Get Better

Are you interested in getting better?

Or are you just gonna see how it goes

Are you interested in getting better?

Or are you already good enough for now

Are you interested in getting better?

Or is that for other people, not for you

Are you interested in getting better?

Or would that require too much of something

Are you interested in getting better?

Or are you in love with the status quo

Are you interested in getting better?

Or does that feel selfish

Are you interested in getting better?

Or is that just not how you work

The whole point is that you don’t know how it’s going to play out. You don’t know the ending. No one who ever got better at something knew exactly what that would look like once they got there. 

You never know when you decide to do something how much it will help other people, stretch your own mind, inspire creativity, make you feel not-lonely.

Once you decide that you’re interested in getting better, then you can and will start learning. The cliche is absolutely true.

Stop fighting your reservations. Dismiss them and start getting better.

What’s the one thing that you’re afraid of, that if you committed to doing it everyday for three months, you would be a thousand steps forward?

So Are You Guys In A Band?

There’s that commercial out right now with the two camels at the zoo and they’re hearing all the humans make hump-day jokes.  The humans think they’re hilarious, insightful and clever, and the camels are annoyed and unimpressed.

It made me think of how many millions of times I’ve been on the road and had to field the question of “so are you guys in a band?”.  And I must say, including the word “so” on the front of that sentence is no mistake, almost everyone starts with that.

Why does that question make so many bands squirm and not really know what to say?

There’s a long answer to that question, but I’ll save that for a different day. I don’t want to go there right now.

Where I do want to go is this…What is the cashier at the gas station, the hotel front desk worker, the people sitting near you at the restaurant really asking when they muster up the chutzpah to approach you and ask the question?

The truth is they’re most likely not audiophiles.  They’re not highly interested in your music and are not scrambling to find themselves the next Bon Jovi.

What they’re asking is this: Are you someone who I can have a conversation with that will make me excited about today? Will you take me out of the norm? Can I step into your leather-clad world for a moment? I’m inviting you to make me feel special, will you do it? Will you give me a thrill?

“So are you guys in a band” is an invitation.  Even when the tone of voice is slightly condescending, they’re still taking the time and nerve to ask it, so it’s still coming from the same place.

No matter what level of success you think you have or haven’t achieved, when someone asks this, you are in a cool band, you are on tour, you’ve found a way to not have a 9-5 (at least not 5 days a week). You are an interesting person. So are they. And they just had the guts to make the first move.

What’s your move?

There Is No Giant Leap In Confidence

There’s no such thing as an giant leap of confidence for an artist. 

Each time you play a show, no matter how big or small, it only counts as one.  It’s one tiny step.

If you’re a band who’s played twenty shows and then gets to play Coachella or Austin City Limits to 10,000 that still only counts as one. Now you’re a band who’s played twenty-one shows. That’s all the steps you’ve taken.

You probably think it will count for more.  You think after you play that huuuuuuge show you’ve built up in your mind for gajillions of people that you will ascend to a higher level.  That’s just not how it works. Wish it did. Sorry.

There is something about taking that final step on to the stage that is a mind warp. For good and for bad. And you have to do it over and over and over again if you want to gain confidence.

Now, one guy might start the journey with more confidence than another, but in order to grow in that confidence its all the same, long, process.

It’s been said kinda like this before, but this is very similar to telling your wife she’s beautiful.  It doesn’t matter how lavishly you give her a compliment on her beauty.  It only counts as one. That one, amazing well thought out compliment will not boost her life’s confidence to the moon.  You have to tell her every day, and then after a long long time, she will gain great confidence in her beauty.

Go out and play two hundred shows as fast as you can.

You need lots of one’s.

Setlist Trouble

I used to be in a band called The Kicks.  In that band, we had a song called Let Me Love You (you can listen to it HERE), and it always went over really well at the live shows.  The song goes back and forth from pretty chill to wild and raucous a few times before really lifting off at the end.  So by the time we were done with the song, we had definitely hit a climactic moment.

The audience would be engaged, the band was engaged, the groove was good, the guitars were blazing, big vocals. This was it.

Naturally we tried putting the song at the end of the set list because it seemed to be this energy filled, uplifting, rock n roll moment to close with.

But it didn’t work.

To this day I can’t explain why Let Me Love You wasn’t the right song to close with but it just wasn’t. Every time we’d close a show with it, we’d get off stage and know it wasn’t right.

So we started putting it right after the acoustic portion of our set.  We’d play a couple down songs in the middle of the show and the thought was to pick the energy back up with Let Me Love You.

This worked. Everytime. 5 people or 5,000 people, it worked.

Again, I can’t totally explain why, but anyone or anything, any energy that we’d lost up to that point in the set, we would gain back when we played this song.

And this presented a new problem. Here we were 30mins into a 45 minute set and we feel like we just blew the roof off.  We just played the ace up our sleeve. What now?

What in the world do we do with the final 15 minutes of the show? How can we create an even bigger moment to end with?

For artists and bands, these are the questions. The ebb and flow, the story of your set list, the place you’re leading people to and why you’re leading them there.

I think the best shows The Kicks ever played were when we solved the little riddle of the above situation.  It took a lot of tinkering, some failing, some fighting, some new songs, some old songs, but once we nailed it…

I say all this to say, keep paying attention, keep looking for a way in, keep listening to your gut, keep pushing for a better way.

How Have The Shows Been?

Oh, you’ve been on the road lately? How have the shows been?

“Pretty good”.

Why is this? Because ‘pretty good’ doesn’t demand any follow up inquiry.  The truth is the shows have been going pretty crappy, cause if they were going really well, you’d want to say that instead.  Prompting another question as to how they were so great.

(Or there are some who down play that their shows have been going really well because they don’t want to come off arrogant or self righteous.  This is also sad.)

The questioner is satisfied when you answer pretty good, it flows in conversation, and maybe they were asking just to be nice anyway.  Pretty good gets you off the hook. Pretty good avoids skepticism from the outside. Pretty good is the status quo. Pretty good is safe. Pretty good avoids criticism.

But can’t you realize that all your best stories, and what makes you magnetic, comes from admitting to crappy shows and/or really great ones.  Everyone loves extremes.  The middle is boring.  You say 'pretty good’ and rob yourself of the opportunity to say something interesting.

I truly hope your shows haven’t been just going pretty good. If they really are, lean in harder and either break through or fall apart.

But as for conversation, change the norm of everyone here in Nashville walking around talking about the pretty good shows they’ve been playing.

The Winter Blues

It’s January, it’s cold. Not much daylight. Rain. Snow. Cold cars.  Dead batteries.

The winter blues are a real thing. January is the worst. 

Stay away from making big, rash decisions at a time like this.  You’re not totally yourself at the moment.  You’re cooped up in your house, post holiday depression has set in, Alabama lost, sunlight is rare, your chips are down and your spirits low.

At least don’t make big decisions by yourself right now.

I’m serious. 

It’s going to get warmer soon and you’ll be able to think clearer.

If you have to decide something big in the next couple weeks, talk with a handful of other people.  Not just one or two.

Make major decisions in the sunlight and/or the company of wise people.

Keep working ferociously hard.