25 years in the music industry and I find myself in the somewhat unbelievable position of starting over. And I don't mean starting a new project. I mean starting over.
After years of playing the drums - quite well, I might add - I've decided to pick up the guitar and learn how to play. The goal, however, isn't to become a great guitar player. The goal is to become a solid singer/songwriter. I'm also going to see how far I can take things, now that I no longer need to worry about my band falling apart around me.
That's the great thing about being a solo artist, in case you're wondering: You'll never break-up.
The songwriting half of this singer/songwriter equation is the easy part. Ever since my very first band I've had a hand in the songwriting. Arrangements always came easy to me, even when the egocentric musicians I played with were too stupid to know it. It's the *singer* part that's going to make things interesting. Singing a song while playing a guitar is completely foreign to me.
But you know what else is foreign to me? Being in charge. As a musician, I've never had much say in the way things were done.
No wait... that's not true.
In my very first band - a heavy metal band called "Leftovers" - I had a great deal of say. I was the business head in the band, and before we fell apart I managed to get the band to #1 on college radio stations across the country (Canada), our product distributed throughout Canada and the UK, our video played a number of times on our nation's music station MuchMusic, and a pile of sold-out shows with us being the headliner.
My next band - a band called Lilith - had a management contract with a guy named Tom Stephen, who played the drums, and managed, an artist named Jeff Healey. Once I started working with him my days of having control was over. Everything was big business. I guess I should point out that my days of getting national radio play were over, too.
I've lost track of how many times I've played live. When I pull out a calculator and do some quick math it seems that I've been on stage well over 1000 times. But all of those times I've been safely tucked away at the back of the stage, playing drums. I won't be doing that again... I'm not retiring from the drums, but I have no interest in being the engine inside some other guy's car again.
I know the day that I started playing guitar; I wrote it down: October 20th, 2011.
That's 292 days ago.
This might piss off a few people, but in January of 2012 - roughly 80 days after I started playing guitar - I worked out recording contract with a cool little studio where I don't pay for anything on the front end. In this new digital landscape, that's about as close to a record deal as you can get without actually signing one.
I've been recording my first solo record ever since.
I'm curious to see where it takes me.
Hopefully you're curious, too.
After years of playing the drums - quite well, I might add - I've decided to pick up the guitar and learn how to play. The goal, however, isn't to become a great guitar player. The goal is to become a solid singer/songwriter. I'm also going to see how far I can take things, now that I no longer need to worry about my band falling apart around me.
That's the great thing about being a solo artist, in case you're wondering: You'll never break-up.
The songwriting half of this singer/songwriter equation is the easy part. Ever since my very first band I've had a hand in the songwriting. Arrangements always came easy to me, even when the egocentric musicians I played with were too stupid to know it. It's the *singer* part that's going to make things interesting. Singing a song while playing a guitar is completely foreign to me.
But you know what else is foreign to me? Being in charge. As a musician, I've never had much say in the way things were done.
No wait... that's not true.
In my very first band - a heavy metal band called "Leftovers" - I had a great deal of say. I was the business head in the band, and before we fell apart I managed to get the band to #1 on college radio stations across the country (Canada), our product distributed throughout Canada and the UK, our video played a number of times on our nation's music station MuchMusic, and a pile of sold-out shows with us being the headliner.
My next band - a band called Lilith - had a management contract with a guy named Tom Stephen, who played the drums, and managed, an artist named Jeff Healey. Once I started working with him my days of having control was over. Everything was big business. I guess I should point out that my days of getting national radio play were over, too.
I've lost track of how many times I've played live. When I pull out a calculator and do some quick math it seems that I've been on stage well over 1000 times. But all of those times I've been safely tucked away at the back of the stage, playing drums. I won't be doing that again... I'm not retiring from the drums, but I have no interest in being the engine inside some other guy's car again.
I know the day that I started playing guitar; I wrote it down: October 20th, 2011.
That's 292 days ago.
This might piss off a few people, but in January of 2012 - roughly 80 days after I started playing guitar - I worked out recording contract with a cool little studio where I don't pay for anything on the front end. In this new digital landscape, that's about as close to a record deal as you can get without actually signing one.
I've been recording my first solo record ever since.
I'm curious to see where it takes me.
Hopefully you're curious, too.
No comments:
Post a Comment