Arlo Maverick plants seeds

ep15 – Arlo Maverick planting seeds

[00:00:00] In 2023, NPR produced a feature article in preparation for celebrating 50 years of hip hop called All Rap is Local. It was exploration through the formation of identity of hip hop artists and their communities, city by city in America, with the premise that while hip hop was a global phenomenon, its true impact needed to be measured in how it lives.

City by city, and despite browsing this case study in the not so distant past, I found myself still operating on assumptions about rappers in hip hop in Canada, in western Canada. In my own backyard,

a middle class white male observing hip hop culture from predominantly rural blue collar Canada is bound to get it wrong, right? Well, I did. I assumed that the need and the desire to escape with your music or to use your music as an escape was even stronger in this musical culture. There were few inherent opportunities in contrast to a glaring and obvious promise land [00:01:00] out east, and you know what they say about assuming Arlo Maverick, the mc handle of over 20 years from Marlon Wilson, was kind enough to correct and erase my assumptions very quickly. His stories of developing skills, finding an audience, and staying in the city he creates in. Were affirming of the premise of this NPR article. The way the hip hop community supports and champions itself creates identity that always includes the place with the person.

Marlon himself is perhaps the best symbol of this premise, always creating, always planting seeds. Marlon Wilson is an incredible community builder and artist. His artistic career spans over two significant stretches with the group politic live from 2002 to 2012, and then as a solo artist from 2016 to present day.

He’s a prolific grant writer. He’s assisted in almost a million dollars of funding. He’s a fantastic mentor to other artists in the city. He’s a burgeoning filmmaker, bringing his passion and [00:02:00] purpose to every creative outlet. He is a true local hero behind the mc. And you know what? I’ve known this since 2007 when Marlon needed our nonprofit music board to reschedule our meeting because taking care of his grandma was his priority.

And you know what priorities are, what heroes are made of. My name is Glen Erickson. This is Almost Famous Enough. Thanks for spending your time with us. This is Arlo Maverick.

 

Glen Erickson: Marlon Wilson, thank you so much for joining me. Marlon Wilson known to your.

Family and friends and maybe employers, but, community at large Edmonton and further known as Arlo Maverick for probably well over 20 years now. Would you say? Over 20 years. Arlo [00:03:00] Maverick.

Arlo Maverick: Uh, probably, yeah, early two thousands. Early two thousands.

Glen Erickson: Okay. from the first time I knew you and watched like you’re one of the best community builder people in the industry that, uh, I’ve met.

well let’s just start there and say like, there’s a lot of people I talk to. In industry or community builders who end up in different roles that the artistic dream dies either suddenly or just tapers off slowly and painfully.

And then they keep their, they wanna keep their foot in it so they move into other areas where they developed skills while they were pursuing artistic dreams. Right. You are this different exception who has just continued both things and developing, which I find fascinating. So I’d love to just go backwards, uh, if that’s okay, Marlon, and then sort of trace our way through and, and, and learn some things about what, what that’s been like for you, if that’s all good.

Arlo Maverick: Yeah.

Glen Erickson: And also, you were in the stu I tried to get you a few nights ago and you said you were in the studio. So I need to ask right off the bat, or is this [00:04:00] like just, you know, just putting in the time studio or helping someone else? Or are you working on something new?

Arlo Maverick: Working on,

Glen Erickson: Yourself. That was my first, yeah.

Arlo Maverick: on something new. it’ll be somewhat of a follow up to the last album, blue Collar. with that, uh, just exploring a different side of the working class. So there’s a lot of, uh, fresh and different topics that are gonna be explored on this one as compared to the last one.

Glen Erickson: Okay. let’s just dive in right there. ’cause I, I’ll get, I’ll go all the way back to the beginning in a little bit. But since we’re here, like you said, your last full length album, it’s called Blue Collar Exploring Certain subject Matter obviously related to that. So what was sort of, what were the sort of the key elements that you feel were part of Blue Collar that are different to what you want to explore now?

’cause that’s an interesting choice to keep a thematic progression

Arlo Maverick: Uh,

Glen Erickson: through a couple records.

Arlo Maverick: most of my projects are tied thematically. with this latest one, as I mentioned, it’s exploring more, more things related to the working [00:05:00] class, but with blue collar, the, and it still carries like a through line for it, where essentially the album begins with a convocation speech, and the convocation speech speaks of all the. opportunities that are added to your doorstep and how all these great things are gonna happen. And then the song right after that, is a song that you get hit with the reality that sometimes the thing you go

Glen Erickson: Mm-hmm.

Arlo Maverick: is not what you end up having the ability to work. Uh, you don’t get a chance to work in that field.

So having to work a job that doesn’t reflect your education, doesn’t reflect your, what you may feel to be your merit, but you still have bills to pay. And so the album then goes down this, uh, road of like realizing that there are some people who, go to school for one thing. Have bills to pay, have family to feed.

So they go down this path. And so what explores the working class, like, whether it be having to work a night shift, which was one of the songs on there. Um, it also looks

Glen Erickson: Mm-hmm.

Arlo Maverick: responsibility and the, the role of fatherhood as it relates to providing for a family. You know, it even deals with, [00:06:00] looking at your employer and just the fact that some of us are literally giving ourselves to a job in order for them to possibly get rid of us because we’re nothing of value to them, you know? And so with this new

Glen Erickson: Yeah.

Arlo Maverick: it transitions from working in a more blue collar job to working in a more white collar job, but still looking at, some of the, obstacles that come along with that. You know, and it’s still, it’s not an album that is like so heavy with the, the message and so dense, like it still has the ability to, uh, make you dance, make you reflect.

Um, Bob Marley has always been one of my favorite artists in a great inspiration in the sense of how he’s able

Glen Erickson: Hmm.

Arlo Maverick: Take regular everyday topics, whether they be, about struggle, whether they be about love or anything like that. And just make it accessible and make it still danceable. So with this album here,

Glen Erickson: Yeah,

Arlo Maverick: collar, you’ll still be able to like enjoy it, but it’s not like I’m beating over the head with a message saying that, uh, you know,

Glen Erickson: yeah, yeah.

Arlo Maverick: yeah.

Glen Erickson: Well that’s always been the challenge, right? For songwriters to be like, how do I, [00:07:00] uh, if I’m gonna lean heavily into truth telling. how do I walk that line where it’s still not like you just described either beating you over the head or making you feel like that’s, uh, solely what is going on.

And I mean, you always kinda walk a line. I feel a little bit in the, like, the storytelling, truth telling, they aren’t necessarily the same thing all the time, uh, in songs and in music. But you, you do seem to like to walk the line. I’m just curious, maybe then tell me a little bit about your own style, like how you’ve sort of developed your own style of being able to do that.

Like when you write these songs, when you want to sort of move thematically a little bit through and you’re a point to get across, but you’re not just saying it, you’re sort of telling it through the picture or the image of somebody you’re talking about or a situation. And so how, what’s your approach?

How, how have you sort of worked that out over the years?

Arlo Maverick: well, it’s, it’s funny because as hip hop has progressed over the years, it’s become more about the self. Where a lot of the hip hop artists that I grew up listening to in my earlier years, like whether it [00:08:00] be, Tupac, public Enemy, Chuck D, CS one, like a lot of these guys were telling stories where they were talking about specific subjects or, um, a specific individual or a situation, and they found a way to tell a story to make it more accessible to people.

Because at the end of the day, like there’s a reason why we have these, uh, blockbuster films that do well or Netflix does well is because as human beings we are drawn to a narrative. And so finding ways to, connect that story, whether it’s my story or the story of somebody else to a, a, a larger audience for them to be able to see themselves in a lot of these stories.

Like when I look at a song like Night Shift, like it’s literally looking at the fact of like, you’re making these sacrifices for your family and doing horrible damage to your body by going from like, uh, a night shift to a day shift, doing shift work. But

Glen Erickson: Hmm.

Arlo Maverick: same time though, like you understand that you are. You are a provider, you’re a protector. You have to meet these obligations in order for your family to thrive, in order for you to get outta the situation you’re in. So being able to, take my own personal [00:09:00] experiences, but also be a, a listener to other people who are saying that, Hey, like this is what I’m going through, so on and so forth.

And, a lot of music that I make, it tends to come from conversations I have with people where I’m just like, that should be a song, you know? And so once

Glen Erickson: Hmm.

Arlo Maverick: bulb goes off, I’ll pull up my notepad and I’ll start writing down ideas, or I’ll be driving my car and just put on a beat and then just start possibly freestyling coming over the ideas.

And then once I get those ideas, I’ll either work on them myself or bring them to my collaborators and be like, Hey guys, like, here’s some ideas. And the great thing about where I’m at in my career now is that, Edmonton as a city as it relates to hip hop music didn’t necessarily have, We’ve always had great MCs.

We’ve always had, uh, great producers, but now I feel like a lot of us have learned so much and we have access to so much information that allows us to become better at what we do. And so now I have people I can lean on in a way that I wasn’t able to in the earlier years of possibly politic live or anything like that.

So, that process then, uh, will be me bringing ideas to them and then like shooting some [00:10:00] of those ideas down and saying, no, that’s not a good idea. Or having them saying, Hey, why don’t we

Glen Erickson: Yeah.

Arlo Maverick: Why don’t we try that? And then we, work at it to, to the point that it’s something that can be shared with the world.

Glen Erickson: Well, I mean you mentioned in there your influences, you mentioned politic lives, so you sort of, the first thing that I guess gets on the radar for most people. ’cause we all have things we’re dabbling in when we’re young, but then there’s the first thing that really gels and starts to take off and people respond to you.

So for you, it seems like that was politic live. Which, you know, if Wikipedia is right, 2002 seems like that was the start. And that was a, a gelling between you and some cousins and a friend who was a DJ and, and getting all that going. And you obviously had your influences and I think regardless of genre, like this is a pretty common denominator of we start to try to recreate our influences in our first version.

So maybe you could, ’cause that’s where I first knew you, you were in politic live right at the time when I first ever met you. So, how was [00:11:00] that? 2002, 2012? The journey in that group from when it started trying to recreate your influences? Like, I’m wondering how that sort of played out for that group for you at that time.

Arlo Maverick: well, we were heavily influenced by our West Indian background. Um, so that was something that was always present. but we were also influenced heavily by a lot of, like New York based MC so it was very much, much more bar heavy as far as like, you had to like, come up with this rhyme that was gonna be like this deep double entendre.

But at the same time though, you had to also

Glen Erickson: Hmm.

Arlo Maverick: that would allow your music to possibly get onto the radio, possibly get into the nightclub, because those were the outlets before Spotify or YouTube. and, and even much music to an extent, right? And so for us, we were inspired by so much because of the fact that we were kids who grew up on hip hop, like in Edmonton, Alberta, of all places.

So, um, we had.

Glen Erickson: Yeah. Yeah.

Arlo Maverick: Which is weird because there’s been a long, uh, scene here. It’s been, it’s gotten bigger, but it started out quite small. But we, [00:12:00] um, had access to hip hop magazines. We had access to people like, master T from much Music and Rap City. We had access to, um, what was coming out of the US through, uh, whether it be records.

We had radio here. So all of these things, and even like, again, much music was probably like the biggest factor because that’s where we got to see the culture and hear the culture all within one.

Glen Erickson: Mm-hmm.

Arlo Maverick: and

Glen Erickson: Mm-hmm.

Arlo Maverick: so on and so forth. So all of that begins to, impact our, our style and also the scene around us as well too.

Because there were hip hop MCs, there were, DJs as well, two producers who some actually took, took us underneath our, took us under their wings and kind of showed us the way. So as we’re beginning to form this thing called Politic Live, this is after years of kind of being in an incubator. What possibly the most, important, person to that time period would’ve to be a gentleman by the name of Ock.

’cause he literally like put us into like a bootcamp where we were like learning how to write rhymes or we’re learning how to write rhymes [00:13:00] better, I should say. Um, also learning how to be better performers. And so that ends up impacting our styles to the point that when we went into the studio, or even when we’re writing now, we’re cognizant of how is this song going to be performed, you know? we’re also

Glen Erickson: Yeah.

Arlo Maverick: of, what is the format? ’cause I remember when I first started out, the typical hip hop hip structure for a hip hop song was three 16 bar verses, but we didn’t understand how to count bars whatsoever. So we had like verses that went on for like 32 bars and like, there was like a chorus that would maybe be like four bars.

And it’s just like, no, that’s not gonna work. You know? So having. OGs in the scene to help us and like give us guidance was so important. Kada, pinoc was one of those people. And so as we move into, um, creating our music and also performing, because as you know, at that time period, like studios cost so much money.

And so,

Glen Erickson: Yeah.

Arlo Maverick: performances where we really began to understand, what worked and what didn’t work, and also how to put together songs. Because if you’re losing an audience, that means there’s something wrong with the writing. There’s something wrong with the, the structure of [00:14:00] the song. Because if you’re performing,

Glen Erickson: Hmm.

Arlo Maverick: you are verse going on for 32 bars, then trim it down.

So understanding the 16 bar format, understanding what a bridge was, understand ’cause these are things that, that we’re not being taught. We’re listening to our,

Glen Erickson: Yeah.

Arlo Maverick: who we idolize and the people who we see as icons, but we’re not fully understanding the science behind what they’re doing until we had someone step in to be like, Hey, this is what you guys should be doing.

This is how it’s done.

Glen Erickson: Okay. That’s, so that’s kind of amazing. ’cause like I said, like common denominator. Yeah. Most of us are just listening and trying to replicate our idols or, you know, and, and drilling down further and further as we get better and understand more, right. Like to song structure and all this kind of stuff, and realize that like, oh yeah, pop music does this all of the time.

Right. And, and you know, and for me it would be like, this version of indie rock specifically does the opposite for a reason or something like that. But you figure that out. It’s the path you wanna follow, but. Not very often does someone say, I had a mentor or a [00:15:00] person come along. You know, like, uh, so you said he gave you like a bootcamp.

I’m just curious, like, what did that literally look like? Is the guy like pulling together like Marlon and his two cousins and saying, I want you to do this, and then you’re coming back on Friday and you’re doing your rhymes for me. Like what does,

Arlo Maverick: did

Glen Erickson: what did that look like at that time? What he was doing to try to help and, and shape you and what you were working on?

Arlo Maverick: part of that, and it’s interesting because it’s, um, good friend Fabian Meyers, his, cousin, Kada Ock was the guy who mentored us. So we essentially school’s done, we go over to Kato’s Place and it was either, we were, one of the things that was important for, for him to communicate to us, and this is something I don’t think happens as often as it should, is that he was someone who was maybe about four or five years older than us, right.

So he would actually like sit us down and play us records, or show us music videos and like. us like, do we understand what’s going on? Do we, do we hear this? Do we hear that? And all of a sudden now we’re beginning to understand, [00:16:00] okay, that’s what production is. That’s how you make a good music video.

’cause I remember had a music video, I can’t remember which one it was, but it was one where we were just like blown away by that. And it’s just like we’re asking him, how do you come up with these concepts? And so he’s allowing us to better understand what that all looks like. Even Alberta music, the first time I was ever told about Alberta Music or Factor was courtesy of this gentleman here.

And so he was teaching

Glen Erickson: Mm-hmm.

Arlo Maverick: the, um, artistic side, but also teaching us the business side. And so even when he came to performances, like he would make us run through performances like two or three hours. And like all of our friends who were into music, like they were just like, why are you guys doing that?

And it’s just like, but then when you saw us on stage, it began to make sense because he was teaching us

Glen Erickson: Mm-hmm.

Arlo Maverick: an audience. Like making sure that we had enough movement on stage, making sure that we understood mic technique. ’cause rappers we have horrible mic technique. We just wanna look cool.

Glen Erickson: Well, I mean, like, that’s amazing kind of, right? Because, like now there’s, I think we can agree there’s a lot more people [00:17:00] like that around, or at least people who have tried to create some programs or structures and get funding so that artists might have access to somebody. Who does that, right? Who can point you in the right direction.

Like you even said, like if Alberta Music and in Canada, really all the provincial music associations have been very good at, trying to provide opportunities, even if it’s just meet and greets or programs to uh, give people the opportunity to get some of those real basic low hanging fruit answers that they need just to start moving.

But to have a, a person like that, uh, is pretty significant. Um, so the other thing you also said, by the way, which was like in Edmonton, you felt like you had access and you started naming some things, but you, because we obviously we had, you know, radio that was tapped into all the radio across the country in the same way.

And like, in Canada we’re still considered a major city. So, but it’s still, Northern Alberta, Western Canada, So for a guy like me on the outside of, of hip hop, right, and, and [00:18:00] both like music culture and culture in general, right? I’m an observant only at that time especially, I would never make the assumption that you would have felt like you had access.

I, I get that much music was a North star for sure in our country and maybe, especially coming outta the nineties into the early two thousands. That totally makes sense. So I’m just, I, I’m really curious about that because I think I would’ve had the complete wrong assumption that Edmonton was an absolute desert wasteland

Arlo Maverick: it

Glen Erickson: for your aspirations as an artist, and it wasn’t.

So, uh, I’m just really curious if you could just tell me a little more of what that looked like when you were starting out, what, what the scene looked like, and even compared maybe to what you feel like it looks like now.

Arlo Maverick: well this is what’s so fascinating is that like when I look at the scene back then, compared to now, I feel like, and this is just pretty much something that’s happened all across the board because of social media. Like people don’t go out, people don’t actually go to hip hop nights or even just music nights period.

Like, open mics or

Glen Erickson: Hmm.

Arlo Maverick: just going to shows was so important. ’cause that’s where you met people, [00:19:00] that’s where you connected and said, Hey, like, who are you? So on and so forth, you know? But if I’m going back to that time period, like we had, this is what’s so fascinating about Edmonton, is that we’ve always had a small burgeoning hip hop scene, that goes back to like this, the late seventies, you know? Um, with the documentary

Glen Erickson: Hmm.

Arlo Maverick: been uh, doing over the last few years, I’ve been able to uncover a lot of this stuff. So when it came to radio, we had CGSR, which was. they had T-E-D-D-Y who had the, the black experience in sound. We had DJ Roach, and when I was in junior high, I was introduced to 88.5, as we called it, which was CJSR.

And so they had

Glen Erickson: Yeah, campus Radio for those listening, like, which, you know, has a pretty significant place in a lot of cities across Canada. Sorry, continue. Yeah.

Arlo Maverick: the US as well too. But in Canada and more specifically Edmonton, we had. Shows in which people were finding ways to get the music. And I tip my hat off to them because at that time period, like we don’t have Spotify, we don’t have, Torrance. We don’t have Napster.

We have [00:20:00] people who actually just love this music and love this culture and say, I wanna make sure this is President Edmonton. People need to hear this. And so, we have that, plus we have a lot of, like have a lot of like, team parties going on at that time where people would allow us to get up on the mic and, and do our thing.

’cause we’re seeing what we’re seeing coming outta Toronto. We’re seeing what we’re seeing coming out of, the us. But at the same time, the, we’re also seeing people from our scene who actually are creating songs like, uh, 1993, um, the Maximum Definitive, which was like the first breakout hop ad from Western Canada.

Not just Alberta, but Western Canada. They end up getting a much music award for their music video for Jungle Man and getting a juvenile nomination. So at that point in time. There’s things that are happening. And so because these things are happening and we have record stores, were a big thing as well too.

Like, people would go and communicate and understand the culture. And before, before my time, you had roller rinks where people would actually go and they’d have B-boys and B girls who’d be breaking. But you also had the music that they needed to [00:21:00] break too, being played at these locations. And so there’s always been things in our city, but the unfortunate thing is that it’s always, you always had to know what was going on.

’cause if you didn’t know what was going on, then you were completely left out of it. And for me, I’ve just always been someone who, has wanted to create. Right? And so eight. I throw my first concert ever in my drama room. I convinced my drama teacher to let me throw a concert at lunchtime, and I didn’t know what I was doing. And I think it just came from me, like just, just watching all these guys who were in these magazines, like they were entrepreneurs. I’m just like, yeah, I’m gonna throw a hip hop concert,

Glen Erickson: Yeah.

Arlo Maverick: the concert. We had rehearsed for like almost two weeks, but I had, I understood promotion as much as a a, a great eighter could.

And I understood putting together a show as much as a great eighter could. But I didn’t understand like, the technicality of like actually like putting on a show. And so luckily my, uh, drama teacher like helped me because he played in a band when he was [00:22:00] younger and so helped me put on the show and the, the whole school was just like, wow, like you are a rapper.

It was just like so crazy. ’cause like I on this show that allowed for people to see that hip hop could exist within our school and let alone our city, you know?

Glen Erickson: Yeah. That, uh, I mean that validation, right? Isn’t that the thing that, like, that that’s fuel for like years. Like I. Like, you do that one thing and everybody responds well and then says, oh, you’re a rapper. Well that, like all of a sudden you got to hang your hat on an identity that you wanted. that definitely carries us through.

I think it’s funny, like if we go back, we can start to draw threads in our life between people or experiences like that. Like even from that to, you know, to the, to the people that you said were sort of mentoring in the early two thousands and in the scene.

Anybody who steps up and sort of is willing to sort of put that check mark on your efforts and give those validation marks or sort of feel like, like the little signposts that [00:23:00] we hit along the way that kept us going.

Arlo Maverick: a hundred

Glen Erickson: Um, I don’t know if that’s has been your experience all along.

Arlo Maverick: Yeah. No, I would say, um, because what’s interesting is that, I get introduced to the idea of writing rhymes in church, um, when, uh, she was a girl at the time, but she’s an older woman now by the name of Debbie Carpenter. Um, her family was like the coolest family in the world. And so one day we’re in the back of church and she’s writing a rhyme and I never saw anybody do it before in my life.

And so me seeing her go through the process of writing the rhyme and like, she’s literally like scribbling things out and like saying, nah, I’m gonna say this, and so on and so forth. And I’m just like, wow. Like this is how it’s done. So me seeing how that process is done, I went home and wrote something and I. That kind of starts the whole thing. But the thing about though is that, as you said, those, those, uh, the validation you get on the way of you’re doing the right thing. And like having people like Kada Pennock, having people like Don Joyce who played a big role in the sense of [00:24:00] giving us like multiple opportunities to fall on our face.

Like we would as politic live at that point in time, we were known as straight lac. And so we’re doing these shows in which like, we’re now taking what Cada has taught us and we’re living it out in real time. And sometimes it’s working, sometimes it’s not. And then we have to go back to the drawing board and figure out, okay, what didn’t work, what did work?

But every time you got that validation, as you, as you mentioned, like all of a sudden it’s just like, I’m doing something right. So then you, like, you continue to build on that and that, does give you fuel to keep going because at the end of the day, like there’s so many people who give up along the way because, uh, and it’s not to say the validation is the only thing that motivates you, but. That can help you, and reassure you that you’re on the right path, that you’re doing something right, and sometimes in life we

Glen Erickson: Yeah,

Arlo Maverick: You know? Doesn’t matter who you are.

Glen Erickson: yeah, so politic live. Obviously didn’t stay regionally landlocked. You guys started to find some opportunities. You got to open for some tours, [00:25:00] you know, getting past and out, you know, we have our heroes. We sort of talked about that really quick, that inspire you to do the thing.

But I, I’ve learned in my life that it’s often seeing, like you had already, alluded to a somebody local who has done it. Like you saw somebody who got a Juno nom, you know what I mean, from Edmonton. Like, am I bound to stay in Edmonton, forever?

like how many places were there to play? Like how quickly do you need to start trying to get outside of Edmonton, to be able to do what you want to do? Like how soon did that happen? How easy were those opportunities for you? ‘ cause you, you need to get out of Edmonton and then get some of those validation pieces back to say, oh yeah, this works somewhere else too.

And that’s a huge step in a career. How, how does that happen for you trying to get out of Edmonton?

Arlo Maverick: oddly enough, our first out of town show, was in with Task Win. And us piling into a car, driving out to Aquin and performing to, uh, the place was called [00:26:00] Club 1 4 7 Billions, if I’m not mistaken. Uh, it was run by a gentleman by the name of, uh, Clark, and Don Joyce was one that connected us with those shows.

He was a promoter for that, that event. And now we were performing in front of an audience of people who we did not know in a, in a city that was like 45 minutes away. Right. And when you’re in your teens, that seems like a big deal, right? And then from there, from there, Kelowna, Victoria, and all of a sudden Toronto and Winnipeg, and we started doing all these things.

And it’s like the need to be able to, and this is where, where it’s tough for, Canadian hip hop in the sense that still till today there’s not enough outlets and venues for us to be able to go into other markets. And so you’re kind of. limited to the point where sometimes you have to go overseas or go to the us, so on and so forth.

But, we did have the opportunity to go into other markets, where we were able to not only just represent for ourselves, we represent for Edmonton as well too, because [00:27:00] most people don’t think there’s a hip hop scene in Edmonton. So we became ambassadors or flag

Glen Erickson: Yeah.

Arlo Maverick: you know, and as we’re going to these

Glen Erickson: Yeah.

Arlo Maverick: we’re getting people who are saying like, yo, that’s, you guys are pretty good, or, like your music, or whatever the case may be.

Now it’s just like, okay, cool. But then there’s still those people who aren’t one over it. And then you’re just like, okay, again, back to the drawing board, how do we win over the, these people? You know? And slowly but surely

Glen Erickson: Yeah.

Arlo Maverick: building your body of work to the point that when you go into these markets, people have heard about you through something else that you’ve done or, and keep in mind, like, and this is what’s so. and you could probably relate to this, is that as your career is growing and ascending, so is the world of the internet. And so with those,

Glen Erickson: Hmm. Hmm.

Arlo Maverick: you are seeing the growth in yourself, but you’re also seeing the growth of the internet. Because I remember when we had, uh, launch Star first website, politic lab.com, we had, uh, a movie player on there.

We had we had a message board on there. Um, we had [00:28:00] our news, we had photos, like we went all out. ’cause it was just like we had been studying websites for years and we’re like, we want this websites to be amazing and like that. In itself became a validation piece. ’cause now people took it seriously in the sense of like, wow, these guys have a website, they have their music in much, uh, in HMV, and they’re going and doing these shows in different markets and so on and so forth.

And as

Glen Erickson: Yeah.

Arlo Maverick: shouldn’t be what gets people behind you, things like that, get people behind you because everyone’s trying to set up a band, everyone’s trying to do music. So when you start showing that you’re actually serious about it, people start to take you more seriously. You know? Well, that’s,

Glen Erickson: Well that’s, that’s been part of the thing all along, right? Like you’ve been long enough for this career and I don’t know if people always realize just that that’s been the same story, just a different version. Like, it’s funny to me that you said that about the website, like now. We’ve already, I think we’ve already gone through it and we’re probably moving past it, maybe we’re not.

Where, like bands or artists that were quote unquote blowing up, uh, for one reason or another, [00:29:00] like you couldn’t get signed for. It felt like the last six, seven years, or the story goes unless you like, had like this massive influencer like following on social media, right? Like all of a sudden that became more important than other factors in the music.

Sometimes even probably true. So it’s funny that you said like a website would like tell people that you had, that you meant business, that you were actually for real. Because, because the, the gatekeepers, right? You run into ’em and you would keep hearing the rhetoric. This is one of the hard things about an aspiring artist is the, the kind of, the version of, it’s not just no, right?

Like I think the whole world knows like. The artist has gone through this life of hearing a thousand million nos, but it’s, it’s what kind of No.

Arlo Maverick: yeah.

Glen Erickson: That we’re talking about here, right? We’re talking about, the, no, like I don’t think you’re for real. Like if for someone to actually say, I don’t think like you’re actually, For real or taking it seriously. that’s a [00:30:00] hard one. That’s a really hard one to hear. And so, but the website one’s funny to me because like, we’re talking early two thousands and so you’re right. Like most bands didn’t own their own domain name. That’s the point. Like most band websites were something geo cities maybe still are.

Or some, some like, like version of somebody that started like, yeah. Where you could do some free website builder and it was, and it was awful. So any band that looked like they had the know-how or the time or investment to have like even their own domain name felt,

Arlo Maverick: here’s the,

Glen Erickson: felt like huge.

Arlo Maverick: We actually changed our group name because we couldn’t get a.com. ’cause dot coms is what, ma, what made people take you seriously? I.

Glen Erickson: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Arlo Maverick: we could. I’m just like, we need to get a.com so we end up changing our name in order for us to get a.com. how important like

Glen Erickson: Wow.

Arlo Maverick: at that time, you know?

Glen Erickson: It’s funny how that shapes stuff too. That’s crazy. ’cause now it doesn’t really matter. But you’re right. I, I’ve mean [00:31:00] that’s how I’ve paid my bills for my life, is learning how to build websites for people. And that was the issue forever. Right. It is like, it’s like, yeah, you’re, if you don’t, if you can’t buy a.com, you’re not like, it’s really kind of stupid.

It’s like how I was telling this story to somebody else. Like when I tried to release, I went to release a solo EP under the name Glenroy. And what I wanted to do was remove all the vowels so that like the brand right, would just be like these big, bold, just consonants. And when I tried to submit it to Spotify, because I’m not a proven artist, they refused it.

They refused it because my name’s Glenroy. But I was showing something different in the brand on the, on the cover art. They were denying the cover art.

Arlo Maverick: crazy.

Glen Erickson: I, I wrote back and I’m like, but what about MGMT? And they’re like, well, they’re MGMT. And I’m like, well, they weren’t always MGMT. Uh, yeah. Anyhow. So it’s funny how stupid things like that happen.

We had shot a music video for a song off of our first album. Uh, the album was called Notoriety. And the song was called [00:32:00] Precise. And it was like the song that when people heard the album, um, this is back in the days of CDs, people would skip to number 10 or they would get to number 10 and they’d be like, oh my gosh, and just repeat the song, right? So it became as song, it became so like, so popular to the point where people would be like, yeah, song number 10. They didn’t know the name of the song, right? It’s just like, oh, precise. So we shoot a music video for it. Uh, teaming up with, a couple students from NAIT. And in hindsight, the video wasn’t really the best.

Arlo Maverick: But at the same time though, we’re just like all excited. We’re like, yo, we’re gonna have a music video and we’re gonna put on much music. ’cause that’s how big music videos were at the time, right? And so we submit

Glen Erickson: Mm-hmm.

Arlo Maverick: and it gets denied, right? And then we’re just like, wow. So we shoot two more of the music videos with, um, NAIT students as well too, get denied.

They’re not accepting it. So then we team with, um. Michael Maxis and we film a music video which we shot in LA where I saw the matinee off of our second album, adaptation. And after we shot that video, like the music video did really well because it was shot on 35 millimeter [00:33:00] film. And so it’s getting and medium rotation on much vibe and light rotation on much music.

So people are seeing it pretty much almost every single day. And that gave us so much validation ’cause people were just like, you have a music video on much music, you know? And like, because at that point in time, like most artists, let alone hip hop artists from Edmonton didn’t have music videos. ’cause that was

Glen Erickson: Yeah.

Arlo Maverick: was reserved for artists who had labels or people who understood the video facts system. And that changed so much for us. And it’s interesting now because now music videos are things that people are like, don’t waste your time on them. You know, it’s like the art of creating music videos has been completely lost.

Glen Erickson: It’s too high a cost.

Arlo Maverick: Wait and no one, like, because of the fact that we don’t have to sit down and wait for. Music videos to come on. Our lives are so different now. I still believe in, in music videos and I still think that artists should create them, but I do understand why artists don’t want to make them anymore because it’s just like, you know,

Glen Erickson: Well, I mean, it’s, it’s a promo. It always was just a new way to promote the artist, [00:34:00] right? Like as soon as the format came around and somebody was willing to, you know, create a channel, so to speak, in the only place you could see the format, well record labels and, and the marketing departments were all like, we have to do this.

And then of course it became a race to the top of like, who could have the most crazy wild. Investment videos to, but the payoff was there, right? Like the payoff was there. And, and I agree with you. I still think it’s important, but we have all these other video formats now that people consume and it’s in a different way, like you said, it’s more immediate.

It doesn’t feel like, you know, like why would you, you know, invest $45,000 in producing, you know, a three and a half minute music video the way they used to. When people are getting way more engagement with people in, in very organic means through the various platforms that we all carry on our device.

[00:35:00] But the principle is I think very much the same. Right? Like, so you politic live about 2002, 2012. You guys go through that. That’s a certain, like everything you’ve been describing, that was a certain era. Right. And everybody listening, and you and I talking both know that the era is different now, right?

Like, so you release your first own own album as Arlo Maverick in 2016. So 2016 to 25 whole new era. Like, like, so you’re basically, you’re living in two different versions of what it means to aspire, and the artist. So let me, let me ask you first the question, like in between those two, like, and I know the dates that we can see aren’t always the exact dates.

So however politic live kind of wound down and shifted to you pursuing your continuing your pursuits, just under Arlo Maverick. [00:36:00] Was that, was that for you even playing? Were you still just I’m still moving along. I’m still chasing the same thing or. Was that a dip? Was that a, I don’t know if I have another chance at this.

I don’t know if I should keep going. I don’t know if anybody wants me to keep going. Like what were you going through sort of between those kind of major pursuits for you?

Arlo Maverick: Okay. So I personally did not want political at the end. my cousin, um, had recently gotten married was having a second child. And, being a parent and being an artist is not an easy thing because you have to give up a lot, on one end in order for you to, uh, be successful

Glen Erickson: Yep.

Arlo Maverick: end, you know? Um, and so with The Politic Live, uh, with Politic Live, uh, gritty, gave up a lot, and wasn’t able to spend as much time with his, his son as he wanted to.

His son was always around, but at the same time though, there’d be times where, be on the road or now we’re [00:37:00] focusing on recording, so on and so forth. So, as, we began to work, work on Ellipsis, which was the final politic lab project, he was about to have a, a newborn. He had recently gotten married, and so for him, he’s like, I think you should be a solo artist.

And I never wanted to be a solo artist. If you look at the.

Glen Erickson: Mm.

Arlo Maverick: from 2002 to 2012. we released politic lab albums. We also released like, uh, collaboration albums with the, with the label and Big and

Glen Erickson: Mm-hmm.

Arlo Maverick: solo projects. But I was the only one who didn’t have a solo project. And so he’s like, I think you should pursue this as a solo artist.

And I’m just like, okay. And then so I start creating this album and just my doubts and my fears anyone would want to listen to an album of me by myself. Like it really, plagued the album. Um, we also had some other things happen as well too that kind of just led to the album taking longer to come out because the album was supposed to be [00:38:00] released, 2014.

but yeah, there was just like a lot of things going on. And then,

Glen Erickson: Hmm.

Arlo Maverick: because I have a background in marketing, I wanted to make sure the album was right and applying the funders to make sure we can get the proper, like marketing budget, get videos, get uh, virtual performances, ads, and so on and so forth.

Like that took some time in itself. And, 2016 when it dropped, this is what’s so fascinating, is that it drops and it’s having all this success as an independent artist, but there’s still a lot of things that a lot of the goals that I had set weren’t actually coming to fruition. I’m just like, maybe it’s time to just like, just stop. And I remember, um, I was out in, Toronto for an aunt’s uh, birthday. The whole family had like a huge reunion and my cousin Chris was dropping me off at the airport and I actually went to his place and had a writing retreat to create maybe tomorrow. And so he asked me, so what’s going on with music?

And I’m just like, uh, [00:39:00] well, I. Maybe tomorrow’s out now it’s done good, but it hasn’t done what I expected it to do. And I’m kind of in a place where I’m not sure where I want to go. I’m like, there’s an opportunity that’s supposed to be coming up and I’ll, if it happens, then that’ll kind of dictate where things go. Lily, as I got back to Edmonton, within like maybe two weeks or so, found out that we had, or that I had been accepted to, uh, do a third party showcase, uh, that was attached to Madam, I got accepted to play Sundari Festa in South Korea, uh, up and downtown festival. and, north Country Fair. There was just like all this stuff that just like came in like shortly after that.

And I’m just like, okay. And we just powered through that whole summer. And that was my, again, the validation that you need. And it is, I don’t think I would’ve stopped entirely, but I think that I would’ve possibly just moved into more of a mentorship role and teaching what I’ve learned. But when those things began to happen, I’m just like, okay.

And then. So summer 2017 was just like so [00:40:00] busy for us. Um, and then going into 2020, uh, sorry, 2018 again, we started getting more notifications about festivals and overseas stuff, and it’s just like, okay, this album is finally doing what it needs to do. And I think that if there’s anybody out there listening, I think they have to be mindful of the fact that, you’re planting seeds and you’re watering them.

So give them time to get to where they need to be. Because if this would’ve been 2002, I wouldn’t have questioned. I like the album had only been out for a year, right? I know that was, uh, like, no, what was it? Yeah, it hadn’t even been out for a year. And, and like I was now having these, these, these doubts where it’s just like. And maybe it could be age, maybe it could just be the time period I was in my life. but had it been earlier in my career, I don’t think I would’ve had those doubts. ’cause it would’ve been like, okay, cool,

Glen Erickson: Hmm.

Arlo Maverick: we’re planting the seeds. Let’s see what happens. Let’s keep working. And it’s like, it’s not to say you stop working once the album drops, ’cause [00:41:00] that’s when you’re in overdrive, right? the

Glen Erickson: Yeah.

Arlo Maverick: it was getting was great chart activity in Canada and the US for campus Radio. It was doing really well. But we got to, but certain again, just goals that I had set and bench and like, uh, benchmarks or whatever you wanna call them, those weren’t coming through. And at that point in time I’m just

Glen Erickson: Yeah.

Arlo Maverick: did I fail?

But I,

Glen Erickson: Yeah.

Arlo Maverick: you know, but.

Glen Erickson: But, but you, you, it’s funny ’cause you just offered some advice in there, which is because literally in my mind, I was gonna ask you the question, what, what do you, ’cause you spend a lot of time mentoring people now in the city. I think it’s like, uh, it’s, it’s really. Really cool. And you’ve like, you’ve been a, a really great influence on a lot of people that I’ve just seen.

I’ve watched their careers and I’ve always known that you’re attached to a lot of people in, in certain ways. so you’re a big part of being able to offer really great advice and perspective. So I was gonna ask you [00:42:00] the question, like, what do you tell people now when they’re in that moment of doubt, as you said, when they’re not so sure because you always have some voices around you, like even people very close to you right?

Will be telling you like, maybe it’s not your thing. Like you had some fun for a while. Maybe you need to do your thing. And like, even specifically to how you sort of told that story. Relatable for me. You know, my band, the conversation. Around pizza the night we were pretty sure we were done. One of the predominant sentiments from one of the members was like, I don’t think it’s gonna happen.

Like, if some, if they were going to latch onto it, they would’ve latched onto it by now. And, and, you know, but you’re talking about believing in the seeds that you were sowing, right? So I mean that’s, is that, uh, is that sort of the common way you would approach somebody who’s unsure whether they should, and I’m not talking about people who [00:43:00] are just starting out and they’ve like, had two gigs and they’re asking your advice.

I’m talking about somebody who is like, tried to go through an album cycle, has tried to like do the whole thing, right. And feel like, is it, is it catching any traction? Uh, is there a next level or not for me? Like, is that, is there other aspects of advice you give to artists like that?

Arlo Maverick: one of the things that I’m, I’m very adamant on all artists doing is documenting their journey. Um, necessarily have to document it through video, but at least document it in the sense of what shows have you done, what songs have you released, what successes have those things had, so on and so forth. Because there’s gonna come a time, and it happens to everybody. Even the most successful person who will sit on a panel and be like, if you ever have to question whether or not you should be doing this, you should not be doing it like that. To me, that’s, that’s, that’s complete bs, right? Because as human

Glen Erickson: Yeah.

Arlo Maverick: are going to have those moments where we’re just like, should I be doing this?

[00:44:00] Right? And when those moments come, encourage artists to reflect upon what, on what they’ve been able to achieve, and just look back at that stuff and be like, okay, like I’ve come this far. Why am I, why am I quitting? And then also look at it from the standpoint of who in the marketplace do you most identify with? And look at their trajectory, look at what they’re doing and see if there’s ways that you could say, okay, hey, like they have accomplished this. What are some things within their journey that I can, take and apply to my journey to make sure that I can keep going? Right? Because sometimes it’s a matter of not necessarily just giving up, but just tweaking certain things, you know?

And so, yeah,

Glen Erickson: Mm-hmm.

Arlo Maverick: yourself with people who are going to, to encourage you and ’cause that team becomes so important. Like, if you have people who are always trying to find ways to get you to stop doing what you’re doing, then you shouldn’t be around them. And I, and I get it because [00:45:00] they’re looking out for your best interests.

But at the same time though, like maybe looking out for your best interest is them saying, Hey, you know what, like next time you have a show, I’ll be your birth person. I’ll help you promote the event, so on and so forth. Like, things like that, that encouragement helps you go so much further. But most people. sometimes I feel like it’s, it’s like a guilt thing for most people where it’s just like, well, I don’t want to go to the shows because I’ll have to like, hear you sing this song. It’s just like, then just don’t show up to the shows. But don’t discourage me from doing what I need to do.

Glen Erickson: Yeah. Like I don’t want to come and hear that song for the 10th time. but I’m, yeah, I totally get you. So, while you were talking about your own release, I. The 2016 and everything that you said was going on, you kept using the word we, which I think is really cool because we were talking about you in a, in a group setting, politic live, towards the encouragement for you to step out on your own.

Like others have their own sort of like [00:46:00] mc, creative like direction and they, and they take it. And so finally you do, and then you describe it to me, always using the word we, which because you obviously just. Stayed in the, I’m doing this as a collaboration mindset with people. I mean, that’s been pretty obvious.

I mean, if people don’t know, one of the unique characteristics about Arlo Maverick is you have live band shows, which is still not, you know, characteristic of a lot of hip hop acts and especially, you know, like the, they more rely obviously on the mc, DJ sort of live combination. Right. And format. So, but you’ve chosen not to, so I was wondering if you could just tell me for you, ’cause that’s just a unique version of collaboration.

I’m just wondering why that has been a big part of, of you and how you’ve chosen to grow your artistic career.

Arlo Maverick: Yeah. okay. So the, we is actually a lot more expansive than just the band [00:47:00] itself. Um, when I think about Arlo Maverick as a brand or as an entity, there’s so many people that play a role in this thing moving forward. I just happen to be the face of it, right? So whether it’s the people who help with production, whether it’s the people who help with, uh, video, um, in the by Natalie, my publicist, Juliana Capone, like there’s so many people who are, are helping move this thing forward on a daily basis.

Then as it relates to the band, it’s interesting because of the fact that I. It all comes back to Edmonton. and those earlier years just being at Cato’s place, um, there’s a gentleman by the name of earl.com, he now goes by the name of ott, just released a new project. Amazing. he was part of a group called City of Champs.

And so in City of Champs they had, um, OTTs or earl.com touch who was like a, a, a God to me Mc when I was coming up. ’cause like, just the way he rapped was just like so amazing. And, uh, Angeline Ted, who’s now part of CBC, [00:48:00] uh, and they were back by live band. And at that point in time, the roots were beginning to change the way people saw hip hop.

they played with

Glen Erickson: Mm.

Arlo Maverick: band and because they played with a live band, it gave a different energy and feel to the music they were making and made for a more dynamic show. And so. We had dabbled in playing with a band back in, uh, this would’ve been as early as high school. Yeah, high school. some friends of mine, one of my friends, Jeff Aba, uh, was just like, you rap, but you should have a band behind you.

And he was big into funk. So he like introduced me to Parliament, uh, Funkadelic and everything like that. So we played a couple Battle of bands with them as a, as a band behind us. But it wasn’t until seeing what Earl was doing that I’m just like, yeah, like, we can make this thing happen. And then shortly after City of Chance kind of, uh, dissolved, but then they morphed into the Hi phonics and, uh, Curtis Santiago was a huge hip hop fan.

So for him, he had, [00:49:00] he was a singer, but he also rap way before Drake, and had a live band behind him. And so this, shows were like, so dynamic and like, so, uh, engaging for an audience. And so we see this and. They, they kind of like come to an end around 2001 or so, right? And Sun Tribe is the next actor we see with a band, and they’re playing with super band at this time. And she’s like, okay, cool. But it was the ellipsis release party that, that whole band element was brought back to us and someone said, yo, why don’t you play with the band for the release party? We’re like, okay, cool. So from that point there, the way that those rehearsals felt, the way that the, live show felt, and the feedback we got from that, I was like, I need to make this just what I do.

And so from that point forward, I’ve worked hard at trying to create a band. And as you know, working with, with a, a [00:50:00] band in itself, like it’s for an mc who is able to like hire musicians. I’ve tried to create like a collective where it’s just like, these are my players, but sometimes that’s not possible.

But, As you probably know, when you’re trying to get multiple people to believe in something, it can come with a lot of like headaches and a lot of stresses because there’s always gonna be those people that in a band who are going above and beyond because they see the vision, they see what’s possible.

Then there’s other people in the band who are just like, Hey, like I’ll, I’ll do this for as long as like, I feel like I feel like doing it and I enjoy it. You know? Which it’s not

Glen Erickson: Yeah, there’s a big difference between the hired gun and someone like to cross over into the belief thing. Like you use that word like for someone to like believe in the bigger picture where they wanna buy in, where they’re not gonna look for a paycheck. Every single gig necessarily. Um, ’cause, because the, the cuts get really small if you try to keep divvying ’em out every time.

Um, yeah, that’s a big [00:51:00] difference to find somebody like that for sure.

Arlo Maverick: So the, the, the

Glen Erickson: Yeah.

Arlo Maverick: now, and it’s interesting because I’ve got an Edmonton based team of musicians who, um, believe in what I’m doing and see themselves as all of MAs band. But I’ve also started to develop something in Calgary as well too, with it, with some guys who, believe in what I’m doing.

And so, that in itself makes it a we thing because, uh, obviously again, I’m the face of, of this. I’m the one spearheading it. I’m the one doing most of the heavy lifting, but I can’t dismiss the lifting that’s done by other people who don’t have to be doing this. And sometimes they’re doing it just outta the love.

Like obviously

Glen Erickson: Mm-hmm.

Arlo Maverick: something that allows you to compensate people for their time, but sometimes what you’re able to pay them is not, doesn’t reflect what they’re worth, but you know that they’re worth more than that. But the to stay along the path and stay on the journey hopefully gets this thing to a point where it’s just like now. They’re like, yeah. Like it all [00:52:00] made sense, you know? I think that that’s,

Glen Erickson: Yeah.

Arlo Maverick: that most people, give up on before they get there. and it’s not to say that you can’t find ways to, create what you’re doing and, and enjoy what you’re doing,

Glen Erickson: Yeah,

Arlo Maverick: to be like this world famous person because there’s a lot of artists who are able to tour throughout the year and they’re living a modest life, but they’re able to do what they love.

Glen Erickson: yeah. I mean, collaboration from an outside perspective has felt like it’s a primary ingredient in hip hop from the very beginning compared to maybe some other genres like where it happens, but not what I would call, I. Like a primary ingredient in the same way. is that,

I guess I, I can’t ask, is that accurate?

’cause you’ve pretty much just answered that question by the way. You’ve sort of talked about your own, history, but I guess it sounds like you’re saying like Edmonton wasn’t a hard place to find collaborators for you either,

Arlo Maverick: Um,

Glen Erickson: which is pretty cool.

Arlo Maverick: the thing that’s so cool about Edmonton is that, so the city, for those who aren’t familiar with it, [00:53:00] is essentially divided in into three quadrants. You know, so we have north side, west end, and south side, right? There is, normally it talks about the east, right? Mm-hmm. And you’re from Edmonton.

You just know that, and it’s not, it’s not sectioned off like Calgary is where they have like their four quadrants and you could literally like not leave your section and still like live your day, day-to-day life, right? With Edmonton,

Glen Erickson: Yeah. Yeah.

Arlo Maverick: kind of forced to interact with, with everyone. And that that forcing is not necessarily a bad thing because I remember being in high school and taking the train from. We’d have to take the bus all the way down to, university, then take the train from there all the way down to Clearview. And once we’re in Clearview, it’s like now we’re meeting a whole new section of people and uh, this is all courtesy of uh, my friend Fabian, who had formed a crew called The Juveniles.

And so with that, we’re meeting new people, we can collaborate. Then we go over to the south side and all of a [00:54:00] sudden we’re there a guy by the name Dwayne Ricketts was like this ultimate like mc, freestyle battler guy, right? So now we’re connected with him. And so the ability to connect with people and meet new people and collaborate was never anything that we found difficult. Um, there was also, there’s a gentleman by the name of Stress who had a studio called Smash Bands, and with that he would produce music by artists and then feature them on his website. And this is. Somewhat ahead of his time when you consider the fact that this is like late nineties, early two thousands.

And so just by virtue of that, we were now able to hear, artists from our city over really amazing production. the mix and the master is, is on par for that time period. And so now we’re able to hear them in the light that we need to be able to hear them in, to be like, Hey, let’s collaborate and do a song. So if you look at it from live up until now, of work that has been released has had a minimum of like [00:55:00] four features on there, right? And this could be someone who’s

Glen Erickson: Mm-hmm.

Arlo Maverick: could be someone who’s rapping, someone who’s doing reggae on there. that’s just how, and even musicians as well too, coming into play and different producers where I think that, hip hop in itself is very much about forming a community to create the music. and Edmonton is no exception because even

Glen Erickson: Hmm.

Arlo Maverick: project, blue Collar, like had artists from Calgary on there, I had artists from Edmonton on there. I had artists from Atlanta on there. So the, obviously the internet has made it easier for us to be able to create where you don’t have to

Glen Erickson: Yeah.

Arlo Maverick: the same space at the same time.

But,

Glen Erickson: Yeah.

Arlo Maverick: collaboration is, is, is vital because in my opinion, I learned so much from working with other artists and even being in the studio with them. And I always say that a city, when we’re creating music, we need to have the best minds in the room, right? And that spans over every project I’ve ever done.

whether it’s politic,

Glen Erickson: Hmm.

Arlo Maverick: to now [00:56:00] trying to get the right people in the, in the room. Because if you have a, have an idea that is okay if you have the right people in the room. There’s a gentleman by the name of Uzi LA who has been a collaborator with me for a number of

Glen Erickson: Mm.

Arlo Maverick: He could take an idea that I have and make it so much better.

You know?

Glen Erickson: Great voice too. Great voice.

Arlo Maverick: voice.

Glen Erickson: Yeah.

Arlo Maverick: voice. And so when you, if I was of the mindset of I have a monopoly on ideas, I don’t need to get anyone’s feedback. And sometimes it could be a, sometimes it could hinder you ’cause you’re like, you want, you want to get everyone’s opinion. But at the same time though, it’s like, having the right voices in the room, having the right ears in the room can

Glen Erickson: Yeah,

Arlo Maverick: from an idea that was okay to being something where it’s just like, I think we’ve got something here.

You know?

Glen Erickson: Yeah. And I, I like the way you described that, uh, Marlin, because I think outside. Observations sometimes, especially in more current days, the use of the feature on tracks felt like influencer culture [00:57:00] sometimes, right? Of just, I’m putting this person on because they have some clout right now. Or they have, you know, some kind of currency with their name and, um, that misinterpretation like could possibly erase what really is going on, which is what you just described, which is people in, in geographical areas, finding each other, subcultures, finding each other, like putting each other on things and sharing all of that space, not just for what you described on how the right person can actually, artistically.

Take what you’re doing to another new place, which is, I think the most underlying amazing part about collaboration period, right? As artists, is how that can happen. But in a bigger picture about community, the way you’re talking about, how I think like hip hop’s been doing that way before everybody else of like giving everybody a leg up by [00:58:00] participating and collaborating.

I did wanna ask you actually, because I’ve alluded to this a number of times about my assumptions have been wrong, and I’ve been a guy who’s been like waist deep in the music scene in my community for a long time in Edmonton and then beyond over the last 25 years. So I would probably, you know, overzealously go a lot of places and say like, I know.

Everything that’s going on, or I know a lot of what’s going on, or I’m, I’m at least in touch and yet I’m not in, I’m clearly not in touch. So, so I wanna ask you a couple questions just because what we’ve alluded to, Edmonton actually was a place of opportunity was, you know, um, was hip hop a strange thing to pursue here?

Did you feel like you had to go to Toronto? There’s all those kinds of typical questions, but I’m a little bit curious. I, I think it’s important for me to ask because [00:59:00] just the way I’ve been talking about is a little symbolic of, like privilege and the, the way that you don’t know privilege, meaning.

That you don’t know, you have the blinders on when you are the one who is assigned privilege. There’s just the very fact about it until you finally have somebody show you. Um, and I know like you released a song in, in 2021 called Black Every Day, and you had a pretty potent line in it about your privilege as a weapon.

And it’s killing us, man, like I think is how it went. Um, which is pretty incredible now. I mean, anybody could be like, there’s a lot of obvious like, uh, fodder for material to write that song that you wrote. It’s just in the world around us. But I’m curious what it was happening particularly for you to write that song, because you’ve wrote a, a lot of songs with a lot of subject [01:00:00] matter that one got really potent and I it’s powerful and I’m curious, you know, beyond just.

The things that are, don’t touch us. Exactly. Personally. What were the things that were actually touching you to write that song?

Arlo Maverick: Well, if you look at the, again, just like politic lives till now, like as it relates to racism are something I’ve never shied away from. I try to approach ’em in a way that that allows for people to understand the black experience, especially being black in Edmonton. you had mentioned the need to leave and go away, for the genre that we create for, and that was something that, that had, crossed my mind when I was younger.

What made me stay was the fact that I didn’t want, didn’t want a generation coming up after me to have to go through what we had to go through in the sense that

Glen Erickson: Mm-hmm.

Arlo Maverick: no infrastructure, there was no, industry that was built for hip

Glen Erickson: Yeah.

Arlo Maverick: r and b or reggae, which are traditionally black genres to be, to have [01:01:00] success in Edmonton.

And I’d seen artists have to leave the maximum definitive, had to leave, quick trouble, had to leave. quick trouble. Uh, when you talk with some of the guys from that, that group, they said that there would be, banners around the city that would say, no rap, no crap. You know, and this is, this is Edmonton.

Which is so weird in the

Glen Erickson: Mm.

Arlo Maverick: we have, are good and are bad. Right. and so as it relates to being an artist, there have been cha challenges. There have been hurdles, and I’m aware of them. I try not to make that the. Be all, end all. I try to look at it from the standpoint of there are those challenges, but how do we, how do we change things?

How do we find, how do we change things on our own, but also find allies who can help us change those things, right? So as we fast forward to black every day, climate of what was going on right during the black square time period and everything like that, and that’s what essentially

Glen Erickson: Yeah. Yeah.

Arlo Maverick: in a sense that I’ve seen a lot of people who were posting black squares.

I’m just like, but I know this is not [01:02:00] who you are. I understand that there’s something that’s going on right now, and we were all moved by it. The whole fact of like the George Floyd situation, and many people have said that he would’ve died

Glen Erickson: Yeah.

Arlo Maverick: so on and so forth, but we all saw someone have. A knee on their neck as they’re like crying out for help. And the po, the police officer had no care whatsoever. And there the lack of humanity in that, I think moved a lot of people to be like, okay, well what can I do differently? But the unfortunate thing is that it shouldn’t have to take a, a scene like that.

And the theme was that because it happened during the pandemic and we were all forced to like be aware of what was going on, a lot of people were just like, okay, well we need to make a change. But the, I have another line in that song where I said, guilt is an emotion that you can’t trust. ’cause it comes and goes like a man’s lust.

And so a situation like that, it’s like we can’t just be this moment saying, okay, we’re gonna do something. But then two months later, all of a sudden we’re just like, well, I, I did my [01:03:00] part because this is a lifelong that whether it’s black people or Arab people or whatever, people have to go through.

This is a lifelong thing. And it’s not to say that white people don’t have. Hardships or anything like that. But there is, again, as you said, a privilege that comes along with not having to face certain things or being at least aware that like, hey, like this person here, this police officer when they’re pulling me over is, ’cause maybe I was driving bad or maybe I was doing this, but in a situation which black person, like it might be because I was driving bad.

It might be because I forgot to hit my signal light, but it might be for something else. And I don’t want to judge every cop as being someone who is racist. But, but for me to say that it doesn’t cross my mind when a police officer pulls me over and all of a sudden it’s just like, where can this possibly end up?

those are real things that go through your head, right? And so,

Glen Erickson: That’s the exact thing. Right. I’m never, ever gonna have to, [01:04:00] that’ll never cross my mind.

Arlo Maverick: Yeah.

Glen Erickson: Right. Like that’s the difference clearly.

Arlo Maverick: I.

Glen Erickson: Like on that point.

Arlo Maverick: percent. I think that having these conversations are always tough. There’s a, there’s a song that I have on, um, soul Merchant called Colorblind, and in the last verse it talks about an interracial relationship where the, the couple is now about to have a child. And the man is now like, we’ve never had the conversation about race, I’ve been afraid to bring that conversation up because I wasn’t, I didn’t want to offend you and I didn’t want you to, to see it as just

Glen Erickson: Mm.

Arlo Maverick: it off. But in those situations, you have to have those conversations because we may see the world from a colorblind lens, but that, that doesn’t mean that the world is gonna see this situation from a colorblind lens. Right. And so if we’re not

Glen Erickson: Yeah.

Arlo Maverick: at, at least, Having that dialogue, um, because there will be differences.

There will be things that, that people don’t understand. And that verse was actually inspired because I was dating this, [01:05:00] this, uh, Italian woman. And when I, when I brought up the whole thing, and we were dating around the same time as Trayvon Martin. And so I was talking about,

Glen Erickson: Mm.

Arlo Maverick: talking to her about the whole Trayvon Martin situation and saying that, well, if we ever had a child, like these are realities that we’d have to talk about with our child. she had rolled her eyes and I was just like, I was just like, oh my gosh, you don’t get it. And after that, after that, like she saw like how much that affected me, and she was just like, wow. Like I, I apologize. And she did the work, as they say, in the sense of trying to understand and do reading and so on and so forth.

And trying to be more empathetic because it affect her. But if she were to have a child, that’d be something that would affect their child. And like telling her child that like, racism doesn’t exist or anything like that, like. all of a sudden you have a, a child who’s both black and white now looking at their mom saying, you don’t get it.

You know? And that’s the worst thing in the world that

Glen Erickson: Yeah.

Arlo Maverick: happen if your parents don’t understand what you’re going through, you [01:06:00] know?

Glen Erickson: Yeah. Uh, well first of all, I appreciate you sharing all of that. and those are absolutely killer lyrics by the way. It kills. Like it just kills me how well those land so perfectly. and, uh, you know, like, I guess why I had an interest in asking about this, a because like Edmonton just seems like a unique place to talk about.

You know, trying to pursue hip hop to me in general. And then I realized that part of that, like how much of that is just my unfortunate lack of perspective and, and insight and vision to what is literally around me and in my backyard happening. Because, just because of those things. And, but I grew up like so uniquely, like I grew up feeling like racism was an American thing, right?

Like I grew up, like the first time I had to be confronted with like, some serious questions was like on Fresh Prince of Bel Air [01:07:00] type thing, you know what I mean? Like, like that’s like, it was, but it was framed in Hollywood, right? So however deep it was or however, whatever version of that is, however much impact we were gonna be shown, like that was a Hollywood, that was an American

Arlo Maverick: Yeah.

Glen Erickson: thing that didn’t feel like it was our backyard, I thought.

Where I grew up in Western Canada, I’m like, I think we’re tolerant. I think we’re not racist. Like I, I had never was brought up, ever being told I had to feel a certain way about any color. Right. So, but I also grew up not having a single black person in the town I lived in for the first 12 years of my life.

So

Arlo Maverick: You’ve never

Glen Erickson: it takes me until I’m in my f until I’m in my forties to understand how deep that is in blinding me from seeing what reality was. I had no idea. So me just being able to be comfortable saying I’m not racist was still a [01:08:00] massive blinder. I felt. I think one of the things I, it’s, I can’t call it a regret because I don’t have any specific thing to hang it on, but realizing later in life that the younger version of me probably missed opportunities to be an ally.

Arlo Maverick: Mm.

Glen Erickson: Right. And be supportive because. I was comfortable in my privileged version of, of things and I, I guess so. And realizing that it exists in Canada, it exists in Western Canada. It exists big time in Edmonton. so I guess one of the questions I do have, ’cause I would love to know personally and I would want other people to realize is like, where, where does that kind of gatekeeping still exist in the music industry?

Arlo Maverick: Wow. I, that’s a loaded question because there’s,

Glen Erickson: You don’t have to name names. I’m not trying to put your career at risk. I swear

Arlo Maverick: and I, I don’t think

Glen Erickson: I

Arlo Maverick: I think you are, but it is, it’s one of those things where the question becomes, where do [01:09:00] I start? Right.

Glen Erickson: Mm. Okay.

Arlo Maverick: many years ago, wow, where do I start? Consider this, there’s opportunities that have helped develop, artists, from the, from folk to rock to pop. And typically the people who are fronting these genres are not black people in this city or in this province. And so the level of support that is, uh, and opportunities that are provided to those artists, are ones in which, you know, that there’s gatekeeping ha gatekeeping happening.

Right. the unfortunate thing is that there’s a, a lack of infrastructure that allows for, um, black artists to be able to have the, the accolades or the accomplishments or, or the success that we see our white counterparts have. Right. And so for many years, the, it has been the topic of discussion and some organizations have, have done. [01:10:00] Things to, to help improve that. Right? I know Alberta Music, I work closely with them, um, in order to like help, here’s the thing, if you are an artist who is in the rock genre, there’s a good chance that you will have access. If you have talent and someone’s able to notice that there’s going to be someone who is a manager who’s gonna come along, who’s gonna be like, okay, let’s take you from here to where you need to be.

Right? And that person there is gonna have a whole ecosystem that’s surrounding them, allows them to take your career to where you need to be, right? they’re gonna have access to grant funding, they’re gonna have access to information that allows them to, uh, navigate your career, so on and so forth, right? is based off of systems that have been in place that have allowed for, these things to exist, right? And so I. There’s again, just that infrastructure that’s already in place as it relates to someone who’s creating black music, infrastructure is not in place. Because if, [01:11:00] my publicist right now is Juliana Capone led of the publicity, right?

I, she is a Jewish woman. She is amazing, right? she has helped me grow this thing here and I consider it to be part of my team, right? However, other hip hop artists reggae artists or r and b artists, she’s one person, right? How many of them are going to have the access or the ability to get someone on their team that’s gonna be able to elevate

Glen Erickson: Mm-hmm.

Arlo Maverick: where they’re at, right?

Or even have a booking agent. You look at most of the, the booking agents across Canada, like they’re becoming more diverse. But at the same time though, they’ve also not tried to look for, Hip hop, r and b or reggae or black artists per se. Right? And part of that comes from the fact that there is no or ecosystem for them to actually be able to help that artist develop their career.

And that comes from a system that has long said, we’re gonna get behind rock artists. We’re gonna get behind pop artists, we’re gonna get behind folk artists. We’re gonna get behind [01:12:00] country artists. Like there’s so much funding that’s put in the country. And I know I’m gonna ruffle feather when I say this, but, there was an initiative a few years ago that was based around helping develop, uh, based artist that all of a sudden decided they were just going to go to country music.

Right. And with that, a lot of artists, not just black artists, but a lot of artists, period, were just like, wow, like how much more funding do we need to put into country music? And that’s why country music thrives here in this country and in this province, you

Glen Erickson: Well, Marlon, let me say, because what I was thinking just before you said that, which it usually still always comes down to the excuse and the reality, and I don’t know where that line is blurred of where the dollars come from. Right. And that’s what I always heard my whole life, right? So it’s like, why does someone keep building or why does someone keep pouring into and pumping into the rock or the folk or the country, like, uh.

Like, yeah. [01:13:00] Like they do it because they’re like, well, we’re pretty sure

Arlo Maverick: gonna win.

Glen Erickson: we can create success and, and there’s gonna be dollars. Yeah. We’re gonna win on the other side. And they’re not willing to take a chance. Or they’re like, and so the, the gatekeepers are the ones who aren’t willing to take the chances.

And you, you just identified the specific one, which I literally led the charge on, which was the Project Wild, the Peak Performance Project, I’m assuming you’re probably referencing, which again, went back to the fact that this was a radio funded initiative because, uh, radio stations who needed, to start a new station in Canada, you had to make a seven year commitment of what’s called CDC funding.

Canadian content, CCD, sorry, Canadian Content Development. And it was a. And what I learned through it is how much radio stations resented having to spend 700 grand a year for seven years.

Arlo Maverick: On

Glen Erickson: Um, you know, on local, on local content development in where they [01:14:00] are as a part of the agreement to giving them a license in a city.

and so in Vancouver, they developed that. They turned it into a contest to satisfy the radio people. Uh, so they gave away all those big dollars, which was awesome for the artists who won it. And then we tried to the, sorry. We, the, the, provincial Association tried to turn it into a, also a development program.

So you’re right, all this opportunity. So it comes to Alberta and it was all a radio and dollars choice. Peak performance project was based on the peak, which was, AAA format. It was called out of, uh, that they had been successful in Vancouver. They tried it in Calgary. They didn’t get through 18 months, I think before they did what radio always does when they are all of a sudden at the bottom of the rankings and not making advertising dollars.

And they flipped a format almost overnight to country, which in turn flipped our development program [01:15:00] to country. And you’re totally right because I mean, uh, he’s not a black artist, but Transit from Calgary who is a rapper and, actually finished in the top three and earned the money in the second year when it was Peak performance project.

and he was an outlier to, in that genre, even to get in. so you’re absolutely right and it’s money driven, right? The gatekeeping seems to still come down to money and whether people are willing to bet outside of what they’re used to.

Arlo Maverick: here’s the thing though. last 2023, in Kelowna, there was, a panel that was held in regards to breaking out racial barriers, which is the organization that, works with different, provincial music industry associations across Canada to help them with, anti-black racism, so on and so forth.

Right. now a conversation was had about the Rascals because the rascals in the late nineties and the early two thousands was producing numbers [01:16:00] that we had never seen before coming outta Western Canada and even outta Canada as well too. And they were a hip hop act that was, uh, on BMG. They’re, they’re managed by Saul Guy and they’re doing amazing things.

Touring, like just really making some headway. And you would assume that companies would be like, okay, there’s a market for this. Let’s start investing more money into this. But they don’t fast forward to Drake. Drake comes along and completely, uh, becomes this mega star is a hip hop artist and is from Toronto, we still have yet to see. labels, or even just Canada as a whole, say, okay, let’s find ways to develop more of this talent within hip hop. Then you look at, we’ve had Julie Black, we’ve had Deborah Cox, we’ve had countless artists of different genres that, again, would be considered to be black genres, and yet there’s no funding put into it.

And if we want to look at Edmonton Cadence Weapon, 2005. Kfab

Glen Erickson: Yeah.

Arlo Maverick: [01:17:00] a international success, yet there was no

Glen Erickson: Yeah.

Arlo Maverick: put into developing, Canadian content within the city. Here you fast forward to day. We have Arden, who is a hip hop mc, originally from Beaumont, but now living in Edmonton, he’s signed to a label underneath TDE, which is Kendrick Lamar’s former label.

This is a big deal. Yet there’s been no effort to actually say, Hey, let’s put more resources here, because there’s something happening forever Friday. Uh, that was huge doing tracks with artists who are. Are assigned to big labels in the us. He was doing this back in 2000 and uh, 2022, and yet we don’t see more funding being allocated or more resources being put into this.

And so the, I hear what you’re saying in the sense of like them saying, well, we have to invest in what’s gonna be successful, but there’s been countless prea, Turner, Ruth, b Noella, Charles, uh,

Glen Erickson: Yeah. Yeah.[01:18:00]

Arlo Maverick: like the list goes on of artists who have actually done great things. And yet, it was here, here’s, here’s one thing that’s that’s interesting is that you could have a white artist who could have more success doing black music in Canada than a black artist will ever have outside of Drake, outside of the weekend, so on and so forth.

But see this happen. Especially in Western Canada over and over again, where if it’s a black artist, not

Glen Erickson: Hmm.

Arlo Maverick: the time or effort or resources put into developing them. And even if we wanna talk about CCB funding, back when you and I were back on Albert of music on the board there, that’s what I realized and found out that the balance had money that was earmarked for developing, hip

Glen Erickson: Yeah. Local talent, they had to, yeah.

Arlo Maverick: of that was communicated to the whole community. So here we are. Most artists weren’t applying

Glen Erickson: Yeah.

Arlo Maverick: because they weren’t aware of that. And so that is another form of gatekeeping [01:19:00] when you hire people to be in these positions that are supposed to develop the talent. But those people don’t care about developing the talent.

And then people just assume that there’s nothing going on here. But we often put people who don’t care about the culture of the music or the, the, the, the lifespan of the music. In order in places that, that will then dictate the lifespan of the music.

Glen Erickson: Yeah.

Arlo Maverick: So like

Glen Erickson: So like, that’s a really, that’s a bunch of really good points. I, just to be clear, I, in case it came across wrong, I wasn’t defending, I don’t want to defend that, that flip. No, no. I know, I know. I just, I’m, I’m choosing to be clear.

Arlo Maverick: I

Glen Erickson: I, I know, you know me. I’m choosing to be clear that that flip to that country thing was like a radio station doing what a radio station always does, that they didn’t, they didn’t care about the development.

I. Program, they cared about flipping their thing, and if we were gonna continue the development program, you got, [01:20:00] we had no choice. Like, it’s like you’re hand handcuffed, which is one whole thing in the industry that you could, like rabbit hole on and talk about. But the way, but your response by the way, was fantastic and eye-opening for me because I haven’t thought long enough about the fact that there have been incredible groundbreaking things that have happened in our country for black music that have not seen the ripple effect to support and to funding and to the removing of gatekeepers and to the actual investment, across the board That you’re right, that you would see if it was a different kind of artist right.

Doing some of these things. And there’s just a history to, to obviously prove it. And I just hadn’t thought about it. So, And my door just flew open like a ghost. Um, that was weird. So, know, I appreciate you giving me that insight. I told you at the beginning, I don’t [01:21:00] expect you to have to step up and be the spokesperson, uh, in this way.

I don’t think that’s a fair expectation. I’m always sensitive to asking that question, but I appreciate it because like I said, you’ve been in this for over 20 years, not just as I’m trying to make it as an artist or get my music out there, but you’ve, as you’ve clearly shown, invested in the community around you and building it and had the opportunity to see not just your own roadblocks that you’ve had to encounter, um, but you know, the heartbreak of seeing people around you who perhaps deserve a better shot or misunderstood or not given opportunities that.

It should be given or appear to be given. And you know, and as quickly as you’re telling me all that stuff, Marlon is, as quickly as my brain is doing the math and saying, you’re right. I can’t think of how many initiatives I know have popped up. [01:22:00] You know, very specifically in the last 15 years. Like, I, like you, you mentioned, I’m sitting on the board, like I remember being on the board with you.

It is maybe 2008, 2009. We take this initiative in Alberta because maybe it was 2007 even. ’cause people were still thinking these download cards was like the way to promote your music. If you remember, like you would digitally put your MP threes on a a card that then, I can’t even remember how that would get read onto your computer or something to listen.

Phones weren’t the thing even yet to listen to all your music. So we were going to make a compilation of Alberta artists, like I think we had made CDs before now we were gonna make these download cards to promote Alberta artists. You know, as a, a provincial association, and I remember Dragonfly Empire from Calgary was like really busting out at the time, and it was important.

We wanted to get them on there. And, and here’s what I can remember about that. And, and [01:23:00] sincerely, I probably should also frame it this way. Sincerely, I look back at that as one of my first experiences to having my blinders getting taken off. And maybe that’s why I hold you in such high esteem. ’cause I, I tie that all back to you, Marlon, like your, your gentle, like this sounds almost very Canadian, right?

Your humble tenacity in, in being a presence and a voice and saying the right thing. I think from that point on in my life, I always was empathetic. The fact that we need to have all the right people around a table. When we make decisions, right? That it wasn’t just, that was long before the diversity inclusion rhetoric, became sort of commonplace.

Like that was long before that. But, you know, you were, you were an influence on that at the time of how we promote and include that. And I’m a little disappointed and I’m probably gonna have to go back and do a [01:24:00] lot of Googling now to, to look more into just how little has happened despite, you know, people making great waves.

And, and this kind of just goes back to me saying that it felt way too easy when I thought about it to realize that, you know, I can think that we’re doing okay and that it’s not a problem as much here as in other places in the world. and then I hear things like that and I’m like, yeah, that’s not true.

I gotta stop. I gotta stop believing what. You know what I think I’m seeing and start listening. So I appreciate you putting all that out there and sort of laying down that sort of, yeah, laying all that down. It’s like this, it’s really good.

Arlo Maverick: no,

Glen Erickson: Appreciate you.

Arlo Maverick: man. Thank you. Um, I think that in situations like that you do have people who are trying to become more involved in what’s going on and like, um, Alberta Music, um, may have been like their first like black board member, right? And so from that point on, they’ve had other people who are a part of it.

Right [01:25:00] now, Noella, Charles and and Rochelle are part of the, the board. So

Glen Erickson: Uh.

Arlo Maverick: to like be that perspective, especially with them being black women because that in itself, that whole inter intersectionality right there does present, uh, challenges as well too. But we as diverse communities have to be included, in order for, and we have to like. Play a role in and take the, take the step to be included. But at the same time though, like we can’t just be token people. And so when I was on the board for Alberta Music, it wasn’t a matter of being just, Hey, he’s a token black guy. Um, it was a matter of me like finding ways to, fight for, uh, hop r and b reggae, you know, because, if I’m in the room and I’m just like, there just to be a body, then there’s no point in me being there, right?

And so,

Glen Erickson: Mm-hmm.

Arlo Maverick: yeah, the, whether it’s that or other initiatives, ’cause even with the, the whole CCD funding, with the bounce like that, that doesn’t [01:26:00] happen when you have a black person or a person of color involved in the decision making who then says, oh,

Glen Erickson: Yeah.

Arlo Maverick: much

Glen Erickson: Yeah.

Arlo Maverick: for artists from Alberta with Factor. And I know that these guys are making music and need to get that out there. That’s not gonna happen. But when you have someone, whether they’re a white person or a person of color who doesn’t care about artist development, because if you don’t make good music, people will tell you to go back to the drawing board.

And sometimes you don’t have the

Glen Erickson: Mm-hmm.

Arlo Maverick: to make the music that is able to compete. But then when the same radio station is denying you from getting radio play is also the gatekeeper for the resources that you need for your music to actually become better. Then that’s the problem. Because if

Glen Erickson: Mm-hmm.

Arlo Maverick: concerned about developing a scene or developing the artist from the scene, then they shouldn’t be the ones responsible for communicating that message.

And that’s, that’s the [01:27:00] thing that’s probably the most disturbed thing is that that is simply communicating, to the people who you know, are, key people within that community being, or even just going to Alberta music and saying, Hey guys, like. We’ve got the CCD funding, we’re not connected with the community. can you help get this message out to artists from the community who would actually fall under these guidelines so that they could apply for the funding? The Bounce didn’t do that. The person who was in charge didn’t do that. And so I remember, I think it was year six and it was a seven year, uh, promise, and by year six, no hip hop artists in the city had applied because at that point in time, if you were a hip hop artist applying or reggae artists or RB artists from Alberta applying for Factor, likely you weren’t gonna get approved because either gonna go to Toronto or Vancouver. But it was earmarked for us and not, that was not communicated to us. And that was a huge travesty. And, and to me that is a [01:28:00] reflection of the system that’s in place that is not doing what it needs to ’cause reverse the rules. Okay. And you have money that’s earmarked for country music artists in Alberta. That is going to be communicated to managers, artists, radio, so on and so forth, because they want to see that

Glen Erickson: Oh, they all know it. They all know it. For sure. I know them all. They all, they’re all well aware where all of that is coming. You’re right. Yep.

Arlo Maverick: to, to

Glen Erickson: Yep.

Arlo Maverick: r and b or reggae, it’s just like, well, if they find out, then they find out and it’s up to them. And, and to me, that’s, that’s not the right attitude to have because it, it’s no different than elections. When people want your votes, they’ll show up to your, to your churches, they’ll show up to your barbershops, they’ll show up to your, to everything possible, your school,

Glen Erickson: door.

Arlo Maverick: and they will communicate with you, Hey, we need

Glen Erickson: Yeah.

Arlo Maverick: But when you need something from them or if they’re supposed to communicate something to you that once they have your votes and have their position, all of a sudden they see it as well. If they really wanted it, they would’ve found out about it. It’s just like, no, that’s, let’s not do that.

Glen Erickson: [01:29:00] Yeah. Well, let’s, let’s be really clear about the landscape. ’cause I, I, I wanna be really clear about it and I think everyone listening should be clear about it. There’s one entire conversation we could have about, with something that’s wrong in the industry between a, a place like radio is still has a very large part to play in artists and they’ve, it feels like almost all but completely disassociated themself from the local scene being a part of local exposure development, anything.

Right? Because as I was told with the country, radio and state and Calgary, after it flipped within a year, the agreement where they would play those top 12 artists in the program on the air, they stopped playing ’em on the air because they didn’t want to risk someone changing the station, overhearing an unknown.

Calgary country artists even once during six to six or even six to 11, I think the primetime reporting hours. So,

Arlo Maverick: That’s crazy.

Glen Erickson: but, [01:30:00] but here’s, here’s the fact. Like, so that’s one whole problem we could just talk about that has never been dealt with. And I know people at the very top of these radio stations, uh, like the radio companies who don’t love, they have to continue to fund factor like long after, apart from C, c, D, they have to, they pour money into factor and stuff, and they feel like they don’t even know what that money’s doing.

They have no say in it and they don’t like it. Now, based on all the things we’ve been talking about, I don’t know that I want their say in it. But the other part of the landscape I wanna say, and it’s sort of what you were alluding to is like in Edmonton and other places may have done this like for a while.

Some of the stations had this program, remember it’s called the 10 K 20,

Arlo Maverick: yes,

Glen Erickson: and it was like they were gonna get 2020 artists were gonna like get 10. Yeah. Roco 10 K towards recording a record for like 20 different artists that supposedly fit in some format, of course, that they would play on their stations.

And, and like you said, project Wild was a country, it flipped [01:31:00] into a country base, but before that it was AAA format. That’s like an adult contemporary like, uh, alternative, uh, adult alternative kind of station format. So someone could easily try to draw this line right between, well of course they’re in their own best interest and survival, which is all of this.

It’s not the CBC, right? It’s not public money. It’s like private money. It’s like we have to win, we have to succeed. These grants, if they’re gonna support our local community, also have to reflect us. So the first argument you would think is like the bounce, like how many stations at a certain time were playing.

Like black music playing hip hop or anything. But let’s take a look at that now. Like, like black music is driving so many stations, right? Like, and so many formats and that that hasn’t really changed, like take apart the side that almost no stations wanna get [01:32:00] involved in local development. But the, it’s such a bullshit argument because yeah, they’re not like the, like the music’s there.

Like they, you know, they should be developing and funding the thing that’s giving them success, I guess is what I’m trying to say. And they’re not.

Arlo Maverick: if I were to look at, the success of Drake the Weekend Lanes, just to look at those three artists there, right? I would try to repeat that on multiple locations, and if three of those people came from one country, I’d be trying to scour to find more of those artists. When I look at something like

Glen Erickson: Yeah.

Arlo Maverick: b,

Glen Erickson: Yeah.

Arlo Maverick: okay, where are the artists from that, like 2008 REIA Turner had, if I’m not mistaken, the most played song in either Canada or North America with, don’t Call Me [01:33:00] Baby. why would you, as a industry, whether you wanna look at it from the, uh, radio stations or the labels, why would you not be trying to do more of these contests? To try to find more artists like Turner who half black, half white? Ends up competing in this, in the Bounce Showdown, ends up creating Bounce would be, which became a huge hit.

And then she had multiple hits after gets signed to a record label. Like to me, it should have been a no brainer in the sense of like, let’s find more talent. But when it happens within the

Glen Erickson: Yeah.

Arlo Maverick: or the country genre, the labels, the radio stations, they go to find the next, the next one when it happens

Glen Erickson: Wait, Seattle, Seattle in the nineties, right? Like the whole thing. And then like, look at, at, uh, indie Rock and Canada outta Montreal, uh, arcade Fire and a whole bunch of the bands and Wolf Parade and stuff coming out in the two thousands. Like, you’re right. People were like, oh, [01:34:00] like all of a sudden anybody who was playing the same

Arlo Maverick: So

Glen Erickson: genre out of those geographies, you’re right.

Like it totally happened. Yeah. Yeah. okay. Well that’s, uh, I appreciate that. I know that that’s, uh. Obviously, probably close to your heart also requires a little bit of vulnerability. Uh, I appreciate your trust in talking to me about that, knowing that I’m also gonna broadcast this obviously to a lot of people.

this is what I’ve always really appreciated, uh, about you, Marlon, like, so I love the work that you do. I already alluded to in community building, either whether it’s you’ve, like, you sort of hinted towards like you’ve gotten into filmmaking and even documentary and use that as a, a platform and a and, and an artistic expression to draw proof telling out in your own way and those things, which is amazing.

you’ve been like, uh, a grant writer who’s probably pushing close to a million dollars of, [01:35:00] of people who you’ve written grants and helped, uh, grant writing to access funding over this career. Like that’s an incredible number. incredible success. In building support, like an artist who I think, uh, I’ve been watching for like four years out of Edmonton Moraine, who is so, so good.

And just seeing, and just knowing the work that you’ve, like, the support that you’ve given a person like that. And then see their, career takeoff, just all these great examples. I, I think that probably if I did this in every major city in Canada, we’d probably find the community builders. And I just really appreciate, I think that I know you personally, I know Edmonton’s Community Builder.

I didn’t say at the start, I’m wearing your hat. Um, um, I’m, I’m, I’m, I’m repping the only way I seem to be able to know how on this thing is wearing your hat, but, uh, I remember even when I [01:36:00] got it, it was important to me. I. Anyhow, uh, we’ve gone way over the time that, uh, I had expected to, but I just wanna say how much I appreciate you and all the work you’ve done, because obviously anybody who’s been listening to my podcast, it just can’t help but be very Western Canadian, uh, themed and perspective wise and particularly, I’ve decided to spend some time with people who I think are in my own backyard, who are incredible career artists.

and you’re one of those guys. So I appreciate the time that you’ve taken to kind of talk about your career and some of these different, uh, particular aspects of it.

Arlo Maverick: No, thank you. Thank you. we definitely went way over, but at the same time though, it’s a good conversation and I appreciate you, uh, touching on subjects that might make, whether it’s your audience uncomfortable or just people hearing it uncomfortable. But I think that we need to have these conversations and I think that there are, we’re at a time period where, we can’t just say things.

We have to actually, do [01:37:00] things to create change. And that’s for people of color, that’s for, for women, that’s for just this whole music industry. Because at the end of the day, like the best thing we can do is create those opportunities for, allow us for. That allow us to have the best music out there and having gatekeepers, having roadblocks, having people not have access to information or opportunities, doesn’t do us anything good in the long run.

So, yeah.

Glen Erickson: yeah, yeah. It would be really easy for me to have a podcast full of guys that look exactly like me, like I know a lot of them, but, um, it, it’s not, yeah, it, it really matters to me, uh, to not be. That person or that podcast. so, you know, but the more important and next thing is like to have to actually get to have this conversation.

So, yeah. Sincerely, again, I appreciate it and, uh, I’m looking forward to new music. Uh, I’m glad we started there [01:38:00] talking about you in the studio and the next album. and just the fact that you’re still doing it is so good. Like, a lot of people would say, I’m too old for this shit. And you’re,

Arlo Maverick: I got

Glen Erickson: you aate Well, I was, I was gonna say, you look the same as, again, maybe this is again, I’m, I’m old enough that I, uh.

I don’t know, aren’t seeing things straight, but you look the same to me as you did 15 years ago. So good on you. Anyhow, but I love the fact that you’re still, I still love the fact that you’re creating your art and pursuing it, and you’ve found all these different ways to keep a career in music, like, like you have.

And, thanks for everything you’re doing, bud.

Arlo Maverick: thank you. Thank you.

Glen Erickson: Yeah.

Arlo Maverick: for this podcast. Thanks for

Glen Erickson: Okay.

What are you talking about? You’re nervous. What do you mean?

alexi: I’m just playing with you.

Glen Erickson: Oh, okay. What

alexi: Mom’s trying to yell at you.

Glen Erickson: or some what

alexi: we’ll

Glen Erickson: earth.

alexi: out. Let me go [01:39:00] tell mom.

Glen Erickson: Oh, now, now I really have to edit it out.

Uh, okay. So. rolling it back. Uh, we’re talking, um, with another local hero to me, a guy named Arlo Maverick. the conversation went a little bit longer. We got into some things which I had asked him in advance if it was okay if I asked questions about, you know, where I.

Diversity things are still not cool and evidently still out of, uh, alignment despite people’s perceptions even like mine that Oh yeah, I think things are better.

alexi: I

Glen Erickson: And

alexi: was,

Glen Erickson: just,

alexi: no, that’s my comment too

Glen Erickson: I

alexi: like that I thought things were better. Um, when you kind of were saying that, and now I’m gonna interject, but I was gonna say,

Glen Erickson: no do it.

alexi: It was really interesting to me that it was basically like the con, the conversation in my mind, he’s able, he’s so thoughtful.

He was able to identify like

Glen Erickson: Mm-hmm.

alexi: the music [01:40:00] scene in Canada is like evolving and I think that’s what most people in or out of the music scene like can identify like,

Glen Erickson: Mm-hmm.

alexi: it’s like it’s evolving. And then, I think it’s really interesting that he’s able to identify within that like where the steps back

Glen Erickson: Mm-hmm.

alexi: being taken.

And so like when you guys were talking about like, country music being kind of taken more seriously and taken for, um, growth and like growth of artists and growth of like a music scene. yeah, I was just like

Glen Erickson: Yeah.

alexi: with. His like thoughtfulness as a person and like, I’m sure it comes from his experiences, but just still like to be able

Glen Erickson: Yeah.

alexi: everyone probably around him to be like, look at this great program.

Look at this. Get up. Like it’s evolving the scene in Canada, it’s like giving opportunities and for him to be able to like identify and like call out the fact that it’s like, it can be something that’s like evolving while also being a step back for a different community is just like.

Glen Erickson: Yeah.

alexi: very like profound ability.

Glen Erickson: Yeah, I agree. Which is why I felt pretty confident asking him to [01:41:00] speak to it, you know? Um,

alexi: the last thing I was gonna talk to you about was I feel like I’m in a, I, I don’t know how this happens. I feel like I’m in a dry spell with new music again, it’s like the second, third time already in 2025.

Glen Erickson: Like, I’ve had these like, oh, this new, I don’t know. Is there anything new? I’m, is there something I’m missing? Am I just too busy and not paying attention?

alexi: I don’t know. I’ve been

Glen Erickson: Is it just a slow year?

alexi: maybe it’s a slow year. I’ve been in

Glen Erickson: I.

alexi: weird. Like, I don’t even know how I describe the genre I’m in right now because when I get into finals, I need to listen to things that are

Glen Erickson: Your genre has sounded like Zach Bryan

alexi: when I cook

Glen Erickson: all the time after school. When I come back after work,

alexi: Okay, okay. But that’s ’cause there has been some new artists emerging in the kind of country pop country scene, but,

Glen Erickson: do they all sound like Zach Bryan? And that’s how I can’t tell the difference.

alexi: But

Glen Erickson: Oh, okay.

alexi: aside from that,

Glen Erickson: the, who’s the guy you? Who did you play 18 times in a row?

alexi: oh, uh, Evan Honer.

Glen Erickson: Evan Hoener. Okay.

alexi: Because he has, [01:42:00] um, that was the one that take me as I come. And then also Bo Alec, those two sound very similar.

Glen Erickson: Well, you’ve talked about, yeah, you’re right. I thought the first time you played, I. the Evan dude that it was the bo dude, so I, that, that says all that right there.

alexi: know what I’ve gotten into, and it stemmed from finals, this playlist I made was trying to like,

Glen Erickson: You have to say it. We’re not a visual podcast yet.

alexi: playlist 63, because I couldn’t come up with a title.

Glen Erickson: Oh, you made your own. I get it. Sorry, I thought you meant this playlist. Like, okay.

alexi: the same. Like if you listened to it, start to finish the whole four hours, whatever it is, you’d be like, yeah, this is like curated. Well, like these are all the same, like same energy, whatever. But I can’t place my finger like the

Glen Erickson: I love the confidence. That’s great.

alexi: soul jazz, like neo soul something.

Glen Erickson: What,

alexi: And it’s like.

Glen Erickson: you’re not even 20, I don’t think you get to use the word neo in front of anything yet. I.

alexi: but like what it’s giving and I don’t know, [01:43:00] it’s like super

Glen Erickson: Okay.

alexi: listening to, but it’s something I don’t wanna put you on because I know I would play it for you and you’d or

Glen Erickson: What do you mean I scoff? I’ve never scoffed at anything you’ve done yet. Except, except that when you start listening to jazz that your boyfriend influenced you on. That’s the only time I scoff. I know. Uh, that’s fair. That’s fair. But since I, I thought since I don’t have any new music to push on people myself,

alexi: to

Glen Erickson: I should do.

alexi: release?

Glen Erickson: What?

alexi: Like do you have the release.

Glen Erickson: No, it’s so, I know, but that seems so like overly curated. It’s like listening to a, like a mainstream radio station to me of them just, here’s the latest single put out by somebody’s big label who’s paying for all the promotion.

alexi: what then?

Glen Erickson: You know how, I don’t know why.

alexi: Maybe

Glen Erickson: I’m just like,

alexi: that. ’cause mine’s like.

Glen Erickson: well, that’s me. I’m a little, that’s the old jaded punky in me coming out saying I don’t like anything.

The man tries to tell me I have to listen [01:44:00] to, but I should, I should be better than that. I, um, well, I thought that since yours has what?

alexi: like it’s been like popping up some nice songs for me lately that I’ve been able to deep dive into some new bands.

Glen Erickson: Okay, I’ll try to not like spoil that youthful enthusiasm. I thought since I didn’t have anything that I would take the opportunity to at least remind people we’re going into. We’re in April here, we’re heading into May. Uh, when this comes out. Um, that, past artists like the one you just mentioned, Robin Cizik has, uh, released another single that people could go and check out if they enjoyed her conversation and what she does.

And going all the way back to the og, uh, Dan Mangan has been releasing a couple of singles coming out towards his, the full length album in the fall, and he will, he will be on tour around Canada and I know he hits us. In September, I think at some point, yeah. So people can pay attention and they should keep an eye [01:45:00] out for that if they haven’t already.

So a couple, couple weeks in a row of my backyard, hometown heroes, which has been pretty cool. So, uh, that’s it. That’s all for tonight.

alexi: Okay.

Glen Erickson: Okay. Bye. Thank you. Love you.