Austin B., appreciate you joining us today. Can you talk to us about how you learned to do what you do?
It’s been a long journey of learning and unlearning. There are many aspects of the craft. I made the dangerous decision to commit to three different disciplines: songwriting, singing, and guitar playing.
Songwriting is a rollercoaster ride of emotions about your talents as well as lack thereof. I’ve been writing songs since I was 13 years old. I can’t even tell you how many songs I’ve written. I’ve probably forgotten more songs that I’ve written than I remember. Sometimes songs come to me as a lightning bolt and I write it in 15 minutes. Sometimes I labor over a song for months or even years. Sometimes they never get completed. There’s no rhyme or reason to the craft. I can analyze all the reasons I want, but a song is binary. It either works or it doesn’t. I started writing by copying songwriting heroes of mine. Then I discovered new heroes all the time that informed my writing process. Through a laborious process I began to develop my ‘voice’. This voice eventually colors all the songs that I write, despite the myriad topics I tackle. I’m not sure if I can define what my voice is, I just know that a song sounds like me. I’ll write songs one night that I think is the best song I’ve ever written, and by the time the sun comes up the next morning, I’m questioning if I even know how to write a song based on the song I wrote the night before. I know a song of mine feels right if I keep listening to voice notes and editing it. I don’t choose if a song I’ve written stays in the setlist, it just does. Just as often, it doesn’t. Sometimes I’ll discover a song years later that I wrote years back. It will somehow wind it’s way back into the setlist. Why did I put it down and forget about it in the first place? There’s no way of knowing. But being able to reach into the ether and pull something out that feels like a pure expression of my inner psyche is a thrilling process… IF the song ends up being good. Sometimes you pull something out of the ether and it’s probably better if you put it back. Editing and scrapping songs and lyrics are skills worth their weight in gold. To quote a perfectly written song, “you gotta know when to hold ’em, know when to fold ’em…”.
As for singing, it feels the most intuitive. Better singing ability comes as the result of thousands of hours of doing it, however, it’s the part of the craft that I’ve focused on the least, as my voice tires out quicker than my pencil or my fingers. However, there are more healthy and proper ways to sing, which I found out the hard way. I played hundreds of 3-4 hour gigs without properly taking care of my vocal cords. This resulted in developing vocal nodules that affect the longevity and clarity of my voice. I can either push through or get surgery to remove them. I haven’t yet pulled the trigger on surgery, but I did learn how important it is to treat your voice with better care and respect.
The guitar though, is where it all started for me. I learned how to solo on guitar over chords probably too early. If you ask most guitar players, lead playing is the fun part. It’s the most expressive. Our heroes start at Eddie Van Halen, Eric Clapton, Angus Young, Joe Walsh, etc. They are guitar heroes for a reason. However, what you don’t realize is how, and I mean really HOW, important rhythm and groove are. All of the aforementioned players have terrific feel and groove, but you don’t realize it as a young guitar player. All you hear is the technical brilliance and dazzling proficiency. So I realized I need to focus more on rhythm, groove and timing. It was ten years at least though before I realized this reality. I could solo all over the place, but my rhythm playing was lacking. The journey of a guitar player is a constant realization of what you don’t know. Socrates and Ted “Theodore” Logan said that the only true wisdom is knowing that you know nothing. This very much applies to the journey of a guitar player, especially when you start getting into players like Guthrie Govan, Andy Timmons, Wes Montgomery, Frank Gambale, Brent Mason, and the list goes on. The exciting part is knowing that you can always improve on your skills and proficiency, which makes it a lifelong pursuit.
Austin B., before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
I grew up on a family farm in Oregon. Spending time out in the fields is where I drew my greatest inspirations from. It’s what ignited my creativity. I’ve written songs since I was 13 years old, played throughout my childhood, high school and college. When I was nearly finished with college I moved to Nashville in pursuit of stardom. When I ran out of money and was hitting a wall, I moved back to the farm. I farmed for another 4 or 5 years, while still pursuing music. In the summer of 2019, I made the decision to move to Arizona and recommitted myself to the full and unbridled pursuit of music. I was privileged to have met a fantastic community of like-minded and brilliantly talented musicians that I now get to call my friends. I’ve been working on a new album and a couple new EP’s that will be out this year and throughout 2024. As much of a journey of hardship, heartbreak, and tireless effort I’ve been on, it still feels like the journey is beginning. I know in my gut that the secret to a fulfilled (not always happy, but soul-satisfying) life isn’t in winning a game. It’s in constant pursuit of a new game. Or, rather, it’s about playing an infinite game that gets more complex the more it is played. There’s no “winning” life. There’s experiencing it and constantly discovering how to live it better. If you know the end of the story, what’s the point in even reading it? The fun is the journey. The journey will have numerous setbacks, heartbreaks, tragedies, triumphs, low points, peak moments, smiles, laughter, and tears. That’s what makes it a journey. You have a general idea of where you’re headed, but you don’t have the slightest clue what will happen around the next bend. If you’re lucky, you have some sort of a map. The terrain is vaguely stated, but there’s no telling what will happen out there in the wilderness. That’s what makes it an adventure worth taking. The danger and the reward of The Unknown. To quote Kurt Russell’s Captain Ron, “If anything’s gonna happen, it’s gonna happen out there.”
Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?
No one’s coming to save you. No one’s coming to make you.
This is something you’ve got to figure out yourself.
When I moved to Nashville, I thought that I just needed to sing the right song in front of the right person. That person would recognize sheer brilliance when they saw it, and would immediately call the bigwigs on music row and tell them they found the “next big thing”.
It’s embarrassing to admit that.
It came with a pretty hard slap of reality when I fully and completely realized that everyone in Nashville thinks along the same lines. Everyone wants to make it big. Everybody thinks they’ve got the one hit song that’s going to put them on the map.
It’s not true. It takes such hard work that 99.9% of people either quit, die, or languish in obscurity.
I watched and read so many music documentaries as a kid that it seemed like this path towards musical greatness rested in the inevitability of someone else being your savior that could pluck you out of the mire and set you on a stage in front of thousands.
No one cares.
At least, no one cares more than you do about your music. So you better be prepared to fight for it. That’s not just fighting for it in a stuffy room full of music executives. That means fighting for it when no one else will, when no one else is even listening. Night after night, year after year. This means fighting for it against your own self-doubt and self-pity. This means fighting against yourself. Creativity is free, but turning that creativity into a lucrative career is filled with so many hidden fees it would make timeshares blush. The idea of the blood, sweat and tears that go into a creative journey is romantic. We all see a picture of Ernest Hemingway, Bob Dylan, and Hunter S. Thompson in our minds, drunkenly sweating out brilliance on the page that millions revere and cherish as literary and musical triumphs. I did too. It doesn’t work that way unfortunately. The blood, sweat and tears is not romantic. It’s much more literal than that. It hurts. It breaks your heart. Ultimately you realize that you’re doing this for you. Not for anyone else. You’re truly trying to dredge up the innermost depths of your being to share with the world. They might not want to hear it. They might dismiss it. Joe Walsh, in the Eagles documentary said it best: “You know, there’s a philosopher who says, “as you live your life, it appears to be anarchy and chaos, and random events, smashing into each other and causing this situation or that situation, and then, this happens, and it’s overwhelming, and it just looks like what in the world is going on? And later, when you look back at it, it looks like a finely crafted novel. But at the time, it don’t”.”
No one is coming to save you, and that’s beautiful. Who else would you rather have writing and living this story?
Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative?
Maybe we’re not meant to be understood. I don’t understand my own actions half the time. Half is a very conservative estimate by the way.
I’ve spent my life and my music trying to use it as a olive branch to be understood. I think there are many things to understand about me, but it’s just the tip of the iceberg. This doesn’t mean I think I’m more interesting, or more mysterious, or more special than anybody else. This means that I don’t think creativity in general is meant to be understood.
I think it’s important to give creative people space and understanding. The reason creatives create is because there’s an unrelenting compulsion to do so. The thoughts never stop. It’s the reason so many creatives are hurt, addicted, lonely, self-destructive, or dead.
The creative spirit can be as beautiful as it can be brutal. We don’t ask for the thoughts that are given to us. Intrusive thoughts are not a fun thing to deal with. We act out often against our own better judgment. Trying to explain the texture of your mind when all it does is bounce back and forth between ideas and self-delusion is a losing game.
We also have a lot of fun, don’t get me wrong. I’m not trying to make it seem like all artists are tortured. We can be, but we also possess the compulsion to add beauty, humor, dirty jokes, and levity to an often tragic world. I would say that I got in trouble while trying to be funny in the wrong situations FAR more often than because I was self-destructive (although there was a fair amount of that too, and the police record to prove it.). While I tend to get philosophical when asked these kinds of questions in interviews, my day-to-day existence is filled far more with trying to make you laugh at a legitimately stupid joke than trying to make you think. Also, not all creative people are created equal. Some are interested in people. Some are interested in ideas. Some are interested in self-discovery. All are self-righteous narcissists on a suicide mission of artistic endeavor.
Joking.
It’s tough being a creative person. It’s also very rewarding and beautiful. It’s not all that lucrative unfortunately. The toughest part for many people to understand is that most creatives aren’t actually all that interested in money or the pursuit of it. We all need to provide for our families and put food on the table. However, as far as most creatives are concerned, a life worth living is a life discovering and contending with the unknown. If every day has some wonder and some thought-provoking discussion, it’s been a pretty good day. However, creativity and wonder doesn’t put a roof over your head. It’s a balancing act between monetary responsibility and creative expression. Our biggest struggle is that the thing we find the most rewarding is the very thing that doesn’t put gas in the tank. The push-pull dynamic can be a slog. We very often don’t get any satisfaction out of money in the bank, but it’s that money in the bank that allows us the freedom to pursue what actually makes us come alive. This is why God has a sense of humor, and a dark one. I often sit back and marvel at the paradoxical nature of life. There’s no light without darkness. The best tasting food is often the worst for you. The worst experiences you’ve had always make the best stories. The hope is that there’s a chance to turn a few of those stories into songs.