We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Ryan Hudson. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Ryan below.

Hi Ryan, thanks for joining us today. Owning a business isn’t always glamorous and so most business owners we’ve connected with have shared that on tough days they sometimes wonder what it would have been like to have just had a regular job instead of all the responsibility of running a business. Have you ever felt that way?

If any entrepreneur tells you that they never considered going back to work for someone, they’re lying. It’s easy, show up, punch a time clock, do some task that has already been laid out in front of you, complete task, punch out, go home (and leave work at work). But I had always found that mind numbing. I’ve even had some really exciting jobs before music like repairing electronic devices for a major audio brand, designing replacement components for battle damaged military vehicles, even designed products for the satellite and solar industry, along with creating machines to automatically assemble automobiles….and still…bored.

It wasn’t until one of the companies that I worked for shuttered their doors and moved overseas that I had an opportunity to remotely consider working for myself. While my first business was a mechanical design business, I found plenty of extra time to learn and develop a music business career in tandem, starting with teaching bands how to get better gigs. That eventually led to the desire to further challenge myself by learning audio and video recording.

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?

I started playing out live when I was 15 years old. I’m a self-taught drummer that spent many hours in a non-heated/cooled garage listening to bands like The Verve Pipe, Hootie and the Blowfish, and Aerosmith on repeat. I would learn those grooves and apply them to my first band, MadCap. A few member changes down the road, we changed the name to Not Another Hero but it was essentially the same music. It wasn’t until a few years later that I was involved in the creation of the band Darling Down – that was the first band that I really got to flex my knowledge gathered from over the years and was able to propel that band to a much higher status faster than a lot of our peers. We focused on high quality audio and video along with being very personable with the crowd, finding that that was a great way to meet and retain fans.

Since the demise of that band, those skills continued to grow and I’d offer to help younger bands get a leg up on the first couple steps of the ladder. As my skills improved, I (along with a couple partners) opened a physical location that housed a recording studio, a couple offices, and a small video production area.

One of the biggest challenges that I hear about often is that bands don’t understand why they’re not getting the kind of gigs they want. The answers are different for everyone but they can be either lack of profesional material (used for promo), just a lack of understanding how to book a gig, or sadly, in some cases, the music just isn’t appealing to the venue that they’re trying to work at. My team and I have been able to turn around several acts over the years and teach them to be profitable, get in front of more people, and play the gigs that are right for them.

There’s nothing like watching a band following all the advice and seeing them succeed!

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

Starting an entertainment related business that involves dealing with a lot of people in tight places at times was very challenging during the initial 6 months of the pandemic. Luckily we learned a few more skills and were able to add streaming concerts to our list of services and that alone saved the business/kept us in the communities eyes. A lot of bands that weren’t able to play live just sat around and fell off the face of the earth while others figured out a way to use the time to write/record and have small, intimate events either via streaming or live when able.

Dealing with the unknown is part of any business, and entertainment is no different. While I feel like most other sectors of business came back faster than ours, it finally seems to be steady again in 2023.

Can you share your view on NFTs? (Note: this is for education/entertainment purposes only, readers should not construe this as advice)

I think we’ve all seen this play out as we all thought it would. Physical art/physical things are taken way more seriously than digital items. Items that could go “poof” at a moments notice.

I remember the shift from CDs to MP3’s and at that time, you never really owned that content it was more of a license for you to use as you wish. Sure, changes have been made and now that’s a bit different – but here we are in the streaming age, where again, you spend money to own nothing.

NFTs are a novel idea in some ways but for me it just seems like a way of spending money on something that can be taken from you with something as easy as a server failure or forgetting a password.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.hudson-live.com
• Instagram: ryanhudsonlive
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HUDSONRYAN
• Linkedin: ryan-hudson-50b228a1/

Image Credits
Ryan Hudson