John Janzen says in some ways, working as a touring musician is like fatherhood.
“It’s the hardest thing you’ll ever do that you won’t regret,” he said. “The band has been a bit like that too.”
For over a decade, John’s been writing and performing folk music with his sons Mick and Simon as the Janzen Boys. Just over a year ago, he was able to leave his job in the non-profit sector to keep up with the growing needs of the band.
Instead of working through event organizers or negotiating guarantees with venues, the Boys are their own promoters, renting their own venues, selling their own tickets and doing their own advertising.
“It’s the hardest he’s ever worked at a job,” Mick said about his father. “And me too. But you enjoy it.”
In the summer of 2024, the Janzen Boys left their hometown of Winnipeg to embark on their first tour across Canada. That’s when they first tried splitting ticket revenue with venues.
“They sold like crazy – way more than the guarantees,” said John. “Often, the venue made more because you’re both dialed in and motivated to sell tickets.”
When the harmony-singing trio returned to Manitoba, they didn’t have established connections in the booking industry. “We were like, ‘Maybe we just figure it out ourselves,’” said John.
Booking their own shows and running their own tickets allowed the Boys more flexibility and opportunity than ever before. But as the band grows, it gets harder to keep up.
Now John and Mick both work full-time as musicians, although they say sometimes it feels more like full-time administration.
“[I’m] working so much on the booking side and the marketing side that I haven’t written a song,” said John. “There’s no time for the art side.”
Much of the demand for shows came from the band’s newfound online audience.
In 2023, Mick took the winter semester off studying communications at a small university in Winnipeg to focus on the band’s social media marketing.
“I was doing all these projects for school, learning how to do marketing and storytelling,” said Mick. “But I had a real thing that I could market.”
“I just committed to learning social media ads and how to do this DIY music thing, and I haven’t looked back since.”
John said he was torn when Mick came to him asking to take time off from school.
“The dad part of me is supposed to say, ‘Stay in school,’” he said. “But the music-all-my-life part of me is like, ‘Hell yeah, let’s do this!’”
Through ads on Instagram and Facebook, they tested which of their songs appealed to online audiences and focused on more consistent posting.
By the end of the year, the Boys had tens of thousands of listeners on Facebook and Instagram from across Canada and the United States.
They said gaining popularity online allowed them to connect with more people in real life, too.
This year, a fan from Kentucky wanted to book the Boys for her son’s wedding. When they told her the visa to work in the United States would take 12 months or require a $5,000 fee to expedite it – she offered to pay it.
“It’s a testament to the benefit of the internet for artists,” said Mick. “[She] had just fallen in love with our music from an ad and has become a huge fan since.”
“When you’re writing songs, you don’t think people will invest in you that much.”
The visa opened up even more doors for the Janzen Boys. They played their first gig south of the border in the late fall, and in January, they had shows booked around Florida and a performance at the South Florida Folk and Acoustic Music Festival.
“Once we get an anchor gig like that festival, then we just book other gigs around it,” said John. “So it’s a bit of an experiment because we don’t know if [what] works for us at home in Canada is going to work in the States.”
As tours get bigger, the Boys say their do-it-yourself approach doesn’t leave much time for songwriting and recording.
For the first time, they’re working with someone they’re not related to – a distributor – for their next album.
