Excitement Goes A Long Way

You’re willing to put up with a lot more when you’re excited, when the group is excited, when the whole team is excited.

Excitement gives you willingness to endure and reorders your priorities into a more beneficial order.

Excitement can enter the room in a big way all at once and it can also come from a tiny spark and then someone says Yes! and keeps going with it and it builds as more people (or more of each person) gets revved up.

It’s might be tough to be consistent with big excitement…but you can almost always make a little and you can say yes to someone else’s.

Hum Love on Spotify and Apple

Vacation Budget

The vacation budget looks a lot like the budget mentality that rolls out at the end of most projects…

‘We’ve made it this far, time to spend like crazy and worry about it later’.

Super fun and effective in the moment. Not a great for the long term, or the mid term, or really even the short term.

Hum Love on Spotify and Apple

Now That It's Recorded

First Monday of the month means new Hum Love playlist on Spotify and Apple.

Now that your songs are recorded you’re gonna be playing them live. Maybe on the road, maybe online, probably both.

You spent all that time in the studio getting things just right, so there’s a natural magnetic pull to just play it exactly like the record. And even more…it took a lot of time and energy and hard work to whip those songs in to shape on the record and now…you’re tired.

But live is different than recorded. Performance energy is different than listening on headphones energy. You have to be willing to change things, amplify moments, stretch it out, let it breathe, speed it up, make a speech, skip an outro…whatever you need to do to create emotional connection for the moment you are a part of.

Your record is a great start. Keep going.

Hum Love on Spotify and Apple

I Don't Feel Like It

It’s a good idea to have a plan already in place for not feeling like it.

Even for those who love doing their work, not feeling like it is inevitable. What we choose to do with the not feeling like it is what makes the difference.

When I was in college I applied for a part time job at the Pepsi facility near the school. It was an online application with lots of questions and I summoned two of my roommates to help me fill it out.

Lots of standard questions but then it asked, ‘Do you sometimes feel lazy’…and I could check Yes or No.

This caused quite a discussion between me (a bass player), a keyboard player and a drummer. Because I said OF COURSE I feel lazy sometimes, who doesn’t? So clearly every human ought to check the Yes box. But my guys were adamant that by checking Yes I would be out of the running because clearly they don’t want lazy people working at Pepsi…I should just check No since that’s the answer they’re actually looking for.

I don’t remember which box I checked. I didn’t get the job. Whew.

Hum Love on Spotify and Apple

You're Getting In A Van

No matter how big of an artist you become…

You’re getting in a van- you might tour in a bus or a plane but you’ll be getting in and out of vans forever. The ride from the airport, the shuttle at the venue, the drive to the pre show appearance, the after show event, and back to the airport. You never completely out grow climbing in the side door of a van.

You’re sitting on metal folding chairs- eating at round tables in rooms with painted brick walls. This describes green rooms in arenas. Theaters are actually better…but then again thats the same comfy couch that’s been there for forty years. Festivals, radio stations, catering, merch table…Yes, metal folding chairs are part of the life.

You’re being asked ‘What else?’- the second you release something everyone will ask what else you have. As if this isn’t enough?! As if this isn’t enough to save the planet from all its problems…this IS the what else…this is the fruit of the labor. How dare they ask ‘what else’…but they will.

These aren’t the typical elements associated with the artist lifestyle…but this is some of the real day to day stuff that you’ve gotta be willing to say Yes to.

Hum Love on Spotify and Apple

The Way It Was

For a long time recording was too expensive for most artists. As was duplication, distribution and getting the word out. So record labels came along, picked certain artists and relieved those burdens in exchange for ownership.

If you didn’t have a record deal it was easy to point to that as the reason no one was listening to your music. Not having the deal was the scape goat for all career short falls…and for decades it probably was.

Now it’s not that way.

»» You probably still need a team and you’re going to need some money. But you need a team who is really smart with money…and more importantly really smart with time. Yours and theirs.

Hum Love on Spotify and Apple