Life & Work with Rock’n Free Live

Today we’d like to introduce you to Penny Freeman.

Travis and Penny, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
(Travis) My name is Travis Kolasinski and I was born and raised right here in Phoenix, AZ. I am the oldest of two kids. I have one sister. I come from a very tight-knit family. We still all talk weekly and have our family gatherings on the holidays. To me family is everything. I have 3 biological children and seven adopted children.

Yes, I have a Brady Bunch going on. I am engaged to the woman of my dreams. We share all the same family values and it is the best thing that has ever happened to me. Her name is Missy. We have known each other for nearly 30 years. We have been together for 8 on our last anniversary.

I started loving heavy metal at the typical age of 10 or so. From there the rest is history. I started out with bands like Kiss, ACDC, Van Halen, Def Leppard, and the likes. My first taste of heavy metal was Metallica about the time Master of Puppets came out. From there, it just got a little heavier and a little faster.

Kiss is my favorite band but Slayer calms me down. I miss Slayer. LOL. I do listen to a variety of music during the day while at work. I have Michael Jackson, Ray Charles, ICP, and even Willie Nelson. Can’t forget The King and The Beatles. So I’m not just a heavy metal junkie. Although most would disagree with this.

I am a graduate of Alhambra High School here in Phoenix in 1993. I was enrolled a couple of times at MMI, a motorcycle mechanics school, but I was too drunk and high to take on the responsibility each time. I currently own my own business, Inked Auto Glass, and have a regular 9 to 5 job doing auto glass-related stuff.

I absolutely love the company I work for. We are now trying to get Rock’n Free – Live up and running for a second business. Yes, I am a busy guy.

I started hanging around bands in the early 90s. I was always too young to get into most clubs then so I would go to the different studios around town and just hang out. I did that until the mid-’90s. I don’t know why I stopped going. Just life I guess. Here a few years ago it was time to start seeing some local bands again and so I did just that. I started going to local shows and hanging out and talking to people and met Penny through a mutual friend.

She was doing a show with him and it looked fun so I started chatting with them and one thing led to another and somehow I started co-hosting the weekly show they were doing. I seriously don’t ever really recall how it happened. LOL. Just one day there I was doing the interviews with Penny.

(Penny). My name is Penny Freeman, and I am also a Native of Arizona. I grew up pretty much all over because we moved a lot. We landed the longest for me to complete Junior high and high school at Deer Valley, Class of ‘88.

I am and always have been a huge fan of all kinds of music from Christian Alternative, Jazz, Top 40 Hair Bands, and Now I’ve developed a love of Heavy Metal. That seems to be the majority of what we end up hosting and promoting.
I married and had kids and moved away from AZ for about 8 years living in Idaho. Moved back to Arizona and divorced in 1999.

I was out of the music scene for a long time, until around 2016 I met Ethan Foxx. He is an incredible vocalist and I would get out of the house just to go see him sing. When I met my now current husband Trevor, we started going out more and he’s more the Heavy Metal type, so it grew on me. The talent that is here in Arizona is absolutely incredible and I just can’t get enough of it. When I retired in February 2019, I needed something to do that I love and keep me and my mind busy.

I love getting to see new bands fresh out of high school or still in school for that matter trying to get their foot in the door. This is a tough scene for sure, a lot of established bands already have the regular crowds that follow them. What is nice though is that there are a few bands that do take the time to see what new and upcoming bands are hitting the scene and take them in to open up or close out the shows they have booked.

Oddity Paradox is one of those bands that really lookout for the new bands. Scott Rowe also, who books for Gypsy’s Roadhouse, is always looking to get new bands in there for black-out dates to basically audition for possibly more paid gigs at the venue. So, I do love the support that this music community has working well together.

As Travis mentioned, I was working alongside another local musician on other projects. As we began to have irreconcilable differences, we parted ways and Travis who had been Co-Hosting with me in the weekly shows developed a great friendship and rapport with one another, we had to keep the momentum going.

We continued what had already started with the previous organization with Battle of The Bands and created judging criteria to have 3 judges come in for each battle to score the bands based on the criteria the bands received prior to knowing what they would be judged on. I have seen amazing progress and growth amongst the bands that started off with Battle of the bands.

Our biggest show of the year and Trademarked as well is SKULLFEST. It is our Halloween show and we like to bring in great talent for this show. Costume Contests, Raffles and it’s just overall a lot of fun. This will be our 3rd year and already we are booked with 9 bands for October 22, 2022.

We really don’t consider ourselves Promoters as we don’t really go seeking to book bands or shows. The majority of our work is coming from those who reach out to us to host their events. We rather just book a couple of big shows a year and just jump in where we are wanted by request. We are pretty affordable. LOL.

(Travis). So, as things went south with that, well we will call it an organization. Penny and I liked working together so we said let’s keep it going. So we did. We started out last April 2021 but still didn’t like doing things under someone else’s name so we pondered a new name after doing an interview with Atomic Kings.

We stood out in the parking lot of Bizarre Guitar and threw a few ideas around. Penny already had the name Rock’n Free trademarked so I said why not just use that name this way we don’t have to worry about anyone stealing our name. So we decided on Rock’n Free – Live. Since all our interviews are live and unscripted it just seemed fitting.

I couldn’t ask for a better partner in crime than Penny. Together I think we just work really well together. I’ll go on record here and say she is the brains behind the operation. Yes, we work on things together but she does 75% of the hard stuff and I get to reap the rewards of that. I appreciate all she does behind the scenes for us.

I may be the face of the place, and I only say that because I do all the hosting for our booked shows, but she is the one to thank. Without her, I wouldn’t be doing this, and boy does I love doing this. I think we are the perfect pair to do what we are doing. I love being on the stage goofing off and having fun and she loves doing all the organizing and getting things ready for me to goof off too. LOL.

(Penny). Travis is the perfect partner for sure, I can’t see doing this with anyone else. He’s great at Hosting the shows on stage. I’m definitely a more behind-the-scenes kind of person. I don’t like the spotlight LOL.

I do, however, Love doing the interviews for Rock’n Free – Live and that is the one thing we do host together interviewing local musicians and bands, Unedited and unscripted. That was the one thing I have wanted to do for a long time. That is a blast.

So in a nutshell that is OUR story.

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
We see our biggest obstacle is getting the people to know who we are and what we do.

We just can’t seem to get the following that we need to make it bigger and better. The ones that support us see what we do and absolutely love the attitude and determination that we bring to the table.

We truly think our last pairing has hurt us in this. Not enough people have opened their eyes to the way we are doing things. We are here for the music and the fans of the local scene.

As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
We Host shows for Bands and Events. We are focused mainly on Battle of the Bands which is once a month with 2 bands that battle one another and then we have Redemption Round for those that didn’t win to get a 2nd chance to make it to the finals. We run each round for 6 months.

Four Battles, one Redemption round, and then the finals. The winner from each battle receives a cash prize based on the money received at the door. This will be our first redemption round so this should be fun. The winner will go to the finals and that is where the big prize comes in donated from our sponsors Tommy Gibbons with KMS Studio, the winner will receive 3 fully produced songs recorded at KMS Studio and Five A.M. Art will be donating Cover artwork for an E.P. for the songs.

It’s really all for fun, and the bands get to really put their best performance forward. They learn and take away a lot from what the judges have to say, and we have seen major improvement come from doing this. That’s the best part of doing what we do.

Do you have any advice for those just starting out?
(Travis). I think my main advice for anyone is just sticking to your guns no matter what. Take advice from those around you but do things your way. We’ve had a couple of instances where someone has wanted us to do interviews different from what we do and we said our way or the highway.

We refuse to change our ways for anyone. This is how we like to do it and will continue to do so. Also, learn from your mistakes. Don’t forget them and play that tape over and over again.

(Penny). Believe in yourself, because if you don’t. No one else will. Remember, Stage presence is everything whether hosting or performing. If you are up there having a good time, people feed off of that energy and that is what will keep people coming to your shows.

Pricing:

• 15% of Door (Negotiable upon attendance).

Contact Info:

• Email: Rocknfreelive@gmail.com
• Website: http://rocknfreelive.square.site/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Rocknfreelive
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/RocknFreeLive

Image Credits
Rock’n Free Live and John Roland