The 3 Secrets To Finding A Career In The Music Industry (and anywhere else!)

I think it's pretty safe to say that most people have some idea of what their dream job would be. Whether you're in high school thinking about your future career or in your 40's wishing for a better job than what you have, you probably have thought once or twice about some sort of job that you enjoy and don't do just for the money. Some people dream of doing work that's creatively fulfilling. Some dream of being a powerful figure working to do good. Others dream of unmitigated power and stepping on whoever they need to get there. They usually run for political office. Still others don't care so much about the work, they just want a job where they have free time and enough money to enjoy life. We all have our idea of a dream occupation.  Some of you reading may already have that job. That's amazing if you do. But most of the time those dream jobs are incredibly hard to get purely because of the fact that so many people want them. I used to spend a lot of time in LA and it's amazing how true the stereotype was that so many people there want to be actors.  I found it kind of sad that statistically it was impossible for many of those people to accomplish that dream. Likewise, not every computer programmer can work for Apple or Google. These are highly competitive fields with lots of people competing for a finite amount of jobs. I don't consider myself an important or even that smart of a person by any stretch of the imagination. But I do feel incredibly lucky and blessed to be able to play music professionally. I'm not rich, but I've been able to support a family by playing, writing, and producing music which, as you probably can guess, is not the easiest position to get into. I'd like to share with you a secret that was originally told to me by a mentor I had years ago. These 3 secrets are the key to being successful not only in the music industry, but really in any highly competitive field. Through the years I've seen his advice proven over and over again. I call it the Balancing Of the Major Skill-sets. Here it is:

To be successful in a highly competitive field (which includes the music industry), you need to be well-balanced in 3 major skill-sets. Those 3 areas are the TECHNICAL, RELATIONAL, and ARTISTIC.

Now let's define these areas:

TECHNICAL
This is about being good at what you do. Simple enough, right? If you are a guitar player, it means you're a really good player. If you're a computer programmer, you're an expert coder who knows many programming languages. If you're a lawyer, you know the law well and can articulate very clearly your arguments. If you're a teacher, it means you understand the subject matter so well that you can make it so clear that anyone can learn easily. This the meat and potatoes of what makes someone good at their job. This is a no-brainer, right? Everybody knows that if you want to be successful that you have to be good at your job. But here's a common misconception where many people run into trouble. Where many people go wrong is when they believe that simply being good at their job should be enough. If you ignore the other skill sets, it doesn't matter how good you are - you probably won't do well. I have met many people in my travels who are incredibly talented. Some of these people are musicians that can play circles around me, but they have completely ignored one or two of the other major areas and wonder why they can't get a gig.

RELATIONAL
This is simply people skills. How good are you with people? Do people like you? Are you easy to get along with? Do you constantly have drama in your life? Many jobs, especially those in the music industry, are determined by whether or not people like you. It's as simple as that. I know somebody reading this is thinking "oh, it's all about who you know" as if it's some unfair system. While there is a seed of truth in that statement, that sentiment is completely wrong. It's wrong in the assumption that if you know the right people, you can be totally incompetent and still get a gig. That simply isn't true. But here's the bit of truth behind that - I have seen many instances where the better musician was passed over for a gig simply because he wasn't a good "hang". And you know what? I think it should be that way. If I were hiring a band and had the choice between a player who was pretty good, could play the parts fine, and was fun to be around, versus another player who was an incredible musician worthy of the gods, but was painful to be around because he knew he was so high and mighty, I bet you all know who i would choose. I pick the guy I can get along with every time. Obviously the musician needs to be good enough to cover the parts, but the majority of music out there doesn't require modal improv free form jazz exploration. If you were in the same position, you'd probably make the same decision. Because if you're going to live on a tour bus for weeks at a time with people, wanting someone you get along with is a must. And the same goes for any job. If you're going to work in close proximity with other people, you can't be a complete and total douche bag.

ARTISTIC
I have dubbed the last area the Artistic skill-set. Every job has some sort of need for artistic sensibilities. Some require more than others, but it's there. By this, I simply mean your tastes. Your style. Your aesthetic. To use my musician example again, you simply can't be out of date. You can't expect to get a punk rock gig if all you know if 80s hair metal. If your clothes and even your gear don't match the vibe of the artist you're auditioning for, you're probably not going to get hired. And this is true for all jobs. If you're a home builder, you can't build houses that ignore the aesthetic demands of customers and expect to sell your outdated houses. Years ago there was a Brady Bunch movie, and the whole gag was that the Brady Bunch was living in modern times, but still dressed and did everything like they were still in the 60's. In a few scenes, the father, an architect, was continually trying to sell his outdated designs to be used in the modern age and was repeatedly turned down. It illustrates my point that your artistic sensibilities are important in any job. Here's the major pitfall that most people fall into when it comes to being current (at least in the music industry). When you are in high school, it is easy to be current. Billions of marketing dollars in everything from makeup to music to deodorant are thrown at your demographic in the hopes of getting you to buy things. You don't have to actively search out what's in style because it's served up to you on a golden platter. You're in school 5 days a week with your peers. If some new trend pops up, it's pretty hard to ignore. You don't have a full time job and you don't have bills to pay, so what else is going to occupy your time?? What I've noticed is that most people get their artistic sensibilities in high school (or college) but never grow or evolve them beyond that. They wear the same clothes they wore back then. You can even see it in hairstyles. Look at any adult's high school yearbook and chances are that ten years later their hair (if they still have it) is pretty close to that same style. I'm not saying to be fake and to be the old guy trying to act like he's young. I'm just saying it's healthy to keep an open mind to new styles that come out. You may actually like them.


Now that I've defined the three major skill-sets, here's the real point of what I'm trying to say. To even have a chance at getting a job in highly competitive field, these three areas have to be in balance. And here's the big secret - you don't even have to be 100% in all three areas. The trick is to not be lopsided. You don't want to be strong in one area and weak in the others. Like I wrote earlier, I know people who are crazy talented. Their Technical skills are off the charts. But their Relational skills were almost non-existent and their Artistic sensibilities were extremely low. A person like this is going to have an extremely hard time achieving their dreams. I've also met people who have almost magical people skills. I'm talking about that small handful of people you meet in your lifetime who are incredibly funny, witty, and everyone seems to like them. But some of these same people don't seem to have any Technical skill and wonder why their connections aren't getting them anywhere. And then there's the people who have incredible taste and can talk for hours and hours about the esoteric nuances of their field, but are snobby and can't come down from their ivory tower. But on the other hand, if someone is just pretty good at what they do, gets along pretty well with people, and they're relatively current, that's the person who's going to get hired. I'm living proof of that. I'm not an amazing player, but I can learn quickly and with a little practice I can play just about whatever you throw at me. I'm not incredibly funny and I'm not Mr. Charisma, but I can get along with most people and I can talk to anybody. I'm also working on not being such a jerk. And artistically, I am sometimes late to the party on whatever the most popular hipster artsy band is today, but I enjoy new music and get excited when somebody is creating music that's fresh and new. I'm not saying I'm awesome. It's actually the opposite.

So the moral of the story is to set your sights on mediocrity. Hahaha...ok not really. The moral is to be well-balanced in all three areas. The person who focuses on one or two but forgets the others is like the body-builder who only works out his arms and forgets his legs. It's just ridiculous. So I would like to encourage anyone reading this to examine yourself and determine which of these three areas you are strong in, and those where you are weak. If your Technical skill is lacking, you need to put in the practice and man hours to build your skill. If your Relational skills are in doubt, work on it. There's an entire industry of authors, speakers, and books dedicated to making yourself a better person. And if you find yourself painfully behind the times, open up a bit and try to find something you like that's new. I'm not saying you have to whore yourself out and follow every ridiculous trend that pops up. But I guarantee that if you open yourself up to the possibility, you will find out there might be a legitimate reason why certain trends are popular - you might just enjoy it.

And lastly, for anyone reading this, if you have a second please join my email list. I've got some really cool things in the works and my email subscribers will be the first to know. Thanks!

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Making It in the Music Industry: The Importance of a Plan

Every year about this time two things undoubtedly happen. The first is high school graduations around the country. 18 year olds are congratulated and showered with gifts for what they think is because of their achievement. I thought the same thing at that age, but as I've grown older I realize graduation presents and the accompanying fanfare is not about celebrating achievement, it is a consolation prize for the fact that these kids-turned-adults have just finished the easiest part of their lives and what really awaits them is the cold, hard, real world. Wow, i just re-read that and I want to kill myself. That was harsh. Ok let me re-phrase - Think of it as friends and family coming together to prepare you for the journey of adulthood. And now that I think about it, every time friends and family come together to give gifts it is usually under the banner of "celebration." But in reality it is because things are about to get tough and they're giving us gifts to make it easier to bear. Wedding showers, baby showers, graduations, you get the point.

The other thing that inevitably happens this time of year is the phone calls i get from friends, friends of friends, new graduates, parents of kids who should be asking these questions themselves, etc., all asking for my advice about how they can make their way into the music business. Some want to become engineers and producers. Some are musicians, some are artists. Some are business-minded wanting to work at record labels, booking agencies, and management companies. Most of the time the question they all ask is about what college they should attend. Sometimes it's about what or if they should move to Nashville/LA/NewYork. I don't think I know the answer for everyone. But I can offer advice based on my own experience as a professional musician, songwriter, engineer, and record producer. So for the benefit of those who don't know my phone number or know of friend of a friend, I've decided to post a blog about it in the hopes to help those in the way that others have helped me. I could write a book on the Dos and Don'ts, but today I'll focus on one thing.

Goals

If you are a graduating senior wanting to make your way into the business, you need to develop a plan. You need to set a goal. Then each of your decisions about what college to attend, whether or not to attend college, what city to live in, etc., all need to support that goal. Everything you do is either moving you towards that goal or away from it. In every endeavor, ask yourself if you're moving towards or away form your goal and you will quickly have the answer to whether or not you should continue down that path.

College?

If you want to be a producer or engineer, should you go to college? Pricey recording school can be a nice head start, but is it really necessary? That's debatable. But let me tell you this - the first thing you do when you finish recording school is to go intern for free at a studio while you try to hone your chops and get a break. If you have $100k in student loan payments hovering over your head, how are you supposed to do that? That example illustrates my main point. College isn't the goal. Forget the propaganda you've been fed that every successful kid should go to college and that if you don't go you're a failure. College is just a tool - a resource to be used under the right circumstances. Any builder or woodworker will tell you that having the right tools is incredibly important. If you need a screwdriver, you can't substitute with a hammer. Instead of helping, the wrong tool will actually set you back and put you in a worse position that you are in now. College can be a great tool, but as my example illustrates, it can also be a giant thorn in your side. So many students assume that if they can find the right college program then all will be fine from there on out. College is the not the destination. The real goal is to make a living doing what you love. Ask yourself what the best way is to get from where you are now to there. If college fits into a strategic plan to get you from point A to point B, then great! Go for it. I just meet so many high school kids who assume that college is the next logical step without actually thinking about the logic behind that step. School costs A LOT of money. If you have rich parents, then I am happy for you. Enjoy it. But if not, please do yourself a favor and calculate how much debt you will have at the end of those 4 years, how much your monthly payments will be, and what your average starting salary will be.

The mistake that many young people make is not that they make the wrong choice; it is that they don't think enough about where those choices will lead them. When I am asked for my advice by high schoolers, the conversation is not centered around me being some sort of genius consultant. I'm actually not that smart. My first question is to ask what they want to do. Once we have a goal, then we talk about different strategies for getting them into a position where they're making a living doing what they love. We look at others who are in that career and let decisions be influenced by someone who has been successful. Making the right decision does not require a master strategist. The answers you seek become obvious if you take the time to think it through and ask the right questions. If you don't know what you want to do, that is a giant red flag. The music industry is too competitive and too curt throat for people who don't have a clear intention.

In other industries, college is a must. You want to be a lawyer? Saddle up, buttercup. You've got at least 7 years of school ahead of you. You want a DR in front of your name? Prepare to be in school and in debt for the better part of your 20s and 30s. There's no way around it. But some industries the answer to that question becomes a little less black and white. Want to work as an IT guy? welllllll, sometimes college is the answer, and sometimes a guy who works hard, learns a few programming languages on his own time and gets a few certifications makes it just as far as a guy with a degree. And in some occupations a degree is completely worthless. Plumbers make pretty good money. You ever ask what school they went to if you need your drain unclogged? Let me say this - in all my years working in music, i have not landed one gig or job because of a degree. I thought my time in recording school helped me get internships, but later on realized that studios just want free labor. They would have accepted me with school or no school.

Perhaps you want to be a songwriter. If you can't afford a fancy school with a music business program, try studying poetry or english lit at a local community college or state school. take some music theory classes. spend your free time studying the works of great songwriters and dissecting their songs while you work your way through college without any debt. If you decide to move to a big city to pursue a songwriting career, you will have an advantage over those who have to work twice as hard to pay off their student loans.

If you love music and your dream is to be a music teacher, that's great! But do you need to go into a fancy, overpriced music business program?

Or perhaps your dream is to be an artist and get a record deal. Great! There are benefits to living in a city like Nashville or LA and being around a community of musicians. If you live in a musical vacuum, moving to a more musical community can really help raise your standards and motivate you to get better at what you do. But on the other hand, we live in a time much different than the music business 20 years ago. I know of many artists who have been discovered from YouTube. If you are truly talented and unique, the infrastructure exists via the internet to have your voice heard no matter where you live. If you have a band and want to make it big, sometimes moving to a big city is the worst thing you could do. The fan base of any successful band starts with their friends. Friends come to see shows, tell their friends who tell their friends, etc. With hard work and a little luck word spreads. So where are all your friends? they are where you live. Sure, moving to LA might be your big break. But for every artist that moved to the big city and made it big, there are a hundred, no, a thousand who found themselves all alone in a big city, trying to get a gig at clubs where you have to pay to play, having no friends to come see you play, getting lost in a sea of undiscovered acts, and fighting to be heard amongst countless others.

If you haven't figured it out by now, the gist of what I'm saying is to have a goal and to think beyond whatever decision you're faced with now. Your goal should be as specific as you can get. What is the endgame? Don't just say you want to work "in the music industry." Develop a plan to actually achieve it. Don't get me wrong - it's ok to change your mind farther on down the road. We all have little course corrections throughout our life. And you know what? Sometimes unexpected doors open for you down the road and the goal changes. That's ok too. The important thing is that you have your compass set towards the destination. Some people pick a direction not knowing the destination, but best way to find yourself off course is to not know where you are going.

Thanks for reading. If you haven't had a chance yet, please join my email list to get updates, tips, tricks, advice, discounts on studio and music gear, and even a few freebies.

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Pedal Pusher

Growing up as a guitar player in the 90s was a weird period for guitar tone. Musically we were transitioning out of 80s hair metal, high output active pickups, marshall full-stacks turned up to eleven, and worst of all - solid state amps. Excuse me for a second while i throw up. As whiny college rock and alternative came into style, many of those bands had horrible tone even though if they were to record nowadays, I would bet that their players would have top notch tone. It was a weird period where many well meaning guitarists suffered because of the lack of choices in gear. You basically had a choice between 3 or 4 corporate, factory-made amps. The same goes for pedals. It was basically Ibanez, Boss (Roland), DOD, Digitech, or some dreaded digital multi-effects processor. I shouldn't judge. I'm just as guilty. I remember salivating over the Digitech RP-21 in the Musician's Friend catalog. But I digress.....

I would have given my best pair of JNCO's for this monstrosity

Fortunately we've come a long way since the days of a few mediocre choices to satisfy the masses. For about the past ten years we've entered a golden age where a multitude of smaller boutique amp and pedal companies have popped up and even thrived. Instead of a few cheap, mass-produced pedals, we have a plethora of pedal options that are hand-made to fit whatever tone you desire. Now I know what some of you are thinking - there were boutique companies in the 80s and 90s. And you're right. However very few people knew about them and without the internet there wasn't much of a way for those smaller companies to fight the corporate behemoths. Well for the past couple of months I've had the opportunity to try out a couple pedals from Sublime Guitar Company (Sublime Guitar Company) and I'd like to share my experience.

Sublime Guitar Company is a Tampa, FL based startup that has focused on their guitar designs up until this point. They've come out with 4 pedals, but for this post I'll be reviewing the Hippy Joel Overdrive and the Mobin Overdrive.

Hippy Joel Overdrive

The Hippy Joel overdrive is a boost pedal reminiscent of the famed Klon Centaur where a new type of overdrive emerged that was meant to be a subtle, transparent overdrive to maintain tone. The Hippy Joel delivers a clarity in an overdrive pedal that's hard to find. Most overdrive pedals offer a trade off on the clarity of tone versus the amount of drive. As you add more gain, the clarity of the signal fades and the sound eventually turns to mush. There's also usually a slight degradation of the top end as well as losing a little punch on the low end.  This pedal seems to work best as a slight boost - the kind of tone that sounds clear on light strums but breaks up nicely when you dig into it. Think of a vintage fender amp turned up loud.

The pedal will break up nicely as you add more gain, but I honestly prefer using it more as a boost. I personally will rarely play a guitar, no matter how delicate the part, without at least a touch of overdrive or distortion. Even shimmery clean parts seem to jump out in the mix more with a touch of gain. The trick is in how you play it. An angelic clean tone can turn into a monster bite depending how hard you dig in.  Here's a video to illustrate what I'm talking about. Notice how when the gain is turned up the top end does not roll off and the low end does not get muddy like other pedals do.



Mobin Overdrive

The Mobin Overdrive pedal can be summed up in one word - versatility. Although this true bypass pedal takes up a minimum amount of real estate on your pedalboard, it offers three distinct overdrives via the three-way diode selector switch. This pedal paired with my Jekyll and Hyde has been  my main distortion for Stellar Kart shows the last few months. I've also used it in studio and there is a lot it has to offer. The first diode setting is more of an organic tube-screamer style sound, the second diode offers a brighter tone best used as a boost, and the third diode is a Marshall/British style tone.

First of all, this pedal is HOT. The gain starts to break up fast and I rarely have it set past 9 or 10 o'clock (the gain starts around 7 o'clock). The biggest thing I've noticed about this pedal is how well it sits in the mix. As a musicians and a producer, I've noticed a disparity in how guitarists like an amp to sound, and how engineers like to hear it in a mix. The truth is when a guitar is sitting in a mix with a bunch of other instruments, some of the low end gets sacrificed to allow the bass guitar to cut through, and some of the mid range gets the ax in order to let the almighty vocal shine. The difference between this pedal and most others is in the low end. Like many things in life, distortion is a trade-off. The higher frequencies are excited and sound great, but over-distorted low end starts to sound muddy and not defined. So adding gain is good for the high end and bad for the low end (and vice versa when backing off on gain).  I'm not sure what sort of sorcery the wizards at Sublime Guitar Company have conjured, but they're able to get searing top end harmonics while leaving much of the low end intact and punchy. In a live setting this cuts down on the muddiness on stage and allows your tone to cut through like it should. Here's another video to illustrate the versatility of this pedal:



So those are my thoughts. If you're interested, check out the videos. SGC is also running a kickstarter campaign for their new guitar pedal division. It's actually a pretty good deal. I'm not sure what these pedals will retail for, but I can say that a similar hand made pedal from another boutique company could easily cost from $150 - $300. The kickstarter is structured so that when you donate, you basically get a free pedal at a pricing structure that is very generous. If you have a sec, check them out. They're a bunch of good guys with great hearts and a passion for excellent tone. Here's the link:

Sublime Guitar Company Kickstarter

Also, if you'd like, please subscribe to my email list so I can keep you in the know with what's going on in the industry, tips, tricks, gear reviews, and even some freebies. Just fill out the form below.

Thanks!!!
Nick

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