June 20, 2024
Alright so this journal entry probably won’t be my usual outwardly optimistic self. I have a feeling it will end that way, but first I have to get through expressing the darker stuff so hang in there with me for a min here... Seems like I usually hold that stuff back from these posts I guess because I’m concerned about putting negativity out in the world and harming someone else’s path with it. BUT I promised real stuff in these studio journals and it’s time I stop holding back when I’m feeling it.
This week has been long and quick all at the same time. I’m writing this just after midnight so technically it’s already Friday June 21st. It always feels like there is not enough time in the week to get all the stuff done I want to accomplish, between my day job (working remotely from home in Arizona as the A&R director of a Los Angeles TV music catalog), being a full-time dad while Sarah is working out of the home so we can make ends meet in a crazy inflated financial society, and with pursuing my stupid little teenage dream of having a successful rock band who gets to write songs in hopes to connect with and help people and one day play said songs for audiences all over the world (keyword here is “one day”, I only wish I were in the place to be actually performing them all over the world).
In spite of all this on my plate, this week I was able to nearly finish one of our acoustic songs “When Words Fail” for our “Beautiful, Terrible” album. It’s been one of those weeks of working late into the night almost nightly (or should I say into the early morning? I went to bed the other morning just as Sarah was getting up for work for the day around 4:30 am… yikes). There’s still more I’d like to do with “When Words Fail”, but I may just need to lay my perfectionism aside and keep it as is since we’ve been fortunate enough to have nearly 400 people now preorder physical CDs of this album. People are waiting for it and time is ticking. That’s a pressure in and of itself too.
On my lunch break today I promised I’d take the kids swimming for an hour. As I sat there watching them I found myself feeling frustrated and I guess even stupid enough to feel sorry for myself. I’ve been going HARD at this recent push for Fenwick & the Futures now with the new Mind Cycles EP for a full year. And I’ve had other longer runs in the past too of going hard at pursuing this silly little teenage dream of mine, only followed by bouts of hiatuses in between when I’ve thought there was no point in continuing. In fact, this “mind cycle” of mine (see what I did there?) has happened at least three or four times in my past from high school until now… where I’ve started a band, started to see the beginnings of success with it, then got scared and backed off. Scared of what though? Scared of failure I guess? Scared and wondering if it’s the wrong path for me to pursue? Still trying to soul search and figure that one out to be honest… I know fear doesn’t come from a positive source so maybe that’s all there is to it.
While these memories flooded back today sitting poolside, in spite of being so much further success-wise than in band pursuits of the past, all I could think of was what I have financially to show for it all which is literally $0 aka nothing… no dollars lol… which is INSANE to me because the other night I did an accounting of fan-made CD purchases over the last 9 months and was shocked to realize that in CD sales we’ve grossed the exact same dollar amount as my annual salary with my A&R day job. WHAT. People across 7 different countries bought enough CDs in the last 9 months to cover a full annual salary’s worth of my regular day job? That’s seriously unbelievably amazing to me and more than I ever thought possible when I started this recent path of revamping F&TF a year ago especially when I have been selling something as seemingly old fashioned as compact discs????
Well, the keyword here is “grossed” because where has all that money gone? Whelp, like I said, $0.. none of it was profit. It left my bank account quicker than it arrived as it all mostly went to advertising costs, to Meta/Facebook/Instagram paying them to introduce our music to new fans in the first place. The rest of it went toward other business operation expenses like website & email tech/automations, and CD production costs too. I should be grateful for the huge bump in exposure though, and I am… but I’m trying to support my family in this endeavor too and to come out the other end of it with $0 after grossing a full annual salary’s worth of funds is just very disheartening.
Truthfully though it’s not about the money. Well it is and it isn’t. You see, I don’t give two shits about money, I really don’t. It is about the joy of making the music for people, the lives touched, the tears shed when I get email responses from fans who say that a song that I wrote changed their life for the better, and I seriously can’t believe how many of those I’ve received in the last 9 months either. Connecting with others through music is what it’s really about for me.
Unfortunately we live in a world though where everything costs money. It costs money to make music, to build a house with a studio, to purchase the equipment to make it, to pay for the several years of college education, a bachelors and masters degree and additional training to know how to use said equipment and get what’s in my brain into audible format in a computer with microphones and instruments etc, then spending a buttload of more money again to broadcast the music out to the world just so people can hear it. Not to mention time is money too, time that could be spent writing additional music for TV shows which is what I’ve been doing the last 10 years to supplement income from my day job to provide for my family. So to do all that, match my day job’s annual salary in CD sales but not get to use any of it to provide for my family? Well, again, it’s disheartening.
I know, I know… I’ve heard it all said that any business has to spend money to make money.. especially so with new startup small businesses.. It’s still disheartening though. Especially after all the extra work, time, and countless hours of literal sleep lost every night to make it all happen. I’m realizing as I’m writing this that while I’m usually outwardly optimistic to all of you I’m admittedly inwardly very pessimistic to myself all the time. I know that hurts the cause more than helps it… And I’m trying to do better at positively manifesting success and I realize I need to do better at seeing the glass half full rather than empty. The interesting thing about all this is how it ended at the pool today and how I came to that realization of being too inwardly pessimistic...
As I was sulking in all of this frustration at the pool today, I thought, “Why am I even doing all this? Is it even worth all the time, effort, and money spent?” Then I felt something crawling under my left armpit. Without even consciously thinking about it I instinctively went to grab it. OUCH. I got stung. I threw the critter to the side and realized a bee had stung me, but not just once, seemingly multiple times at least 3 or 4 times under my arm. I didn’t even know it was possible for a bee to do that. That’s more of a scorpion encounter than a bee encounter, but I guess its stinger remained in tact the whole time though? At least until presumably it’s last sting…
Anyway, I took the kids out of the pool and went to see if I could find a stinger to pull out. Nothing was there, but several red swollen spots were forming (it’s still hurting now as I’m writing this 12 hours later). It appeared that I was getting an allergic reaction to the venom. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t start panicking a little at this point especially since Sarah and I just got caught up on Bridgerton on Netflix (if you watch, you know the significance of bee stings lol) That and the horrendously funny traumatic image of the scene from a childhood favorite 90s movie “Pure Luck” came to mind when Martin Short blows up like a balloon after a bee sting. “Was I starting to blow up like a balloon too? Or do I just need to lay off the tacos?” I texted Sarah to hopefully help snap me out of my panic spiral, but she was still at work. I took a large dose of Benadryl, called out of work for the rest of the day, and as soon as Sarah got home to be with the kids, I went to bed the rest of the afternoon.
As I was drifting off into dreamland I realized how almost too coincidental it was for a bee to sting me multiple times in that very moment of deep and heavy frustration and negativity. Almost like a “snap-out-of-it, Nathan” wake-up call. A call to action to stop feeling sorry for myself and whining like a little baby over $0 made and instead celebrate all the success this year! Around 6k-7k CDs sold, 10k new fans subscribed to our email transmissions, and more than quadrupling our following across social media platforms including breaking a personal best of almost 12k listeners on Spotify… But MOST importantly, all the lives touched by the music this year and hearing about it directly from them! It has been a HUGE feat… one that I cannot let fear of failure or fear of being on the wrong path stop me now! Why would touching the lives of so many people with my music be the wrong path? * Sting, Sting * Why is failure anything to be afraid of? * Sting, Sting * Keep going, Nathan. You got this. Don’t give up now! * Sting, Sting * (goes the bee).
At least that’s how I’m trying to, again, outwardly optimistically look at this situation now I suppose in front of all of you. I’ll try not to turn pessimistic about it inwardly later.
* Sting, Sting * 🐝
Ouch.