The Secret to Monetizing as an Artist

0:00You know, every entrepreneur has a story and there's perhaps no better storytellers than musicians. If you're going to start anything, especially like being an entrepreneur, you got to build, you got to build, you got to build. Done is better than perfect. Sometimes it's done, okay, did the best we could. Let's put it out into the world and let's go on to the next one. Hey, what's good? I'm Benjamin Gottlieb and you are listening to Shopify Masters, your companion for starting and building a business. My guests today flew in all the way from Vancouver to be here with us in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

0:29Darren Metz, also known as Young D, and Quentin Nice, known as Young Tribes. They are the musical duo behind the band Snotty Nose Rez Kits. They're in town giving a preview of their new album and also some merch during the Santa Fe Indian Markets, merch they sell on Shopify. We're also chatting today as part of our series spotlighting indigenous merchants and entrepreneurs on Shopify through our Build Native program. Dee, Tribes, welcome to the show. Thank you. Thanks for having us. That was quite the introduction. Well, you know, I get paid to do this, so what can I say? So you two are cousins, right?

1:01Yeah. working with family is not always easy, but tell me, why did you want to start a band together? I mean, like, we've always just been around each other. Like, we grew up a couple houses down from each other. You know what I mean? Five doors to be exact. Yeah. And we had, like, an open-door policy between our families, you know, and that relationship just really started from there, and we grew up playing basketball together, and, you know, it's a game of imperfection. just like just like anything in life making music and like so you know being able to deal with you learn how to deal with adversity when you play like a team sport you know what i mean and we took that everything that we learned from that into music so it's like you know sometimes i'm gonna make mistakes or he makes mistakes it's like okay let's not dwell on it we just keep moving and you know our relationship goes beyond music you know what i mean like if we weren't doing music we'd still be chilling and hanging out together.

2:00You know what I mean? Right, because of your relationship growing up together. Exactly. Now, you guys grew up in Kitimat, that's right, in Canada? Yeah, yeah. And, you know, I'm just curious, Travis, what was it like growing up there? It was good. We're from, like, we're actually 15 hours away from Vancouver. We're in a small rural community called Kitimat. And, yeah, there's, what there is to do there is what you make of it. You know what I mean? You just got to get out and do it. So, like, for me, I was always, like, an entrepreneur. always wanted to make clothes always wanted to make music always wanted to make money and yeah for me like this this kind of stuff just came second nature well it came second nature but clearly your relationship together i just met you guys recently a few moments ago clearly tight right um but you have listeners and audience and fans well beyond this small town where you grew up in um describe how the music scene has evolved particularly for native and indigenous musicians like yourselves you saw the shifts like around the time when like I don't know more was happening and that's when you really started to see like land protectors and you know academics just really starting to mesh yeah mesh and reclaim the space and like really work together you know what I mean and like when we first started we just wanted to make music for them something that they could listen to and obviously something that we wanted to hear because you know growing up for us obviously there were indigenous artists but like social media wasn't social media yet you know what i mean so like you think of the times of like myspace and things like that you know what i mean so i'm old enough to have a good myspace page and uh yeah just to see the growth and the evolution over the years it like once it started it just kind of just like took off like full send Yeah, and I come from, like, a line of, like, land defenders as well.

3:53So all that kind of, all the stuff that I don't know more and people that were, like, running indigenous movements back in Vancouver, which we call our community, it just all came second nature for us, and it was just so easy to mesh with them and just become part of the community. So I think with us, just coming from a small community, it's easy to find community. So moving to a big city, it was easy for us to find our people and our space that we felt comfortable in, and then we just made it our own and ran with it. Well, Tribes, you bring up something really interesting. Both of you do, actually.

4:23This concept of being a land defender. You know, it's perhaps not something that our audience is so familiar with. Can you just tell us, what does that mean exactly? And how is it represented in your music? Yeah, I mean, like, you know, like with Native people, Native artists, Native activists, and just people that are forward-thinking, I think you can't really separate identity from land and just Native people in general. I can't talk about myself without talking about land that I'm from and that I'm here to protect. So for us, with the way that our rights work because of colonization, there's this thing called the Indian Act.

5:04And if we cannot survive off of our territories, then we forfeit the land that we reside on or that we're there to protect. so if uh our fishing our hunting um anything that uh makes that land sustainable is not um sustainable for life anymore then uh the rights to that land is now um forfeited to the government so for us Canada yeah the government of Canada I don't know how it works in the states I'm pretty sure it's similar but um yeah uh yeah we're from unseated territory which means we didn't give up our land rights or we didn't sign any deals with the government. So it's still ours. And yeah, there's a lot of movements around industry coming through our territories and trying to take that land from us.

5:52And people are fighting tooth and nail because it's their existence. That land is our existence. So the resistance is real for it. And you two are from the Heisla community. Is that right? The Heisla tribe. um please uh d tell me uh how is this represented in your music this concept of defending your land and this concept of of your own individual identities yeah it's just like we didn't really realize fully what we had growing up until we moved away and started living in vancouver because now you're you're around a bunch of tall buildings skyscrapers city life it's go go go go go and then people from all over the world yeah exactly and that made us realize like when we look back at our hometown to be surrounded by beautiful mountains and ocean you know i mean we're like you don't necessarily have to worry about gang life you got to worry about wildlife you know what i mean like you know we have family that just make their living fishing you know what i mean you have family that supply like the food through hunting or like whatever it may be you know what i mean and say like when it comes to the land defenders that's like what they're protecting because you know obviously there's like oil companies or like whatever it may be trying to put like a pipeline through the land or whatever and if that does happen one leak and then excuse my language but like the water's fucked you know what i mean and there goes there goes someone's livelihood yeah exactly you know what i mean so uh we both have family that has you know work their ass off to protect you know especially yeah my uncle my uncle jill he's actually one of the guys that is solely responsible in a duel that they used to have that uh protected uh the kitlo from being uh logged and that's a huge feat and the kitlo i'm sorry is that a kitlo is like uh It's like a very important rainforest to our world, I guess you could say.

7:59But yeah, he stopped that from being extracted. So like, yeah, I come from a long line of land defenders. That's what I mean. Both on the political side and just on the front line side. I guess that goes hand in hand as well. And front line means like people that occupy land that is about to be fucked. Yeah, and that's where like a lot of inspiration comes from really. is just like our family and our community. You know what I mean? They're like the backbone of who we are. Well, speaking of your messaging and what you two are trying to accomplish with your music, you've been working on a new album called Red Future.

8:34I'm just curious, why did you decide to choose this particular event, the Santa Fe Indian Market, to launch some of these new tracks and also some of your new merchandise? Yeah, I mean, Red Future in itself is about indigenous futurism and just how we see indigenous people mostly creatives um occupying space and taking up space in all parts of the world and you know Indian market is a good place to start for us because we've wanted to come out here for years um I know his wife has told us about her times here in the Indian market like 10 years ago she used to come out and like hitchhike across like across two countries to be here and uh it's a long journey yeah yeah and for us i still shake my head and for us it's just like it's like like we wanted to come and just be like right in in the mix of things and just get inspired by inspired natives you know because like i'm i'm excited to see uh what everybody brings to the table and what all the hype is about out here because i know that there's a lot of really talented um designers and jewelers and artists out here so i just wanted to come and just be inspired and it's a hell of a place to network too you know i mean like you got everybody from so many different nations and tribes all coming to santa fe and you know it's just a perfect opportunity and it's almost like good marketing in itself you know what i mean because we're gonna preview some songs from the album you know what i mean and we got the new merch to show people like hey this is what's coming whenever you know the tour starts and it's just opportunities you know sometimes well especially in business like you can't let an opportunity pass by because you don't know if it's going to come around again and it's just a brush on that networking thing too man like you know like we talk about community and like this is like like opportunity to meet more people from community like Indian country is a very small place when you think about it you know like especially social media the way it is you know who's who and what's what you know what I mean and like coming out here like we've met some of our best friends just by coming to places like this yeah so yeah we have like lifelong connections with people just from coming to events like this.

10:43So yeah, we're excited to experience it firsthand. Well, first time here, and I'm sure you guys are going to have a great time. My guests today, Young D and Young Tribes, they are the musical duo behind the band Snotty Nose Rez Kids. We talked a little bit before about just how you're able to be so successful, not just with your music, but with your merch. Before we started, you guys told me sometimes you tour and you have 80 to 100 concerts a year, performances a year, that's a lot. But here at Shopify, we've been good partners for you in selling what you've got, selling representations of your band, your music, your messaging online.

11:21D, I'm just curious, why Shopify? Why did you decide to go with us? It was just what worked best for us, you know? And it was very easy to set up. and like we did once upon a time have like through like our own individual website and it was just kind of hard to keep up with so then once we switched to shopify it was like it's much more manageable much more organized we were able to like be on top yeah and like it's just very accessible for for um our consumers yeah so yeah it just made it made our lives a lot easier made your lives easier to distribute to distribute all of the all the merch all the shirts all the exactly And when it comes to kind of getting your message and your stuff out there, what sort of tactics do you guys employ to get out the word about, you know, the newest shirt or the newest outfit?

12:13You know, just rollout, just album rollout, just spacing everything, timing everything and making schedules for posts on Instagram, TikTok videos, stuff like that. You know, like in the early days, it was funny. Like we used to play basketball in a big tournament up north in northern BC, actually, called the All-Native Basketball Tournament. And when we first started, we'd be going up like aisles just holding merch up and just being like snotty nose reds kids, new band on the scene. And now just to see how that this has all come full circle. And now we're doing a podcast with Shopify. And it's crazy, man.

12:47Like just just seeing like how far we've come. I just had a moment right here, you know. and yeah just just having the proper team behind us having Shopify having Brody like our manager and just planning planning properly I guess How about that right I mean I do a lot of these interviews and I often hear regardless of what your background is so many common threads and the one I often hear is this idea of like physically carrying your gear or your merch around to people be like hey check out this shirt like hey you know you guys hey check out Sonny Nose Rez Kids We used to, sorry, sorry to answer out you, we used to post, like, we used to go to, like, basketball tournaments and stuff and have pieces of paper like that and post designs on telephone poles and show them where to get it.

13:33Like, that's the shit we used to do. We'd be putting up our own posters, trying to promote our own show. Yeah, all that kind of stuff. Yeah. Just use, yeah. And in small towns, that's kind of unheard of. Yeah. So, like, people would be like, oh, yo, like, they'd see an advertisement. Like a flyer. Yeah, fly her on telephone poles and stuff. And be married, should be everything. And it would catch your eye, you know, at work, because it wasn't a big city. You know, like you're going to like a corner and it's just loaded with those. Not like that in our small towns. So that was a tactic that we used.

14:05Well, now you have international recognition. So I would imagine you're... It's a lot easier. Well, I mean, you would imagine just your brand recognition is much more sophisticated now. So are your marketing strategies, right? But D, when you think about where you are today and where you two were at these basketball tournaments, posting flyers, you know, what would you say to the entrepreneur listening, perhaps an indigenous entrepreneur who might be tuning in thinking, man, I want to emulate that success. I mean, what sort of advice might you have there? Passion, patience and perseverance, man.

14:38Like we weren't getting, I would say, livable money until like three years in. you know what I mean it's like if you're gonna start anything especially like being an entrepreneur like you're gonna eat shit for a few years you know I mean so like you gotta build you gotta build you gotta build and our mentality was you know you only quit when you like you only lose when you quit yeah and you know we just kept going you know it's like okay this merch drop we sold this this this and like keep in mind like he's like really business minded like he got his diploma and all that and you know he would really lead the way it's like okay these sizes sold a lot more so let's order these ones a bit more next time okay for this design let's try do a little something new and this and that and it's just like just continuing to like push the boundaries yeah don't be afraid to learn yeah and don't be discouraged by the letdowns because everything goes up from there you know what i mean and yeah and like you said nothing happens overnight so like those those Those 1 % overnight stories are very unrealistic.

15:43And just make sure that you love it. And it's almost like a passion project at first. It needs to be a passion project. And yeah, you need to love what you do. Because if you're in it for the money, the money doesn't come right away, man. You're going to be waiting for a long time until you love that if that's what it's about. Well, it sounds like what you're talking about is experimentation and being comfortable experimenting. But I'd be remiss if I didn't ask a follow-up question to that, which is, you know, a lot of folks don't have the luxury of being able to experiment. And this becomes a barrier to entry socioeconomically for lots of communities, right?

16:17Folks might not have the ability to take a big risk like that. Yeah. And I mean, like, you know, like we, we're lucky enough to be kind of in an industry that is digestible by people all over the world. So like we make music. So it was easy for us to do what we love because it was you put on a streaming platform instead of putting it in Shopify, a store and have people be like, oh, I hope they catch on to this. So we started with music, obviously. The music came first. So as long as we made music that people liked, the merch would come after that. And and if our merch reflected our music, then we knew that the people that were digesting our music would be able to take in the merch.

17:01so it kind of went hand in hand with us for that as well but as far as like you know like i'm doing like savage kids right now and that's a startup but also we're starting those res kids so it's gonna be like a lot easier because i have my foot in the door but you know like like we said like everything starts from the ground up so also i want to add one more thing to that uh one of our sayings like since we started doing music was like done is better than perfect my best example to give is like, look at the very first episode of The Simpsons and then look at it now. You know what I mean? Like the animation wasn't all there.

17:36Maybe it was for the time that it came out, but like done is better than perfect. And if you're trying to wait till it's like perfect, chances are you're not really going to get there. You know what I mean? Sometimes it's done. Okay. Did the best we could. Let's put it out into the world and let's go on to the next one. You know what I mean? we had that mentality with every song and every album that we put out, every piece of merch that we've put out, you know, and it's just, and keep going. And as far as like, as far as like merch goes, I guess like, or not. Yeah. Merch or product, I guess. Don't oversaturate like your, your line.

18:11Don't make too much stuff. Yeah. Yeah. Don't, don't make too much stuff at once. Especially when you're just starting out. I think it was really important for us to have a couple pieces and make sure that those sell and that we're not left with a bunch of stuff in back order or just in our stock. And even to this day, like we're creating more like eight, nine pieces per drop. But back in the day, we'd make one. Yeah. We started with one piece. It was just like this, actually. And it said Minneh across the chest. And, you know, I started that. I started doing that when we had no money. We had zero dollars to our name.

18:45And what I did was I went to Bang On. It was a print company. And it was just Iron On. You know, it was just minet across the chest. And those sold. I was selling those for$50 a piece. And, you know, I'd get 15 made. I'd sell those out. I'd have more money. I'd go back. I'd do that again. I'd go back to the streets, be like, who wants these mineties? They got more popular. Next thing I know, I'm doing screen print orders. And I'm selling them for$50 a piece,$40 a piece, and moving like$100. And it started like that. It started just very gradually. And that was with$0 to my name, so anybody can do it.

19:20You know what I mean? as long as you got something behind the brand. So we'll talk a little bit more about the merchandising because I think it's really fascinating. Before we continue, I want to take a moment and talk to you, the listener. Thank you so much for tuning in to Shopify Masters on the podcast feed or on YouTube. And hey, this episode is part of a larger series. Do us a favor, look back through our catalog. You can see more of these episodes. And in the description box here, if you want to take charge of your own financial future, click on the link to a free trial from Shopify. Tribes, before we took that break there, we were talking about merchandising and this idea of limited releases.

19:54Why was that the right strategy for you guys? I think more than anything, it was more like working with what you had. And, you know, a couple kids from small community, Northwest, BC, Little Res, coming to the big city, we didn't have a lot. We didn't have a lot of money to start up with the company. So we worked with what we had and we bought a certain amount of T-shirts and we just got them laminate press, you know, like iron-ons. and started there and worked from the ground up. So once we sold all that, we'd go buy more and keep doing that until it caught on. And then eventually it did. Well, clearly it's caught on indeed.

20:31I mean, I would imagine when you think about how different things are now, must really, really strike you as being quite incredible, right? Oh, for sure. Like, just to see the growth, like, you know, I'm a sucker for nostalgia. You know what I mean? And like, you know, the Facebook memories that pop up every day? Yeah, I check that. and like I'll just see. He always sends me those. Yeah. I'm like, yo, on this day. It's like again? You say this again? But it's cool, man, because like when we started off with that very first tee that we like ironed on, like we still got friends and fam that still have those t-shirts.

21:06It's the rocket. Yeah. And like from the shirts that we made for the first album, the second album, like we do our absolute best to make it like a standalone piece. And then with the fans that still hold on to those, it's like memorabilia now, you know? And that's truly what the goal is all the time. And it's so funny to see, like, sometimes we'll be at a show in the middle of nowhere, you know, and not even expecting to have day ones out there. And people will come up with, like, the Mane t-shirt, like the one that we started with. The original one. Mane means brother in our language. And they'd come to our shows and be like, yo, I got this when you guys first started.

21:44I've been here since day one. and I'm like, damn, that's crazy. That's love. Because that was a while ago, you know? Like, yeah. So it definitely does make you feel good to see that. Well, I'm just like D insofar as I'm the guy who sends his friends the old Facebook memory. So if any of my friends are watching, they'll be like, yeah, that's Ben. That's what he does. But since then, you've become much more sophisticated with your marketing, especially on social media. I mean, you have your music, but also you have a pretty clear strategy about what you're doing online. Walk us through that and how that's evolved over time.

22:14Yeah. I mean, our team has gotten bigger. You know, like the band has gotten bigger. Like the drops, the merch drops have gotten bigger. You know, we put everything on Shopify too and it just makes it easier. So I think the strategies just are the same. We stick to one color for each design. We don't saturate that. We don't put a red, a green, a white. You save costs there as well, probably. We save costs, and yeah, it just makes it easier for us on tour, like when we're selling it, and people are like looking at it. Like, you know what, like the merch tables? Yeah, like if you're at a concert hall, and there's one of those merch tables, yeah.

22:56It saves Brody a lot of time from being like, okay, yeah, this, and then, oh no, I'll try it in that color. Brody's your manager? Brody's your manager, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, we have done like colors in the past on our merch, and it's like anything with, especially being an entrepreneur, it's like you live and learn, you know what I mean? Like, you just got to learn as you go. But we got a team behind us, too. Like, and Brody, our manager, he is a beast on just our scheduling and our planning. And we have really good album rollouts, which in turn turn to good merch rollouts. You know, it's like every year or two, we'll put out an album.

23:32And it'll be, like, a really big album, especially, like, in North America. and we got a lot of big fan base. So like it'll sell all year long. And then we do, like you said before, we do like the 80 to 100 stop shows a year. So it's just, the merch does really well for us. So a combination of your shows, in-person selling of your merchandise and also selling online. Online, yeah. That's been a successful strategy for you guys. Yeah, exactly. Tribes, you've also got your own new line. You mentioned that in the interview a little bit earlier. Yeah. What is the idea behind that and how does it relate to what you two are doing as cousins, as a band, as a rap group, and just in general in your community?

24:16Well, Savage Kids, Savage Kids like came up, I came up with Savage Kids like a few years ago. A few years after we came up with Snotty Nose Rez Kids. And Snotty Nose Rez Kids is about showing where you come from, wherever you go. and just being a good human, you know, and like, and just being good to people and them being good back to you and bringing community with you wherever you go. And, you know, like we express ourselves the way that we do. We may look a little rough around the edges, you know, but like that's, there's beauty in all that. And Savage Kids is just being the raw, true version of yourself, no matter what environment you're in and just making sure that everyone knows who you are.

24:59So not adapting to the environment, but having the environment adapt to you. Exactly. And that's what like Savage Kids is kind of like built around. And it's just for, you know, it's for the guys that were the outcasts in the back of the room growing up. And yeah, so this is our debut for Savage Kids. But, you know, like I'm a stylist at heart. You know, like that's always been my fashion. You know, as corny as that sounds. But like I do everything for Snotty Nose Rez kids. We don't have a stylist. He has a couple of bars about that. But yeah, it kind of just... So you're styling up D then? Yes.

25:34I style D. I style the video shoots. I style the album covers. I do the merch as well. Savage Kids. So everything kind of goes hand in hand for me. And it's kind of like an adaptation of my mindset. So it's just how my brain works. How we look is how my brain works. You know, we've been cultivating some themes doing these interviews, especially here in Santa Fe. And one of the things that keeps popping up is this idea of reclamation, right? Reclaiming spaces, reclaiming identity, reclaiming words even. Dee, I'm curious, this concept of savage kids or just snotty-nosed res kids in general, are you reclaiming something and what is it?

26:18We're just becoming the people that we've always wanted to be. and we weren't always allowed to do that you know like even going back to high school you know he's told me stories about him trying to go to like a party with the high school team but like wasn't allowed in just because of who he is and yeah and like that's happened to us time and time again to we we were like just shamed into being who we are and it's now we're flipping the script it's like fuck that this is who i am and this is how we're going to express ourselves you know like whether it's through music whether it's through fashion whatever it may be like the more lanes that we have to express ourselves like that's exactly what we're going to do yeah and and also like like sunny knows res kids and savage kids it is a form of like reclaiming um words and like stuff that was like kind of invented to bring us down you know um savage like you know the movie pocahontas obviously of course so there's a there's a song in that it goes like savage kids savage or savages savages barely even human and we beat a catholic school growing up and i think it was netball like we whooped their asses and um when when we were done they started chanting savage savages savages like and it was messed up man so like if that really stuck with me growing up and I mean my my dad had a conversation about it and he said like that's just the way the world is it made me remember um what he what the message was behind that and it was uh that society was built to take us down and to take us down a notch and keep us there and keep us under their boot and not to let that stuff like kind of get to you but just be proud of who you are and the skin that you're in and don't be, don't be, don't be comfortable, be confident, you know?

28:17And that's the words that we live by. And so Savage Kids is just like a memory of that and just letting them know that we are truly, truly unapologetically ourselves in everything we do. A reclamation of self. Exactly. And, and, and we will continue to create in, in our names and just create the vision that we see. And D, you wanted to add something from a little bit earlier. Yeah. Yeah. When it comes to like, you know, he does like not just big hand in the merch and obviously with Savage Kids and like getting the fits right for music videos and stuff like that. Like he's I know what he brings.

28:59You know what I mean? And, like, one of the reasons why, like, we work so well together is because, like, I'm more on, like, the musical, like, music side. Whether it's, like, being the engineer for us or, okay, let's get this rough mix or, like, whatever it may be, you know. And, like, that's truly why, like, another reason why we've been able to have the success that we've had is because we just balance each other. You know what I mean? Knowing your strengths, delegating your weaknesses. Like he's like extroverted. I'm more introverted. I'm more comfortable being in the studio, on my laptop, doing music.

29:37You know what I mean? And he's good and like way beyond good when it comes to like networking and talking to people. And, okay, I got this person to help on the album cover. I got this person to help on the album cover. I got so-and-so to, they're going to, you know, hook us up with, like, jewelry and stuff like that. Or, like, whatever the case may be. You know what I mean? And, like, and that's truly why, like, it just works. I was going to say, like, I get us out there. I get everything out there. And he keeps us grounded. You know what I mean? So it works. I'll tell you what also has worked.

30:13Meeting you two, sitting down together, talking about Snotty Nose Rez kids, talking about Savage kids. Young D, Young Tribes, to you both, thank you so much for doing this. Really appreciate it. Appreciate you. Appreciate you, man. Thanks for having us. And thank you for watching this episode of Shopify Masters. Please make sure to subscribe to this channel to catch more episodes.

30:48Thank you.