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FReeZACentral in Action

Breaking into the music industry

Mark Howard badly wanted to break into the music industry. But even he didn’t know what he was in for when he signed up for the FReeZACentral mentoring program.

A few months on, Mark found himself working at Mushroom Music, and his band was headlining a Victorian tour that he put together himself. “It was just a big whirlwind,” he laughs. “When it rains it pours.”

“I strongly recommend the FreeZACentral program,” said Mark. “The other mentorees are your peers, and they’re trying to achieve the same thing as you.

“You just get so many different ideas from them, and you get more of a drive because of the competitive nature of the industry, and you realise how many other people want it as much as you.”

Mark’s band Willow headlined the Coast to Coast Tour, which Mark organised himself, and which also came out of the mentoring program.

“Three of us were assigned a mentor, and rather than just sit down and talk about the industry, we decided to be a little more proactive,” Mark explained.

“My agenda was to get Willow as far as I could through the program, so I said ‘well, let’s get a tour together’. There were a lot of speed-humps along the way, but we totally stuck to our guns and made it happen.”

Mark’s hoping to make Coast to Coast an ongoing event, with an element of youth participation.

“We’ve approached some of the young guys working within the FReeZACentral mentoring program,” he said. “Those of them who had the initiative to come up to us and say ‘Can we get on board, is there anything that we can do,’ we just offered it to them.

“You learn that if you don’t take the initiative and you don’t create the opportunities, then you can’t sit and wait. A lot of bands just sit and wait, and you can’t afford to do that.”

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