Joanna Funk

My point of view is that every gig I play, I play it like it’s my last one. You just give one hundred and ten percent, every time.

Mick Hughes

Mick Hughes is a musician based on the Sunshine Coast, who hails from London and Ireland. He has a massively musical life performing in and managing very active and varied bands: Sunny Coast Rude Boys (ska), Cool Britannia (90s Brit pop) and Sásta (Irish band).

Mick also runs the Queensland Ska Reggae Festival and the Heart of Ireland show and he has invited Roaring Lion to play in October, sharing the stage with the Rude Boys. 

In this video podcast (this is my first video podcast!) Mick talks about the different bands and his manic musical journey. The podcast is 46 minutes. The quote below is Mick’s thoughts about performing and giving back to the supporters. I hope you listen to the whole podcast and be inspired by his energy and his love for all kinds of music and the musician’s life.

We are lucky. We’re privileged to get to do this, to get up there and do what we get to do. When we are chatting on the road and everything, it’s really important to know that yourself: that we are really lucky to do it.

You never know when you are playing the last gig in your life. There are loads of reasons why people never play a gig again and they probably never realize that that gig they played on Saturday night was their last gig!

My point of view is that every gig I play, I play it like it’s my last one. You just give one hundred and ten percent, every time.

Don’t do it for the money. If you’re in it just for the money, you’re not gonna get very far. You’ve gotta love doing it and do it for other reasons.

You’ve gotta try and connect with the people, which is easy for me personally, cause I love connecting with people that come to see you.

When I was younger, the sort of bands that people really liked or that were becoming famous, they developed this mystique where you couldn’t know them or they were kind of untouchable. 

I think it’s completely opposite now.

To really build a fan base, you have to know a lot of these people and go out and talk to them before the gig and talk to them after the gig. You know, really get that connection. It makes the gig more fun for me anyway, knowing that you’ve got these loyal supporters out there that are really into it and everything, and they want to chat to you and you want to talk to them.

I’ve just started this thing with all three of the band websites where we’re doing a blog with more personal stuff. We are doing little clips of our rehearsals, where we mess things up and play a duff note and we have to start the song again and all that. Because people can see the polished professional video or photographs and all that stuff, but really what they want to see is the actual people, having a chat in the car on the way to the gig and that kind of stuff, you know? 

I’ve been lucky enough to play some – well for me anyway – quite big gigs.

But like most jobs, it’s not as glamorous as you think it is. The easy bit is actually getting up and playing the music. They don’t see the weeks of rehearsal, not getting it right. 

Then having to drive for a few hours to get to the gig. You’ve got a sound check at maybe four o’clock in the day but you’re not playing until nine o’clock at night. And you left your house at two o’clock in the afternoon!

Then your energy has got to be up there. The Rude boys is a perfect example. That band comes out with an absolute bang when it comes on! Well, if we come on at 10 o’clock at night, we could have been there from three o’clock in the afternoon, just hanging around for seven hours.

That’s a long time!

You’ve got to love it, that’s what I mean, you can’t do it for the money. You’ve got to be involved with the people that are supporting you, supporting your band and, and are fans of the band.

MICK HUGHES