I love music. I have been a musician my whole life. Since my first gig at the age of 12, I was hooked. Even when I was still in single digits, I loved recording songs off the radio onto a cassette tape (remember those?) and I would play the tape over and over and over again while I sat at the piano and picked out the chords one note at a time. Then once I figured it out, I would go in my room and record my own version of it onto my 4-track cassette recorder (remember those?). After doing that for a few years, I started writing my own songs. I got so excited by the creation process! To think I could make a song that said exactly what I needed to say out of thin air. It was amazing. And I knew I was going to be doing this for the rest of my life!
Or so I thought.
Being an adult is hard. Once I got out of college, I toured with my band LP Outsiders for quite a few years. But when that finally ended, I had to figure out how to make money. Instead of getting a "real" job, I decided I would do whatever it took to make a living as a musician. As it turns out, that meant learning a lot of other people's songs and playing them in bars for drunk people. Now don't get me wrong, I had fun for a few years. But after 15 years of doing that, I started to feel empty inside. What is the point of just playing other people's songs? Why am I not writing and performing my own music anymore? That is what I got into music for. It's weird how you can get to the point of feeling trapped very quickly and that's how I felt. Trapped. I was tired, depressed, fat and an alcoholic. See the only thing that made gigs fun after a while was drinking. So alcohol became my obsession instead of music. It didn't take long until I felt completely defeated.
Then I turned 40.
Wow! What a wake up call 40 was! I had lived on this earth for 40 years and had almost nothing to show for it. I didn't want any regrets on my death bed. I wanted to live. I wanted to create. I wanted to help other people who felt trapped. What was I doing?! It was time for a change.
And that is when Soul Motivation Records began. I knew I wanted to make my own music again. But I also wanted my music to mean something. I wanted to help people, inspire people. I wanted to be the musical Tony Robbins. I wanted to make motivational music that was dope music with an inspiring message. Oh man, I could do this! I could make a living creating music again! Once I started to believe that, there was no turning back!
Starting a company is really hard. Starting a music company is almost impossible. All your friends will tell you why you can't make a living with music anymore. Everyone will tell you it's way too much work. People won't understand when you have to stay home to write a blog post instead of going out drinking with them. You have to be ready to go against the flow. Everyday. But do you want to be like everyone else? Miserable. Doing what they think they are suppose to do. Drinking every night so they have something to enjoy.
