Spotlight Music Series

Spotlight Music Series- Susto

>> just last week, fox aired the i heart living room concert for america, a collaboration of a list talent for the front lines of the covid 19 pandemic and to raise money for food banks.

With thousands of events canceled, musicians across the globe are doing what they can to bring their artistry into your home.

We're joined by our a list musician, justin osbourne, susto, and good to have you today.

>> thank you for having me.

>> so you're skypeing from where?

>> i'm at my parent's house, my wife and daughter and i just made a two-week quarantine and made the trip up to stay with my family, and we're staying away from crowds, and staying safe as possible.

>> heeding the advice of professionals and how are you making it through as a musician?

You're probably used to and long to get in front of a large audience once again, and how are you making it through all of this?

>> it has definitely been a change.

We had a lot of tour dates lined up for the string that we canceled and the first few days, it was like what are we going to do?

And we started brainstorming and we came one the idea to do an online concert series, and i've been doing that so far, and other than that, i've been being a dad.

Usually i'm on the road, so my wife is home and our daughter is in daycare, but my wife is a teacher, and she's teaching from home and our daughter is home, so we're trying to enjoy the family time, but take it as seriously as we can, and be safe.

And just be pre cautious.

>> that's what you have to do, so this online concert series, where did you get the idea to do something like this?

>> ized seen people do it before, even before the pandemic, and my friend of mine, bj barnum, american aquarium.

And i had seen him do shows on a platform, stage it.com, and as i saw people canceling tour davis and doing instagram and facebook live and all of these things, i knew people were doing those concerts, and for me, i wanted it to be something that was more than just a live stream on-air thing.

I wanted to make it thematic and i thought about it for a while and i decided to break my catalog into four he themes and i've chosen a platform, so four 45-minute shows, and each has a theme from the catalog, and the one i just did was on love, love songs.

It was really great, after two and a half be weeks of being quarantined to get in front of a digital crowd.

It's something that i thrive on.

It has been fun, but something that we have had to figure out along the way.

>> how are you doing this?

Are you as a solo artist putting on these concerts or do you collaborate with other musicians to put them on?

>> so far, it has just been solo.

And i'll continue to be in quarantine and performing solo myself.

And so it's not as fun for me as the live show with the band.

But luckily, my bandmates are taking the unemployment and everybody is doing their thing, but for me, it's the way to bring the songs to the fans, and the last show we did was just me solo, but i'm going to do this thing to the remaining shows where i have an opener, so what i'm going to do with that, before the stage show, i'm going to do live on instagram, and my friends, they're going to do a few songs to digitally open up the show, and we're trying to make it as normal as possible, but give people a nice enjoyable piece of entertainment that they can have on their home.

>> it's ingenious, and how many dates do you have?

About a handful up to easter sunday.

>> yes, right now, we have three more, and the first one is sold out and the upcoming one is on this saturday and it's sold-out.

>> let me just interrupt you for a quick second.

And we are talking about an online concert and how do they get sold out?

You would think that it would be exponential.

>> in theory that's true, and when i was thinking about all of this, i was thinking, i'm broadcasting this from my home and telling stories and opening up, and i kind of wanted to limit it just for my own comfort ability.

It's a lot of people to bring into your home though they're not physically stand in there.

This is fantastic, and you do have a few more dates coming up that are not sold out just yet.

But the tickets are going quickly.

And i'll put it on the social media pages.

Thank you, justin and keep you