Taking Care Of Business. Everyday, Every Way.

True leaders are hard workers.

True hard workers aren’t necessarily leaders.

I’ve come across amazingly hard workers, limitless talent, friendly as can be, love getting stuff done…and they need a guide, a leader to prompt and shepherd them.  They are workers and every team needs workers.  It’s vital.

I’ve come across leaders who were leading, but had no idea they were leading.  They steer the ship, delegate, follow up, have a big vision…and they need help, a lot of help and unity in order to pull anything off.  The leaders need to wake up, recognize themselves as leaders, and also let others recognize them as such.

There’s beauty and power in recognizing the difference and identifying which category you fall into, as well as your fellow band members, and also the rest of the members of your team.

p.s. If you have the guts to talk about this stuff with people around you, your band dudes or your team, you are probably a leader.



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I’m always interested in your perspective, whether affirming or dissenting. Continue the conversation anytime: gabethebassplayer@gmail.com

The Next Song

You keep writing the next song because you just don’t know what the next one could be.

Does your guitar have a Blackbird in it?

Does your piano have a Piano Man in it?

Does your computer have a What Do You Mean in it?

It might. In fact, if you believe it does, it probably does…but it might not be till after the next ten songs you write, or the next hundred, or more.

The tiresome journey of the NEXT song.  Will you keep getting back in the saddle? Again and again and again?

The pursuit is romantic and elusive, mesmerizing and blinding.

But when you’re sitting on the edge or your bed, or in your office, or on a cold chair in a music row writing room, you will suddenly feel that the song you’re working on is not simply the next song…it’s THE song.

The feeling that that song will give you in that moment, that gift, is everything.

You get to have that moment, that one intimate moment where only you know you have THAT song.  You hold the biggest secret in the world.  And the world is going to be thrilled when they find out.

Then as the story goes, the song gets tracked and mixed and mastered and released… you have to give that moment and song back to the universe.  

You keep writing the next song because you just don’t know what the next one could be.

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I’m always interested in your perspective, whether affirming or dissenting. Continue the conversation anytime: gabethebassplayer@gmail.com

Mommy Made Me Mash My M&M’s

How many sub par TV performances do we have to endure before singers remember that pitch matters?

If pitch isn’t your thing, make that your banner, your schtick, but otherwise…tighten up.

I know I know, tone, delivery, vibe can cover for some pitch problems, but for TV specifically you gotta be on.

Go see a vocal coach…more than once.  

You’re first objection…

It’s too expensive.  I know you think it’s expensive, $100/hr or so, but you spend that on your cable bill every month.  Cut your cable (and waste less time) and have a monthly vocal lesson instead. 

…then lie you tell yourself when you believe your first objection…

I just don’t need a vocal coach.  You’re not above instruction, and you will not sustain trading on raw talent alone…even Steven Tyler goes to a vocal coach, and he’s about as natural as they come.

Practice your songs. Sing them into your computer and listen back, be brutal.  

Record your next show.  

What happens to your voice on the high energy songs, the ones where you’re running around?  What happens then during the ballads? 

What are the trouble spots on your single?  The song you’ll most likely be singing on TV.  Work it out.

Most singers don’t practice singing or seek instruction.  Most singers are pitchy on TV.

If you’re in Nashville and need a vocal coach, email me, I’ll point you in the right direction.  And the first lesson will be free.

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I’m always interested in your perspective, whether affirming or dissenting. Continue the conversation anytime: gabethebassplayer@gmail.com

Tell Me About Your Band

Artists get this prompt a million times by music biz people as well as general fans.

How will you respond? Why will you respond that way?

You can either tell the facts or you can tell a story. 

If all you do is tell the facts, you will live and die by them.  You can absolutely gain ground and succeed by telling the facts, but it’s slippery and political.  When the facts are favorable, opportunities are open and easy.  When your facts don’t measure up, you have nothing to lean back on, and the fact-crunchers don’t care anymore.

Facts speak to the mind (important), a story speaks to the heart (more important).

So even when your facts aren’t great, the story still entices us to believe.  Both you and us can believe a story DESPITE the facts.

When the facts are that you used to play big theaters and now you’re only playing big clubs…that’s a death blow if all you’ve ever done is pedaled your numbers to people.

But in-spite of these facts you lean into the story of your culture…for instance…of making everyone feel hopeful after coming to your show, more confident after every business meeting, more united after every business phone call, and never stop creating music that makes each fan float off the floor a little bit when they hear it.

“Tell me about your band” is an invitation to move someone through the heart with a story.  Your story.

Tell me about your band.

 p.s. Many times when biz people say “Tell me about your band”, they think they’re asking about your facts and bullet points, because that’s what they’re used to hearing all day.  But we’re all human, we all want to be taken for a ride, we all want to hear a story that makes us come alive, something that makes us feel connected…and we don’t even know why but we FEEL it.

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I’m always interested in your perspective, whether affirming or dissenting. Continue the conversation anytime: gabethebassplayer@gmail.com

Enter In

You’ve played these songs a lot.  You wrote some of them forever ago, and have moved on from that subject matter.  You don’t connect with the tunes.  They’re old. Maybe you don’t even like these songs anymore but you are obligated to the fans to play them.  

You play them anyway, sing the notes, play the chords, act like you care, clock in, clock out.

You need to find an entry point.

A way back into the song.

You need to be able to go somewhere in your mind that allows you to reconnect with the song.  A place, feeling, relationship, a random detail, a random lyric in the song you let trigger you.  It doesn’t have to be the same mental space as when you wrote it, or even the same space you accessed the night before.

Find a way to enter in.

If you won’t believe, we won’t believe. If you will believe, we might believe.  But we need you to go first.

Finding a way-in is tough night after night after night, song after song after song.

But these are your songs, your offerings, your connection points.

Enter in.  Relentlessly find a way in.  

 
p.s. Share this with someone else who’s tired.


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I’m always interested in your perspective, whether affirming or dissenting. Continue the conversation anytime: gabethebassplayer@gmail.com

Cool Factor

Do the things your band does make someone feel cool for telling their friend about you?

If so, keep caring about your fans in that way.

If not, retool.  Probably not start over, just retool.

And it’s not even all about their friend agreeing, but about the fact that they felt cool passing it along.

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I’m always interested in your perspective, whether affirming or dissenting. Continue the conversation anytime: gabethebassplayer@gmail.com