1More Series - Freedom Pt 3

In one of my many former lives I was a professional musician. I toured 14 cities east of the Mississippi playing homespun songs in dirty clubs filled with the most interesting people I'd ever met. And I had the time of my life. At some point, I decided I wanted to be a rock star. I spent a year and a half traveling to Nashville, working with a manager and flirting with A&R, lawyers, producers and other people who drive Jags and Lexuses. Truth be told, I barely made it out alive. My manager turned into a mentor and lifelong friend, but the rest of the experience left a lot of scars.

One particular WWJD moment comes to mind.

I was getting ready for a showcase in Nashville and all the bands were in the bathroom squeezing into spandex Diezels and carefully torn t-shirts. So help me God, I was straightening my hair. This was back when I HAD hair but, truly, there was so much dye and product in it NO WONDER God repossessed it. At any rate, my pure intentions for a career of creative expression that would bring hope to millions had turned into a clumsy, flacid thrust toward the arms of affirmation. So I quit. Good thing, too. My band was actually doing well and had we signed a recording contract I probably would have ended up $300,000 in debt with a needle in my arm and a shelved product. One of the finest phrases my lips have ever crafted is, "If Atlantic wants me then they'll have to deal with an artist that doesn't tour. My family needs me." If I had signed a contract, I wouldn't have had the sack (or legal right) to say such a thing. But the point of my story actually blooms in the middle of this blessed debacle, so let's rewind a little.

Before Atlantic, before the spandex, around the time of the manager.

Working in Nashville, I had been sculpting myself into what I thought the labels wanted. I had been doing everything I was supposed to be doing. I was on the phone, in the gym, or on the stage constantly. Things were really going somewhere...and I was miserable. I ended up having a falling out with the manager I had been working with. I had no clue who I was anymore, but I was growing uncomfortable with the direction of the development and my manager couldn't shop a nervous and unfinished round peg into the square holes of a 'zero development' record industry. So I stopped going to Nashville. I was dropped by my manager and my booking agent. All I had to show for it was an EP of a voice I didn't recognize and a rolodex full of people waiting for me to get my shit together.

So I regrouped.

I was determined to make this thing work, but I wanted to do it on my own terms. Unfortunately, my own terms meant that I had about 60 bucks to work with. The band I had formed while working in Nashville stayed with me. Turns out they actually believed in me. And they helped me get my voice back. We became a real team, got a proper band name, and took the path of the indie rocker. The drummer invested in a cheap laptop and scored us some cracked recording software (which we later purchased, so stop the finger wagging). With an SM57 and some dear friends we began recording in basements and bathrooms. We spent several months staying up nights experimenting with guitar tones and getting the snare head detuned just so. One of my favorite moments was recording guitars in a condemned cathedral. I had to track in pitch dark because the cops would come if they saw lights through the stained glass in the abandoned room. But the SOUND. Wow. I'll never forget it. And after it was all over, we had a record. We had the record we wanted. We had the record I'd been trying to make all along.

Yeah, we went on the road with it and got ourselves on radio and TV and in magazines. And then came the spandex and hair gel in the Nashville bathroom that sounded code blue for my career. But it was the earlier experience of breaking free and doing things MY way that gave me the strength to say 'no' again. Because I'd refused to compromise once before and been okay, I knew I would be okay again...and I was.

So what's all this have to do with freedom? Well, ring up some famous people who are $300k in debt with a needle in their arm and a shelved record and ask them if they would have done anything differently. Ask them if signing their name on a piece of paper at some point in the journey changed anything for them. Ask them if they'd do it again. Ask them if that one moment where they granted permission made each moment thereafter less and less free. Ask them if they still straighten their and wear spandex to please their masters. Ask them if they have a choice.