Two Questions

Who am I? Why am I here?

I am a person who is creative and can motivate other creative people to make some cool art together.

In September of 2010 I co-founded a record label with some friends. Now, as cool as that may sound it was actually a terrific failure. I say terrific and not terrible because I learned so much more in it's failure than I would have had we succeeded.

The label was focused mostly on recording hip-hop and rap artists out of a small studio located on Market Street. These were artists who would come to us needing studio time and we would charge them, that is how we made our money. I can say in confidence that about 99% of the 'artists' who came through were simply thugs who were trying to cement some sort of credit to their names by sounding hard on tape. It was pretty obvious that most of them had no talent.

With that being said, I did get some cool opportunities from my job. I got press-passes for free to concerts with other perks. I got to work with the 1% of artists who were actually good. And I got to be surrounded by musicians who had passion for their craft.

I left the company I helped to create in July of 2011, we were pretty much a zero-income company at that point and were unable to pay our studio rent. It was a sad day, but I had seen the writing on the wall.

While my label, Heroic Music Entertainment, as it was called, was doing it's thing on Market Street, I was also doing my part to keep the low-end of a rock band called The American Night held down. In 2010 I had just moved back up from Bloomington after attending Ivy Tech and Indiana University. The American Night was a band from my hometown whose members just happened to be living in Bloomington too. When a spot opened up, I auditioned and was given the part.

It. Was. Awesome.

This experience gave me so many new opportunities.

Probably the best experience was recording our album. Through a connection we were able to connect with Bob Kevoian from Bob and Tom. He liked us so much he payed for some studio time with a great engineer and producer Alan Johnson. The album sounded great, and we could not have gotten a better product or a better mentor.

I strongly recommend checking out our songs here

I also have to give a shout out to Alan Johnson who has the most beautiful recording studio in the world.

Unfortunately, as with most music groups, fame and fortune was not in our cards. Our drummer ended up moving to Louisville which made our twice weekly practices almost impossible. We decided that it was time to call it quits. So we packed up our songs and bid each other the fondest of farewells. We still see each other all the time, however getting everybody all in the same room together is almost impossible.

So, to answer the Two Questions. I would say that these are the experiences that have dictated my current path on my journey of life the most. They serve to remind me that I am capable of creating cool things with cool people and that everybody can play a part in the story that is me.