GoodLuck flexes side hustle muscle to survive lockdown

Local Cape Town trio GoodLuck are celebrating 10 years in the music industry despite lockdown and having to cancel international tours.

Before the lockdown, Juliet Harding, Ben Peters and Tim Welsh travelled overseas on up to six international tours a year. It all came to a standstill when they played their last gig in March last year.

They also had to cancel eight international tours including an Asia tour last year.

“It has been tough, it’s been a rollercoaster of not knowing where you stand,” Harding said. Last month the band released a new single, Bird of Paradise, which is currently trending on TikTok with 21 million views.

“Although it’s a summer dance track, it has a deeper profound meaning. I wrote it about a friend of mine who was trapped in a very bad situation and couldn’t get out of it,” she said.

“The message is once you realise you are responsible for where you are in life it is the most powerful thing in the world. You can become a bird of paradise and fly where you need to be in life.”

Harding said going into lockdown they realised they had to be realistic.

“All the ways we’ve done things in the past we had to take a step back because it wasn’t going to be like that anymore and we needed to think what else we could do,” she said.

To make ends meet during lockdown, the band ventured into a few side hustles including a wedding entertainment business.

“It’s flying at the moment because there are triple weddings because there have been not many weddings for two years,” Harding said.

She added that because they had more time they decided to get involved with local non-governmental organisations and helped raise R500 000 for five feeding schemes in Cape Town.

“We have also been mentoring kids from Langa township in the music space through Building Bridges Through Music,” she said.

Harding said to get the industry back on its feet, more people had to get vaccinated as another lockdown would be catastrophic.

– marizkac@citizen.co.za