Brian in the Breakroom

Getting creative with non-traditional gigs

It took me quite a while to get this method and recipe down for performing live music as a solo artist. Ten years prior when my first band and I decided to put KouseFly on hiatus, I had no intention to stop performing music. 

I quickly learned, coming from a band environment where we split the shows with our songs, I had half the songs available to me for performing, which really limited my capability to play a full 2-3 hour show. During the time of my band’s hiatus I had nowhere near the amount of songs I needed to perform a full show, so I needed to improvise. I needed to find a way to get in front of people while adding to my repertoire. I continued going to open mics and hashing out new material. 

I was kind of inspired by a trend on the internet that showcased major artists were doing music performance at non-traditional places. Like the scene of The Avett Brothers going down in a gondola in the Rocky Mountains playing an acoustic bit. 

I thought it was a pretty cool idea, and started brainstorming some ideas for my non-traditional acoustic show. That’s when I came up with an idea, I called it Brian in the Breakroom. 

I was working at the local television station at the time, I went into a business during my lunchtime to play one or two songs in their breakroom. I started off by inviting James, the drummer of KouseFly, to come over and play an acoustic stripped-down set bring his brushes and snare drum to the television station’s breakroom. All these reporters, sales, and production people packed in the breakroom clapped after the bit. HR was kind of scratching their heads, not sure what to make of it.

I keep at it and began to go out to the community. Soon, I was playing at t the hospital and clinics, I played at Deschutes Brewery’s really cool breakroom (did you know everyone has their own cup and can knock down a fresh cold one after their shift?).

The newspaper covered Brian in the Breakroom when I performed for a local nonprofit.  They gave me a full spread in the community section. It quickly became a sensation and almost a steady show… but I wasn’t making any money at it. 

I even played at my son's daycare. I didn't need that much time to play. I was getting exposure and playing around town, and I started building more new songs for my show.

I think I began to understand that it was a little weird when the local public radio station invited me over for an interview. I learned the base of the show was interviewing the strange and the weird of Bend, Oregon. 

“So, Brian,” the radio host asked on the air. “being one of the weirdest and strangest musicians in Bend, tell us where the breakroom show idea started.”

I guess Brian in the Breakroom was indeed what it was portrayed as on that radio show… strange and weird. It certainly did expand my horizons, though. I also discovered that it's pretty easy to get noticed if you're doing something that no one else is doing. So, I stopped booking business breakroom visits and moved on. Also, most of my repertoire wasn't necessarily the best for this type of show. The songs I had from KouseFly were sort of dark. I mean, you really can’t sing about murder and mystery in the breakroom of an insurance agency. Which is where I did play the song “Rain,” a devilish song of murdering a friend who was sleeping (I’ll tell you about that song later). I could see my own insurance rate rising after playing that tune.

It was time to pull away from that project I start playing more traditional shows at night. That is when my quest to perform the perfect bar gig as a local dad rocker began.