Rocking the Milwaukee Music Scene Through Independent Promotion with Allen Halas

[00:00:00]

Tim Melanson: Hello and welcome to the Work at Home Rockstar podcast. Today’s episode, we’re talking to another musician with a promoter, actually. And, uh, so we’re talking to the owner of Breaking and Entering and the co-host of the Su of the Hustling Sideways Podcast. And what he does is he’s got a website that covers the Milwaukee music scene and they feature, uh, and showcase independent artists and book concerts that feature them.

So I’m excited to be rocking out today with Allen Halas. Hey, Allen, are you. Ready to rock.

Allen Halas: Yeah, absolutely. Thank you so much for having me, Tim. Appreciate it.

Tim Melanson: So we always start off here in a good note. Tell me a story of success that we can be inspired by.

Allen Halas: Yeah. Uh, this summer has been a, uh, this past summer has been a really good, uh, note to start on. We, we did a ton of shows that we booked, um, but we also did our first time at, well, one of the first times at, uh, the Rave, which is like 4,000. Person, venue in Milwaukee, um, which is, we have never done that before, anything of that magnitude.

So that was huge. Um, we also got to [00:01:00] have one of Jay-Z’s producers come in for, for an event that we had this year. Um, and he came in as a guest judge for this beat battle thing that we do. We’ll talk a little bit about that later. Um, but this whole summer has been like a really, really good run for us this past summer.

So, um, lots of, you know, exciting things happening for sure.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. That’s awesome. There’s some big names. So that must’ve been, that must’ve been super cool to get that, uh, to get that kind of person involved, right.

Allen Halas: yeah, definitely. It was, uh, it was a new experience ’cause you’re working on just a whole different level. Um, but it was exciting for sure to be part of it.

Tim Melanson: Wow. Right on. So now we always talk about the good note and the bad note. ’cause sometimes things don’t go as planned. And, uh, I’m wondering, can you share with us something that didn’t go as planned and, and how you recovered from that?

Allen Halas: Yeah, for sure. Um, so, uh, basically to make a very long story short, we used to do monthly concert series, um, in Milwaukee [00:02:00] at like one venue every month kind of thing. And, uh, pre COVID we were doing pretty well. We were booking pretty consistently at venues, getting good crowds and things like that, uh, during COVID, our venue shutdown that we were going to.

So we started bouncing around to other places to try and find like, okay, where could we do a couple months here? A couple months there. Um, so we landed on one venue that was like right in the center of Milwaukee, really accessible to get to like a busy neighborhood. And we did, we booked, like, we coordinated for like six shows, six months back to back.

And they tanked and they did not do well at all. Um, so, but we were already committed to them. So like the next month, you know, we would come in and then, uh, we’d eat it a little bit and then we’d come in the next month after that, you know, do everything that we could to promote it and then eat it a little bit just because it wasn’t a regular, like music venue.

Um, but it’s a place that we do events. They had an event space and a stage, so we were like, oh, we can make something happen here. Maybe not so much

Tim Melanson: Yeah. [00:03:00] Yeah. Wow. Okay. So what happened then?

Allen Halas: Um, so to get back at that, I mean, like one thing that we, we’ve really focused on now is, uh, it also made me kind of rethink about how we are doing shows instead of doing multiple months in the same place.

Um, there’s a lot of really great music venues in Milwaukee. So why not be at all of those places, right? Like what we do is we’re a website that covers the entire city of Milwaukee original artists that are making music. So that should be reflected in how we do our live events. Um, so we changed up our whole process to say like, okay, we’re gonna do one month at this place, and then the next month we’re gonna be somewhere completely different, and then the next month we’ll be somewhere completely different.

Um, I also made a checklist of all the things that I need to do to promote a show. You know, what event calendars does this need to be on? What advertising do I need to pay for, like. What do I need to do in order to make this as, as successful as possible and not feel like I dropped the ball somewhere along the line?

So, um, and it’s worked and it really, I mean, we saw the impact, you know, like I said, this past summer.[00:04:00]

Tim Melanson: Wow. What, what made you decide to do this business in the first place?

Allen Halas: Um, so I’ve always been involved in music locally since I was probably in high school. Uh, I, I started off, I really got my start making beats for hip hop producers or for hip hop artists in Milwaukee, I should say. Um, so I got my start making music, and then from there. Uh, always wanted to be in a band and just never really had the opportunity to do it.

I mean, me and my friend would jam in our basement, but that was about it. Um, so, but hip hop was accessible ’cause all it needed to be was me being able to make it on a computer and send those beats off. Um, so stayed involved in music from then on, uh, in college, I, I had a radio show with a friend on student radio that we were gonna, you know, we always had Milwaukee music involved with that.

And then the long story short is he was a psychology major. I was a, a communications major, so we split off, but I kept the website, uh, and so used it and started [00:05:00] using the website as a place to showcase, you know, Milwaukee artists and talent. Uh, this was like 10 years ago. So this was like the blog era of how you discovered music.

And then it just kind of evolved from there. And I was like, well, I could, I could make a go of this and really try to have a, uh, viable media outlet in Milwaukee, um, to just focus on music, which is something that was kinda lacking in the city honestly, other than, you know, the, the newspaper that had to cover Milwaukee artists, but they also had to cover one big touring acts were coming into town, so they were spread thin and some of the other entertainment outlets weren’t as prevalent at that point.

So it, there was a, an opportunity and, uh. I’ve made the most of it, and I’ve made it kind of my baby from here on out, you know?

Tim Melanson: Wow. Yeah. ’cause I find that a lot of, um, I mean there’s a lot of focus on like, the big, the, the big Taylor Swifts and all the big, big people. But what about the local people? Right. You know, they don’t really get the same type of attention unless they’re, you know, on one of those big labels. Right.

Allen Halas: Yeah, exactly. [00:06:00] And for, I mean, my main job is I work for on Milwaukee, which is the, the largest digital outlet in the city. And so when things like that do come to town, I get to go cover it for that outlet. But then I’ve learned to like, take the local things and put that on my site. And there’s a very good communication between the two that we’re like, okay, there’s, there’s a way to, to do this and specialize with just the local, original artists in Milwaukee on my site.

Um, and then the bigger stuff goes there.

Tim Melanson: Wow. And so what has been the, um, the response, you know, both from the artists and also from the, the fans? Like, has it been good, you know.

Allen Halas: Yeah, actually, um, so the nice thing about this has been really when, when I started the music scene in Milwaukee was drastically different. There’s a lot of people doing really good things, but they were happening kind of in pockets all over the city. And once our site. I mean, a, a number of other things happened, not just our site, but a number of other things kind of happened that [00:07:00] really started creating a community around music in Milwaukee.

Um, so what we’ve been able to do is help foster our local scene and make it somewhere that, you know, if you wanna discover a new artist. Like we are the place to go now, which was not always the case, but people have been really receptive. We get tons of artists sending us music every day, um, sending emails in to us, sending in dms to me and like all sorts of ways to, to really reach out and be like, Hey, I wanna be featured on this site.

Which is a cool problem to have, right? That, you know, there’s more, more supply than we can actually give out there for, for music. But, um, yeah, there’s no shortage of amazing people doing great things here and, and I think it’s really a byproduct of everybody being able to like discover one another on my site.

Tim Melanson: Hmm. So then how do you decide who gets on the site and who doesn’t?

Allen Halas: Um, we’re really, really open with things. We really try to, um, basically it just comes down to time if I can get as much music out there as [00:08:00] possible, um, you know, if there are artists that have a little bit more cachet in Milwaukee and or have they, they have their name out there a little bit more like that does tend to get a little bit of a priority because you.

Ultimately, at the end of the day, you wanna get traffic back to your website, you wanna get clicks back. But we’re also really good about trying to break new artists and, you know, get people’s first project out into the world. Right. Like that. If we can be a signal boost for that, like that’s great. Um, so it really just kind of comes down to, you know, whatever I can get to in the amount of time that I can get to it, for sure.

Tim Melanson: Yeah, that makes sense too, right Now what, uh, I mean, maybe this is an awkward topic, but what if you don’t like the music that, that is coming in, or, you know, you don’t think it’s very good?

Allen Halas: Sure. So when, I mean, we have plenty of music that comes in that is not my cup of tea or it’s just something that I, maybe I don’t get it or maybe I just don’t like it. Maybe it’s not that great. Um. I try to, you know, most of the time, honestly, if, if it’s not good, [00:09:00] I don’t write anything negative about it, I, I just don’t cover it.

Um, or if I don’t think that people are gonna really resonate with it, like, I will admit there’s a lot of like weird experimental music that gets made that is like, ’cause we have stuff like Band Camp sends us, uh, will send us, you know, new releases and things like that. And so I try to check those out.

But if it’s a band camp release that’s like 10 minutes of field recordings and it’s listed as music and it’s a little bit harder to, to justify like, how do I get that across to maybe a pop or a hip hop or a rock audience. Um, so those things kind of weed themselves out, but not saying that there isn’t room for something like that.

Um, so, but rather than being negative, I definitely just am like, we’ll just not cover this one and then keep eyes on that person, you know, going forward.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Yeah, that’s a good way to do it. Right? And I mean, I imagine that, um. Because, I mean, music is so subjective, right? I mean, sometimes it might not be my cup of tea, like you say, [00:10:00] but you know, if they start to, you know, gather an audience and all that stuff, well then you sort of like, oh, okay. All right.

So there are some people that that want to see this, you know, that probably gets bumped up, right? I imagine at that

Allen Halas: Oh yeah. And that has happened already before where it’s been something that, where I’ve been like, ah, I just don’t, I don’t get it. I don’t see it. But then they’ve developed a presence outside of my site and I’ve been like, well, I do need to, I do need to cover it, right? Like it’s important for, you know, it’s now a gaping hole if I don’t have that in our, our, our sphere of coverage, right?

So you start covering those things and then try to get the story from that. And it brought a whole different audience into our site too, which is great. So.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. That’s awesome. Yeah. ’cause I mean, it’s, it’s funny ’cause we, um. You know, back, you know, 50 years ago or whatever it was, you know, you, you really had to impress some sort of executive suit guy in order to get your music out there. And, you know, there are these gatekeepers and they decide what’s good music and what’s [00:11:00] not good music.

And now you’re actually that suit in a way. Where, where like you’re kind of going like, eh, I don’t get it. Right. But I, I, I think the difference though now is that, uh, back then you actually had to get that suit to look at your music in order for anything to happen. Now, you know, like you say, you can put it on Bandcamp.

You can actually start to, you know, get that suit to notice you, right.

Allen Halas: Yeah, totally. And I, I know that there are people that are, you know, I’m, I’m connected to like the radio people and some of the promoters and things like that in Milwaukee that are like the bigger, like festival promoters and things like that. Like there have been people that. Are higher up in the chain than me that have already said, Hey, we found somebody on your site, which is great.

You know, that that kind of is like a little pat on the back for me to be like, Hey, your, your website is doing something for someone. Um, because they’ve definitely paid attention to and had eyes on that. Um, I just actually went and got, uh, got some drinks with somebody that works in radio [00:12:00] and she was saying to me that you’re a good self-promoter.

And I was like, I’m really not trying to promote myself. I’m trying to promote, you know, this wave of talent that is happening here in Milwaukee. And I was like, I just didn’t know if you even know about our site initially. And she was like, oh, I’ve been getting your emails for years. And I was like, oh, okay, perfect.

You know, like that. That’s great to know, like, um, that what you’re doing has an impact.

Tim Melanson: That’s awesome. Uh, isn’t that cool how that works out too? Like when you try. When you’re not really trying to promote yourself, you’re promoting yourself even better. Right?

Allen Halas: Right. Yeah,

Tim Melanson: interesting how that works. Uh, okay, so I’ve got so many, like different analogies with music and business and uh, you know, practice is one of ’em that comes up quite often.

And I mean, in music it’s, it’s obvious. I mean, you, you can’t, you gotta go to the gig practice stuff, right? But what does that mean in your business? Like what, what does practice mean to you?

Allen Halas: Sure. Um, so that actually kind of. Details into my story, like breaking and entering has ultimately been practice for [00:13:00] my real jobs. You know, um, long story, like I worked in a, I worked in a bank for seven years. I was in their marketing department while I was building this website, and so it, during C-O-V-I-D-I made the switch to working on media full-time.

Uh, got a job with a magazine here in Milwaukee and was their music writer. Um, and ultimately jumped into my current job. You know, from that magazine into my current job at Milwaukee. But that was all because my background, even though it was in communications and digital media, my background in writing and publishing and all that, I learned a lot of that running my own site and running my own business.

And I think it gave me a completely different understanding of it than like somebody that would come in from radio or TV into the digital media world because I, you know, I, I had to wear all of the hats for a little bit and say like. Okay. I write for the site and I have to create the content for the site, but then I also have to figure out how to make it, you know, money off the site.

Um, [00:14:00] what do I need to do? Like what is the importance of like pushing to social media and what’s the, you know, importance of learning all these different platforms and how things work best on each of the individual platforms. So it really has kind of like sharpened the knife for me, I guess, kind of thing.

Or steel sharpened steel or whatever analogy you wanna use. Like, um, there was no way to. Do it other than to just go ahead and do it. So that’s what, what running, breaking and entering has been, has been. Just practice. And there’s also like things within the own bus, my own business that has like, you know, taught me how to, how to do things.

By trial by fire kind of thing. Um, I didn’t know how to book shows initially. I didn’t know how to make money from shows initially. So, um, you know, just learning it over years and years and years of doing it and, and being repetitive and figuring out what I wanna do next, um, has really just kind of just honed all of my abilities.

Tim Melanson: Wow. And learning from the mistakes, right.

Allen Halas: Oh yeah. Lots of [00:15:00] mistakes. So many mistakes along the way. I don’t think anyone has ever had a show that hasn’t, where something hasn’t gone wrong. Like it’s very rare for us that we have one or you know, a show where everything goes right. Um, so you know, when that happens though, it feels great and you know it.

Tim Melanson: Yeah, absolutely. So, okay. Uh, I mean, like music, especially these shows, I mean, you’re, there’s so much risk that goes into it and, you know, you’re, you’re, you’re having to rent places probably, you know, you’re, you’re doing so much and if nobody shows up, well that’s all on you, right.

Allen Halas: Right.

Tim Melanson: And so I imagine you’ve, you know, you’ve gotten through some, some of those mistakes, but, so now how do you get the fans to show up to these shows?

What’s your, what’s your strategy on that?

Allen Halas: Sure. Um, social media is huge for us. So for, for starters, I think it does start with building a good rapport with the venue. Um, we don’t necessarily rent a place in the sense that we do it other than we pay for production, uh, which is like your sound [00:16:00] guy for the night. A lot of venues have their own sound guy.

But as far as getting people to come to the shows, um, having a website is great because we can run our own ads for free on the website and people are already coming to that. Um, but we also, like, we’ve built an email list. We’ve built an extensive social media following. Um, we get on, like that’s where having a checklist of all the things that we need to be, like, we go to the different community website calendars where people are gonna find out how to, you know, what they wanna do this weekend and we post our events there.

Um, it has literally gotten to the point though now with social media where you have to hit somebody on a one-to-one basis, right? Like. Even an email that gets quickly disregarded. So like if it’s a show that we have coming up, this last show that we did uh, a couple weeks ago, I was literally DMing as many people that I could from our Instagram account and just being like, Hey, this is this Friday, please come out.

Here’s the ticket link. You save five bucks if you buy these tickets ahead in advance instead of getting [00:17:00] at the door, like sending them that link and getting that out as far as possible. Uh, just because you have to literally. Like for the big Hip hop week show that we did, we had to text people. Like, you have to literally get your message out as direct as possible to somebody now, which, um, wasn’t always the case, you know, like we still do paid advertising and things like that, but however I can get my message out, I’m gonna get my message out and I have to get it to you, the, uh, the concert goer.

So I will do that at any cost I guess.

Tim Melanson: Allen, you know what? I’ve noticed the same thing when I’m, uh, booking my shows. I, I, you know, you really do have to like message people and, you know, it’s, it’s, uh, the, the good news though is that, uh, you know, 20 years ago, whatever it is. You probably had to pick up the phone and, and call somebody or go see them, right?

So now, you know, going into your dms and, you know, drafting out a probably [00:18:00] fairly scripted message to a bunch of different people is so much less time. Right? So you can do that, but it is that work, right?

Allen Halas: And being able to, you know, copy and paste and say, here, here’s the ticket link. And not, Hey, I gotta call you and hope you show up on Friday and pay your ticket at the door. You know, like that helps too. Um, it does help when you know that you’ve sold a few tickets ahead of time to be like, okay, there’s a little bit less anxiety about the show, knowing that some money has come in from it, at least.

Tim Melanson: Right. Okay. So then what’s your strategy on, on ticket? Like do you, do you pay more at the door? Less at the door, more like how does this whole thing work for you?

Allen Halas: Generally I try to do, uh, that is at least $5 cheaper in advance for a ticket. Um, so that, and usually the venues are very cool with that. Um, the point being, it helps me to be like, okay, if, you know, if we’re $250 that we have to spend on production, if 25 people buy tickets, we’ve broken even. By the time I get in the [00:19:00] door to start the show that night to set up, which is great.

Uh, so that is my goal then is, you know, just get to that break even point before the day of the show. And if that means I gotta DM a bunch of people, email as many people as possible, I’ll do that. You know, so that we can get to that goal of like, break even. Anybody that comes in the door that’s profit or goes to the bands, obviously.

Tim Melanson: Love it. That’s awesome. Now, do you use, like, you know, whatever Ticketmaster or Eventbrite, like what, how, how do you, how do you get those tickets out?

Allen Halas: Uh, generally Eventbrite for us, if it’s us putting the event together, a lot of the venues have ticketing partners, which is great. Even the local, like independent venues have a certain ticketing service that they use. Um, so that helps us too, because once we have the ticket link from them, you know, we’ll send that out to them.

Um, but we always, like, if it’s an event that we’re doing, it’ll be Eventbrite and then we just use a, an app to kind of track, you know, sales and things like that.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. And do you pay the [00:20:00] fees and all that stuff or you get the the customer to pay the fees?

Allen Halas: No, I, I eat the fees on that, you know, generally if it’s me throwing it, the venues all have their own policies as far as like, you know, if it’s a $10 ticket it might cost you $13 in advance or something like that. But if we can say $10 in advance and 15 bucks the day of the show, like, great. Um. And honestly, we also try to keep our prices fairly low.

When I started, we were doing $5 covers to get into to a bar and you know, it was like a a hundred person capacity bar and I was like, five bucks. And then we’ll split. Like we didn’t care if we made money at that point. We were just like, this is a promotional thing for the website. So it was like. The bands will split the money from the door.

The venue will get all the money from the bar, and we get to put our, our logo and advertising all over the place for the night and take over a bar. And, you know, hopefully that translates to more people coming to the website, which then leads them to learn about the next show, which leads them to learn about whatever in Milwaukee.

So [00:21:00] we looked at it as purely promotional to start, and now we make a little bit of money on it when we can, but not a lot.

Tim Melanson: Do you think that people, uh, people see your events as like, okay, I’m gonna follow this event maker ’cause it’s always gonna be a good event, or do you think that they’re very individual to the bands themselves? Right.

Allen Halas: Uh, we try to make it that they, you know, they like breaking and entering and like our shows, you know, um. I think initially that was how it worked. Now they’re a little more loyal to whoever we pull out to bring out for the show. But one thing that I pride myself on is being able to have the best production possible.

Um, so we do a beat battle, which is like, think of like eight mile, uh, but instead of people rapping at each other, they’re making beats and they play a a minute beats. Back and forth at each other. We also have hip hop artists that perform at that show, and we do it at a place that is an event space, but it’s normally a restaurant until 8:00 PM and then after that it becomes an event space.[00:22:00]

So I have to make that the best looking stage as possible. So I’m sitting literally next to a trunk of lights that I bought and like mixers and sound like wireless mics that I, I bought because I wanna make sure that I have the best produced show as possible that I can bring to that event space. So, um, that is, I think the difference is that, you know, we want people to see, hey, every time I go to a breaking and entering show like.

I actually really like this show because I like the experience of being there. I like, you know, knowing that it’s gonna look good, it’s gonna sound good. So we try to pride ourselves on that. It’s gonna run on time, which is huge, you know?

Tim Melanson: Oh yeah. Yeah.

Allen Halas: to make it the best, the best experience that we can make it.

Tim Melanson: Well, so, but that sounds expensive and it sounds like a lot of money up front. Like how do you decide what’s a worthwhile expense, you know, knowing that you might actually lose money.

Allen Halas: Yeah, so it was a, it’s a gradual buy for me. It was for sure. Like I’m still using the same mixing board that I’ve had when I [00:23:00] was in, uh, like grade school that my parents got me. That is our live soundboard. I have made that thing work and it still has, it has an iPod adjustment, like attachment to it still.

Um, and I’ve figured out how to make that thing, you know, work. Be functional for what we need. Um, but then eventually I got to a point where I was like, it would be cool if we had lights. So one year we made enough money that I was like, okay, let’s reinvest that into like buying a cheap lighting system off of Amazon.

And that’s what we did. You know, and, and they’re not great lights. But they work and they, they look good. And then it looks a hell of a lot better than when they performed like a, an empty, dark room, you know, with just the, the venue lights on it. So I was like, so over time, like things like that happened, you know, I mean even like the home production stuff that I have for our digital content and for podcasts like this, um, this mic that I’m using was because we sent somebody to South by Southwest in 2020 and that got canceled and so he sent us the money back and so I was like, let’s buy some podcast Mikes.

We started a [00:24:00] podcast from there. So, you know, like everything is just a gradual build of like, what do we need next? What’s the next thing that we can upgrade? Um, you know, I’m, I’m using a camera right now that I bought in college, like, just figuring out how to make the most out of these things, you know?

Tim Melanson: That’s awesome. And that’s really good advice for just about anybody with any business is that sometimes you don’t necessarily need the top of the line of all this, of all this equipment, just buy what gets the job done and then you know you can work to upgrade it later on. Right.

Allen Halas: And, uh, like honestly I repurposed some of the stuff, you know, that will do the job. So, like this camera that I’m using to talk to you, uh, is one that I bought in college ’cause I was freelancing weddings and, you know, freelancing event videos and stuff like that. Eventually I knew I needed like a good DSLR camera to shoot photos and videos.

So. Bought that at one point when I could afford to do that. But then now this camera doesn’t go away forever. It gets relegated to like a streaming and like a, a webcam kind of thing. [00:25:00] And that makes that process, you know, look nicer because of that. So, um, it’s just a matter of doing the most with what you can afford to do.

And, you know, sometimes you gotta get a little creative, but it doesn’t look the best, uh, like from the outside. But if you, you know, the end product looks great and that’s all I need.

Tim Melanson: agreed. Alright, so it’s time for your guest solo. So tell me what’s exciting in your business right now.

Allen Halas: So what’s exciting right now is that I think the Milwaukee music scene is very, very good. Um, but I’m starting to branch out into some things that independent artists can use. Um, one thing that I have noticed over time from years and years of working in independent music and receiving submissions is that some artists just don’t know how to reach out to the media the right way.

Um, so I, I’ve launched a course on how to, uh, pitch your music to the media the right way and how to get your information out in a way that me as a writer is gonna want to cover it. Um, I’ve made it as cheap as possible that I could make it. Uh, it’s through an app called, uh, [00:26:00] qua, where basically what you get it and it looks like an Instagram story, like you tap through the different lessons and, um.

It’s, it is a resource that I just started in 2025, just to try and make it so you know, something that will be a tool that musicians and artists and creatives can use. And, uh, I’m excited to see where that goes. ’cause that’s a whole different dimension of what I’ve been able to do. And it’s different, you know, thing for, for artists to have a resource out there.

Tim Melanson: That’s, that’s really smart. And I mean, the cool part about that is that now you’re teaching people how to make your job easier as well.

Allen Halas: Right. Yeah, it, it does work that way, but I mean, also it works if you’re trying to pitch to a, you know, rolling Stone or a pitch fork or a, or whoever. Like, you do need those fundamental things and, uh, it eliminates that kind of gap. Like we said before of like gatekeeping where, you know, somebody might not know, they might make amazing music, but they don’t know [00:27:00] how to get their music out to the right people.

So they’re spamming them on Facebook and it’s getting disregarded or spamming them on Instagram and that gets tossed aside. Um, so this is a way to like go about it, the professional.

Tim Melanson: I love that. So how did I find out? Oh,

Allen Halas: Uh, for that one you can go to Allen hallis.com and then uh, slash pitching, and you can get, you can get the course from there. But, um, everything else that I do is through breaking and entering.net.

Tim Melanson: that’s awesome. Right on. Okay, so hardest question. Who’s your favorite rock?

Allen Halas: Oh man. Uh, favorite rockstar is a really tough one. It’s a, maybe a controversial one because I, I grew up listening to, uh, a lot of punk rock and skateboarding, and the first band that really felt like it was, uh. My band kind of thing was No Effects. Um, California punk band legends, they just broke up last year.

Um, I guess Fat Mike would be my favorite rockstar, but he’s a very controversial, like figure, um, [00:28:00] in the sense that he says a lot of things that don’t go over well or maybe says some things that are insensitive. Um, but what I do appreciate more than anything is that he started his own label, fat Rec Chord and.

No Effects is a band that never really compromised in that sense. They never went to the major label. They figured out how to do it independently. And that sort of spirit is the thing that I think I like the best. So while Fat Mike’s a controversial person to like, I think he’s probably my favorite rock star.

Just ’cause of the drive to be like, you know what? We can do our own thing and make less money, but we will, we’ll do it our way. Which is, is very punk and it’s very my, you know, my ethos as well. You can do your own thing.

Tim Melanson: Absolutely. It’s very work at home. Rockstar too.

Allen Halas: Yeah, there you go. Yeah. Yeah,

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Do it your own way. Just get it done. Right? I mean, and and don’t compromise your own, your own. I mean, even though sometimes they are controversial, your your own self. Right. You’re just being

Allen Halas: Yeah.

Tim Melanson: Yeah.[00:29:00]

Allen Halas: For sure. And that just is the spirit of, you know, keeping it, uh, true to yourself and, and your own thing. And yeah, being able to have your own personality and put that into your work and not working for other people, you know, if you don’t have to is, is great.

Tim Melanson: I love that. So is there anything else you wanna share before we go?

Allen Halas: Um, no, I just really wanna say thank you for having me on, honestly. Um, I do a lot of stuff obviously that are, you know. A DIY from home kind of thing. Uh, breaking and entering.net is the website. We also have the Hustling Sideways podcast that talks about having a job and having a side hustle at the same time.

Like I said, I used to work at a bank, so I used to go interview rock stars in my car and then come back into, you know, I’d interview a musician in my car and then come back from a 15 minute break and fill out reports and, you know. Do whatever else I needed to do. So, um, being able to do those things, uh, is very much in the spirit of what you do.

So thank you for having this platform and being [00:30:00] able to, you know, have people like me on.

Tim Melanson: Oh, awesome. Well, thank you so much for.

Allen Halas: Yeah. Appreciate it.

Tim Melanson: Awesome. And to the listeners, make sure you go to workathomerockstar.com for more information and we’ll see you next time with the Work at Home Rockstar Podcast.