I’ve grappled with this question my whole life. The “why” question. Why do I carry this urge to create things, or more particularly in my case, to create music? I have been a consistently active musician since playing in my first rock bands in high school. For a couple of brief periods in my life, I made some portion of my income from being a working musician, but for the vast majority of the time, making music has been a labor of love with oftentimes little return, yet I continued and still continue to do it.
I have recognized three distinct periods of my personal thinking on this matter. The first was during the early years growing up listening to rock and later heavy metal records. As a teenager, metal was everything and I listened to as much music, consumed as much media, and went to as many concerts as I possibly could. The latter two of those three activities were often challenging while growing up in a tiny coal town in the mountains of western Pennsylvania. But nevertheless, I persevered. The idea of playing in bands and being a rock star was romantic, and the “why” was simple. I wanted to be famous, just like kids who wanted to play in the NFL, or act in big Hollywood films. This thinking carried me through my twenties in Nashville, where I was a semi-professional bass player and pursued as many opportunities as I could to “make it”.
Into my thirties, as I became a parent and settled into my adopted hometown of Lancaster, PA, my responsibilities changed, and my thinking changed. I started my career as a software developer, earned a master’s degree, and did all the things you’re supposed to do when you suddenly have a family that depends on you. I continued playing music in my free time and the answer to the “why” question evolved, but not as much as I would have thought. I was still ultimately doing it for some kind of affirmation from others. In other words, there was still some level of fame associated with “why” I made music. I wasn’t delusional, though. By then the idea of being famous was no longer record contracts and tour buses. It had been reduced to local and regional notoriety.
Shortly after turning forty, I was again making a portion of my income, albeit a much smaller one, from music and more generally the performing arts. The “why” question kept coming up for me. I had done enough work locally to be known as a musician, producer, and even podcaster, and while I was still hungry to make music, it never quite reached the level of fulfillment that I had expected. I reflected long and hard about the past twenty-five years that I had been writing, recording, and performing. There certainly were experiences and output from those years that were very fulfilling and that I’m very proud of, but for the most part, the driver of the music I made had more to do with what I was hoping other people liked, rather than what I liked. I made decisions around the music based on what I assumed was the shortest path to acceptance by others, and therefore the shortest path to some kind of fame. I knew that my “why” needed to change.
Five years ago this month I launched a band that became Here Inside, my current and primary music project. At that time I promised myself once and for all that going forward, the music that I would make could only be music that I loved. I challenged myself to make the kind of music that excited me and that I would crave hearing. My “why” could no longer be about things that I hoped others would like. I started making music for myself first.
This concept seems so obvious; it’s hard to imagine why it would have taken me twenty years of writing music to realize it. But it turns out the execution can be a real bitch. No matter how pure our intentions are, creators also need an audience, and the desire to build an audience can hijack our good intentions without even realizing it. More on that in my next post tentatively titled “getting the fuck out of my own way”.