Points Of The Road

The conversations that arise after there’s nothing to talk about are the best ones.

Always bring warm clothes.

Always pack a swimsuit.

The shows aren’t the exhausting part. It’s all the stuff after the shows.

The singer will be asked for the most pictures and autographs…just let it happen.

You can’t go wrong with a leather jacket.

Loading the gear in and out is a rite of passage.

That couch in the green room has been there since before you were born.

Introduce yourself to the other artists on the bill…even if it’s weird.

Have an idea for when a string breaks or the sound system stops working.

When you pull back into your hometown after the last show and you open your front door and you set your stuff down and you take a seat at the kitchen table…be grateful you made it.

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Backstage Excitement

Backstage is exciting. Everyone wants to be backstage. Everyone who is backstage wants to be backstage…even the people who try so hard to act like they don’t…they know.

Backstage is exciting because there is a show about to happen ON stage. If there weren’t a show about to happen, the backstage area would have a very different vibe. Without the show the backstage hang just isn’t the same.

The anticipation, suspense, tension, special boots, tiny deli sandwiches, significant others, guests, not enough room, not enough bottled water, annoying warm up routines, small talk, super deep talk, weird talk, leather, who’s who, sharpies and sped up heart beats right before stepping on stage…

All of these are in their finest form because of the magic of what is about to happen on stage.

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It's All Mood Music

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

You probably don’t turn on Bruno Mars to get sad.

And you probably don’t turn on Sabrina Carpenter to feel sophisticated.

Every artist incites a mood. It’s all mood music. A list of words. Emotional connectivity. No artist can be everything to everyone but every artist can create a mood and live within the mood their music stirs up.

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Thirty Minute Call Back

I was on stage playing with an artist and I got a call.

I had no idea. I was on stage.

When I got off stage I listened to the voice mail. It was for a bigger gig.

I called back. The gig was already filled.

It was a easy to chalk it up to ‘it just wasn’t meant to be’…but the deeper insight was that I needed to put in the work to become a musician who was worth waiting thirty minutes for a call back.

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Moving To Nashville

People don’t move to Nashville to have a quiet life. They don’t move to Nashville to blend into the background and modestly go about their business. The don’t move to Nashville because they’ve given up and are looking to lay low.

People move to Nashville to be someone. To achieve the dream. To come out on top. To leverage talent, skill, relationships, time and hard work into something that is respected and desired by peers and maybe even the world.

And that type of pursuit changes people. It changes the bars and the coffee shops. It changes the neighborhoods and the vibe of the entire city.

Nashville has a lot of magic and a lot of heartbreak. Heartbreak for those who didn’t get what they dreamed of and heartbreak for those who got what they dreamed of only to realize it’s never enough.

But when that intense pursuit is distilled down to simply pursuing the creativity of the moment, it’s magic. It’s more than magic. It’s life giving and life changing. And maybe it could change us enough to dream deeper than ‘the dream’.

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Songs And Song Ideas

If you walk into the room and say, ‘I have this song…’ and then play it, you’ll probably get a complimentary response. After all, it’s your song, they don’t want to squash it right in front of you.

On the other hand, if you walk into the room and say, ‘I have an idea for a song…’ and then play some of it, you’ll get a much more interesting reply…I liked this part but not that part, what if you tried this, what if it went here next, keep working on that section, that word sounds cool.

The words we use in the setup dictate the way it’s listened to.

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