Under the Influence with Terry O'Reilly - Terry Interviews Arkells Lead Singer Max Kerman

Episode Date: March 11, 2024

Arkells is a band that likes to have fun.They are also a very smart band that understands the critical mix of artistry and marketing in a competitive industry. Frontman Max Kerman tells Terry the inventive ways they market their music, the creative ideas Arkells use to launch new material, and what marketing from other bands they admire. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hi, it's Terry O'Reilly. As you may know, we've been producing a lot of bonus episodes while under the influences on hiatus. They're called the Beatleology Interviews, where I talk to people who knew the Beatles, work with them, love them, and the authors who write about them. Well, the Beatleology Interviews have become a hit, so we are spinning it out to be a standalone podcast series. You've already heard conversations with people like actors Mark Hamill, Malcolm McDowell, and Beatles confidant Astrid Kershaw. But coming up, I talk to May Pang, who dated John Lennon in the mid-70s. I talk to double fantasy guitarist Earl Slick, Apple Records creative director John Kosh. I'll be talking to Jan Hayworth,

who designed the Sgt. Pepper album cover. Very cool. And I'll talk to singer Dion, who is one of only five people still alive who were on the Sgt. Pepper cover. And two of those people were Beatles. The stories they tell are amazing. So thank you for making this series such a success. And please, do me a favor, follow the Beatleology interviews on your podcast app. You don't even have to be a huge Beatles fan, you just have to love storytelling. Subscribe now and don't miss a single beat. This is an apostrophe podcast production. Hundreds of stories before I showed up They tell them to me and pull photos up

They're all connected like a pair of handcuffs Hi, it's Terry O'Reilly. Recently, I had the pleasure of having a conversation with Max Kerman, co-founder and frontman of the band Arkells. The band members all met at McMaster University in Hamilton back in 2004. They put out their first release about two years later. Their debut album titled Jackson Square, a Hamilton reference by the way, came out in 2008. It went gold in Canada.

Since then, Arkells have enjoyed huge success with gold and platinum records. Their songs ring out in NFL, NHL, and Major League Baseball stadiums and arenas. Their song, Tycats are Hummin', has been adopted by the Hamilton Tigercats

of the CFL as their official team anthem. Arkells have headlined at countless live shows, of course, including their amazing halftime show at the 2021 Grey Cup. And their concerts, interestingly, often feature collaborations with local businesses and charity organizations. They have won more Junos than any other band in history. Not long ago, they released their latest album titled Laundry Pile.

I was looking forward to having a talk with Max about music and marketing because Arkells have a way of marketing their music and communicating with their fans that is fun and unique. Before we started the interview, Max was asking me what town I was located in, and I also told him that I was recording our conversation inside a 1969 Airstream trailer. So just quick history on this Airstream. So we used to live in Cremor, but I had recording studios in Toronto because I used to own a production company for over 20 years. Anyway, I would have to drive in for show day. Max, it would kill me because it would take two and a half hours to get in,

two and a half hours to get home to record a half hour show. And I always loved Airstream trailers aesthetically. My wife said to me one day, could you build a studio inside an Airstream trailer? And I thought, God, that's such a great idea. Then I started my search to find someone who could both restore a 69 trailer and then build a recording studio in it. And I found this guy who did both, which is pretty rare. And I was scrolling through his site and I thought, where in California are you? And it turned out he was in Nova Scotia. Yeah, there you go. So we trailered it out to Nova Scotia. And anyway, it took him a year and it's a beautiful recording studio. We love it. How long have you

worked out of there for? I'd say about six years now. Lovely. Are you like, why didn't I think of this earlier? It changed my life. It did. I hear you. So I want to talk music and marketing with you today, Max, because I'm a big, big music fan. And of course, marketing has been my life. So Arkell started in Hamilton, right? Around 2006, correct? Yeah, we met the first day of university in 2004, and then we probably put out our first proper release in 2006. So that's where that year comes from. Right.

How important is Hamilton to the band? You know, it's really important, and it's unique because it's a found hometown. So I grew up in downtown Toronto. Mike, our guitarist is from Guelph, Nick's from London, Tony's Mississauga, Tim's from Newmarket, but we met in school there. And when we started playing shows and we had to like fill out the MySpace page, like what city are we from? And I guess we're from Hamilton because we live in Hamilton. And then we lived in Hamilton after we graduated. And the relationship is really special. And I don't know how many other bands in Canada have like such an intense relationship with their hometown in a positive way. You know, obviously like the Tragically Hip are from Kingston. You know, Brian Adams is from

Vancouver. Like, you know where people are from, but the pride we feel in being from Hamilton and, you know, the pride that we get from kind of walking around the neighborhood and people cheering us on feels like a really special thing. And the band name comes from a Hamilton street, correct? Yeah, Arkell Street. So after first year, when we lived in residence, we moved to a student house on Arkell Street. We thought it sounded like the Shirelles or the Vandellas or some 60s girl group. And we thought that was kind of entertaining. Yeah, very true. I started my career in Hamilton too, by the way. So that's an important place in my life as well. What were your music influences growing up for you personally? So my dad was a DJ at the college radio station at Wayne State University in downtown Detroit

in the 60s. And so as a DJ, he got all these advanced copies of Beatles records, Motown records, and he hauled those albums around for the next 20 years and ended up in Toronto. He's a social worker. And my earliest memories are playing Beatles songs around the house. We had a record player in our kitchen and I was obsessed. I would draw pictures of John, Paul, George, and Ringo. I'd bring the records into my kindergarten class where we had a vinyl player in there for some reason. And that's what I did during playtime. And so basically it was a steady diet of the Beatles,

the band and Motown till I was about 12. And when I got to middle school, I fell in love with a lot of like the pop music and like hip hop of that era. So like late nineties, a lot of Britney Spears, Backstreet Boys, NSYNC, Jay-Z, Nas, just like kind of the biggest stars of that era. And then when I started writing songs as a teenager, I fell in love with a lot of indie

rock. And we were lucky that we're just a little younger than that amazing generation of Canadian bands that were touring when I was a late teenager, early 20s, which include Broken Social Scene, Joel Plaskett, The Constantines, The Weaker Thans. So we got to see these great bands perform at the little club in Hamilton when I went to McMaster when I was 17. Wow. Would that hold true for the rest of the band members too? Would they have similar influences? Similar. Tony was raised on a steady diet of Billy Joel and Kiss. I think Mike loved a lot of punk rock. Nick loved a lot of ska and punk rock. And Tim, our drummer, he was lucky enough to be taught by

Jeremy Taggart, the drummer of Our Lady Peace when he was a teenager. So he had a lot of Canadian alt-rock influences. I think one of the things that helps our group is that we're really curious about new music. It's not like we've turned our brain off when we were 21 years old and not open to anything new. I think so much of being a creative person and being an artist is just following your ear and keeping your eyes open to new ideas. And that's what keeps the job fun. So as much as we like all the classics, there's always new stuff that I'm listening to that I'm inspired by. Yeah. I feel the same way too. How important is marketing to your band? I see newsletters, I see lots of things. How important is it to the band?

It's really important in that we work really hard on the music itself and the live show. And that's the root of everything we do. And we want people to hear it and we want people to buy a ticket to the show and we want to be able to share the music and share the live show with an audience. And I've just seen so many other artists that I love so much and whose music is so incredible or just spectacular performers not lean into the marketing side, maybe as much as they should,

because it's worthy of being seen and it's worthy of being heard. And if you don't do that, you're putting yourself at risk for people not showing up or not hearing when they could have had a chance to otherwise. How are marketing decisions handled within the band? It's very much a family-run operation. Right from the beginning, it felt like a family business. Mike, our guitarist, he's been responsible for designing all of our merch and our album designs.

Nick, our bassist, was our first accountant. So we're always very aware of what things cost. We're very aware of how we want to present ourselves. We were aware that a t-shirt was a way to get the word out. If somebody buys a t-shirt at a show, then they wear it around their neighbor and people ask about that band. And so that presence is important. And that's been the attitude to this day. Because ultimately, marketing is really just about storytelling. And we have lots of stories we want to tell, whether it's the music itself or what we're up to, what city we're in on tour. And nobody at a label or a market agency or a branding agency would be able to tell that story better than us. We know the details of our lives more intimately than anybody who's setting a deck with ideas could offer.

And not to say that there aren't good ideas there sometimes, but we know our own voice and our attitude and the way we see the world better than anybody else. Does management or record label offer up marketing ideas? We have an amazing relationship with all of our partners, our management, label, booking agent, and our manager, Ashley Potvin. She's just a genius. And she's basically a sixth member of the band.

And she loves the whimsy of a good marketing campaign. And it's such a creative pursuit. She doesn't play any instruments. But when we're conceiving of, okay, how do we let people know about a show? Or how do we let people know we have a new album coming out? She's very, very involved. And when it comes to the label, they know we're the most hands-on and probably one of the hardest working acts that they'll work with. And so we lean on them for insights. So I just actually just came from a meeting with our label at Universal and they were kind of just giving us some statistics about, you know,

what moments on TikTok seem to be working the best for our cows. And I like knowing it. And so they can provide a lot of context and they can provide a sort of an objective perspective that we need. Cause sometimes when you're in the weeds on an idea, you need somebody who's able to zoom out and kind of give you the 10,000 feet view. But yeah, so I'd say we have a really healthy relationship with everybody, but ultimately it's part of our job within the band to drive the creative. Max, would you say that the marketing you employ is mostly used to promote new music or mostly used to promote touring concerts? It's kind of both. And what's been interesting is coming out of the pandemic, you really felt a paradigm change in the music business and in the world, because,

you know, we're all stuck inside for a couple of years. We emerged from the pandemic and Gen Zs have overtaken the world and their instincts and the way they interact with social media and the way they want to be talked to is just way different than all the past generations. And in the past, it was very clear what the record cycle looked like when you're a band. You announce that you have a new album coming out, you put out one or two or three singles before the album drops, and then the album comes out, and then you go on tour for the next 12 to 18 months and then you hole away for another year, year and a half and you do it all again. That's what the record industry was if you were a rock and roll band from 1970 to 2017, basically. There wasn't really that much change.

And there was gatekeepers that you'd have to sort of appeal to. Who's the program director at the radio station? Who's putting together videos on MuchMusic or MTV, who's in charge of stocking the shelves at HMV. You kind of knew what check marks to hit if you wanted to have a chance, right, to grow an audience. But the pandemic signaled a change. Coming out of the pandemic, it just turned into the Wild West. There was no rhyme or reason. And it's funny, we literally just came from a meeting with our label at Universal, which is the most powerful label in the world, probably. And they'd be the first to say, we can't do any of those things anymore. We just have to sort of wait and watch and see what is reacting online. And if an artist or a song is having a moment, then we'll support that. But we

can't manufacture that at all. And I guess to answer your question, what those moments are can be completely random. Like it's not always a new song. In the past, it used to be, this is the new single. Let's put our energy behind that. Now, sometimes it can be a song from 15 years ago. If you look at the songs that are the most viral on TikTok right now, most of them aren't new songs. Like there's a song that was in Saltburn,

the movie, that's the number one song, and that's an old song. And we've seen other Friends bands who have moments for music that they put out nine years ago that are having a big TikTok moment. So I'd say it can be anything. It can be a new song, but it can be an old song, or it could be a tour. If you look at Harry Styles or the 1975, these are some of my favorite performers and they have gone viral for their live show. So when they go on a tour, it's like fans are capturing a certain moment of the set that they know is really entertaining or Post Malone. Post Malone does a funny dance during one song of every show on the tour and that's the thing that goes viral. So it's very hard to say

what is the thing that we focus our time on because it can be anything. Is social media the predominant medium for you now? Yes, for sure. And it's in part because the other institutions and vessels that allow music to be heard don't have the same audience they used to. Like people don't watch music videos, don't watch music or MTV. People aren't listening to the radio to the same degree. People aren't reading reviews in the newspaper or in the weekly magazines like they used to.

All those things used to exist as a funnel for artists to get the word out. And those things just don't have an audience anymore. So as a result, you're left to be your own network, really. You know, if you look at our Instagram or our or TikTok or Twitter, that's just its own channel. That's why it's called a channel, a YouTube channel. It's literally just another channel on the radio station dial that you hope people are tuning into. It's so true. I always say that every company is a media company now for that very same reason, right? Everybody's got the channels.

Do you tend to put different content into different channels? In other words, is there Instagram-specific work you would do that wouldn't show up on Twitter or X? Do you get specific with the channel? Yeah, I think there's some stuff that can be reused across most mediums. There's the concert announcement or something like that. You put the poster and the information across everything. But you're right. I think each social media platform has its own rhythm and in-speak and a language that needs to be attuned to. So for instance, people on Twitter are interested in slightly more literary hot takes because it's a text-based platform.

On Instagram, you are not as beholden to the algorithm as TikTok. So you're actually talking to your fans a little bit more directly. And you can provide a type of specificity in a TikTok post and know that your audience will understand what you're talking about because they have clicked to follow you. And then on TikTok, the goal is to talk to a very broad audience and hopefully the algorithm catches fire and you're showing up in the feeds of anybody who happens to be swiping through. And to do that, the message has to be a wider one because if you're talking to specifically, people won't know what you're talking about. And that's been part of the paradigm shift that I mentioned earlier that I think a lot of millennial artists had a really hard time grasping, whereas it came very second nature to Gen Z.

Gen Z, I think, understood how to make a grabby TikTok that might appeal to a very wide audience in a way that I don't think a lot of older people did. How much do you interact with your fans personally? We like to have a pretty one-to-one relationship. And I think we've seen the success of those interactions over the years when we're actually kind of keeping track of the DMs and in the comments, because that's kind of where the fun happens. I can tell you a fun one. So back in 2020, we released this acoustic record called campfire chords

i think about you all the time i can't get you off my mind they only knew who i've been talking to. You got a place off the park. Come on by at the dock. And we got a DM or a comment from a fan saying, I'm driving from Calgary back home to New Brunswick. And I know the record doesn't come out until Tuesday, but could we get it this weekend so we could listen to it on the long road?

I said, oh, that's kind of interesting. And Ash was like, I don't want to send them a link for it, but maybe we could mail them a CD. That's kind of funny and a little more interesting. So we messaged back and we said, what if we burn you a CD, like old school? We'll burn you a CD for the truck. Okay. Where are you right now? They go, well, we're staying in Sault Ste. Marie tonight. Okay.

Ash's parents are from Sault Ste. Marie and happen to be visiting Toronto. And we're flying back that day. So we burned the CD. We gave it to them. They dropped it off at the hotel in Sault Ste. Marie. So funny. For this duo that's driving across the country. Then the duo goes, our U-Haul truck doesn't have a CD player.

So then we end up putting out a note on Twitter being, does anybody in Sault Ste. Marie have a CD player they don't want anymore? That's like battery powered. And a bunch of people raise their hands and they deliver the CD player to the hotel. And then this couple gets to listen to the album from Sault Ste. Marie back to New Brunswick

and the local news picked up on it. Like CTV did a story on it and it ended up being a viral thing. And I think that's a great instance of sort of us keeping our ear to the ground and our eyes peeled. And then the community of the internet and real life kind of coming together

over kind of a feel good quirky instance. And that's the kind of stuff we look for. Like if we can be a part of something where we're kind of helping each other and there's like a common goal, that always feels like a sweet spot for us. And I thought I maybe quit But there's no quitting you

There's no quitting you What a great story that is. And that leads me into the next question I had for you, which is what are some of the most fun marketing things that Arkells have done? I know, for example, you did a treasure hunt that was so much fun.

Tell us about that idea and anything else that the band has done which is kind of fun and quirky in the marketing world. Yeah, so when we're on tour, I think just about every day now, we hide tickets around

the city that we're playing in. Hey, New York, we're hiding three pairs of tickets around town. Go get them if you can. And that always leads to like a wild goose chase. And I love it because there's a bunch of people that might not come to the show,

but are now coming to the show. But you kind of show them where you're hiding it, right? So we leave, like if we're in Halifax, it's like, we're going to hide it under like the big rock on campus at Dalhousie. Right. You know, students are going to find it. And those posts always get shared way more

than just about anything else because there's a whimsy to it. You are going to find it. And those posts always get shared way more than just about anything else because there's a whimsy to it. It's interactive. And it's also getting the word out that we're playing there. So maybe there's a couple more tickets to sell. People know that we're in town. Because that particular instinct comes from the frustration that we have found of promoting a tour actively for six months. We finally get to Calgary. We've been talking about the Calgary show for six months. We think we've exhausted every possible path for promotion. We play the show. And then two days later, someone comments, when are you guys coming to Calgary? And we want to, you know, it is just so bewildering to us and so frustrating. So we're

like, okay, we need to remedy that. But beyond that, I mean, a lot of the times it's listening to the music, to our own music and what we're up to and letting that guide it. So we had a song called Only for a Moment that had a lyric about singing karaoke. And so like, oh, what if we like took over a karaoke place on Yonge Street and that's where people heard the song for the first time. And so we had a karaoke party with fans for free. Fantastic. You know, this year, you know, we put out a very quiet album called Laundry Pile. It's very different than anything else we've ever done. And we were thinking about, okay, what's the best release event we could do? Okay, the album is artful,

and it feels intimate, and it feels small, and it's called Laundry Pile. Okay, we don't want to do it at a rock and roll club because that wouldn't make sense. We've done that already. We've already done the big band, small club, when to get that wouldn't make sense. We've done that already. We've already done like the big band, small club, went to get in, you know, album release event. We've done that. That wasn't interesting to us. What if we took over a laundromat in the neighborhood and we made it feel like it was an art gallery? So it was this sort of dreamy laundromat that people could enter. And what if instead of doing one show for an hour, we invite in groups of like 15 or 20 at a time to come in to find the band waiting there for them, like it's an art gallery, and we perform one song for them. And then the next group comes in. So each group gets a slightly

different experience. And what if we have a laundry bin with 10 different t-shirts in it, that looks like dirty laundry laundry and each t-shirt has a different song title from the new record smart and what if we get a volunteer to choose a t-shirt and that's the song that group gets to hear so to us it was like it was all led by the music it was led by the creative you know it was led by the fact that we made this small little intimate dreamy album and we figured that's probably the thing we should do to get the word out about it. So you kind of just got to follow the core thing and let that kind of tell the story. I love that idea. Getting back to communicating with fans or just connecting with your fans. I thought you did, and I'm sure you probably

continue to do it in your concerts where you'll play a voicemail. Tell me about that. That's interesting. Yeah. So, you know, we have a big catalog at this point. And we always see the DMs and the comments about, oh, will you play this deep cut that you don't play very often? And we want to get to those songs. And I think simply playing track nine on our second record might work for a few people in the audience, but might not be for everybody in the crowd. So we thought, well, what if there's a story behind it? What if people in the crowd hear what this song means to somebody in the audience? And then they're kind of rooting for the song and they're rooting for the person who they're standing nearby.

So sometimes it's like, this is a ballad. This is our song Strong. And Strong is about a friend of ours who passed from cancer. And we get a lot of voicemails about that particular song. You say, this helped me through a really hard time. And we might not play that song every show, but if someone leaves a voicemail and says, this song got me through chemotherapy, and we play it, people are listening a little bit closer. So we'll play the voicemail through the PA system, through the crowd. Everybody will understand, you know, that this is for somebody in the crowd. They'll know the story and then we'll play the song. That's an amazing thing to do. Thank you. What marketing from other

bands have you admired over the years when you kind of looked out and saw a band doing something for a, let's say for a new record or whatever? You know, I think the bands that stick out to me the most are the ones you can tell really care about their audience and are curious about their audience and know what they mean to their audience. And the most obvious example of that is Taylor Swift, right? Like she is such a genius. Easter eggs.

Yeah. All the Easter eggs when it comes to her release and like her next project, I always find to be like so thoughtful and she's generous in spirit to her release and her next project, I always find to be so thoughtful. And she's generous in spirit to her audience. She's very keenly aware of what she means to them. I think another example of a band that keeps it fun is the Foo Fighters. Yeah. They're always really kind of thoughtful

about what's happening in the culture at large and how can they be a part of it. They always bring up guests on stage and they have all these different gags. I love an artist or a band that can engage in something that feels playful. So I'd say like, yeah, I just appreciate when you can tell an artist cares. And the reason why I say that is like, it's such a precious job to have as a songwriter, as an original band. It's such a unique job. And it frustrates me a little bit when I see artists that have success

don't care for it in a way that they should. Because to have any little bit of success is such a rare thing. It's such a rare thing. And so I think that's why you have to work hard to serve your audience, to serve the songs, to serve the show. Because if you have a little bit of something, you should make the most of it. I agree with that.

And I think what you do with that voicemail idea, and Taylor Swift does so well, is her fans, they feel seen. They're not just ATM machines buying material, right? They're actually meaningful to the artist. Totally. And I think it's no different than real life. It's like you want to engage with and you want to go to bat for people you like and that you're rooting for. And her fans would do anything for her because they get the impression that she'd

do anything for them. And I think she does a good job in all those ways. So, I don't know. Like, you know, Taylor's obviously her own subject entirely. It's hard to even compare a lot of the things that Taylor... We've got an episode coming out on her, as a matter of fact. Yeah, and there's like, you know,

Harvard classes about Taylor Swift. So, like, she's sort of her own thing. But I think the principle is no different than the idea of like, okay, you know, I'm in a neighborhood here and I'm surrounded by seven coffee shops and they're all good in different ways. But the reason why I go to one every morning is that I just love the people there so much.

And like, is the coffee like that much better? No. Do the tables sort of wobble on the floor? Yes. But did I like the fact that Liv behind the counter kind of scolded me for always ordering a to-go coffee, even though I stay in the coffee shop? And she was like, just use a mug. Don't be wasteful. And I was like, you're right, Liv. I like that she called me on it.

You know what I mean? And that is why I support them. That's why I like talking about them. They're called Morning Parade. They're on Dundas in Ossington, in Toronto. And I think that very, very basic example can be said for a band or literally anything else. It's like, do you kind of get the impression that people care? Yeah, exactly. Walt Disney has that great line, Max, that I always go to. He said, give customers everything you can possibly give them. It's a big promise.

Of course. Do you think some artists have an aversion to marketing? It's funny, like to some creative people and some artists, like the word marketing and branding can feel kind of crass. And I understand why people might feel that way, where it's like, how could anybody care about a detergent? Like who, like why would anybody passionately care about that? And it feels like mercenary work in a way,

you know, when you think about the people doing those jobs. But I would say that the band is an effort to engage in a broader world and to make real connections with people and to celebrate the things we have in common with each other and to maybe connect with people if they're going through a difficult time. And I think that is such a fun world to be a part, a meaningful world to be a part of. And that's why

I think marketing is actually super important because you're just sort of talking about who you are and what you care about. If it's done right, right, Max? Like if it's done genuinely and with creativity and surprise and not just the usual bland, terrible advertising, which most advertising is, and I'm a 40-year advertising guy, Max. Of course, but you know what's fun is that on the subject of detergent though, is that when we announced the laundromat shows, Tide reached out and came down and gave us some detergent pods or whatever. Right. And maybe we'll do something with Tide.

I don't know. Like, who knows? But it's like- They're looking for opportunities, right? They're looking for opportunities. And it's like, you know, and I appreciated that about them. I really genuinely did. I was like, oh, you are looking to have some kind of fun here.

And can we have some fun together? Maybe, maybe not. Who knows? Arkells have won more Junos than any other band. Do you consider awards marketing? Oh, interesting. Sure. Yeah. I think everything can be marketing. You know what I mean? It's a piece of good news. And I think people like to hear good news and good news typically begets more good news. So I think in that sense, it is. It's like anytime you have something positive to tell

an audience about what you're up to, it's good marketing because it's like people like rooting for stuff that seems to be thriving. And it's another opportunity to have a conversation with them, right? And it's a shared win. Like the Juno Award is the result of not just us playing our instruments. It's like people buying the music and coming to the shows. How important is it to sell physical copies of your albums versus streaming? They're sort of two different streams, no pun intended. Obviously, most music is consumed on Spotify

or Apple Music or on a streaming platform, and that's the way the world goes around. But, you know, we love the physical artifact of a vinyl, and we also can sell them, and they're a bit of a revenue generator for us. So I think they're just different things, but we like them both. Yeah, yeah. I ask that because Taylor Swift sells 200 million albums in an era where everybody can stream them for almost nothing.

Well, I mean, this kind of speaks to her fans and, you know, the connection she has with them and them wanting to, you know, have a physical part of Taylor like in their bedroom. Yeah, yeah. Do you consider collaborations with other artists to be a subtle form of marketing? In other words, Max, that when you have an artist on stage or you're recording in a collaboration of some sort, that that opens your band up to their audience? Of course. And you know, it's funny.

I was sort of envious of the hip-hop world because so much of that music is collaborations. You know, it's Jay-Z featuring Pharrell and they could play with each other so much. And those affiliations in the mind of the music fan meant something. And, you know, and then you see it in pop music, you see in dance music. And only recently have you seen it in rock and folk and alternative rock music. And it's actually really encouraged because on the streaming side, the label says, when you put out a song by yourself,

your audience on Spotify will see that. But if it's you featuring somebody else, then there's two audiences together. And that always just leads to better streaming numbers typically. Yeah. So definitely, definitely. And that's why it's fun to bring on an artist on stage and do something together with them because, you know, you're just kind of getting the word out that way.

Yeah. And the creativity of it all is great, too. If you could wiggle your nose, Max, and if you could have been in any band in history, where would you go? Oh, wow. I mean, the Beatles, obviously, but they don't really count. The Beatles don't count. They're divine.

Yes. Well, you're talking to the world's biggest Beatle fan right now. Wow. You should join my group chat with my friends Mike, Greg, and Matt. About once a week, there's a new Beatles article that must be read that we discuss. I will do that. Just out of interest, on our radio show, in the CBC version specifically, I always have one hidden Beatle reference in every episode. It might be a song.

It might be a verbal reference. It might be a song title. I've done it for 19 years now. And if you're a Beatle fan, you'll find it. Wow. I love a little Easter egg. That's great. I would say, I mean,

Springsteen and the E Street Band, they're such an amazing live band. And I've learned a lot from watching Springsteen and thinking about the way Springsteen can conduct a show. And I think the reason why I probably relate to them the most is that they came up on the Jersey Shore just doing a lot of R&B covers. They're a bar band. Yeah. They're a bar band. And when I saw Springsteen play in Toronto at Rogers Center, he just had so many tricks up his sleeve. Like what?

Well, you know, people bring signs to the show asking for deep cuts. He'll identify one, grab it, walk it around the stage so every single member of the band can see it because he had like a 14-piece band. And this is as the previous song is in its outro. So the band is playing the outro.

Springsteen is walking around the stage, showing them, this is what we're going to do next. And on a dime goes, one, two, three, four, and launches into it. And I was like, the band has to be so locked in. They have to be able to play any one of his 300 songs. And they do it flawlessly. And there's just so many gags and gimmicks. Another guy has a sign saying, will you dance with my wife during Dancing in the Dark? Okay, pulls the wife up on stage. And I just love the idea of having tricks up your sleeve. And that is like the best example of like, this is a professional entertainer. This guy can roll with anything in any situation. And I like to think that we've been acquiring a bunch of tricks, you know, for our. And we have to dip into them all the time.

We played a Frosh Week show in September at Queens. And it was a rowdy crowd. But I could tell. I was like, oh, they don't know all of our songs. It's a slightly younger demographic. But I was like, let's go into the bag. All right, let's pull a kid up on stage and play guitar. All right, let's play ABBA, gimme, gimme, gimme.

OK, what are we doing? Let's make it work. And I'm proud of our band for being able to like develop that repertoire. It's interesting you picked Springsteen because he's a front man as you are. Now the Beatles really didn't have a front man. Keith Richards once said the Beatles had four front men, right? Which is pretty rare. Who are your favorite front men or front women?

Yeah, obviously Springsteen. I mean, I love Beyonce. There's a singer, Matt Healy from the 1975, who are from England, and he's a wild man, but kind of a genius and really bold as a creative. And I love Bruno Mars. I think Bruno Mars is amazing. Chris Martin from Coldplay is excellent.

I'm definitely forgetting a lot right now, but those are the ones I covered by. Mr. Jagger. Probably got to be the first front man, really, in rock history. Like, real front man, right? Oh, yeah. No, I mean, he's just like oozing charisma.

That's a good list, though. That's a good list. Can I do something fun with you? Can we do a rapid fire round? Of course. Where I'm just going to fire one word at you and just give me one word back. First thing that pops into your mind. Okay. Hopefully I can stick to one word. Okay. You ready? Motown. My dad. Ballads. Chris Martin. Junos. Arkells. Hamilton. McMaster University. Rolling Stones. Ying and Yang. Collaborations. Oh, he's a good marketer.

Relentless. Taylor Swift. Relentless. John Lennon. Favorite voice of all time. That's not one word, but yeah. Ooh. Favorite singer.

Yeah. Songwriting. Puzzle. Canada. Home. Arkells. Fluid. Love it. Yeah. Songwriting. Puzzle. Canada. Home. Arkells. Fluid.

Love it. Okay, listen, just before we adjourn, you had some big news about a concert coming up in June. Tell us all about it. Tell us everything. So we're playing at Budweiser Stage in downtown Toronto, June 21st and 22nd. We worked really hard on securing that weekend. It's like our favorite weekend of the year.

We always try to do a big local thing on the third weekend of June. It's like summer's just about to burst, you know, and everyone's still kind of in the city. No one's tired of summer yet. And we love Budweiser Stage. It's right on the water. It's accessible by GO Train.

So if you're coming in from Hamilton, Oakville, Burlington, Oshawa, wherever, it's like so easy to get there. If you're in downtown Toronto, you could walk or ride your bike there. We're having Tegan and Sarah open the one show. And Tegan and Sarah are such an inspiration to me. I can give you every answer related to this podcast could be in reference to Tegan and Sarah.

They're such savvy entrepreneurs, so thoughtful with their audience, so ambitious with their creativity. And we have a song with them called Teenage Tears that we've never performed live with them. So we'll have a chance to do that. And there's an amazing rock and roll band from Atlanta called Group Love, who we saw play at Coachella

a few years ago and we've been fans forever. So they're opening this Saturday. And we're having a lot of creative conversations about how to make that show as big and joyful as possible. So it's a double header, right? It's two nights? Double header. Friday, Saturday. Yeah. And again, it's Friday, June 21st and Saturday, June 22nd. Budweiser stage.

Exactly. In Toronto. Okay, Max, thank you for this. This has been fascinating. I really enjoyed it. Well, I'm honored to do it. Yeah. Thanks, Max. Cheers. Bye. That was my conversation with Max Kerman, frontman and co-founder of Arkells. You might have noticed that Max often used the word playful when he was talking about the band's marketing ideas. And I think that is a key insight.

Nobody likes marketing with a capital M, but if you make it creative and surprising and playful, you'll get people's attention and they will play along. Many thanks to Max and the Arkell's manager, Ashley Potovan, and Acast for helping to arrange this interview, hat tip to our amazing chief sound engineer, Jeff Devine, and apostrophe audio director, Callie Rae O'Reilly. Hope you enjoyed it. See you next time.

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