love the music and they kept, you know, bringing me back for more.

Awesome. Well, let's jump into this 200-2K jump that you were referring to. Earlier you talked about going from $200 gigs, which I'm playing right now, to 2000, $3000 events now. Take me to the actual like wedding or event where you realized the positioning shift was working for you.

Great question. Super specific moment for me when that happened when I came back From Edinburgh in 2017, like I said, I was kind of doing a mix of the Social musician and the Lone Wolf method. So I was just packing my schedule out like crazy. And then some guy from Australia came town and he had his own wedding music company and he was expanding, he expanded to Boston and he was expanding toronto where he basically, you know, connected with a bunch of musicians that were in the music scene in those areas online and invited us out for like a video shoot. So went out, we did the video shoot and I kind of, I befriended him and ended up tour, giving him a bit of a tour around the city and being his guide while he was here.

And then I ended up as one of his sales managers for his wedding music business and he kind of mentored Neil Longs. And so that's where I first, my eyes started getting open to the fact of like, wow, these weddings are paying like 1500, 2000, 2500. You got a band gig, you know, you could be charging $8,000 to a client. There's margins involved. Of course you're not going to see it all, but. So I was going through with my career playing all these pubs and working for this guy. As a sales manager for a time. And then that stopped. I was kind of on my own again.

And then randomly during like a week and a half span, I had two couples come up to me while I was performing at separate gigs and they asked me if I would perform their wedding. So huge honor. You know, obviously someone has to think that you're pretty good to ask you to play their wedding. So I was very flattered. And when it happened that it was two people, two couples within the same like 10 days span asking me to play their wedding, I just thought to myself that was the moment that was pivotal where I'm like, maybe there's something here. I'm going to just decide here.

And now I do weddings. I'm a wedding performer. So I went and got a PA and I just got my social media handles to coincide with the website address that I wanted. And you know, I started making content. Content. I started, I started posting ads out, paid ads on Facebook and I started booking events and weddings. And that was the pivotal moment where it all changed.

I'm looking up something because as you're speaking, I'm thinking of other people that are listening to this and saying, well, how many Brad Cooper wedding organizations can there be? How many weddings really are there? How much opportunity is there? And in Toronto, there are typically between 14,000 and 16,000 weddings each year under normal, stable market conditions. So there's lots of opportunity there. Ontario sees roughly 65 to 70,000 weddings and nationally there's 160,000 weddings. So there's plenty of opportunity there. I think that's something that kind of gets in the way of musicians who tend to operate in isolation and not see the bigger world. There's, there's room for all of us folks, so you can pursue it.

You call yourself, and I love your copy. I don't know where you get this art, but it's really good. You call yourself a wedding experience architect. That's beautiful. One, one artist running the whole day solo. Walk me through like that day. The moments where you're switching from live guitar to a full DJ set. What's, what's happening in your hands and your head.

Yeah, for sure. So these are big days. No, no two ways about it. When you're going and you're performing an entire wedding by yourself, they're big days and there's a lot to go that goes into it. And I understand why it's not obvious for musicians and how to do this because if something goes wrong, you're ruining a bride's wedding. Like that's a big deal. So, so you have to build. There's these building pieces that you have to put in place to be able to even execute it and to, you know, to create the copy that reflects it so people can have faith in you and to be involved in sales calls where you're commanding trust and people see that you're an expert in doing this.

So right off the bat, there is this kind of entry barrier. Entry barrier to entry. But to your point earlier, musicians kind of, you know, there isn't really an education for it, by and large. Right. There's not much out there teaching people how to do it, which is the real problem, because these are all answerable questions. I'm not going there. I'm not doing anything ridiculous or groundbreaking or all that new, to be honest. I arrive on scene at a wedding alone. I unpack all my gear, and the important thing is to get there nice and early. So I'm going to be setting up potentially up to three different setups on site.

So I'll have the reception set up where dinner and the party is going to happen, where I've got the biggest setup with my PA and my subwoofer, and that's where I'm going to be either DJing or performing over dinner. But then I've also got a cocktail hour which is typically happening in its own little area where there's a bar and then removed from that, wherever it is on site, you've got ceremony. So I just make sure, you know, I've got as many speakers as I need, but I go there early enough where I'm setting everything up and I've got at least an hour afterwards to kind of calibrate, go through the run sheet of details, you know, get dressed, because I don't go there wearing my suit.

Of course, it's. Our summers are hot. I know everyone knows Canada's cold in the winter, but it's like, it's. Well, I'm gonna say 40 degrees, but I don't know if you know. Celsius.

Celsius. Sure, sure.

It's probably, it's probably in the lake. I mean, 82 is 28. So.

Yeah, you're in the 90s there easily. Yeah. Cracking three digits easily. Well, it's climate change. Hello. So, yeah, well, that's great. I have had experiences where I've played like pre wedding and then I only had one set of equipment and so I had to get a roll cart and put it all on and roll it over and immediately realized that I needed to upgrade my game quickly because you're doing that through a bunch of people who, you know, dressed up and it's really diminishing things. But I'm sure you evolved as well. You said read the crowd, background music one minute, full entertainer the next. Do you have a story about a wedding where maybe you had to make that call in real time or maybe got it wrong before you got it right?

Which one? About what to perform? Like, yeah, like what type of stuff? To be honest, not really because I had, I played over 1500 shows and just, I think being involved with selling wedding packages before I got into it kind of really gave me that roadmap to like, what's expected. But, you know, I typically can go into any room and know what songs to play. Generally if you're playing songs that people know that are upbeat, you can't go wrong. Once you start getting into, you know, higher end events, there's just some styles you're going to want to incorporate in there. You don't want to be labeled as like, can't be kumbaya, sing along doing like Brown Eyed Girl and Jimmy Buffett and stuff.

God bless. Those are great songs and you need to have them in your repertoire even for premium gig. But once you get to a certain level, you also want to include some yacht rock and some old soul and R and B and Motown and some jazz standards and love ballads. So there's just kind of upgrading your set list is a big part. But no, I just kind of, I guess I just had, I was pretty dialed in with what people wanted to hear at what moment of the wedding.

Yeah, Brown Eyed Girl. Interesting. I got that request last night, but I played it in minor and yeah, she wept. So it was good. Evoke the emotion. You, yourself got married in 2020, mid pandemic. What did being the groom kind of teach you about, you know, performing for couples that you maybe didn't know before?

You know, I had a DJ who was a guy that I knew and I just, you know, I just wanted to make sure he was well taken care of all night because I've been in that position many times. You know, had a tip ready for him because he did a great job. But, but like, weren't Allowed to have a dance party. We had to, were, we had to wear masks. We only had 50 people. They canceled our late night food table that we had. So there was like all these restrictions. So it was actually a little hard to extract anything. You know, I always enjoyed being either a guest at a wedding or I did enjoy, you know, being the groom of my own, being on that side of it.

But, but kind of just, if anything, the one aspect I could take out of it is just empathy for the bride and groom and the wedding party and like a little bit of give and a little bit of take. When I'm at a wedding, part of what I do is help to bring the timeline to life, the itinerary. So I'm working with different vendors and coordinators and the couple. And there's a time to understand that the couple wants to go table to talk to people and to give them their space and wait on the sidelines for something important. I have to run by them, but there's also a time to interrupt them and say, hey guys.

Just to keep things on track. They're going to be waiting in the kitchen to get things out, so maybe five more minutes and then we're going to move on to the next part of the night. Does that sound good?

Wow. It sounds like you really operate sort of as a mini coordinator. And so I imagine you work with many wedding coordinators and so do you get any vibe, good or bad from wedding coordinators when yourself are so knowledgeable, so experienced and so active in the process?

Yeah, like I'm thinking about it and being honest, like, I almost don't want to say it. They, at the end of the wedding, they're always so happy and hugging me and loves me, but I don't always. You don't always feel that throughout. Some of them are kind of like, I don't know if I'm stepping on their toes, but really I'm just concerned with execution. But there's, but there's some that are just amazing who, like, I've worked with a few times and we're just so blunt with each other and we don't have to be like, oh, sorry, you know, I said that because no, they're like, we're just focused on execution and then afterwards we'll laugh about it.

Yeah.

Yeah. That's awesome. Well, you run, you know, you're also this premium wedding business, but you also run a free weekly songwriter night for the whole community. Those are almost opposite worlds. So how do you keep both without eating the other?

Yeah. So it's just, you know, it's just part of developing and. And really it's time management and compartmentalizing. The. The weekly songwriter night, that's. That's almost like an escape, really. Like, I don't really have to think about it. I just go on TikTok and I kind of. And I just put it out to the world that we're there doing that and that you're all invited. But that one's really kind of like back to the roots, and it recharges my battery. And having a weekly night to go out and perform just keeps my tools sharp. And it also gives me an opportunity to invite potential wedding clients to come and see me play live.

So really, it's this whole flywheel that. Not too sure how I organize it, but it just kind of fell into place.

That's awesome. And how long have you been doing that?

I've been. So it started as an open mic or. Sorry. It started as just like a pub performance in a bar close to my place here in Whitby, Ontario. And it. It just evolved because it wasn't really that big, so were just trying to think of different things to, you know, bring folks out. So I said, how about we do kind of like an open mic, but let's focus it on songwriter night, because I had done that in Edinburgh when I was out there and love the community that it fostered and just the vibe in the room and people like, kind of creating a music scene.

Music scenes are made by people that just go out and, you know, take action. So. Wow. I want to drive that.

That's awesome. I might actually have to apply this to my own gig. Yeah. To generate some traffic that's on. It's incredible. So, you know, your posts talk a lot. Like, all your copy that I've seen talks a lot about professionalism. No ego. Serve the guests. Where's the line for you? Like, what's a request you've turned down? Even though sort of the money was.

Good, I actually fired a wedding client because I didn't feel that the respect was mutually given. And it was. It was during, like, near to the end of the pandemic, I. I got this wedding client that I gave him a sweetheart deal because I was just trying to land, you know, book gigs and collect deposits because, like, I wasn't making any money. I was doing Ubereats. Delivery during the pandemic was tough.

So we have that in common.

I think a lot of people did a Lot of musicians, you know, just whatever they could do. Right. We got to do what we got to do. So, yeah, I, I gave them a sweetheart feel and for some reason they just kept wanting to meet with me and, you know, weren't paying the deposit, but kept insisting on meetings with them in their planner and then started asking me for my DJ set lists that I was going to play. And I just said like, enough's enough, you know, like I didn't say it, but they got a sweetheart deal. I shouldn't say this, but another vendor that was involved reached out to me afterwards and told me that I had made the right choice.

So.

Yeah. Did you sense that right away? Like from the start I could tell.

That they might be a bit of a needy client. But you know, it's like I, I try to lend my expertise and guide people through, but at some point it's like people have to help themselves. So, yeah, they probably ended up spending more on their wedding music because it was, you know, closer to the date. Less, less people had availability and. Yeah. So, wow. Good to be, pays to be a good person.

Definitely, definitely what actually gets couples on the floor. So everyone thinks the song list is what makes a wedding dance floor work. What's the thing that nobody puts in the contract that actually makes or breaks it?

Well, you know, it's kind of goes back to that thing of knowing what to play at the right time and basically, you know, understanding that when you're DJing, there's peaks and valleys, you know, to an event. So there's going to be, you know, you need to hit them with some bangers, but eventually you're gonna have to let it breathe a little and come down with, you know, one or two slower love songs and it brings out some of the older crowd. And now while they're out there, you should probably play something that's going to keep them there, like maybe some disco or some funk or something, and then incorporate like a dua lipa banger that all generations can enjoy and then hit them with abba, you know, so you're kind of, you're kind of just architecting the evening.

But another thing is moments, trying to build moments, which is why I always talk to my couples and I ask them to let Me know of songs that are important to them, so I can kind of throw them in at opportunistic times when I see that we're really hitting our stride on the dance floor. Let's hit that number one. You need to play this song because my family's gonna love it.

Aside from like the mother, daughter, father, daughter dance stuff, that's great that you point that out. So it's almost like you have a moment itinerary. Something I'm experiencing with myself is sort of a retrospective. And I have to imagine you do this. You get to the end of most musicians, it gets to the end of the night, spike the football and go. It's over onto the next. Do you actually ever take any time to sit down, reflect, and go, what worked? Well, what didn't?

Yeah, for sure. No, I do, because part of every wedding for me is the post work. So it's not done just because I played the last note of the DJ set and close my laptop and head home because I still need to check in with that couple, make sure that they were happy, ask them if they know anyone else that they might want to refer my services to, as well as collect a testimonial. So in doing all that, I do try to personalize my message to them and how great I thought the evening went and, you know, make. Extend that personal connection. And there's an opportunity in there because people, you know, after they get married, they have kids and, you know, potentially a lot of them, most of us, and they might have like a gender reveal party and then birthday parties.

So you're trying to lay the seeds for some future work as well with those private parties, which are, you know, they don't pay as much as weddings, in my experience. But there's nothing better than just getting in your car on a summer day, just driving, no stress in the world, getting to a house where they're expecting you to play and they just waiting for you. And they love it. They love you. They love your music. You set up, they're offering you food and drink and just the best hospitality you'll ever have, you know, and you're just enjoying life and playing songs, right? So. So I'm trying to set myself up for that as well.

And it becomes this whole flywheel where you're now at that event, and because you're the guy at an event, there's another couple there that's getting married or they just got engaged, they want to have an engagement party or whatever it is, right? So just get out there and Let people know you're out there doing it. Always try to win.

Beautiful sentiment, beautiful sentiment. These are lessons. This one call is offering me so much and most of all, motivation. One last question. How would you characterize sort of the Toronto, Canada music scene? You know, do you have a lot of scrappy people? There's a lot of connectivity required to get out and gig there. What's the scene like?

Yeah, no, it's definitely competitive is the word that I would use. There's a lot of amazingly amazing talented artists here. It's a great music scene. There's you know, some music school like the Humber Jazz School. A lot of great musicians come out of there, especially musicians that support bands and bass players and drummers and horn section players. Toronto has a pretty strong corporate music scene as well. There's a lot of like a corporate event. Sorry, let me rephrase that. There's a lot of like wedding music companies and I don't know why I'm struggling to say what they are there. There's a lot of event music companies in Toronto and from varying degrees a lot of pretty like good high end ones that like are very expensive to hire.

Like people are spending. There's events going on that are like 5, 10, 30, $50,000 once you've got like sound and like all the talent. So there's a lot of events going on, but there's also a lot of restaurants and cafes and bars and all that as well. So there's a lot prevailing.

What's the prevailing music genre?

Yeah, you know, it's kind of something that. I don't know if I have my thumb on the pulse as much anymore because getting, it's really like I know when I play old school R B that people love that. That's. That's when people are like, hey, can I get your business card? But yeah, it's just such a, it's such a varied city. It's such a, like multi ethnic, multi age. It's a real hodgepodge of everything. That's the thing in Toronto. There's opportunities. No matter who you are, you can be niche and still excel because we have a lot of everything from all over the world here.

That's awesome. Well, I want to thank you for talking with me today. I love Toronto. I'm an FC Cincinnati fan. And we actually came out toronto to watch that game, I want to say, four or five years ago. We went through Niagara Falls on our way there. Always a great trip. But we just happened, and you just had it in June, the Toronto Jazz Festival. We were there accidentally at the same time. And so when we left that game and got up the next morning, there was jazz everywhere. And I'll tell you what, people, if you're sleeping on Toronto in terms of the music scene, or any scene for that matter, you are really making a huge mistake.

Get there. It's a lot of fun. But Brad Cooper, BradCooperWeddings.com really lovely site, by the way. Nice work on that. It has been a pleasure to talk to you and to encounter you and I hope to talk to you again many times.

I'm sure we'll chat again. Cliff, thanks so much for setting this up and for meeting here today.

Appreciate it. Yeah, man. Take it easy. Ciao. Ciao.

Okay. Yeah, thanks. Talk soon.