In this interview, Dave Hahn, the man behind the oh-so fascinating Chronicles of a Cruise Ship Musician blog* give us a good advice two-for-one special. First, he offers some insight into how he ended up seeing the world while making a living as a musician on a cruise ship, then he lets us in on how he deals with promoting a blog for such a niche audience. Whether you're here for the cruising, the blogging, or both, Hahn has some words of wisdom for you. Read on...
First, even though we're really here to talk about your blog, I have to ask you a few questions about life as a cruise ship musician. Can you tell us a little bit about how you found your way into playing music on cruise ships?
After college I moved back to the Chicago area and became involved with the local live music scene. I joined a reggae band, hustled for jazz gigs, accompanied for a few churches and played for local theatre. I also had a day job, but I was much more interested in playing music than having that lousy day job. Eventually I wanted to make a total break from my job and become a full-time musician, but at the time I didn't have enough work to make that possible. Financially, I needed something that would help me make that break and a cruise ship job seemed perfect. They would provide lodging, food and a paycheck.
I've now worked on two ships. The first one sailed the North Sea, Mediterranean and the Caribbean (I was very lucky to see half the world on that ship). That ship also served as a floating hotel during the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens, Greece, so I was lucky enough to attend the Olympics as well. I worked as the keyboardist in the show band. We were the back-up band for all the guest performers that came on the ship. We also played several jazz sets a week in the ship's lounges. I made a lot of friends on that cruise and saw a lot of beautiful places I'll never forget.
The second ship sailed around the Hawaiian Islands. I worked as the music director for a resident guest performer act. That's a fancier job and it means that I basically lived as a passenger - passenger room, passenger food, passenger amenities, etc. We performed 2 nights a week and had the rest of the time free to explore the islands. Hawaii is beautiful. Nevertheless, with all the empty time on that gig I became really bored after a few months.
When you're performing on cruise ship, do you have free reign in deciding what music to play or does the cruise company have a program to which they want you to stick?
You usually have free reign within your genre. So if you are doing a jazz set, you can call whatever tunes you want as long as they fit in the jazz idiom. Same goes for the Top 40 cover bands on board, or the classical groups and all the others. The cruise ships set up each of their lounges with a different genre. In a way, you can think of each lounge as a different radio station, and passengers can tune into their favorite station by visiting the corresponding lounge. For instance, if passengers want cocktails and jazz, they can go to Lounge A, and if they want coffee and classical music, go to Lounge B, if they want a beer and Top 40s hits, go to Lounge C, and on and on. So in that regard, musicians can play any songs they'd like as long as it fits into their "radio station."
For the show band (what you could also call the "house band" or "back-up band"), there is a lot of sight-reading. As I mentioned earlier, the show band plays back-up for the guest performers, and they have to play whatever music is put in front of them. Show bands also play jazz sets in the jazz lounge where they can call their own tunes, but when they are backing an act, they have to play the music that they are given.
Do musicians typically sign a contract to work for one particular cruise company, or do they freelance and take jobs as they come in?
Musicians typically sign up for contracts one at a time. For instance, I might sign on for a 6 month contract with Holland America, then after I'm done with that sign on for a 4 month contract with Carnival Cruise Line, and after that another 6 month contract - this time with Princess.
The way it usually works, though, is that you often keep working with the same cruise line. It's just easier. Say, for instance, I work for Holland America. After my first 6 month contract is completed, they may offer me another 6 month contract on a different ship in the fleet. And after that another contract on another ship. It's really easy to continue getting work like that. It's a little more work to change cruise lines every contract.
If you sign up with a talent agency like Proship, you usually have to sign some kind of non-compete agreement at the beginning. That means that if Proship gets you a contract with Holland America, if you want to take a second contract with Holland America afterwards, you still have to go through Proship. That protects the talent agency from being cut out of the loop and losing their placement fees. That's really the only long-term kind of agreement that musicians ever get involved with on cruise ship gigs.
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