Ben Folds - Lucky Breaks In Music Career
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Lucky Breaks In Music Career
I got such wonderful responses to my blog about aspiring artists. Thank you. And also, you're all welcome. I do quite a bit of journal writing anyway so this is my idea of a good time. Here's what what fellow had to say.
Emil Siravo wrote: "why is it that successful artists can never say how they made the leap from poor and struggling to rich and famous.... theres always that mysterious step that they never explain. I guess cause its very unflattering, that step being 'someone with connections got my ass in the door and gave me a golden opportunity'. I wish more artists would talk about WHO gave them their career and less about trying to hide the fact that to make it in the music industry you must rely on somebody getting you 'in' the door. Sure you have to work real hard and you must be ready to prove yourself when the opportunity presents itself,,,, but that Lucky break is still a necessary component that no amount of hard work can substitute for."
Emil! Ooooh am I gonna hand your ass to you now, bitch!!
Kidding.
You're not the first person who has said this, and so here's part three of my flying blogging streaming preaching ruminating mind numbing musings - to anyone who cares to read! You all know me. You'll know that I'm not editing this for easy digestion. Yeah. It'll be long. Real long.
I completely understand your frustration and anyone else's in your position. Boy have I been there, and I used to often wonder why some entertainers left that gaping chasm in their personal stories. Quite often though, you see the story of an entertainer boiled down to one fortuitous event (so in so heard them at a club, or was passed the demo at a party) and while it makes good print, it might not be helpful to take those stories too literally. I didn't call my piece "For Aspiring Successful Entertainers". I addressed it to artists (and myself). Actually, obtaining success in the music business might often make it even harder to stay focused as an artist. I don't think I'd know where to begin writing about how to make it.
I acknowledge that I'm a freakishly lucky bastard. Not just one time lucky but over and over again lucky. I've said before that it really doesn't boil down to one break. It's the succession, the cumulative effects of fortuitous and realized moments which are usually interruptions to the daily disappointments and frustrations. It's truly an up and down thing for anyone in the biz, no matter how successful. That's something I learned from my long time manager I was lucky enough to meet at the right time. Long dry periods of bummer certainly can lead to a state of mind that ceases to recognize a veiled innocent but significant opportunity.
As well as a lucky fool, I'm also a freakishly hard working bastard. I've been dangerously kamikaze and at key times the risk has met with incredible and lucky results. I didn't see anyone else risking it all to borrow to purchase a baby grand, learn how to move it and place it on tiny rock club stages for three years. That was insane, physically and financially but luckily landed on it's feet. What worked well for my career did not work well for everything else. My personal life from the beginning of my career, has been 20 years resembling one of those record breaking mile long car pile ups on a foggy mountain freeway - bumper into bumper with helpless bystanders wincing at the sound of non stop crunching thudding metal that continued, echoing repeatedly off into the distance. That's sugar coating it. haha. I enjoyed writing that bit...
Okay1 By request! Here's all the luck I can remember whilst catapulting through the sky at 35,000 feet:
I had independent thinking parents in a low income household. Lucky. I attended an unusual elementary school (we sat on floor, had no homework, were encouraged to incorporate music or art into projects). I had access to both poor and rich people, their attitudes and behavior. My band teachers were jazzers - one was quite the pot smoker. I had a few well traveled friends who brought back strange eccentric music from elsewhere - there was no internet then and I'd never left the state of North Carolina before college so my friend Rob introducing me to new music was big.
I had to endure musical rejection from labels and elsewhere after I lost my music scholarship and left university. That was lucky as earlier success for my green self would have likely been brief and tragic. I played a solo piano gig opening for an artist with label interest which resulted in a publishing deal with a small publisher in Nashville where I moved for a couple of years 1990-1992. This small publisher couldn't do anything with me and passed me to Sony who were on the verge of dropping me within a year. It was lucky that I met Kerry McCarthy in the New York office of Sony Pub and she kept me on - I moved to New York for a year.
While I was in New York I was lucky enough to meet a Mr Mark Fried at BMI. He told me the story of his writing a big hit song in the 60's and how he realized that he would be happier serving other writers and finding homes for their music. I reflected on how miserable I had become, trying to ingratiate myself to labels, being rejected, attempting to present myself in a way that would make me successful. I had a serious Come-To-Jesus moment my first week in New York and decided I would surrender my hard headed notion to become a recording artist. I would take back my dignity. (I have since sold my dignity and bought it back more times than I can count - like a pawn shop)
I was lucky and landed a gig in a small musical during this period. Relieved of the burden of expectations of success, I pragmatically did the bare minimum to keep my publishing deal (and the advances) but harbored no illusions that they would lead anywhere. I would not be a recording artist but I would take the publishing checks and play the showcases. I was tired of being a slave to it all. I would no longer be bitter. I LOVED my work in musical theater that year. I hadn't written a song in literally years but now I didn't beat myself up about it. I enjoyed life.
While visiting Kerry at Sony Publishing in 1993 I met the guy who would become my manager - in the elevator. Alan Wolmark. He was not the hottest ticket in town (sorry Alan but I wasn't either). At the same time I was becoming very inspired by music that I identified with that was becoming successful. It was as if my people were beginning to take over. Liz Phair, Nirvana, Archers of Loaf, Counting Crows, Rage Against The Machine and more. My kind of music was exploding for the first time in my life and I became open to the music biz again, but this time I would not let others or success determine my value. I would do exactly as I pleased. I would not make demos and I would not kiss ass. I had seen career failure and it was nothing next to artistic death.
Alan and I were soon scheming and decided I'd be better off moving to back home to North Carolina, starting a band and playing gigs. I wanted to hear my songs in a trio with a distorted bass guitar taking the place of guitar. Radical in 1994, the year of grunge. I considered an electric accordian for a fleeting moment. With the real estate/rental classified section under my arm in the winter of 1993 I ran into Darren Jessee in a coffee shop in Chapel Hill. We started the band without my actually hearing his playing. Robert Sledge was recommended by my brother and we jammed once in a music practice room at UNC-Greensboro. Having met Alan and Kerry was lucky timing because I nearly had my baby grand piano repossessed that month. I'd learned how to move it alone into a van and had theorized that if I could get it on stage in rock clubs, it would stand out. It did. I just needed a band.
BF5 had our first rehearsal in January 1994 and our first gig was in March. Darren was waiting tables at night and took off work so we could record a single (Jackson Cannery) with a b-side (Eddie Walker) which we sold at gigs as vinyl. A fellow named John Alagia had heard our music and was keen to record us in Charlottesville, VA too. He was also making recordings for an unsigned artist, Dave Matthews. I once babysat Dave's nephews on Halloween with a mutual friend while he played a frat house. John went on to do big things. Dave, you might have heard of.
By the summer of 1994 we were ready to play some NYC shows and Alan got a few small labels out. We played our butts off and I'm sure the 40 people in the audience and the labels thought it was a damn freak show if for no other reason than I had disassembled my piano within minutes after the set and was negotiating it with one other person through the audience into the van outside. That always got a second round of applause as the next band were setting up. A small label called Caroline in NYC was interested and asked for a demo. We sold them single for a dollar. They signed us and before the release of our first record, a major label bidding war had started. We didn't go with the highest bidder with hip rock bands - we went with 550 a new Sony Label that had Celine Dion.
Meanwhile, a famous DJ in London loved Underground and made it BBC Radio One record of the week. Underground was picked up by Triple J in Australia and went to 3 on their yearly listener chart. Burt Bacharach had us on a TV special. Conan embraced us. We were critically acclaimed. Thats Luck. Our style of music was at the right place at the right time and we could do no wrong.
We made our second record in my house in Chapel Hill concentrating on the rocker songs since we were finding success live this way. All the rockers released from Whatever and Ever, Amen more or less flopped at radio - Battle, Dwarf, Dumped. Luckily, that drummer guy I met at the coffee shop, Darren, had written a chorus for a ballad which none of his friends had liked. I finished the song and we decided to include it on the album. As luck would have it, the modern rock radio format had decided that month that they needed a few token ballads in 1998 and Brick was one. Bittersweet Symphony was the other - in a big way. I should also add that 550 records was relentless in their promotion of Brick. The label head, Polly Anthony took the record personally to the major radio stations and would not take "no" for an answer. Lucky. right place at right time.
I could go on. I think that fills in something. My luck continues but very often, when my head's up my own ass, I miss things that I later wish I'd not passed up. In 1999 an unknown John Mayer (his producer, John Alagia actually) asked me to play piano on what ended up being Mayer's first hit. I passed and then cringed when I heard it all over the world for the next 18 months. It happened again a few months later when Train's producer asked me the same thing and I passed. It was Drops Of Jupiter and I couldn't get away from that song in any corner of the world. I passed on songwriter convention thing in Cuba while we were recording Reinhold - I felt I should concentrate on recording. They ended up having lunch with Fidel Castro.
Rocking The Suburbs was released on Sept 11, 2001 and was all but abandoned. I could no longer afford a touring band and was playing solo for 200 people after I quit BF5. Luck. Playing solo revived my career and passion as it made me face career death again. Audiences were desperate for relief from the news and sang along like their lives depended on it. Thus, the sing along for Not The Same, which was spontaneously sung by the audience to begin with. That sing along stuff led to a cappella world, which has been very rewarding. Damn it never ends. But the blog must..
.... so Emil and anyone who's stuck in the mud: Good luck with it. I just think that success as an artist is about seeing through the murk and feeling your way. Not being boxed in by your expectations or your ego. Being prepared and being relaxed as possible in your art IS within your reach - though it's very difficult and never gets easier. The luck part... thinking about that is bad technique. It's a waste of your energy in my opinion. To think you can manipulate those kinds of circumstances is to place a heavy burden on yourself and miss the real deal when it's in front of your face. Think of all the people who wish they'd invested a hundred dollars in this stock or that. In retrospect it all looks so easy. That's why I endeavor to be happy in my art first - my blogging is a reminder to myself to get back to that everyday because that's how often I forget.
I am headed home to be with my kids and will turn into a pumpkin. I'll read responses but I'll not be hyper-blogging until I'm traveling again. I also gonna try and find time soon to make a quick EP with a science fiction writer friend.