I am not young, i’ve been doing this longer than most folks that i ‘open’ for.
There are plenty of amazingly incriminating photos and reviews of the music that i’ve made over the years. it’s a veritable free-for all if you will, but that’s the luxury we have with the internet these days. if you put it out there, your baby book and beyond are accessible for praise and punches,so be ready.

I grew up listening to bluegrass and gospel music, am old enough to remember when Southern Rock was still a big deal and muddled my way through the 80′s scene. I didn’t discover The Beatles until I flunked out of college and am still the latest bloomer I know musically.

I survived breaking into the music business (whatever that means) and had some great times in the process. Traveled from coast to coast, had billboards, videos, a tour bus for four years, stole robes from the Ritz, played The Greek, Irving Plaza, The Opry and more “big” venues than I can recall and yet still, you’ve probably never heard of me.
(You might go and find some hilarious old photos, some cd reviews, debates on why I sang “too country for country” music and then switched over to what I’m doing now, or you might have already stopped reading by now.)
Regardless, here I sit, in my Champion briefs, a cup of espresso and some Copenhagen, with a Husky and my favorite little mutt typing away trying to understand how I’ve managed to be able to eek out a living doing music for all these years.

Starting out as a staff writer and demo singer for publishers, I learned how to be a bit of a chameleon when it comes to writing songs for ‘the market”
However, after about 400 musical abortions, I got pretty bored with throwing darts at a moving target, got unemployed, divorced and sober and decided to smoke cigarettes and read for a few years…so I did.
After absorbing and uncovering my own family history and having been dismissed as a “never was” by certain parts of Music Row, I decided to just write. Write, sing, play and give a hail Mary to the world with it.

-Strange, something happened……

I never stopped singing the way that came naturally, whiny, nasally and infected with the mountains, however, considering that steel guitars and fiddles were now being recorded over 80′s style songs and deemed “country” I decided to whip out greasy guitars, bang on pots and pans and sing through distortion pedals over top of the most rural and unfeigned lyrics that I could. To me that would be country, it would speak to whomever it was destined to and the rest could carry on believing and dictating how and why music should be presented.

Somehow, I was able to take a 1938 Gibson out and take the new songs out and begin opening for Robert Earl Keen.
In the midst of the ball caps and snot-slinging rowdy beer fest, people said they liked what I was saying, that I should stay after it…I was stunned!
Years crept by, tires wore out, trucks and dogs died, but I ended up continuing, knowing full well that being “the opener” for everyone from Robert, Del McCoury, Junior Brown, to John Hiatt or Hootie and the Blowfish..is soon forgotten and no one really remembers the opener. BUT, that’s the gig, that was how I survived and although nobody wants to know who you’ve opened for or where you’ve played, it still seems relevant when you’re the one living that story.

So, here I am, with this rock record called “Rube” that has all the trappings of rural life trying to keep the margins of society glued together, lacking songs that make people want to screw but will likely cause a fist fight or religious debate and I wouldn’t change a thing.

…It’s just music.

I shouldn’t read all the press and blogs that are out there, but I AM a music fan and the late night rabbit hole catches me more than I’d like to admit. I’m fascinated by the opinions and passion of those who (like myself) want to find out why and how the people that make the music arrived at their current position.

Here’s what I’ve observed:

1. Grown ups are like kids with money, they’re honest when it comes to music, opinionated and entitled to think that they’re always right and that they’re safe drivers.

2. Never underestimate the power of mediocrity

3. People don’t wake up thinking about you unless you pissed them off and they’re plotting revenge.

4. Marketing, media, hype, record labels and money do not create careers, they are money herders and that’s their job, if you want to survive musically, it takes thick skin, determination and the ability to ignore those who try and tell you why what you’re doing will never work.

5. Life is beautiful, music is good and living half-assed with compromise only serves as a reminder that somewhere, someone else is getting to do what they love.

6. I still haven’t picked a “genre”

7. One man’s trash is another man’s best intentions