Rapper brings Do What You Love Tour back to Toledo
Written by Vicki L. Kroll | | news@toledofreepress.comGary Milholland missed a call for this interview because he was out smelling the roses.
“I had to get away from the computer,” he said. “I went to this beautiful garden in Columbus [Ohio]. Whenever the wind would blow, it would pick up the fragrance of all the flowers; it was fantastic.”
The 30-year-old is breathing in life’s sweet scents since he quit his Web marketing and maintenance job at a company in Chicago to pursue music full time.
Milholland is Mission Man, a hip-hop, rap artist.
Mission Man
“I quit at the end of March, and I’ve been on tour since then,” he said from Dayton. “At this point, I’m running out of money. I’ll need to get another job in a few weeks, but this is the longest I’ve been able to sustain [my music career]. It’s been a great experience that will lead up to when I tour again next summer.”
The musician is working on new material for his next disc, “31 Hours Til What,” and testing songs on his Do What You Love Tour.
“I basically wrote [‘31 Hours Until What'] knowing I was going to quit my job and go on tour because I knew Chicago just wasn’t working out, so I was figuring out what the next step was going to be,” he said. “It was sort of a self-motivational song as well as a positive, uplifting song to send out to other people.”
Not only is Milholland an optimist, he’s a thrifty man determined to live his dream. On his web site at www.missionman.net, he wrote some days he spends $1 to eat.
“I kind of stumbled across the fact that peanut butter can fill you up, even in small amounts,” he said. “I’d go and buy a loaf of bread and a jar of peanut butter; it costs $5 and it would last me four days. I’d have maybe two peanut butter sandwiches for lunch, two for dinner, and then do the same thing the next couple days.”
Mission Man has sacrificed a lot to make the music happen.
“I’ve been technically homeless because it’s cheaper; I don’t have to pay rent somewhere,” Milholland said, adding he stays with friends, fans and in his car.
“This has been an absolutely tremendous experience. I’ve laid the foundation, made more connections,” he said. “So I’ll go back, get an apartment, start working at Papa John’s, which I did for a long time, living in Oxford [Ohio] … I’ll be really trying to establish myself in a lot of cities in Ohio … and after I get established in those, save up some money and then go on the ‘31 Hours Til What’ CD release tour next summer. My goal with that one would be to basically tour at least 40 states… I don’t know what will happen after that; it could be my last tour; it could be the tour that would get me to the point where I could make a living off music.”
Mission Man will return to Toledo to play the Jeff-Fest benefit at Mickey Finn’s Pub July 11. He will take the stage at 5 p.m. Other acts scheduled to perform between 2 p.m. and 2 a.m. are The Killer Tomatoes, Intolerance and The Dougouts, among others. Tickets are $10.
