One of the things that brings me more joy than it should, is the lovely synchronicity of when the first day of a month lands on the first day of the week. I absolutely KNOW that things are aligned, and it will be a month to thrive and be in the exact right places at the right times. Perhaps hippie mumbo-jumbo, but I am really loving that our first day coming into Nashville falls on the 1st of May, on a Monday. Let’s see what lines up perfectly next!!
Thoughts on Nashville…
Several of our fans who have followed our blog over the years brought up the particular story of our first and only trip to Nashville, and have asked us “Why again?” “Didn’t you guys not like it?” “Didn’t you say you’d probably never go back?”
Ok… well, the truth is, we did NOT like it and we DID say we probably wouldn’t come back. But, that is the best part about being a free-willed human being, open to growth and changing one’s mind, and maturing. Sometimes, to be far enough away from something gives you wonderful perspective on who you WERE at the time, what the circumstances WERE, and what the setting WAS. This is how we begin to illicit change in ourselves and the world around us. Let’s just never stay stuck in who we WERE! Let’s always evolve and grow!
So with 5 years of space, experience, and maturing (mostly) between us and Nashville, we decided to give it another try. We feel more certain about who we AREN’T, than even who we ARE, and that is extremely helpful as we approach this next place in our lives. Who we ARE is fluid. As artists, if we stay one way, we’ll become stuck. Stuck in a time, place, mindset. That makes for outdated perspective and stifled creativity. We must always be morphing into the next, best version of ourselves. Jared and I have always united over the foundation of what became the Champagne Sunday empire. But the times when it has truly thrived is when we both relax, breathe, and let the wind guide us forward.
When Jared and I met and really began serious conversations about our musical future, what that looked like, what were our goals, etc., there wasn’t a lot of wiggle room for either one of us. And, we found out pretty quickly that we were completely aligned in our objective.
We wanted to make a living playing our OWN music, and we never wanted to stop.
Ok. So, when looking at acts like The Rolling Stones, R.E.M., Cher, Paul McCartney, and every blues/jazz cat that has played well into their 90’s, the idea of never stopping seems attainable. It’s really the other part of the objective that concerns us. There will come a time that our lives will change. As we age, our bodies will have different, sometimes limited, abilities, our looks will morph into our older (hopefully wiser) selves. We will be forced to view the way we do things, travel, approach shows, etc., with a different, more gentle eye. As a person who avoids dwelling in the past, and finds it exhausting and a waste of time to worry about the future, it is super challenging for me mentally to go to a place where I need to begin to maturely prepare myself for the future. While people with jobs that provide them with future security and health plans, etc., speak of their fears and woes about their futures, I’m over here like, “What in the world? How can YOU be worried? At least you have SOMETHING.”
There’s this idea of “passive income” that the music business has. The concept being that you can sell your songs to movies, television, other, more famous artists, video games, and what-not, to earn income while you aren’t actually having to physically be there doing it yourself. I feel like this, if achieved to a substantial degree, could be the equivalent to a 401K, or SS that most people with “normal” jobs have paid into for their entire careers. There would be then, at least a little, relief for the future Champagne Sunday.
So, again, why Nashville?
Well, I suppose there’s the possibility of connections damn near anywhere you could go in this big ol’ country of ours, but we don’t have forever to search, so we’ve got to go and pop ourselves right into the heart of it all and see what shakes out. Nashville has often been synonymous with Country music, until recently. More and more nowadays, it’s just associated with music in general. Especially the singer/songwriter aspect. Producers, film music supervisors, record execs, and other, wildly talented artists, flock to this city to all do the same thing…make connections and see where they can best fit in, in one of the most competitive and growing industries in the world. This is where I get spooked and honestly want to tuck tail and head home.
I’m not really competitive. As a youth, I was. I fought so hard, over and over again in sports, musicals, jobs, school, to be the BEST, to beat everyone and come out on top. To showboat my abilities and honestly, just get paid attention to. (I’m sure that comes as a huge shock to anyone who knows me). I fouled out of basketball games for über acts of aggression, I threw myself onto my bed in pools of tears and disappointment if I didn’t get every lead roll, I quit school projects if I didn’t think they were going to win the awards, and I wouldn’t even try something new if I couldn’t perfect it within the first try. Until music.
Music was the first place I felt safe enough to fail. The first place I calmly and gently accepted myself at every stage and kept trying, over and over again. Don’t get me wrong, the spirit of competitiveness was still there, but it was shedding its skin for a more matured version of itself: Drive. Drive to be honest instead of ahead. Drive to be joyful for where I was instead of disappointed. Drive to keep trying instead of quitting because it wasn’t perfect. Drive to be paid attention to because of what I whispered, not what I shouted. So you can imagine throwing myself into the heart of the competition is an old, uncomfortable enemy that I don’t look forward to meeting. However, now I have something I never had all those years ago, when I was navigating my adolescent woes and hurdles…
I have my Jared. And he is everything that I am not, in all the best ways. He makes “I” “Us”. He makes “Alone” “Together”, and he makes “me” “Champagne Sunday”. And with both of us going into this together, everything is possible.
Sometimes it looks really far down from where you began. The distance can give you vertigo. But you’re still connected to that foundation. So, we’ll continue to stretch as high as we can…together.
