Ben: "Yeah, that is funny, two musicians had to do hard manual labor, and we sucked at it." Zach: "We sucked at it bad."
“Zach: Hilton Head musicians were hit hard like right in the beginning. And then for people like me, like solo musicians, that kind of panned out. I ended up playing a lot more than I anticipated this summer.
Ben: We were out of gigs all through the spring and early summer, but it kind of got made up for in the fall. They all just swung back around because it felt like the people who didn't come down in the spring came down for their fall breaks, when the kids weren't going back to school they were just doing online school.
Zach: So usually we wind down around Labor Day. Our schedules are from Memorial Day to Labor Day, but this year like we're vamping and it’s after October. Yeah, this week is where it stopped, surprisingly. Yeah, it's been nuts.
Ben: I was supposed to be playing a bunch of gigs back in the spring, when it hit, like March and April. So l ended up having to work for my dad's concrete company.
Zach: Oh, we both did.
Ben: Yeah, that is funny, two musicians had to do hard manual labor, and we sucked at it.
Zach: We sucked at it bad, and holding the whole group back. They were just like, ‘What are you doing?’ And we made no money. And we would just sit out there in the sweltering heat doing concrete. We're trudging through wet concrete tying rebar. We were like, ‘We are never going to complain about things again, man.’
Ben: We're like, we usually just play three hour gigs.
Zach: I could be sipping Jameson and ginger right now, singing John Mayer songs. I'm making concrete, my hands are soft.
Ben: I know! All these people's hands are like bricks.
Zach: So yeah, that was a fun little tip server. Yeah. I'll never do concrete again I hope, fingers crossed.
Ben: Hilton Head is a nice little spot where we get to kind of make our own decisions and live pretty freely. So Hilton Head is its own little world.
Zach: You can't do music like the way we do it in other places in the world. I have friends who live in Charleston and they play a lot and make a lot less. Yeah. And, you know, and we're able to sustain and still have time to do other hobbies that we love, like concrete. Yeah, that was our 2020. You know, until you mentioned that concrete job, I’d forgotten that we did that this year. Oh, and Ben released some ambient music.
Ben: Yeah, this is actually the first year I've released some sort of music. I have a bunch of synthesizers and make experimental music, like science fiction music, like ambient cinematic meditation music. I don't really know what to call it. I feel like I could make music that could be in a sci fi movie. I love it.
Zach: So to wrap it up beautifully, we, um, we lost our gigs, we did concrete, we got our gigs back, and now we're playing Christmas music.
Ben: Now we're playing Christmas music, so . . .
Michelle: So what kind of music do you guys play? What I heard was psychedelic rock, that your band, Native, played an indoor concert here at Coligny Theatre in September.
Zach: Yes, the original band, Native, plays psych rock, alternative rock. But our day jobs are as solo musicians. We both play the restaurant circuit every week. That pays the bills. Native is more of a novelty thing. It’s really fun to get together and do that, it's just that it doesn't really pay all the time. Yeah. But we sold out a pretty big show, so we've played once in 2020, right here on the stage, and it was great. It was so fun.
Ben: Yeah, I mean, I would do it again. Yeah, definitely.
Zach and Ben (October 2020)
