Making a Scene Presents

Making a Scene Presents an Interview with Dave Miller Dave Miller has been writing songs, performing, and living the working-musician life for five decades. Over the years he’s played everywhere a good song can land—taverns, dance halls, coffee houses, showcases, concert venues, and festivals—touring coast to coast across the United States and into British Columbia. He’s the kind of artist who doe...

The Moment You Stop Calling It “Just A Home Studio” There’s a quiet moment that happens for a lot of U.S. indie artists. It usually hits when you finish a track at home that actually holds up in the car, on earbuds, and on a cheap Bluetooth speaker. Not “good for a bedroom.” Just good. You bounce the final mix, upload it, send it to a friend, and they say the one sentence that changes everything:...

The Van, the Laptop, and the Lie We Tell Ourselves The van smells like reheated coffee, gaffer tape, and the kind of optimism that only survives because musicians are stubborn. The band is parked outside a rehearsal space they pay for by the hour, and instead of loading in, they’re huddled around a laptop like it’s a campfire. The screen is a crowdfunding draft page with reward tiers, shipping pro...

Making a Scene Presents - The Playlist Era is Fading Picture the modern indie grind for a second. You drop a single, you refresh your stats, and you squint at that tiny spike hoping it turns into a staircase. Maybe you’re watching Spotify for Artists and tracking what happened after you pitched, posted, begged, and boosted. Spotify will happily show you audience behavior, segments, and trends, and...

Making a Scene Presents an Interview with Erik Vincent Huey Erik Huey grew up along the Monongahela River in West Virginia and Western Pennsylvania, the son of four generations of coal miners. That background runs deep in both his life and his music. He was raised in a world shaped by working-class struggle, Appalachian tradition, and the kind of hard-earned perspective that never really leaves yo...

Guy Verlinde is one of the most respected and enduring figures in the Belgian blues scene. Over the past two decades, he has built a remarkable career as a singer, songwriter, and performer, becoming a leading voice for blues music in Belgium and far beyond. Since emerging as a major presence on the scene, Verlinde has recorded 17 albums and established himself as an artist with both deep roots in...

Making a Scene Presents an Interview with Don Arbor Don Arbor is an award-winning songwriter and video artist whose lifelong connection to music began before he was even born. As he tells it, his first musical influence was hearing his mother’s beautiful soprano voice while still in the womb. Not long after, he started singing himself—and he has never really stopped. http://www.makingascene.org

Every spring, touring season rolls in like a weather front. The calendars fill up, festivals come back to life, and venues start answering emails a little faster. And every spring, the same truth shows up right behind it: if you want a real career as a musician—solo artist or full band—the job is performing. The job is the road. The job is showing up over and over until strangers become fans, fans...

Making a Scene Presents - The Psychology of a Productive Home Studio The home studio looks like a room, but it behaves like a brain. It remembers what you do in it. It trains you through tiny cues. It rewards you for finishing. It punishes you for drifting. And if you’re a working artist, it can either become a quiet engine that prints masters and income, or a beautiful trap that keeps you “busy”...

Making a Scene Presents - Why Most Indie Artists are Underpaid Data Workers THE NIGHT AFTER THE EXPORT The song is done. The mix is printed. The master is bouncing. For a few seconds, you get that clean feeling that only musicians understand. You made something that didn’t exist yesterday, and now it does. Then you open the upload screen and the second job starts. http://www.makingascene.org

Making a Scene Presents - How to Create a Local Music Scene How indie artists can “Make a Scene” again with AI, Web3, and real-world hustle If you’re waiting for your local scene to “come back,” you might be waiting a long time. That’s not because your town stopped caring about music. It’s because the pandemic didn’t just shut down venues. It broke habits. It changed what people consider “worth le...

Making a Scene Presents an Interview with Duke Robillard Duke Robillard is one of America’s most respected guitarists, singers, songwriters, and bandleaders, celebrated for his mastery of blues, jump R&B, swing, and roots rock. Over the course of a long and influential career, he has earned a reputation as a true musician’s musician—an artist whose deep knowledge of American roots music is matched...

Making a Scene Presents Gerry Casey's Interview with Eliza Neals Eliza Neals is a powerhouse in modern blues—an artist, songwriter, producer, bandleader, composer, arranger, keyboardist, and label owner whose self-written and self-produced music has been heard on SiriusXM’s B.B. King’s Bluesville since 2015. Blending blues, rock, and soul into bold, unforgettable songs, Neals has built a body of w...

The Receipts Era: Why SongProof Is Showing Up Right When Indie Artists Need It Most There’s a moment every songwriter knows. You’re in that glow right after the hook finally lands, the verse makes sense, and the demo is “good enough” to send. You export an MP3, you toss it into a text thread, you drop it into an email, you DM it to someone who says they can help. And then, if you’re honest, your s...

Making a Scene Presents - The Weekend Build: How to Set Up an Owned-Fan Machine in 48 Hours If you want Spotify to be the top of your funnel instead of the end of your funnel, you don’t start by chasing more streams. You start by building a place for listeners to land, a reason for them to stay, and a system that remembers them when they do. This is the part the industry skips past because it’s no...

Making a Scene Presents - Spotify is the Billboard, Not the Building If you’re an indie artist in 2026, you don’t have a “marketing problem.” You have an ownership problem. Most indie release plans still follow the same tired loop: post the Spotify link everywhere, chase saves, chase playlists, watch a bump happen, then start over next month. It feels like progress because the numbers move. But it...

Making a Scene Presents - Wingman (Mixed In Key) A Demo Accelerator Wingman from Mixed In Key ($79) is built for the modern reality: a lot of great songwriters don’t play piano, don’t play bass, and don’t want to spend three hours hunting for the “right” chord under a vocal idea. Wingman lives inside your DAW as a plugin and listens to the audio you feed it, then suggests chords and basslines that...

Making a Scene Presents an Interview with Jordan Rainer Jordan Rainer is an award-winning singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist from Atoka, Oklahoma, bringing a bold rock edge to modern country. With a guitar on her shoulder and a no-nonsense stage presence, she’s been turning heads in both Nashville and the Texas country scene, building a reputation as an artist who hits hard, sings with co...

Making a Scene Presents Gerry Casey's Interview with Billy Bucklers of Billobucklers Billobucklers is a UK band built around the songwriting, voice, and restless musical spirit of Billy Bucklers, a Leicester-and-Nottingham original who writes like he’s lived it and plays like he means it. Rooted in the Midlands but never boxed in by geography, Billy brings a hard-earned perspective to every song—m...

Making a Scene Presents an Interview with Erick Brandt Erik Brandt has been the ringleader of the award-winning Twin Cities eclectic Americana group the Urban Hillbilly Quartet since 1995. When he’s not on stage, he’s in the classroom teaching high school English in St. Paul, Minnesota—bringing the same love of language to both his students and his songs. Over the years, he’s performed in venues a...

Making a Scene Presents - Booking the Festival Circuit Isn’t About “Buzz.” It’s About Proof For a long time, getting booked on a festival felt like being chosen. You got the email, you posted the graphic, you told your friends, and you hoped the weekend would change everything. That feeling still matters, because it means you care. But the festival world has changed, and the artists who keep winni...

Making a Scene Presents - Why Ownership Beats Virality Every Time The day the internet “loves” you can still be the day you learn you own nothing Every indie artist has felt it. You post a clip and you don’t expect much, and then your phone starts buzzing like a broken snare. Comments show up from strangers, shares stack up, and somebody types, “How are you not famous?” and for a minute you can ta...

Making a Scene Presents - Why Monitoring Is the Most Important Part of Your Home Studio (And the Most Ignored) There’s a specific kind of heartbreak that only home studio people understand. You finish a mix at 1:30 a.m., tired but proud, because in your room it finally sounds like a record. The vocal is sitting right where you wanted it. The drums feel tight. The chorus lifts. You do that little h...

Making a Scene Presents an Interview with Melody Guy Melody Guy is a Nashville-based Americana singer-songwriter whose unforgettable voice and fearless honesty have powered a life on the road, with more than two million miles of touring across the United States. Blending rock, country, soul, and pop, she delivers songs with the kind of emotional clarity that stops people mid-conversation. Her voic...

Making a Scene Presents - Streaming Growth is Slowing And That’s Good News for Indie Artists. For the past ten-plus years, the music industry has sold indie artists one simple dream. Get your music on streaming. Get on playlists. Get the numbers up. Then, somehow, the money will follow. A lot of artists found out the hard way that this dream has a catch. Streaming is real. Streaming is powerful. S...