We were lucky to catch up with Chad Bourquin recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Chad, thanks for joining us today. Let’s start with the story of your mission. What should we know?

I grew up dreaming of playing music professionally. It’s all I thought about. I practiced 2-7 hours a day. Then one day while having the college discussion with my parents, I remember the statement, you can’t do that, you need a back up plan. I didn’t agree with that, and made a decision to go for it. However, after five years of touring full time, a key member left the group I was in and instead of doubling down on my music path, I begin to think that maybe a “backup” plan” was in order.

I went through 3 different back up plans over the next 15 years before hitting my end. I was misseraoub to something for a profession that had no life in it for me. I was sitting in my basement studio, when I remade the commitment to go all out again. It was the right decision. I started waking up excited again and success begin to follow after it. But this time I had years of knowledge and mistakes I had learned from that sped the whole process up. Sure, there were bumps, but with this group my brother and I had started, Big Time Grain Co, something very special was happening.

Over the next few years as we continued to climb, I realized that the principal we were following for our own success could be taught and duplicated. I began writing down what those all were. I begin to realize that much of what we were doing, not everyone knew but if they did, it would help their own personal music careers as well. We started creating courses, writing blogs, doing podcast and mastermind groups all with the attention of shortening and improving the growth needed for a musician to be successful independently. The best part, we started seeing results with artist and groups willing to pick up and follow what we were throwing down.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

It’s amazing how one decision can impact our entire trajectory of life. Mine happened at an assembly in high school. A band had come through doing a concert with a message type of thing. I don’t remember what there message was, but I do remember my buddy turning to me in the middle of the event and saying “why don’t you get a guitar, and we will start a band?” I eventually got replaced in that band because I wasn’t any good, but it was too late, I had already fallen in love with playing guitar. Getting let go, was what I needed to start putting in the hours needed to become the kind of player I wanted to be.

There are a lot of great artists and musicians out there that if they just had a better sense of the business side of music, they could really do something with it. For years I had my own self imposed limitations that the gate keepers of this industry decided who got to be successful and who didn’t. That is more wrong today than it has ever been. The playing field gets more level everyday because of the role the internet has played. It’s a hugely exciting time to be an independent musician.

As artists with our own group, our favorite compliment we love to get is, “I feel better after going to a Big Time Grain Company show.” That is having an impact at the heart level. What would happen if we impart what it takes to impact fans at a show that way into multiple groups that are reaching thousands of fans. Music already has such a powerful impact. Science is finding out more and more about how sound and frequency can heal people. You teach an artist how impact fans on the heart level constantly, the last thing they will have to worry about is finances. This has to start with the artist being willing to take a deep look inward and addressing any potentially unhealthy road blocks. But let me tell you, this work with worth every bit of effort for the artist and their career.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

As a professional artist, agent and coach, learning to remove the need to compete and replace with only the desire to create has had as big of impact as anything I’ve done. For being such a creative industry, there is way too much competing going on. Competition, many times, is a result of fear of loss. We might think, if someone else wins, then we have just loss. If another artist gets a show that we wanted, then we lost. If another agent get a client our company didn’t, then we lost.

I haven’t always understood the danger in this way of thinking. I had to learn it, but once I did, there was an incredible amount of freedom in it. Why can’t we cheer on the other artist who got the gig, or the other agent that got the client and so on. This way of thinking over time will attracted everything and more into your life and is a huge credit to our success in Big Time Grain Co, the agency and now a big part of our teaching process for other artists.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

It’s funny, the first story that jumps out comes from what we call “lessons of the tour bus”. As a kid, I always dreamed of traveling around on a tour bus to all the shows. A few years back, that all came true when we bought our own bus. It was very cool. Originally Vince Gills, it was red and had a lot of swagger. It was also a 96 Silver Eagle which meant, stuff was going to break. This is where I learned, renting is better than owning. I adopted the mantra “everything always works out for me” during this time just to keep from losing my mind.

I also learned how important is was to be solution focused when every thing has gone south. It can be so easy to get so consumed with the problem that we can’t see past it. But going back to the mantra of “everything always works out for me” will always take me back to a place of gratitude and openness that allows a solution to present itself with a way forward.

In addition, I’ve learned to constantly ask “what can I learn from this?”. That question alone puts a completely different perspective on what ever problem I may be dealing with.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.playmusicmakemore.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/playmusicmakemore/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BigtimeGrainCo
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chadbourquin/

Image Credits
No. 9 Photography