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Introducing ReFolkUs, a new podcast by Folk Music Ontario, where we talk to artists and music industry professionals about building sustainable careers as creative workers, with a focus on folk.
RFU40 - Samantha Matusoff
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[00:00:00] Hello, and welcome to ReFolkUs [00:00:30] today. Our guest is Samantha Matusoff. Samantha is a Canadian music industry professional who began her career in rural Quebec 20 years ago, booking punk bands. Since then, she's worn many hats from journalist at Metro News, Ottawa, project manager at city folk festival, funding manager at coalition music to running her own funding business.
[00:00:50] Rosalyn: Working with Juno and Grammy winners, Samantha has collaborated closely with artists such as Charlotte Carden, Our Lady Peace, Lido Pimienta, and Aysanabee. As a funding [00:01:00] expert who has raised more than 5 million dollars, she has spoken at Iceland Airwaves, Canadian Music Week, and mentored numerous emerging artists. Samantha is the CEO of Grand Tessic Creative and Consulting. Please welcome Samantha. Hello. How are you doing?
[00:01:15] Samantha: I'm good. Thank you so much for having me, Rosalyn. It's an honor to be able to share some knowledge with the folk music community.
[00:01:22] Rosalyn: Well, thank you so much and we're talking about a real important topic to many, many folks, which is funding and how to get funding, [00:01:30] applying for grants, which grants to apply to certainly it's something that's top of mind for many folks and probably top of the to do list.
[00:01:37] Rosalyn: So let's just start, with your amazing CV that I just read out there, and how did you get involved with grant writing in particular, and what kind of drew you to that?
[00:01:46] Samantha: So, I've been in music since I was a teenager. I was always a writer first. The very first event I ever put on, I ended up interviewing the headlining band right after the show, and that really helped me the article ended up going into [00:02:00] print internationally. I was a journalist at Metro News doing the arts columns, the food column on call and event listings, and then all three of my columns got canceled within a span of three months.
[00:02:14] Samantha: And I was like, Oh no, what am I going to do to survive? And I had started working with an artist who lived up the street from me by the name of Cale Mattson. He's probably quite familiar to a lot of your folk music Ontario [00:02:30] members and such. And he didn't have funding and his career was blowing up.
[00:02:34] Samantha: And he literally lived up my street and I was like, kale, you need funding. Like, let's figure this out. And I had been doing a little bit of work for kelp records, which is now kelp management and I helped with the factor digitalization of everything going from physical.
[00:02:52] Samantha: To input all of the artist profiles, all of the applicant profiles. And this is 12 years ago, maybe even 13 years ago [00:03:00] at this point. And I learned by doing like I had nobody showing me the ropes at all. And Kale was really patient and understanding because I didn't know what I was doing. I had a pretty good sense of business management because I had been self employed for so long.
[00:03:15] Samantha: like by the time I was 20.
[00:03:17] Samantha: So I had a really good understanding of that side of artists' advances and touring and I managed a bunch of bands too, but the funding was [00:03:30] very minimal. It was mostly corporate or small business sponsorships. So. Kale was a little bit of my guinea pig and we were very successful working together. and his success very much trained me for being able to take on far more clients.
[00:03:45] Samantha: And I'm proud to say that I've worked with hundreds of clients now at this point, both with my own business called You Rock Red at the time, that was a grant writing and boutique management firm based in Ottawa originally. And I moved to Toronto because I [00:04:00] couldn't make a living in Ottawa, unfortunately.
[00:04:01] Samantha: Trying to explain funding It could be a little bit of a challenge because a lot of people think that like, you know, once you actually get a grant writer, it's all going to just work itself out, but there's a lot more steps. So I call myself a funding strategist more often than not. Like, yes, I'm a professional grant writer, but a funding strategist, because so much of it is related to business management.
[00:04:22] Samantha: Fast forward in the last 10 years, I moved to Toronto. I ended up working for coalition music who a lot of folks will be [00:04:30] familiar with. Especially from Folk Music Ontario, Justin Nuzuka was doing very, very, very well when I joined Coalition. So there was a lot of funding around that. And honestly, joining a label of that level, like, Coalition is a legacy label, like R.
[00:04:46] Samantha: Lady Peace, Finger Eleven And I kept going to a wonderful woman by the name of Davey, who was the VP of marketing and saying, Davey, I know I was only supposed to be in two days a week, but I [00:05:00] have more to do.
[00:05:01] Samantha: And within a span of three years, we tripled the amount of funding that coalition had, and I'm very proud of what we were able to accomplish because it wasn't just artists that were receiving the funding. It was job creation and lots of new diverse acts being signed to, and just having a really big, both local and global cultural impact from Canadian artists.
[00:05:25] Rosalyn: well, it's it's been an incredible journey and it's even more of a testament that we're just so pleased that [00:05:30] you're, here to chat with us
[00:05:30] Rosalyn: today,
[00:05:31] Samantha: So let's take a little peek into some of the options that are available to artists when it comes to grants and funding. Let's start specifically with grants. And then I also want to talk a bit about kind of the more sponsorship,
[00:05:45] Rosalyn: side of things. But can you give us a bit of a lay of the land?
[00:05:48] Rosalyn: like a national level at what's uh,
[00:05:51] Samantha: so when it comes to grant writing, one of the biggest problems you run into, and I've seen it a lot as a jury as well too you have to have a [00:06:00] plan. You have to know what it is that you're going to do, who you're going to work with, when approximately for timeline, how much it's going to cost and what the strategy is around that. One of the reasons is that. A lot of the grants that I've reviewed in the past have been rejected is that there's no plan, there's pipe dreams, there's we hope to, we want to, and no names listed, no timelines very approximate numbers of how much things are going to cost.
[00:06:27] Samantha: It has to sound like you're going to do that [00:06:30] project no matter what. And that leads me into the artistic development side. another caveat of grant writing and funding strategy is that you should create the art that you're going to create no matter what. So when you get started, just make sure that you're not. I'm not going to be doing anything that is to get a proof for funding because the worst thing you can do is to try to check a box for your art and you don't get it funded and then you're stuck with like, okay, well I'm going to have to [00:07:00] wait another couple of months or a regular cycle in order to get funding.
[00:07:03] Samantha: So when you have determined what it is that you want to do. And that could just be like, you know, I want to make six songs of Celtic inspired folk music that reckons to my specific cultural heritage, maybe your grandmother, maybe your ancestors or something like that, and have an idea of what it is that you're going to do.
[00:07:23] Samantha: The thing about grants and artistry is that they're very different. It's very hard to be a musician and to be [00:07:30] a business person. It's just wearing two completely different caps. So, in terms of creation, Songwriting always very important. There's a lot of songwriting funding out there. There's songwriting development from Canada Council, from, Amplify BC, And obviously Ontario Arts Council is also very supportive as well as SOCAN. They used to have songwriting houses available in Nashville and L. A. and I believe they still do and there are subsidies for that sort of thing.
[00:07:58] Samantha: So, when it comes to, I'm going to [00:08:00] just go down to the bare bones of creating the music. So, Canada Council has a program called Explore and Create, which helps you with the actual time it takes to write a song. your music and to do things like if you have to collaborate with somebody, if you have to travel to see somebody for mentorship guidance I had an artist go to Colombia to be able to work with some indigenous tribes people because that was part of [00:08:30] their overall project idea, having an idea of what it is that you're going to do is very, very important.
[00:08:35] Samantha: And songwriting development is something that the Canadian government does very much value. There are funds from Canada council in particular for you to just take the time to research and develop. So for example, you can have up to 2, 000 a month if, and when approved, and you have your applicant profile all lined up and everything like that in order for you to take time off.
[00:08:57] Samantha: to write and to [00:09:00] demo and to potentially invest in a little bit of equipment and to also hire any sort of musicians for collaboration or anything like that. It's not for professional production, mind you, but it's about the actual songwriting. There are also smaller funds available. I know Factor has a songwriter grant There's a lot of things too. If you're offered the opportunity to have mentorship, collaboration, songwriting sessions, Canada Council, OAC Amplify BC, there's a lot of [00:09:30] different funding supporters for that sort of thing. I'm talking very emerging levels. And once you graduate from figuring out what it is that you want to do for your songwriting and having a very, very clear plan.
[00:09:41] Samantha: Let's get into maybe that kind of next phase. So we've, we've looked at the creation of the music and now you're ready to record and you want to, you want to do a recording project. What kind of opportunities are available for folks who want to access funding for their recordings?
[00:09:57] Samantha: production and recording. is probably one of [00:10:00] the most competitive grants in the music sector of Canadian government funding and that goes everywhere from regional, so Toronto Arts Council to Ottawa Arts Council to high level federal.
[00:10:13] Samantha: When it comes to that sort of thing, know your team members. There's a lot of amazing resources through Folk Music Ontario, as well as Music Ontario, MusicBC, SaskMusic. A lot of them have resource lists under their website. And they also send [00:10:30] out reminders of, hey, this grant is coming up, maybe you should come on.
[00:10:33] Samantha: Factor is obviously the most Popular and influential one. for emerging artists who are interested in singles or EPs. There is a new program that has just come out called the JSR EP program, and it just, just, just closed a couple of weeks ago, and it was up to 25, 000 for artists to do whatever they were going to do.
[00:10:54] Samantha: There had to be some element of post production. One caveat I should say is that for Factor, [00:11:00] you're only allowed to apply once a year for both the JSR EP, as well as the larger program, Factor JSR. Okay. Now, the JSREP program, that one is much more accessible, and over 50 percent of the evaluation is based on the song that is submitted for demo listening.
[00:11:18] Samantha: Now, when it comes to demo listening to. You don't have to go and spend a lot of money on recording. Chances are you can probably do something at home on your computer. And if you don't have a friend with pro tools, [00:11:30] put it out there to the universe on TOK or something like that, somebody will invite you over to their basement and help you out there.
[00:11:37] Samantha: It just has to sound really good. And the other part is the plan. So as I mentioned before, making sure that you have a plan that's going to happen no matter what.
[00:11:44] Samantha: Lyrics match the songs that you have submitted, which I have seen, and I have also almost done submitting the wrong lyrics.
[00:11:53] Samantha: The Factor JSR is great, however, it also comes with a very large marketing plan. And some people [00:12:00] think, Oh, marketing plan, like chat, GPT can figure it out for me. No, you can start building the bare bones of an outline of it. But again, go to factor and see what resources they have.
[00:12:11] Samantha: If you have a friend or a colleague or Someone that you see who has been successful in the past with Factor JSRs, reach out to them. Maybe they'll share what their plan and project was that got them approved. Having that sort of level of insight, somebody that you trust, obviously, and not copying and pasting their [00:12:30] content because that's just immoral and wrong, but having an idea of what worked for them.
[00:12:34] Samantha: Is very, very helpful when I do Factor JSR marketing plans now. So you have two components, you have the two songs that are evaluated plus project goals. This is the album I'm going to create 10 to 12 songs. It's going to be released on this day with this distributor. These are the singles I'm going to have. These are the approximate dates of release. These are the names of the band members and musicians and collaborators. This is where I'm going to record. [00:13:00] These are all questions. That you have to be asking yourself in advance. And it can be very hard to make those decisions when you're giving birth to this artistic baby.
[00:13:10] Samantha: Anyways, the marketing plan itself, get a Canva membership. Canva can be free. It has to be beautiful. It has to have statistics about who you are. A lot of folks don't necessarily have chart metric, but If your listeners are not familiar with it, it basically pools all of your statistics of all of your socials [00:13:30] and a lot of your streaming.
[00:13:32] Samantha: So Spotify it also shows things like Spotify playlists that you've placed on and how broad that is. Statistics matter here. When it comes to winning over the jury and not required, but a huge competitive factor is including a budget in that marketing plan. So making the decisions in advance as to who your marketing team is going to be.
[00:13:55] Samantha: That's another thing with factor JSR. an easy way to get 15 out of 15 [00:14:00] of the team evaluation as part of the factor JSR evaluation for the full one coming up in the fall.
[00:14:06] Samantha: And the application is actually open. I think mid August is to list out all the team members that you have. Does your drummer do graphic design? Is your drummer going to do graphic design on this project? That is a team member. That is a valued contribution towards your artistic development and career.
[00:14:25] Samantha: Moving on beyond Factor, especially for folks that are BIPOC that may [00:14:30] be listening, the Radio Star Maker program has something that is really exciting.
[00:14:34] Samantha: It's called the Orion program and it happens a couple times a year. It's up to 20, 000. It used to be 25, 000. don't quote me on that. I know I'm on this, but I'm pretty sure it's out of 20, 000 right now and it allows BIPOC folks to Create different projects. So if you just want to go and create a music video You can, as long as you are eligible and they have certain genre [00:15:00] requirements, but if you've had at least three songs hit, I think 1.
[00:15:03] Samantha: 25 million streams in Canada, then you may be eligible as long as you own your music and everything like that, radio star maker is a little bit more tricky. You have to verify your eligibility not even repeatedly, but just make sure that you have all the facts. Statistics and getting some of your sales numbers can be challenging.
[00:15:21] Samantha: In folk music, I know that a lot of sales are still physical. So having those really good records and proof of sales [00:15:30] even in the form of manufacturing and distribution sheets can also be very, very helpful. But anyways, there's this new program called Orion. It's been around for two, three years now, and it allows you to do videos, touring, marketing sound production demos paying for guest collaborations, like having guest vocalists come in and things like that.
[00:15:48] Samantha: With Radio Star Maker, it also is much faster. to have a result if you are eligible under the ARRIVE program, that is. Because it usually takes about a month or two, [00:16:00] and you're gonna find out pretty quickly, whereas Factor, as soon as you apply for the JSR EP or the JSR full production one that's coming up in the fall, from that date on, technically, the expenses that you incur are eligible.
[00:16:15] Samantha: Another big thing about grants is that people think that they can get funding for things that they've already spent on and only during COVID did I ever see people be able to recoup some expenses of things that prior to the submission [00:16:30] date.
[00:16:30] Rosalyn: I wanted to ask you, you know, there's always hoops to
[00:16:32] Rosalyn: jump through, right. When we're talking about grants and you want to be as honest as, possible. But like how, far do you bend to get through those hoops, and maybe let's put this in the context of something like a touring grant because we haven't talked about
[00:16:45] Rosalyn: touring yet.
[00:16:46] Rosalyn: So have you seen any kind of barriers or things that are like kind of requirements that can sometimes perplex people or, flummox them when they're applying where they can, all of a sudden there can be some gray areas.
[00:16:56] Samantha: absolutely. One of the biggest ones is I've worked with a lot of [00:17:00] folk artists and people who did not necessarily have contracts and advances. It was just confirmations via email. It was going and creating your own template or using a template from a friend or colleague and making sure that it reflected your own because a lot of the funding bodies require a Very clear contract that says I will be paid X amount of dollars on this day in this city at this venue And if you do not have that information and I have had that events rejected because maybe the client didn't provide all of the information [00:17:30] and we tried to do whatever we could, or for one reason or another, it wasn't caught, but you don't want to have that sort of opportunity rejected, but Reading the guidelines very carefully.
[00:17:40] Samantha: is amazing. You can design a really beautiful looking contractor template. And not only that, there's also so many free templates out there now on various marketplaces.
[00:17:51] Samantha: It's just a matter of searching them. And. you need to prove that events have happened as well, too, a lot of the time, so that can also be a barrier. I know that [00:18:00] Factor used to accept photo proof of whether or not an artist performs. So like, you know, a South by showcase at like 2am and there's two people there and things like that.
[00:18:10] Samantha: Things like concert posters. Well, it's really important to archive all of your artistic integrity and materials around that too. Like Google Drive, it's not even like you need to put anything anywhere. You can be on your cell phone, in the band van, uploading, hey, I screen grabbed this poster. I can put it up later.
[00:18:28] Samantha: That's really, really [00:18:30] important. And there are any sort of expenses leading up to the tour too I had a client that was invited to perform in Japan and was really, really, really excited to go perform in Japan and had a couple of dates there. they purchased their ticket as soon as they found out, not after I submitted the grant.
[00:18:48] Samantha: So technically the cutoff date for the most expensive touring part. wasn't eligible because they had already, spent that money. So there was no way around it. And [00:19:00] like, if you're going to go to Japan, that's going to be like 1500 bucks, 2, 000 plus whatever your cargo and luggage is.
[00:19:05] Samantha: That's something else to mention too, for touring grants is to make sure that you have insurance on your instruments and your car. And to also account for cargo expenses and even packing material to make sure that your equipment arrives safely.
[00:19:21] Rosalyn: so we've been talking about, public funded grants. I'm wondering if you can talk a little bit about opportunities that artists could [00:19:30] access with like private funds or sponsorships products. What are some other revenue streams for, for artists that might fall into those categories?
[00:19:39] Samantha: interesting merchandise, people are not necessarily going to buy a full CD nowadays, but I used to work with the Sun Parlor players who were big folk music, Ontario supporters.
[00:19:49] Samantha: And they sold their own mustard. And they pickled it, and they jarred it, and they would sell out of their mustard. And that mustard paid for a lot of gas [00:20:00] money.
[00:20:00] Samantha: So interesting merchandise. That's a big thing going beyond interesting merchandise. There are a lot of sponsorships out there and people don't necessarily think about it, but I've had clients sponsored by Converse, but I've also had clients supported by small businesses.
[00:20:16] Samantha: And it also depends on who you are, what your values are. Obviously it would be great to be in Metal Hammer and have like, you know, a fender attached to you rocking out and you've got it comped, but that's not necessarily the reality for everything. Having [00:20:30] something as simple as Ernie Ball Strings sponsored, there's a lot of ways that you can Google and find out.
[00:20:36] Samantha: How to get into contact with those sorts of people. There's also local businesses. So maybe there's a local guitar store that would be willing and interested to support you in return for logo acknowledgement and use on your tour posters, all of your social media and things like that. something as simple as like, you know, you've having like a really, really, really nice guitar get comped for like a month long tour. Like you're going to save [00:21:00] 500. There is a way that you can acknowledge and take a couple of photos. And then that music company can use that content in return.
[00:21:07] Samantha: You don't even need to be like, you know, that popular because as we know too, especially in smaller, more niche music industry. People are so committed and so involved. And if you do have those very involved people too, there's also platforms like Patreon and Substack, and these are ways that you can show people behind the scenes, what you're actually up to.
[00:21:28] Samantha: clothing.
[00:21:29] Samantha: So [00:21:30] if you are a performer who has a lot of fashion and style and things like that, I'd like to think that most people are pretty presentable when they go up on stage. If that's within their brand, there's a lot of designers who are willing to lend or to make you clothes in kind. In return for photos of you, for example, I said South by earlier, but maybe an Americana festival or something like that too.
[00:21:55] Samantha: So to think a little bit outside of the box, it depends on if you want in kind or [00:22:00] financial support. And that comes down to again, budgeting. So what are your goals? Where are the deficits? How can you make out for the deficits? Are there venues and locations that are willing to comp something?
[00:22:14] Rosalyn: Well, that's great. I'm wondering if we can try to distill, I know there's lots and lots, this is a huge
[00:22:20] Rosalyn: topic, so we
[00:22:21] Rosalyn: could, we could make a billion episodes about this. We could probably dedicate a whole season to it. I'm wondering if we can maybe leave things off with like a [00:22:30] top five recommendations when creating your funding strategy for artists.
[00:22:34] Rosalyn: Let's say emerging artists, top five tips for creating a funding strategy.
[00:22:38] Samantha: Start early. If you are in a band or have regular collaborators, communicate. I have worked with artists who have not. Kept their managers up to date. And then the manager tells me something conflicting with what the artist does, clear communication and shared communication.
[00:22:54] Samantha: So having everything up on a cloud to be able to see, and everybody is transparent and on the [00:23:00] same page. For example, having deadlines pinned in your Google drive read the guidelines. If you have questions, call the program officers. Their job is to help you get money.
[00:23:10] Samantha: They're not scary. They are not against you. They are there because they are passionate supporters of the arts. They want to see you be successful.
[00:23:18] Samantha: Checklists if there are checklists in the funding Application that you are going for follow the checklist If your mom or your partner can't understand what it is that you're pitching [00:23:30] in your final written content, go back and make it easier. Don't assume that the jury knows who you are and your accomplishments, and you could be incredibly established, but don't take for granted that people are busy. They are scanning things quickly it's juried, whether or not it's Or with internal teams reviewing everything. Make sure you spell out your successes.
[00:23:53] Samantha: Numbers are also really big. how many tour dates did you in 2023? How many tour dates are you expecting to do in [00:24:00] 2025? Numbers show traction and growth. What were your challenges on the previous album? How are you going to change and grow as an artist?
[00:24:12] Samantha: I'm not into gatekeeping. So if you want to learn more Sign up with your local MIAs, but also follow Folk Music Ontario, and there will be information, especially at your conference and things like that too.
[00:24:27] Samantha: There's so many amazing conferences that [00:24:30] literally people put people like myself on stage and ask even more intricate questions.
[00:24:36] Rosalyn: Absolutely. Well, thank you so much. And, and we'll, we'll absolutely see you soon.
[00:24:40]
Credits
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[00:24:46] Rosalyn: That's all for this episode, friends. The ReFolkUs Podcast is brought to you by Folk Music Ontario. Find out more by heading to folkmusicontario.org/refolkus. That's R-E-F-O-L-K-U-S. [00:25:00] The podcast is produced by Kayla Nezon and Rosalyn Dennett and mixed by Jordan Moore at The Pod Cabin. The opening theme is by King Cardiac, and the artwork is by Jaymie Karn.