How Bands Can Team Up With Local Businesses (INTERVIEW, Part 2)

This is a guest post from Wes Davenport. Part 2 of a short series about musicians partnering with local businesses. Here’s part 1.
 How Bands Can Team Up with Local BusinessesPartnering with a business can be give a band fresh exposure, further causes both parties believe in, and sharpen your overall business skills.
Though you may love Ikea furniture and Coke products, your band probably doesn’t have the connections or clout to forge a partnership with those companies. So what do you do?
You go local.
I chatted with Jonathon Dewveall, half of husband/wife rock pair Dewveall, about their role in the Just Love Coffee Roasters package.
First, tell me about the coffee+CD package. What does it consist of?
Just Love Coffee’s Christmas CD is a new take on classic Christmas songs. The songs were produced and arranged by Rob Webb, the owner of Just Love Coffee, and Tyrus Morgan, a talented artist and good friend of ours. It features several great artists, singing songs like “We Three Kings,” “Silent Night,” and “I Saw Three Ships.” There’s even a great electronic, dance-y version of Deck the Halls and we lent our voices to “Hark the Herald Angels Sing.”

The coffee is a special blend called FaLaLaLaLa Holiday Blend. It’s pretty delicious. All of Just Love’s Coffee is fair trade and grown sustainably. On top of that, Just Love Coffee donates 5% of every bag sold to Charity:Water. Here is a great story about Just Love Coffee’s vision. 
 
You can purchase a 13oz. bag of FaLaLaLaLa and a copy of the Christmas CD, for $22.95, at https://justlovecoffee.com/shop
How did this project start?
Our friend Tyrus Morgan partnered with Just Love Coffee when he released his debut record a couple years ago and they’ve maintained a strong relationship. Honestly, I don’t know if it was Tyrus or Robb who first had the idea for the Christmas record, but they began hashing the idea out sometime last summer.
At what point did you get involved?

Tyrus asked us to get involved pretty early on, even before they started recording. He didn’t even know what song he wanted us to sing. After him and Robb hashed out the arrangements, they proposed that we do “Hark the Herald Angels Sing.” We went down to Just Love Coffee’s studio sometime in October to lay down the vocals.
Why did you partner with Just Love Coffee?
The first time Tyrus introduced us to Just Love Coffee, we were a big fan of their mission. We’re huge supporters of of Living Water International and other organizations, like Charity:Water, that provide clean water to people in developing countries. So it really was a no-brainer for us to get involved.
What have you learned from this project?

I don’t know that we necessarily learned anything, but it can be a lot of fun to be a part of projects like this. Life can get very busy and it’s easy to get wrapped up in your own world and regular projects, but it’s a great idea to step outside of yourself for a bit and work on something that’s not necessarily for your benefit, but for the benefit of others.

How was it working with the other artists involved?

It was pretty fun. Rob, the owner of Just Love Coffee, is a fantastic musician and is very fun-loving in the studio. Although we’ve worked with Tyrus Morgan a lot over the years, a lot of it was on stage. It was cool to see that he is not only a good performer, but that he knows his way around a studio as well.
Any advice for artists looking to partner with local businesses?

Honestly, if you’ve got an idea that involves a local business, you should just approach them about it. I think it’s important to at know what you’d like to accomplish through the partnership and how it can be mutually beneficial.


Where can we find your music and social networks?

A good place to start is http://dewveall.com

You can download our last single, Runaway Sun, for free (technically in exchange for your email address) at Noisetrade. http://www.noisetrade.com/dewveall
We’ve also got music on Amazon, iTunes and Google Music. Just search for “Dewveall”.

We’ll be releasing a new record in the spring, so if you’d like to stay up-to-date about that and any live performances, add us to your circles, follow us, or like us…
http://twitter.com/dewveall
http://www.facebook.com/Dewveall
http://plus.google.com/105567571623450772498

See y’all on the interwebs.

To read more from Wes, check out his blog at Where the Circle Ends.

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