Kevin Patrick: Hat Trick Productions, Parking Wars, Wedding Chaos, and Running a Party Band Like a Business

themoneygigs is supported by Trifloral.com T-R-Y-F L O-R-A-L.com TheMoneyGigs to get your discount, Trifloral produces THC beverages. They come in 2.55 and 10 milligram. Varieties in all sorts of flavors. I have one prior to my gig and everything is so smooth. Visit T-R-Y-F l O-R-A-L.com themoneygigs that's trifloral.com themoneygigs and get your discount. Hey kids. Welcome back to the Money Gigs podcast. I'm Cliff Adams, gigging musician here in Cincinnati for over 30 years. It is July 27th. I got to get this thing out tomorrow and I just got back from Kings island with my son and my nephew. He's in from Peru and has never ridden a roller coaster before. So of course we did all of. Them, the Beast and even the orion with its 300 foot first drop and reaching speeds up to 91 miles an hour. And I've decided to come back and record this intro and outro for this episode right now. I talked to working musicians about the part nobody teaches you in school, the business of actually making money doing this thing. Today's guest is Kevin Patrick, bass player and the guy running Hat Trick Productions, a high energy party band doing weddings, private events and festivals all over Cincinnati. Kevin's been gigging for about a decade and somewhere along the way he decided he was done working himself to death for nothing. So he built a band around doing things right. Contracts, stage plots, a band fund so his guys never wait on a check. The kind of stuff most of us learn the hard way, if we learn it at all. We get into parking wars, the reality of 12 hour wedding days. What happens when a venue tries to renegotiate after the fact, and why Kevin thinks the fourth band to play Sweet Caroline on Broadway isn't the one people remember. This is Kevin Patrick. You're Kevin Patrick, the leader of Hat Trick Productions. Hat Trick is a high energy party band doing weddings, private events, venues. You're running the whole operation, though it seems, on your own. Who are you and how did this band come together?

I'm the bass player in the band. I've kind of been a gigging musician around Cincinnati for the past 10 years and you know, I've seen the good and bad of everything. At one point I was working for like six or seven different bands, you know, just off call or kind of on a full time basis. You know, just kind of working around different musicians, different personalities, different business mindsets. You know, you start to see what you really like in. In the music industry and what you don't like. So. So after about 10 years of doing it, I was like, you know what? I want to branch off, kind of go do my own thing. And that's kind of where Hat Trick came together. I started it with a guy that I went to Northern Kentucky University with. That's where I got my undergrad and music education from. But were in the jazz program together. His last name was Hagedorn. My last name is Patrick. And were like, you know what? People make a band out of their last names all the time. Let's just make it this. And it's been a lot more marketable than what we thought it would have been at the beginning, which we're very pleased with. But we kind of surrounded ourselves with some of the best musicians in town at their instrument, which I'm very grateful for. But everybody's kind of in the same mindset, kind of has the same level of experience of, you know, we don't want to go out and kind of work ourselves to death for nothing. But at the same time, we don't want to come into these establishments and make it a just about us mindset. You know, I'm always trying to work with these venues of, you know, how can we make these shows better? Are you pleased? What could we do? How were sales? You know, that's a big question that, like, no one ever asks. And when you ask the bartender, they're like, oh, my goodness, it's. They're thinking of this as a partnership. You know, it's. You know, it's not a. Oh, you have given us the floor to come play for three hours, and you're going to pay us. This is our bar for three hours. Like, no, no. This is a partnership. They brought you in so you can play in front of their clientele, but at the same time, they want you to sell something for them. You know, they. They want to get sales out of you. They want you to bring people in the door. So the whole idea out of Hat Trick just kind of formed around. We want to do things right, you know, based off of our experiences of things that have not gone so well. You know, getting paid late from your band leader, you know, showing up to gigs without set lists or gigs canceling because, oh, then you just told us that we had to provide a sound system. Like, no, they usually tell you once you book the Gig have to have a sound system. Now we're canceling the day of because we don't have a sound system.

Wow. Well, that gets into some of the things you said earlier. First of all, hat trick, do you like soccer or hockey?

Me and my wife are big FC fans.

Oh, same. There we go.

Yeah, so we go to the FC game any chance we can. We just went to the Inter Miami game last week.

Same.

Yeah, that was. You get. You got to see Messi. But yeah, that was kind of the other thing. It was. Once we formed the band name, we started realizing we got in contact with FC Cincinnati and they were like, you know, this is what. Yeah, what. What a great band name and product to play in front of soccer fans.

So you've played the plaza before games? Likely?

No. So we haven't played yet. But we've been in contact with them.

I look forward to that. I'll definitely see if I can boost you on that one. The other thing, though, seriously, you talked about your experience and your likes and dislikes. Reminds me of the movie Amelie. And Amelie starts off and they do all the characters likes and dislikes. So let's get yours. What do you want to start with, good or bad?

I don't want to say that there's a lot of the dislikes, but in this industry you're just, you know, you are. You are subject to probably some of not the best situations and it's kind of inevitable at times, but stuff like parking, man. You know, parking is just one of those just kill alls where, you know, we've played downtown a lot and you're playing during a Reds event or a Bengals event, and sorry, we don't provide parking to you, but you can go park down in the garage for $50, you know, and it starts to be a struggle sometimes and everyone's like, okay, we haven't even stepped foot on stage and we're already not having fun. You know, I wanted to come set up, I wanted to play music, I wanted to entertain a crowd and I wanted to pack up and go home. But now we're dealing with this whole parking situation. You know, another big one is like showing up to weddings or big private events and there is nothing provided for you. No food throughout the day, no room. So you're just kind of standing on stage around all the clients during the wedding, just, you know, staring at them. You've been there for 12 hours, the whole day. And they're like, sorry, no food for you. That's kind of a hard drive to Just kind of enjoy what you're doing throughout the day when you're like, we just don't have basic things that we need.

Like fuel in the tank.

Exactly. You know, if we're going to be here, if you want us here at 10am to set up before the other vendors get there and all the wedding parties get there, you know, you got to compensate us a little bit for our time, for being there for the whole day. So that's where in our contracts, whenever we do private events or weddings, if were there for an extended period of time, you know, feed the band, you know, make sure they're fed that way, you know, they're up on stage and they're able to have a good time and actually entertain your crowd.

I've ordered a pizza at someone else's wedding and it was delivered right to the front door in front of the whole crew. And I'm like, hey, welcome to my game. You know, and they weren't working with a coordinator. It was like private. So I was like, I'm not burning any bridges here that I care about. Well, what do you like about gigging? And it's obviously influencing how you're handling hat trick.

So our biggest thing is we want to get out and we want to entertain, we want to have fun. Pay is a big thing for bands and for us, we think of this more as a business. When we come in to a business or with a client, we want to come in with that business mindset of this is a partnership. You know, you are wanting something from us and we are going to provide something for you and we're going to work together to make sure that our performance is the best and that your performance as a, a club, a festival, a bar, whatever it may be, you have found success in that night for having us. I want to make sure that we're having fun. You know, we're playing to a great crowd. We're able to play our wide varieties of music. And I tell people all the time, you know, we are not just a country band, we're not just a pop band, we're not just a rock band. Like, you are going to get so many different flavors throughout the night because we want to appease to everybody, you know, and there are some venues that, you know, they just want rock music. I'm sorry, like, we've got an even split, 25, 30% of our set list is rock. But we cannot give you a full on rock crowd. And you know, it's kind of like a mutual respective agreement. You know, it's not like, oh, I'm mad at this venue because they want this. It's like, no, we're not able to provide what you're looking for, and, you know, best wishes to you, and hopefully our paths cross at some point and we're able to work something out.

So it sounds like one of the things that's a positive is you're doing a better job of establishing sort of clear expectations with. With venues and the places you play and that. That way there's no disagreements, there's no hiccups in terms of pay or things like that.

Yeah. And. And a lot of people are like, wow, way to be so straightforward. And it's like, you know, no one's got time to waste in this industry. You know, you were running a business, I am running a business. And if it's not what we're looking for, we can still respect each other and not work, you know, not work together.

At any point during your education, did they sit you down in some room and teach you about the things that you seem to have an instinct for with the business and establishing relationships with venues and handling difficult circumstances with parking and food and other things? Did they give you how to compose a writer, for example?

You know, there was not at nku, I went to a school in Hamilton, which is where I met the drummer in the. We went to Butler Tech School of the Arts, and that was our junior and senior year of high school. So for majority of the day, I was just playing bass, learning how to be a good bass player, be a good musician, be a good person. But there, our teacher, Joe Janigan, he was, you know, very much on, you know, and from a young age, just like teaching us how to. How to compose contracts, how to do a stage plot. You know, that's. That's a big thing that when I send it out to venue owners or to production crews, they're like, you have a stage plot. How do you like. We usually have to ask for that.

I want to get a context with you because I think this is a really good example. By the way, shout out to Joe Janigan. Taught my kid how to play drums, and now he is touring the United States with a band called the Ophelias. I remember dropping them off for lessons. So huge. But Butler Tech, nku, Kevin Patrick, Joe Janigan. So if you had to break that down like a pie chart, like, what percentage of the notion of handling this as a business came from you came from Butler came from Nku did you have any idea whatsoever about this kind of thing prior to your experiences there?

I feel like Joe was probably a good like two thirds of what I knew. I came in. I just started playing bass when I came studying at Butler Tech. Ten months into it. And I played left handed bass upside down. So I play right handed bass left handed. So when I came for my audition interview, it was almost kind of like a no in his head, you know, like, oh, this kid can't play bass upside down. What's he doing? And I had a lot of friends there that was, that were like, you know, give him a chance, man. After the first year, if he's no good, send him back to Ross. But he was kind of the guy that taught me a lot about, you know, these different styles of playing music. You know, how to play in a steel drum band or how to play in a jazz big band. He was a big inspiration for me going to college, so I feel like I owe a big portion to him. NKU was just, you know, more of that building block. I was studying more music education because I wanted to be a teacher. So I was. Yeah, so I was kind of more delved into the education mindset of everything. But that's where I met the guitar player Jake. And you know, working with him, it kind of, that brought a different mindset of the industry, of the work hard mindset. You know, were all very competitive in our department at nku. And it was like, oh, you're not practicing? Why are you not practicing? What are you doing? And Jake was a big person for me, where it was just, he was always pushing me, you know, like, hey man, I know you're going to be a great bass player. And we both graduated and it was kind of like, hey man, I want to make money doing this. Hey, me too. That kind of came from that. And then just my experience in the industry, I would say, is the next 25% of it where, you know, seeing those things that I've liked that I didn't like, you know, I've played in a lot of bands that have played, you know, the same songs over and over. It's kind of like the Nashville Broadway thing where if you go into one bar, you're gonna hear Sweet Caroline and if you walk over to the bar in two minutes next door, you're gonna hear Sweet Caroline and then go over two minutes later and you're gonna hear Sweet Caroline. You know, we want to play music that people are gonna enjoy that they know, but we want to create a little bit of a niche with it where people are like, I know that song, but I've never heard a band play it.

Yeah, that's that the goal of being remarkable. You know, if you're the fourth band to play Sweet Caroline, that's not as remarkable as, you know, playing something else. A unique tune. And there's plenty of tunes. And I feel like the competitiveness drives that. Like, a lot of different groups see other groups doing something. They see them performing someplace they want to perform. Oh, if we do that tune, maybe we'll get to perform there too. And it's. I don't think it's necessarily the musical product that just alone that gets you there. In fact, I think it's capped at about 50%. Your musical product has a cap on your ability to get someplace and then it's interaction with venues. How unique you are, how remarkable you are.

Well, cool.

Running a band isn't running a solo act. I'm a solo act. You've got multiple people depending on every booking decision you make. So how do you handle the business side of that and managing the group?

Yeah, so a lot of times it comes from, you know, a lot of venues will hit us up and, you know, it depends on the budget. But a lot of times we try to operate as a full band and we're a four piece band. And that's kind of something we've talked about, you know, adding other members or, you know, how big can we make the band? And we've kind of all agreed at this point, you know, we are working musicians. We, we're doing this, you know, to make a living off of it. And if you're adding more people, that's more people that you have to pay. So if we have all of our ground covered with four people, there's no need to kind of add that extra layer. Anytime we have to do production, bring sound, run sound. I bring it all, I set it up, I run all the sound. Everybody comes in and they're super professional with how they set up. I don't have to worry about, you know, where's the guitar player at? You know, did he wake up today? It's like, I know he's got two kids, he's going to be here. He probably had to, you know, settle them down before he left, you know, but everybody operates on just such a professional level. Where makes my job so easy, where I can worry about the. The actual things that I need to worry about within the band, you know, adding songs. We're Not a big rehearsal band, you know, we rehearse when we see the need for it. If were adding a whole bunch of songs, it's like, hey guys, it's, you know, learn your parts, let's get together, make sure that we are good on it and we are producing a good product and we're putting something forward that's going to be good and represent us really well. But a lot of my business aspect of it is just booking, venue relation, client relations, getting the band paid, running to the bank on a Monday morning, Venmo and everybody by Monday afternoon, you know, and that was another thing that I kind of learned from the industry that, you know, pay your people on time, you know. You know, it's like sometimes you're waiting two weeks, you know, and you're like, yo man, where's my pay from two weeks ago? Oh man. Well, the venue didn't cut me a check. And it's like, you know, if you're not going to pay me by Tuesday, be an adult about it. Come to me and say, hey man, you know, something happened with the check, I will get you paid. I'm going to get it worked out. And it's like, cool. I, you know, I'm not guessing where everything is.

How often is. I'll ask a very specific question that applies to my existence as a band leader. I ran a 17 piece salsa band for a few years. And have you ever floated money, meaning you've had a reserve of money and you floated somebody gig money before you've gotten paid from the venue?

Yes. So we actually do have a band fund. And that was kind of the big thing where I was like, you know, I never want my people to, you know, this is how they're paying their bills, this is how they're making a living. And if they're expecting that $250 at the end of the night and I can't get it to them until Monday, you know, I can pull that out of the reserves, but then load it back in after we kind of get that check cleared.

It's a great piece of advice. It's, it's, I think, missed by a lot of band leaders and people running shows because it's like, what do you want me to do? You want me to save up my own money and be able to cover musicians? Well, what happens if the venue doesn't pay? That rarely happens like that. You're rarely taking somebody to court. It's usually a delay off a festival gig. They haven't put the money together or something like that or some other circumstance. Have you ever not been paid?

I've not run into that situation. And a lot of my contracts, it's pointed very much around the money amount that we have agreed on. I tell them that we need to be paid before we play. We will load in, we will sound check. But once you know that we are there and we're set up for this very big festival or this very big private event, you know, I don't think it's a bad idea to for the coordinator to come up and hand you a check already because they're already running around doing other things and finding them at the end of the night is going to be a nightmare. So I try to put that in of like, you know, we need paid by 4 o', clock, which is right after soundcheck. And all the clients that we've ever worked with festivals or private events, they are very pointed about it. And once I put my stuff on stage, they're like, you're here's your check. And it's like, we make that very clear. And you know, as long as you are clear about it, there's no misunderstanding or miscommunication. They see that, they know that and they respect that.

That's awesome. Well, that's getting paid. And then there's the fairness of pay. You mentioned something in your profile questions that stuck with me. You've had venues where you brought in the crowd, you raised their sales and you still didn't get what you were promised or what you felt was fair.

What actually happened, you know, starting out as a new band, we kind of came out and if I was reaching out to a venue, I understand that you don't want to take a chance on a new band. It's really hard. It's most of the time not the best business decision. You know, you can have a well established band that's gonna bring in the whole crowd, or you can take a gamble on this very brand new band. And I try to work with venues and say like, well, what do you think is a fair price for us to come in for this first time? You know, in our very first gig as a band, we played a Friday night in Northern Kentucky and they paid US$500 for a four hour set. And people were like, oh my gosh, you guys, that's your rate. And I'm like, no, I couldn't shoot the whole industry in the foot like that. You know, that's an awful rate. But that Was kind of something that, hey, I don't want you to take a gamble on us. I want this to be a fair split. And once you see that we are growing your crowd and we're bringing in sales, I want to raise the price. And, you know, that same establishment was the one that kind of pushed off when, you know, we.

We went back to the table. Yeah.

And it was like, well, we thought we had agreed to that 500 moving forward. And it's like, no, that here are the messages that say otherwise. You know, so if we can. If we can open that up, that'd be great. And weren't able to. And, you know, it was not something that I was willing to burn a bridge over. And I said, you know, that is your boundary. That's your expectation for. For what you want to set, and I respect that. I'm just not fitting into that.

You've got really good language around negotiation. You really speak the language well. It's a boundary. You're looking for words that are not offensive, caustic, provoking, and it leaves that relationship intact. And I think that's really, like, intuitively astute of you to be able to speak that way. Do you sometimes think with that particular instance, had you put it into the contract that the first gig is going to be 500. Subsequently, unless you know, kick us off, it's going to be this. Did you give them an expectation of what the price rate change would look like beyond the 500?

No. And that was something that I kind of learned very early on, you know, because this was. This was the first product that I had really overtook the booking for sure. So starting out, I was like, I know the things that I want to do. And then I started doing it and I was like, oh, I'm starting to learn things that I don't want to do in this and things I need to change. And, you know, there's still things as we're going along, you know, that I'm noticing little wording or little things in your contract that, you know, it gets read a certain way. And it's like, oh, I can see how that was misconstrued. Let me go back and change that. One or two words. Here is what we usually charge. This is what our rate is going to be after we make an agreement. We have this relationship, but for the first time, I will come in at a discounted rate.

Do they give you feedback after the first performance that had anything to do with the product? You know, we didn't think it fit here or anything like that. Or did they just see the price increase and say, no, we can't do that?

Yeah. So the venue actually really enjoyed us and we had a lot of people that came back. They actually had us back for a second time and we had a lot of people return and it was a bigger draw out than the first time. And that was kind of where it was like, okay, we are seeing a near double in the amount of people that we had in this room. And I'm not asking for a double in the amount of price, you know, I'm asking for that bump in 100 or $200 that I was asking for. But, you know, some bars are very. They have their budget, you know, and I never want to draw a music venue or music bar out of, you know, out of their business budget or out of their comfort just for $100, you know, that's what it is. You are going to find, you know, a client and a band that wants to work in that and they're going to do great with it.

Yeah, I think it's really important to establish that as a partnership. Restaurant owners aren't the man. We're all under the man. They're razor thin margins right now across the board for everything. So I appreciate your attention to that detail. Now you talk about being a newer act. There seems to be this thing where venues treat newer acts differently and we understand that lower offers less respect in the negotiation. But you've done a good job of kind of fighting back against that while still building your reputation.

Yeah. And you know, the biggest thing is realizing that these people that you're talking to are. Are people. They're people that happen to own a business and that are booking bands. And at the end of the day, you know, there's a personal level to life and there's a professional level to life. Even if we can't agree professionally, I can sit down and have a beer with you, man, and yeah, go talk up your ear and just find know the greatness in life. You know, they're people and disrespect each other. You know, you're just trying to make something work out and you know, if it doesn't work, go on with your merry day and everybody's going to be successful in their own way.

Yep. We're all here to win. The wedding market is. Is a completely different world, right, Than bar gigs, different clients, different money, different expectations. What do you know now or what are you learning about the wedding circuit that you'd wish you'd known going in.

Oh, man, the hustle and bustle of the day. Get there, man. It is just, you know, and we do a very good job with setting up with clients, making sure that we know who the bridesmaid is and who the wedding parties are, because we emcee a lot of these weddings. So I want to know who these people are. So I'm not asking like, hey, who's your best man? You know, we have it all. But it's the day of. No matter how much you plan, these wedding planners, these coordinators, the brides and grooms themselves just get nervous about working with entertainment. And I think it is this lack of trust that they have seen or this experience for musicians just as a whole. You know, they drink a lot, they do drugs. You know, they're probably not in the right mindset right now. And you come in and it's. You're loading in all your gear. But what do you guys have? This. Oh, can. Can you guys move this here? And it's like, we have got this all worked out, you know. So I think now trying to be more clear to these clients of like, you know, in the client meeting, hey, you don't have to worry about entertainment. Like, you worry about your wedding. You know, this is why you're paying this amount of money. This is why we are coming at 10, 11am to load into your venue. Because I don't want to rush this process. I want to make sure that it's seamless, that you are happy with the product that we're putting on. And there's no hiccups in the day.

You know, honestly, that's a lot of dedication and a lot of professionalism. It sounds like you've really got very comprehensive and sort of experience process developed over time. How many weddings have you guys done? I'm just curious.

So we've only done two. Do a lot more festivals, but, you know, kind of picking up as, you know, September, I think we've got two more. So it's going to keep on stacking up.

Now. Have you personally done more than the band as well? Have you been in weddings and done weddings as a basis?

Me personally, I've played with so many different bands over the years. Country bands, party bands, you know, and weddings were kind of the. I'd play at least one wedding a month. And just seeing the. The hustle and bustle from what that band leader was doing, there was one great band, Zack Attack, that I was playing with for a While at the end of 2025, and I played six or seven weddings with them. And Brian, their front guy, man, he is. I mean, you talk about a business mindset kind of guy, someone that just knows how to do it right. He is. He is a prime example of it. So when I started playing weddings with them, I'm like, oh, my gosh, someone finally gets it. They don't want me to sit on the stage and, you know, eat my. My frozen ham sandwich. You know, let me. Let me get a little room for these guys and let me make sure that they're fed and make sure that I know what's going on with the wedding so that I can tell them when to be out, when to. What to do and what to wear. And, you know, going through that process with him, I was like, note taken, note taken. Oh, okay. That's what. That's what you're supposed to do when you're running a good product. To him. I. I can credit a lot of that to. To Brian from Zack Attack.

Pretty cool. You're. You're building something real here. You have a band, sort of a production company, a client list. What's the one thing about the business of. Of sort of being a musician that. That nobody tells you until you've. There's not one thing. We've. We've come across a couple. But is there anything else I should say that you've learned along the way that nobody told you while you were developing?

Yeah, I mean, being the band leader in this, you know, if there is a musician that's going to be out, you know, like our guitar player getting ready to have a kid in July, so he's going to be out for, you know, two, three months. And that was something that, you know, we worked out, finding a guitar player for the dates that we needed. But, you know, coming in and just kind of realizing you won't have one of your guys for, I think, an extended period of time, and it's like, whoa, how do we handle this? Like, how do we go about getting this other guy making the transition seamless? You know, what are the steps that we need to go through for this? This. That's kind of where I went to the band and was like, I need your help. You know, I just. Everybody work with me on this. And they were super professional about it. And they're like, whatever you need from us, you know, if we need more rehearsal time, if we need to make adjustments to our set list to accommodate somebody, you know, we can do that. It Wasn't a super hard thing, but it was just like, oh, okay, let's learn how to do this together.

That's exactly the right attitude. I mean, every day I kind of show up and say, you know, what is this going to teach me? What am I learning here? And that's kind of a new skill for me as well. I just started kind of gigging again in December and show up to an empty room, you know, and so you just kind of say, what am I here to learn today? And you can do that with a gig like that or with the relationships that you have. It's great that you're open to that, because a lot of people aren't. That's leading me to my next question, which is a lot of guys go into music from a creative angle. I want to create things. I want to make music. And weddings, bars, gigs. It's more transactional, product focused. We need to play tunes that people know. We need to execute them to a certain standard degree so that they know what we're playing. We need to be there on time. Business management. What do you do personally after all of this sort of band management, business, suit and tie kind of thing, office talk. What do you do personally on the side in terms of creativity? Are you doing any writing or composition or are you know, the mercenary out here picking up gigs?

I always tell people with Hat Trick because they always ask, you know, what's the meaning behind what a hat trick is? And we do a lot of mashups and medleys, so we kind of create our own mashups and medleys. We have one, it's kind of our standard staple. It's Believe by Cher. And it goes into I want to dance with somebody and the girls just want to have fun. It's just, we say it's a medley for the girls and they get out on the dance floor and the guys start to follow. And it's a. It's a high energy thing, but that's. That's where we try to bring in this creative piece with everything of. Let's not play these tunes how they're normally played. Let's not play a set, you know, let's make this a show. Let's make this something that we're going to be proud of. And let's look at these different ways that we can add in, you know, a piece of choreography or everybody's dancing here, or, you know, make it something where when people think about Hat Trick, they're like, oh, that's that band that does this you know, me and the singer, we've talked about getting together and writing. We've both written originals kind of in our own realm and, you know, getting together and trying to make those kind of hat trick products, releasing, you know, some original music with the band, just trying to stay busy in any way we can.

And I feel like you really get up for it. And I think you're cognizant that how you present on stage is how the audience is likely going to receive you. If you're just standing there kind of stoically, they're going to stand there stoically. And if you're. How do you stay up for that? Like, look, go back, like, to the wedding gig where you've been there for 12 hours and now you're up on stage. Are you thinking to yourself, I've got to be up and I've got to do this. What goes on there? I looked at a lot of your video, and you're fairly active.

I always go in with the mindset of, like, if you can sell your product really well and you are confident in what you're doing, people are just gonna. They're gonna eat out of your hands. So there's. There's some nights where, no, I don't want to dance, but I'm like, you know, I'm. I've got four hours to do a job. It's not the hardest job in the world. And if I don't want to dance around, too bad, you know, that's. That's my job to get up there, to entertain people, to not look like a statue. And I'll get that. You know, we'll go on our first break, and people come up and they're like, man, you. You just did not. Like, you got me up dancing. You were. You were moving around the whole time. And I'm like, good. I. I'm doing my job.

Yeah, there's that remarkable experience again. Kevin, you've given me a lot of hope. Just the business mindset. Some musicians say, well, if I devote my mental energy to managing things for taxes or, you know, I'll just leave that to somebody else who wants to do it. I just want to play my instrument. I just want to, you know, I want to do. Do what I went to college to learn how to do. That's my favorite. What are your feelings on that?

You know, I. I respect people that. That want to stay in their lane, that they're. They're comfortable with. You know, I was. I was a hired gun bass player for. For 10 years. And I. I never really did any of the business I came in. Like you said, a wedding gig, I'd roll in 10 minutes before I was supposed to set my stuff down. I'm ready for soundcheck. And then once we have played the last note, I'm the first guy out. But, you know, after a while that seeing and taking notes and learning from other people and just kind of, you know, I started playing out in the bars and kind of doing what I was doing when I was 18. Always been the youngest guy in the room. I've always been the youngest guy in the band and people have, you know, mentored me and.

Cool. Great talking with you, man. I appreciate it. That's Kevin Patrick, bass player and bandleader of Hat Trick Productions, out here proving you can run a real business and still be the guy getting a whole room to dance. If there's one thing I want you. To take from this one, it's what Kevin said about the people on the other side of the negotiation. They're not the man, they're just people running a business. Same as you. Treat it that way and you keep the relationship even when the deal doesn't work out. If this episode hit home, do me a favor. Follow the show. Drop a comment with the moment that got you five star rating on Apple podcasts, and you can even support it and share it with the musician who needs to hear it. We've got more real, unfiltered gigging stories coming your way. I'm Cliff Adams. Keep gigging and I'll see you next time. One more thing before you go. If you're a gigging musician and you want a hand tracking your gigs, your pay, and the venues you play, check out themoneygigs. Use invite code INV KevinPatrick, which gets you into the venue public database for two bucks a month and helps keep the app going. If you just skip your next beer, that's three months of money gigs. The link's in the show notes.

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