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Welcome to another episode.

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I’m Robonzo, this is my podcast.

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How are you?

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Where are you and what are you wearing?

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Today, I’m joined by singer-songwriter Anmara, hailing from Harrisonburg, Virginia.

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She’s a grant-winning artist who’s earned over $150,000 in funding through various programs, toured Europe and the West Coast, and even appeared on iTunes’ Top 100 Singers Songwriter Albums Chart.

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Most recently, she signed with Chrome City Records, who are investing in her recordings as they explore her pop star potential.

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In this episode, Anmara and I talk about her journey from dreamy ambient folk to exploring pop, her DIY approach to creating music videos and photo shoots on a minimal budget, and how she successfully funded two albums through Patreon.

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We also dive into her imposter syndrome, something many artists face, and the healthy habits she’s developed to maintain continuous creative output.

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Anmara shares valuable insights on comparing crowdfunding platforms like Kickstarter vs.

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Patreon for funding projects, her experience winning a prestigious $75,000 House Artist Grant, and her philosophy on making the world a better place through music and her newsletter.

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So whether you’re curious about alternative funding models, interested in maximizing your creative potential on a budget, or looking for ways to maintain sustainable creative habits, this conversation has everything.

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It’s filled with practical wisdom from an artist who’s consistently found innovative ways to fund and create her art.

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Here is me speaking with Anmara.

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I don’t know.

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Is this going to be in the podcast interview, or are we going to chat for a minute?

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Definitely.

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That being yes to both.

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Pretty much.

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Okay, cool.

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Where are you from?

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I am from Harrisonburg, Virginia.

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And I’m living about a half hour away from there, just in a little small town.

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Okay.

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You like it there?

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Probably?

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Yeah.

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It’s my speed of life, you know, not very much of a rush hour, not too much trouble parking.

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These are the things I look for in life.

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I don’t blame you.

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Yeah, we’re in a, my wife and I are in Queretaro, Mexico, and it’s kind of a growing city.

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So we fortunately don’t have to commute anywhere or be anywhere regularly.

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We work from home.

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So that’s nice.

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But we understand the interest in slow things while still wanting some of the nice artsy, restauranty things.

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Yes.

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Yeah, we’re lucky that we have a, we have a pretty good selection of everything, considering how small the town it is.

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That’s good.

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That’s good.

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Tell me the name of the town again.

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Well, I’d like to keep it a little, a little on the DL.

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I don’t know.

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I just I like to say it’s a small town near Harrisonburg.

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Harrisonburg.

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I can maintain my mystique.

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Harrisonburg.

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That’s good enough.

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Yeah.

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All right.

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So let’s start with, you got me interested in something you said.

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I wanted you to tell me about your imposter syndrome.

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Well, yeah, I was thinking about being an unstarving musician, and I guess I just I haven’t cracked the code myself personally, the panacea, the holy grail of how to make it and have a career, and be saving enough for retirement from my music.

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But then I did check out your newsletter, and I think you said you had a similar feeling where you are trying to understand more than you know.

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At some point, you start to understand that you don’t know that thing.

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Sorry, I’m stumbling over my words.

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But it’s like a lifelong pursuit of trying to hack how to make that income.

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Sure, I had this one thing figured out when I started this Unstarving Musician thing, and then I realized, wow, there’s so much to know.

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The other people are doing much different things.

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I was just a regular working musician, drummer, sometimes singer.

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My deal was just to help people get gigs that seem to struggle from time to time where it was pretty easy for me.

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But the more I dig into it, if it makes you feel better, the more I realize that this is the life you’re sort of touching on is the life of most artists and musicians.

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And so I think there’s a handful of people who make it to one level where they’re comfortable and then another level.

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And the ones that you sort of imagine are like, are, you know, watch from afar.

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But it’s mostly just people trying to figure it out, right?

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Yeah, I have a lot of little opinions on kind of how I’ve made it work for me.

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And like I said, I think there are probably a lot of people who could learn from some of my mistakes or kind of find some little shortcuts based on what I’ve done.

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Yeah, at the end of the day, I do think my life’s work is being able to tune into my intuition.

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And that’s how you navigate these constantly shifting seas of the music industry, is kind of finding that deeper wisdom or like that uncanny.

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Like one thing I remember, I got really into live streaming just of my own volition.

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And I was really curious about it.

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I thought it was really cool.

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And then the pandemic hit and I was already all set up to do all that.

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Everybody was scrambling how to figure out how to do it.

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And I was like, oh, I’m already here.

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Like I’ve been here for a year.

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So I think there’s little things like that, that looking back, I’m like, okay, yeah, if I just follow my spark and my whimsy and my bliss and kind of what’s exciting me, I can, I mean, as an artist that is, that to me is the Holy Grail is like staying in touch with that creative essence and effervescence.

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Yeah, sure.

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Well, that can certainly help.

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And it sounds like in that particular instance it helped a lot.

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I, as you can imagine, I spoke to a lot of people that were scrambling and some of them just discovered this is not me taking a break, you know, this whole live stream.

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And I understand, you know, for especially those who were performing a lot and then suddenly they’re performing to a camera.

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And, you know, it’s just not quite the same for some people.

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It was a real tough adjustment.

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You know, I think it’s worth pointing out to people some of the things that you’ve achieved.

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It seems to me, before I even looked at your press page, I was thinking to myself, well, you’ve been really working hard at this and are doing some cool things.

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You’ve done a lot of recordings, which I know a lot of, you know, many people would love to do as many as you have.

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But I’m just going to go down a list here, see if we cover them all.

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But you won a House Artist Grant in 2014 worth $75,000.

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That’s when $75,000 was a lot of money, kids, in services to record a dream album, I guess your dream album.

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You charted on iTunes top 100 singer-songwriter albums at some point.

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You received two grants from Alma Mater Prescott College to make two albums and a multimedia lyric book.

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You toured the West Coast and Europe multiple times.

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You played a lot of festivals here.

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I don’t know any of these, which means absolutely nothing, but they sound cool.

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And you were nominated the first round of the Grammys in several categories, including Best New Artist and Best New Album.

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You did a successful Kickstarter campaign with girl band Project Larkspur.

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That’s kind of a big deal to a lot of people.

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You funded two albums on Patreon, which you had mentioned to me previously, and you were recently signed to a record label called Chrome City Records.

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And I think that is a pretty cool list.

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I think that a lot of people will be like, well, what are you not doing?

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You’re kind of doing it all.

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Yeah, it’s nice to hear it laid out that way.

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And when you list all the recording, kind of the emphasis on recordings, I think that is where my greatest joy has lived.

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Basically, the moment I stepped into a big recording studio, I just was in love.

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I was in my happy place.

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When people tell me they get nervous about the recording studio, I can’t relate because I’m just like a kid in a candy shop with all the sounds.

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And I got to the point a few years ago where I wanted to start to reduce my overhead because I was, but I just I realized how much I was spending on recording at one point to make them really nice and the high quality and work with the people I wanted to work with, and kind of have that creative freedom.

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So I started studying recording and DIYing, and that’s been kind of a new evolution of all that, is kind of giving myself that the empowerment and the keys to be able to do it all myself.

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But that said, I’ve kind of lost some of that spark in the process because I think at my core, I’m just more of an artist.

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And I’ve always find myself in those situations where if someone’s helping me with the tech side, even though I can kind of grasp it and I enjoy learning new things, I think musicians tend to enjoy that constant frontier of picking up skills and knowledge.

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But yeah, once I get the tech under my belt, I kind of lose interest.

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So I’m kind of, it was kind of nice that I put all this effort into making my own recordings and promoting them.

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And just as I was starting to get exhausted, this record label and I started chatting and they’re like, hey, I want to see how far I can take you if we work together.

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Yeah.

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So now I’m kind of at a point where I’m reintroducing, working with producers and now I’m not paying for it.

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So that feels like an achievement to me where if you’re paying for something, and then you get it to the point where you can do it yourself, and then you get it to the point where you’re actually getting to work with the people you want to work with or take it to that quality and that level of expertise that only someone else can bring.

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But yeah, I don’t have to pay them now.

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So that’s my, I imagine eventually we’ll get to the point where we’re like raking it in if we continue on this trajectory.

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Sure.

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That would be great.

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So do I have it right, you’ve recorded nine albums or will have nine albums under your belt with the new one that’s coming out?

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Thereabouts anyway.

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I honestly have lost track, but that sounds like it could be in the ballpark.

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So this is looking at Bandcamp today.

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So I saw, I believe, nine releases.

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And I guess some of them, I’m sorry, I guess some of them are EPs, maybe a single release here and there, but you had some albums there too.

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So it’s just a lot of recording.

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So initially you were paying people, I guess either percentage-wise or like a number-wise, how many did you end up doing on your own before this turn of events where you got hooked up with the label?

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Yeah, I guess some of those earlier recordings are more like just things to look back at like souvenirs or like, look how far I’ve come.

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Some of it was on Bandcamp, like my friend would sit me down and say, just play into, sorry, not Bandcamp, Garage Band.

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Then I won those grants in my college and I was traveling around.

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I went up to Olympia, Washington, which is a cute little hub of indie music.

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I got in that mentality of like, okay, I win a grant, I pay for recording and then it sounds nicer.

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I got used to that and then it’s a little dusty now, but I think it’s…

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My brother actually helped me record because he was studying recording and so that was free.

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But yeah, then at some point, I think I, oh yeah, I took like this artistic coaching masterclass thing and she was like, you know, imagine your future self.

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And my future self was in the big studio, like regularly recording.

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So I just like walked down, yeah, I put on my little suit and I walked down to the local really nice recording studio in Harrisonburg at the time, Blue Sprocket.

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And they, I kind of like wheeled and dealed and got this pretty good rate for going in once a month to record a day, record a song once a month.

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And at the end of the year, thinking by the end of the year, I would have an album.

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And how I decided to fund that was through Patreon.

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And I just, because I was getting this feeling of like, oh, I write all these songs.

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And I was actually like forgetting some of them, because I didn’t have a good recording of them.

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I wasn’t inspired.

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I don’t know.

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I don’t know why I didn’t just sit down with my phone and do it.

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But I was like, no, I need to record them and like, get them out there.

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And then they’ll just like live on for eternity or forever, however long Bandcamp lives.

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But yeah, so I kind of just started hitting up my network, you know, all the people who are already following, are already rooting for me.

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And I have to say, I got a little spammy, you know, I’d like message people and be like, hey, like, do you want to support me?

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I really want to make these songs.

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And at the time, Patreon was new and exciting.

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And I think I got a little more traction at the start of all that.

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I feel like as the economy has gone on, it’s got to, and people are a little tired of being hit up by their friends for stuff.

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Yeah, that’s kind of slowed down a little bit.

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But it’s still there.

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And I still have kind of a steady amount.

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You know, someone will sign up and someone will need to move on for whatever reason, financial or otherwise.

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And so, but, you know, every month I have that income and it was for recording.

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But yeah, at some point I was like, I think I need to level up.

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I need to get these skills myself because I know I love recording and I have all these ideas for production and it would take so long to go back and forth and back and forth.

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And I was like, I just need to learn how to do this myself.

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And I do enjoy it.

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It’s just not like a kid in a candy shop feeling.

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It does feel a little bit like work.

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There’s a lot of tasks involved in doing it yourself, whatever it is.

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Yeah, yeah.

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But it’s nice to see how the sausage is made.

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And like, now I can speak much more coherently about exactly what I want because I know exactly what I’m talking about.

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So I do recommend it for that reason.

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But yeah, with the label, they are kind of like me.

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They’re indie and just kind of been chugging along, like going for their dream.

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You know, if your dream is to have a successful record label, and you just don’t let anybody tell you no.

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And you kind of…

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They said they’ve seen a lot of colleagues, you know, go big, go for glory, and then they go bankrupt.

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So they’re doing a more indie musician style, they used to have their own projects, and now they’re helping with all these.

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I mean, they still do, but yeah, they have a bunch of people on the label now too, that they help out.

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Yeah, it just still feels very much that indie spirit of like, we’re collaborating, we’re pooling our resources, but they’re helping me just bring it a little more of the commercial side, the business side.

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I don’t want to say that I’m selling out, but I’m exploring the pop star side, my pop star potential, because they’re encouraging that, and I’ve always, I just love a good pop song.

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So I’ve never been ashamed of that, even though my own music has gotten very artsy fartsy lately.

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On my last album, I don’t think I wrote very many choruses.

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I just followed my butterfly through the song.

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But yeah, I’m realizing now you want to have, if you want to have people sing along and to have your song be a little bit more of an anthem for your generation or whatever, you might want to write a chorus.

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But maybe a pre-chorus.

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Yeah, exactly.

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I’ve only recorded professionally a couple of songs and I’m very much the fan of pop elements.

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I mean, I’m really a rock guy deep down, but so my first one definitely had some pop formula to it.

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The second one, I’m like, I found this great keyboard composition on compose.com and asked the guy if we could collaborate, if I could release the song right around it.

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And it is my ode, my homage to progressive rock and heavy bands that sort of kind of touched on that.

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So they’re completely opposite from one another, but I think you’re smart to be considering some pop aspects to what you do, because yeah, that’s what catches on and what digs into people’s memories.

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Yeah, nothing wrong with that.

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It’s like biohacking the brain with music.

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Yeah, absolutely.

00:18:49.460 –> 00:18:56.680
So how long, you did two albums with the help of Patreon, your Patreon supporters.

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How, you mentioned that you’ve seen that sort of change a little bit.

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I think, you know, I was thinking of a funny expression based on what you’re saying, but like before people got Patreon to ad nauseum.

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But were those albums that you did some time ago, were either of them recently?

00:19:18.980 –> 00:19:25.400
The one was during the pandemic, and that one I did more with the professional studio and engineer.

00:19:26.320 –> 00:19:34.180
And then the last one, I just released what I think is the last single off of it.

00:19:34.180 –> 00:19:48.500
And that’s been, it feels like over a year in the making, just because now that, you know, making everything from like the very zygote of the song all the way to the final recording of it.

00:19:48.500 –> 00:19:54.640
Although I have been working, I have been paying someone to master and like help me with mixing a little bit.

00:19:56.140 –> 00:20:01.520
Just because that was, haven’t quite, I’m not sure I want to go all the way to that frontier.

00:20:01.520 –> 00:20:05.120
Mixing is a little bit fun, but mastering, I’m still like, you can do that.

00:20:05.120 –> 00:20:08.000
I don’t know if that is.

00:20:08.000 –> 00:20:11.040
That’s one thing I did on my two recordings.

00:20:11.040 –> 00:20:16.500
I knew someone who just had great experience as an engineer.

00:20:16.500 –> 00:20:20.900
And then I found out he basically mastered several things.

00:20:20.940 –> 00:20:25.540
So I let him do it, and I was very pleased and happy that I had him do it.

00:20:25.540 –> 00:20:31.440
Yeah, it’s an important final step, especially because people are listening on their phones mostly.

00:20:31.440 –> 00:20:37.700
So you want to sound good on a phone, even though it’s not where you want people to listen to your music.

00:20:37.700 –> 00:20:45.760
But where many people do, it’s probably better than what the larger alternative is, which is some little speaker that you talk to in the house.

00:20:47.980 –> 00:20:56.960
I’ve even noticed, you know, I’ve kind of laughed at, we’ve had like a first-generation Sonos for a long time, which actually sounds remarkable.

00:20:56.960 –> 00:21:01.820
But I used to think, yeah, it’s not really a hi-fi system, is it?

00:21:01.820 –> 00:21:08.680
You know, and I don’t have a turntable anymore, because we left the country and just sort of burned the boat, so to speak, but the Sonos was able to come with us.

00:21:08.680 –> 00:21:22.180
But a lot of people, including musicians I talk to, they just have some little mini Alexa Google thing, and just like complete disregard for sound quality of the past.

00:21:22.180 –> 00:21:29.300
But yeah, I would say probably the better listening for a lot of people happens on their phone or in a car.

00:21:29.300 –> 00:21:33.580
Yeah, headphones can be great, and yeah, cars are excellent.

00:21:33.580 –> 00:21:38.200
Nobody sits and listens to music speaking of real headphones, although headphones have come a long way, right?

00:21:38.200 –> 00:21:45.380
I see a lot of tons of people walking around with like what look like legitimate headphones listening to things.

00:21:45.380 –> 00:21:48.280
So it’s probably come a long way for moving around.

00:21:48.280 –> 00:21:52.940
Yeah, yeah, it’s not not not all frequencies are lost.

00:21:52.940 –> 00:21:56.200
Yeah, and I was just saying, you know, no one.

00:21:56.200 –> 00:22:05.580
The first thing I think about when I think of headphones is like sitting down and listening to music, which we just don’t do by and large anymore, unless we’re doing mushrooms or something, maybe.

00:22:06.960 –> 00:22:10.220
But but yeah, it’s kind of funny.

00:22:10.220 –> 00:22:13.540
I talked to an author several months ago.

00:22:13.540 –> 00:22:22.060
She was an engineer who worked on a number of famous projects, but she turned academic and has studied in the field of music.

00:22:22.060 –> 00:22:27.940
And one thing she said she was still in, she co-authored a book on why we like the music we like.

00:22:27.940 –> 00:22:43.540
And one thing she hadn’t quite figured out yet, or she was still thinking a lot about is how listening has changed and how, I don’t know how old you are, but listening to music used to be kind of an event in and of itself, just listening to an album or something.

00:22:43.540 –> 00:22:47.760
But now we tend to listen to music when we’re doing something else.

00:22:47.760 –> 00:22:49.040
Yeah.

00:22:49.040 –> 00:22:51.820
Yeah, we’re so busy.

00:22:51.820 –> 00:23:06.660
We’re so distracted that it seems boring or not stimulating enough to just turn off all the lights and pop that CD in the little CD player and bliss out.

00:23:06.660 –> 00:23:07.100
Yeah.

00:23:07.100 –> 00:23:07.320
Okay.

00:23:07.320 –> 00:23:11.840
So I pulled this off in a far left or right direction.

00:23:11.840 –> 00:23:18.540
So the Patreon albums that you did, you did one during the pandemic, which is pretty recent.

00:23:18.540 –> 00:23:21.280
Was that the latter one or the first?

00:23:21.280 –> 00:23:23.400
The prior one.

00:23:23.460 –> 00:23:23.640
Okay.

00:23:23.740 –> 00:23:24.520
That’s pretty recent.

00:23:24.520 –> 00:23:36.400
But yeah, I guess it seems like I remember Patreon becoming a normal part of conversation before the pandemic, but certainly during the pandemic.

00:23:36.400 –> 00:23:41.620
And it seems that maybe we saw a surge of people supporting artists during that time.

00:23:41.620 –> 00:23:49.660
So I could see the comment that you made about like that initial interest is sort of tapered a little bit.

00:23:49.660 –> 00:24:01.640
But that may be to a product of if maybe for yourself or for others who have experienced that it can be a product of your network is growing, contracting.

00:24:01.640 –> 00:24:04.240
But when you have a beachhead, it’s a certain size.

00:24:04.240 –> 00:24:14.060
And then you basically work that as best you can and then maybe top out, you know, because people you have attrition and that’s constant marketing effort, right?

00:24:14.060 –> 00:24:14.860
Yeah.

00:24:14.860 –> 00:24:15.080
Yeah.

00:24:15.080 –> 00:24:19.660
Like I said, there seems to be like a rate of signing up and then a rate of needing to go.

00:24:19.660 –> 00:24:23.640
Like usually when I asked, they’re like, Oh, my finance has changed.

00:24:25.020 –> 00:24:29.780
So I don’t I try not to take it personally, but sure, I’m grateful that it’s a steady.

00:24:29.780 –> 00:24:30.780
I mean, that’s what that was.

00:24:30.780 –> 00:24:46.700
The dream of it for me was to just have this steady income, not have to rely on a gig or not or yeah, or dip into my own money, just to have that support from my community and my loved ones.

00:24:46.700 –> 00:24:49.380
It was very meaningful to go through that journey.

00:24:49.380 –> 00:24:56.740
And I guess I wanted to say that that’s part of, I think, my longevity as a musician.

00:24:56.740 –> 00:25:10.400
Like not, I think that’s maybe my biggest, like, unstarving pride is that, like, I have just kept creating and kept going and explored new frontiers.

00:25:10.400 –> 00:25:18.120
Like, I’ve gotten really into making my own music videos, video editing, and have seen some success with that.

00:25:18.120 –> 00:25:20.560
And yeah, excited to keep exploring that.

00:25:20.560 –> 00:25:35.740
I guess I was always, subconsciously at first, but then more consciously, I saw my music journey, my musical evolution, my music journey and evolution as a journey and an evolution.

00:25:35.960 –> 00:25:40.740
I don’t just think of it as a means to an end.

00:25:40.740 –> 00:25:52.440
I think there is a lot of ego in the music industry and fame for fame’s sake or wanting to receive that love and attention.

00:25:52.440 –> 00:25:55.240
And I’m guilty of it myself.

00:25:55.240 –> 00:26:00.100
I think most of us don’t have ideal childhoods in some respect or another.

00:26:00.100 –> 00:26:21.980
And so I’ve been trying to kind of parse that apart, like kind of comb out the tangles and refine my intentions and grow into the version of me that I feel like music calls me towards in this kind of unending, like once I achieve one thing, of course I want another thing.

00:26:21.980 –> 00:26:44.180
But I think I used to not be very, you know, I think I was more in my shell and I think performing and sharing my music and, you know, it allowed me kind of this work around of being able to express myself and turn all my messy emotions into something beautiful.

00:26:44.180 –> 00:26:47.880
And I guess it’s hard to put a monetary value on that.

00:26:47.880 –> 00:27:19.520
But I think a lot of times when I see other people embarking on that journey or somewhere throughout that journey, I’m like I’m guessing that they, whether conscious or not, they’re also on some kind of journey of discovering themselves, of realizing their potential and bringing in those qualities into their life, of being fully expressed and seen and heard and held by their community and yeah, all those groovy things.

00:27:19.520 –> 00:27:20.320
Yeah, you’re right.

00:27:20.320 –> 00:27:27.260
I mean, of all the people I’ve talked to, I can see that is a pretty common, those things are common, common threads.

00:27:27.260 –> 00:27:32.240
So I wanted to ask you about your newsletter plus lyric e-book.

00:27:32.240 –> 00:27:40.120
But now I was thinking because of all the things you’ve done, it is how big of a focus has that been over time for you?

00:27:40.120 –> 00:27:43.020
And yeah, anything you can tell me about it would be fun.

00:27:45.680 –> 00:27:53.600
Yeah, I’ve always had my little newsletter, as long as I can remember, you know, gigging and…

00:27:53.600 –> 00:28:03.460
It just seemed like this natural thing of like, okay, I played music for you, you liked it, okay, you probably want to get on my newsletter and like hear about my upcoming shows and things.

00:28:03.460 –> 00:28:11.120
So I noticed when I was in the girl band, Larkspur, the other, the two other girls were always very shy to do that.

00:28:11.280 –> 00:28:16.540
I’d be like, oh, go get the email, like, ask them and maybe like, oh, okay.

00:28:16.540 –> 00:28:19.820
So I just never had, I was always shameless about it.

00:28:19.820 –> 00:28:23.240
I felt like it wasn’t too much to ask.

00:28:23.240 –> 00:28:31.200
It was the least I deserved if they really, if they were, if they took the time to come up and tell me they liked my set and my voice and everything.

00:28:33.280 –> 00:28:39.580
Yeah, it felt like, I mean, you don’t owe me a thing, but I feel like you owe me your newsletter, your email address.

00:28:40.980 –> 00:28:42.980
It’s not too much to ask.

00:28:42.980 –> 00:28:50.400
So yeah, and like I said, I toured in Europe, so I have a bunch of English is not their first language.

00:28:50.400 –> 00:28:58.620
People on my list probably have been over there in a while, but I assume a few of them are still following along.

00:28:58.620 –> 00:29:00.820
You never know.

00:29:00.820 –> 00:29:17.000
Even now, I’ll get people to sign up and I say, throw your town in there and if I ever tour near you, I can put that in and into the specs and try to really contact those people in that area.

00:29:17.000 –> 00:29:21.520
So it just seems like a no-brainer.

00:29:22.680 –> 00:29:39.840
People are so into those vanity metrics on social media, like, oh, you have a million followers, but if you have a million followers, but they can’t see your posts because the algorithm changed and you’re like, you’re depressed and you don’t feel like posting all winter, which was basically me this winter.

00:29:39.840 –> 00:29:41.820
I was like, I’m burnt down on posting.

00:29:41.820 –> 00:29:45.020
I gave it my all and I just can’t keep doing that.

00:29:46.040 –> 00:29:52.080
So, but all that’s kind of over, spring is back in the air and my newsletter is still there.

00:29:52.080 –> 00:29:55.740
And I can reach those people who want to be reached.

00:29:55.740 –> 00:30:01.380
And yeah, I try to keep it a little bit interesting.

00:30:01.520 –> 00:30:02.420
I like writing.

00:30:02.420 –> 00:30:05.900
I’ve always had that as a strength.

00:30:07.860 –> 00:30:19.340
I think the trick for me is I do tend to get focused on the outcome of like, I want you to come to my show.

00:30:19.340 –> 00:30:22.340
And I’m very like, that’s what this newsletter is about.

00:30:22.340 –> 00:30:24.100
That’s why I’m writing to you.

00:30:24.100 –> 00:30:49.220
But I have been trying to weave in some creative writing and just write from my heart about what I’m going through or things I’ve been thinking about because I don’t, I know the best newsletters have that element where you’re actually making people’s day a little brighter or giving them some information that they needed and inspiring them.

00:30:49.220 –> 00:31:14.920
So I feel like that is a new focus I’m trying to embrace because I think at the, you know, as you get older as, I don’t know, as a female musician, I think I was a little bit vapid and shallow with it where I was like, you know, like I need the fame, I need the numbers, I need to be beautiful, I need to sound beautiful, I need to dance and all those things are fine in and of themselves.

00:31:14.920 –> 00:31:32.000
But I think as I’m maturing and wanting, like I used to get, you know, the money would come, you know, from these shows and the merchandising and everything, but, well, back then, I was doing it more for that ego gratification.

00:31:32.000 –> 00:31:41.740
And as I, like, mature and, like, heal and grow, there’s this calling towards just serving people.

00:31:41.740 –> 00:31:46.280
And I want that feedback of, like, have I made your life better?

00:31:46.280 –> 00:31:48.440
Did I give you hope?

00:31:48.440 –> 00:31:50.920
Or did I inspire you to do something with your life?

00:31:51.120 –> 00:32:14.680
And I think that is where the veins of gold, that’s how to access that true abundance of ultimately, like, yeah, we’re gonna die and our, yeah, okay, my music will live on without me, but, like, it might not get that, you know, it’s like, have I made the world a better place?

00:32:14.680 –> 00:32:16.640
And can I do that through my music?

00:32:16.640 –> 00:32:18.560
And have I already?

00:32:18.680 –> 00:32:23.100
And I just need to acknowledge it and lean into it.

00:32:23.100 –> 00:32:32.520
Yeah, it’s just such a gossamer thing to, like, positively impact somebody’s life with your song.

00:32:33.540 –> 00:32:41.680
But it’s nice when you get that, the monetary feedback, and you’re like, okay, this is actually, somebody values this.

00:32:41.680 –> 00:32:42.640
Sure.

00:32:42.640 –> 00:32:45.040
I think it’s a good idea what you’re doing with your newsletter.

00:32:45.200 –> 00:32:56.220
I’ve had a real similar, I don’t know if I’ll call it a revelation, but just I realized, like, I need to, like, say a little more and think about things I can do for this.

00:32:56.220 –> 00:33:03.800
This is the artist one, not the Unstarving Musician newsletter, which has its own, a pretty defined focus.

00:33:03.800 –> 00:33:18.160
But as an artist who gigs here and there, yeah, I was kind of like, for a long time, just talking about shows, and then, then I moved out of the country, and I’ve been in a couple of countries since.

00:33:18.160 –> 00:33:21.600
And so there’s a little downtime in getting reestablished.

00:33:21.600 –> 00:33:29.420
And getting, having gotten a little older, you know, get my sentiment on gigging.

00:33:29.420 –> 00:33:30.360
I’m going to say it’s changed.

00:33:30.360 –> 00:33:33.720
I just mean the type of gigs, I suppose it’s the type of gigs from all the experience I’ve had.

00:33:33.720 –> 00:33:38.420
And, and as a drummer, there’s a, you know, a physical nature to doing it.

00:33:38.420 –> 00:33:40.040
And maybe as a rock drummer too, I suppose.

00:33:40.040 –> 00:33:41.660
But there’s a physical nature to it.

00:33:42.820 –> 00:33:50.520
And sometimes the gratification, you know, almost barely, it feels like it equals the effort.

00:33:50.520 –> 00:33:51.820
So I’ve started singing more, you know.

00:33:51.820 –> 00:33:55.200
But anyway, there’s been these changes.

00:33:55.440 –> 00:33:57.000
But I thought, why not?

00:33:57.000 –> 00:33:57.780
I’m kind of like you.

00:33:58.160 –> 00:34:00.260
I’ve always been able to write.

00:34:00.260 –> 00:34:01.320
I enjoy it.

00:34:01.320 –> 00:34:15.600
And so I thought, why don’t I put more energy into thinking about what I can say in that newsletter to people who follow me as a musician, other than where I’m playing and share some of the creative things I’m doing or, like you said, some of the things I’m thinking about.

00:34:15.600 –> 00:34:17.100
And that’s been very recent for me.

00:34:17.100 –> 00:34:23.940
So I’m still giving that some thought on what to do.

00:34:23.940 –> 00:34:31.260
One thing that helps me, I don’t know if you do this, but subscribing to other artists’ newsletters to see what they’re doing well, what they’re not doing so well.

00:34:31.260 –> 00:34:41.320
But at the end of the day, I was thinking of this earlier when you were talking about your supporters, that sometimes they just want to know anything about you because they’re very interested in you.

00:34:41.320 –> 00:34:53.080
You know, like a friend or something, that may be a thin relationship because they maybe have never met you in person, but they just want to know what’s going on in your life and in your head, and sometimes they can relate, right?

00:34:53.080 –> 00:34:55.060
Yeah, I was talking to someone yesterday.

00:34:55.360 –> 00:34:58.820
She actually does have a million followers.

00:34:58.820 –> 00:35:03.940
And she says what motivates her is her little sister.

00:35:04.900 –> 00:35:08.960
She doesn’t have good idols to look up to.

00:35:09.200 –> 00:35:31.800
She’ll grab her TikTok and look at her feed, and it’s just a lot of superficial people looking impossibly beautiful, and she shows up just to be that role model of someone who’s real and grounded, and wants the best for the world and for all the young people.

00:35:33.100 –> 00:35:50.380
So I feel like that’s been even in the last 24 hours, I’m like, oh yeah, I can be talking to that younger version of myself, or those young women who need something other than all the shallow consumeristic stuff.

00:35:52.920 –> 00:35:59.240
Yeah, I’m a big environmentalist, and I want to put those kinds of messages out there.

00:35:59.440 –> 00:36:15.640
Like, you can live simply, you can follow your dreams not at the expense of the planet, and yeah, I feel like there’s always more to be explored of what we can offer.

00:36:15.640 –> 00:36:16.540
Yeah, that’s nice.

00:36:16.540 –> 00:36:17.940
That’s nice.

00:36:17.940 –> 00:36:23.520
Listen, lest I forget to ask you about this, which I think is important, probably should be important to you.

00:36:23.520 –> 00:36:26.160
So the new album, is it called New the Old?

00:36:26.160 –> 00:36:26.560
Is that right?

00:36:27.680 –> 00:36:31.460
And it comes out the 22nd of this month as we’re speaking in April 2025.

00:36:32.720 –> 00:36:35.880
So I’ve been building the album on Patreon.

00:36:35.880 –> 00:36:39.000
So as the singles come out, I release them there.

00:36:39.000 –> 00:36:53.920
And then as they come out publicly, I guess, which is a little different than them coming out on Patreon, by the time I realize or get to the point where I’m ready to share them with the world, then I post them on my Bandcamp because it’s already streaming everywhere.

00:36:54.180 –> 00:37:02.880
I might as well throw it up on there because I definitely have some fans who’ve already bought the album and support me in general on there, which is so sweet.

00:37:05.380 –> 00:37:10.600
But yeah, so I made it a pre-order.

00:37:12.800 –> 00:37:14.320
On through Bandcamp, right?

00:37:14.320 –> 00:37:20.340
Yeah, so that whoever bought it could get all the tracks that I have ready.

00:37:20.340 –> 00:37:23.880
And then other people could just stream the singles that are public.

00:37:26.760 –> 00:37:36.340
But it makes you put in a release date, and I have to keep editing the release date, because it keeps taking more and more time to like, oh, maybe I should release that song too.

00:37:36.340 –> 00:37:38.840
And then I work on it for a month, and then I promote it for a month.

00:37:38.840 –> 00:37:40.460
And it’s like, yeah.

00:37:41.740 –> 00:37:44.280
So it’s a moving target.

00:37:44.280 –> 00:37:45.980
The release date is a moving target.

00:37:47.120 –> 00:37:50.880
But yeah, like I said, I think the final song is out.

00:37:50.880 –> 00:37:51.620
I think I’m letting go.

00:37:52.540 –> 00:37:59.340
I could put a few more songs on there, but it’s like, okay, I think this chapter is closing.

00:37:59.340 –> 00:38:03.360
This is on Bandcamp when you say the final one’s out?

00:38:03.360 –> 00:38:03.780
Yeah.

00:38:03.780 –> 00:38:04.100
Yeah.

00:38:05.720 –> 00:38:07.620
Junetune for the Garden is what I called it.

00:38:07.620 –> 00:38:11.000
I wanted it to be searchable on Spotify for people who like gardening.

00:38:11.000 –> 00:38:14.080
So I put a word garden in there.

00:38:14.080 –> 00:38:18.860
And yeah, I’ve got a little music video coming out for it.

00:38:20.360 –> 00:38:22.600
Probably this later this week.

00:38:24.060 –> 00:38:24.520
Yeah.

00:38:24.520 –> 00:38:26.200
So cool.

00:38:26.200 –> 00:38:27.180
It’s a work in progress.

00:38:27.620 –> 00:38:39.980
I probably missed how many tracks were associated with that album because when I first went on your Bandcamp, I love Bandcamp actually, but I’m not on, I say that out of two sides of my mouth.

00:38:39.980 –> 00:38:41.780
I love it, but I’m not on there that much.

00:38:41.780 –> 00:38:47.580
But when I went on there, you kind of get hit with the featured single.

00:38:50.020 –> 00:38:56.620
In my case, unless I moved down some, I didn’t see, so as I started looking at your other albums, I’m going, oh, these aren’t singles.

00:38:57.080 –> 00:38:58.580
There’s a full album here.

00:38:58.580 –> 00:39:01.240
So I think I missed that you had a number of tracks.

00:39:01.240 –> 00:39:03.760
So the release date is moving, but it’s pretty close, isn’t it?

00:39:03.760 –> 00:39:07.960
Or the official drop date for people who pre-ordered or want to buy the whole thing.

00:39:07.960 –> 00:39:10.040
Is that how it’s working?

00:39:10.040 –> 00:39:12.540
Yeah.

00:39:12.540 –> 00:39:14.100
It’s just a Bandcamp thing, isn’t it?

00:39:14.100 –> 00:39:15.080
It’s organized chaos.

00:39:16.700 –> 00:39:17.740
I’m just winging it.

00:39:18.600 –> 00:39:24.800
I have thought about doing an actual CD release show.

00:39:24.800 –> 00:39:31.620
I have a radio show coming up soon that will, I think will be live streamed as well.

00:39:31.620 –> 00:39:33.920
It’s through Charlottesville’s WTJU.

00:39:33.920 –> 00:39:35.700
That’ll be in mid-May, I think.

00:39:36.720 –> 00:39:53.120
But I think I’ll take that opportunity to really dive into the storytelling because it’s a concept album and it has a little bit of these headdresses that my friend made, that I bought from her that help me tune into the characters and the albums.

00:39:53.120 –> 00:39:59.920
I think I haven’t really, I did an album release show with my girl band.

00:39:59.920 –> 00:40:10.420
But in general, it’s not the way I think where I’m like, oh, I released an album, I need to do an album release show.

00:40:10.420 –> 00:40:12.520
But I think that’s good for PR.

00:40:12.660 –> 00:40:20.380
It makes sense to like venues and to blogs and TV and stuff like that.

00:40:20.380 –> 00:40:21.620
Yeah, it clicks into that.

00:40:21.620 –> 00:40:24.840
So I’m like, okay, maybe I should do this because I can.

00:40:24.840 –> 00:40:36.580
But I think being able to tie it into my creative process is kind of my hack for everything because I need that motivation of like that it feels kind of exciting and something I want to explore.

00:40:36.580 –> 00:40:44.020
So I think that would be a good chance because I haven’t actually just played the album from start to finish and told the whole story.

00:40:44.020 –> 00:40:45.460
So that might be fun.

00:40:45.460 –> 00:40:46.080
Okay.

00:40:46.080 –> 00:40:46.720
Well, you know what?

00:40:46.960 –> 00:40:56.040
I’m guessing, it’s the first time I’ve kind of heard that type of answer on a release date, but I’m guessing that’s not terribly uncommon.

00:40:56.040 –> 00:41:00.260
Like you said, because Bandcamp requires a release date, right?

00:41:00.260 –> 00:41:02.220
I mean, it makes sense.

00:41:02.220 –> 00:41:06.760
It sounds like it’s one of the platforms you have worked with quite a bit.

00:41:07.280 –> 00:41:13.480
Maybe we’re because, as you mentioned, you have some supporters there, so it makes sense to do that.

00:41:13.480 –> 00:41:15.440
Yeah, I’m guessing that it’s not terribly uncommon.

00:41:15.720 –> 00:41:17.320
I haven’t come across it yet.

00:41:17.320 –> 00:41:19.580
So it’s interesting to hear about.

00:41:19.580 –> 00:41:27.080
Yeah, I think it just became kind of this organic part of my process, mostly because of Patreon.

00:41:27.080 –> 00:41:32.380
And at the time on Patreon, you couldn’t build collections there.

00:41:32.380 –> 00:41:39.560
So it was my way of kind of collecting everything in one place and rewarding the people who supported me in advance.

00:41:39.560 –> 00:41:44.520
But maybe they didn’t want to support me on Patreon every month, but they just wanted to buy the album.

00:41:44.520 –> 00:41:45.000
Sure.

00:41:45.000 –> 00:41:46.740
Yeah, alternatives are great.

00:41:46.740 –> 00:41:55.940
Yeah, because when I did the Kickstarter, it was my experience with it was it was just a lot more work than I thought it was going to be.

00:41:55.940 –> 00:41:58.760
And that’s what made me want to do Patreon.

00:41:58.760 –> 00:42:06.200
It’s like, okay, if I’m going to put this much work into it and all the rewards and marketing it to people, I would want it to be this recurring thing.

00:42:06.200 –> 00:42:11.820
I’ve since realized, though, yeah, not everybody wants to support you on a recurring basis.

00:42:11.820 –> 00:42:13.300
Not everybody can.

00:42:13.300 –> 00:42:16.500
So kind of making those access points along the way.

00:42:16.500 –> 00:42:21.040
And I do like Bandcamp the best.

00:42:21.040 –> 00:42:30.000
I wish they were a little more open to artists’ feedback and a little more agile, but I think they’ve created something simple that just works for who it works for.

00:42:30.980 –> 00:42:35.660
And I’ve started really collecting albums on there.

00:42:35.660 –> 00:42:39.200
And it’s kind of a philanthropy and it feels really good.

00:42:39.200 –> 00:42:46.680
Were you like, because like I kind of missed not having my CD collection anymore for my youth.

00:42:46.680 –> 00:42:50.300
Like I would look at all my CDs and feel really proud of them and like, oh, those represent me.

00:42:50.300 –> 00:42:58.180
So now I hop on my Bandcamp and I can see all the albums that I have personally purchased and I feel very proud.

00:42:58.240 –> 00:43:04.640
And then I’m like, oh, this is what people feel when they see my music in their purchase list.

00:43:04.640 –> 00:43:08.300
So I think of all the streaming platforms, it’s still my favorite.

00:43:08.300 –> 00:43:14.660
I just wish more of the big stars were on there, because I like listening to a mix of indie and local and big stars.

00:43:14.660 –> 00:43:18.180
And I do have to bounce around if I want to do that.

00:43:18.180 –> 00:43:23.600
I want to ask you a couple of things that I think would be of interest to listeners.

00:43:23.600 –> 00:43:27.460
One of them was how you make photo shoots and music videos on a dime.

00:43:28.680 –> 00:43:30.360
What are your best kept secrets?

00:43:33.800 –> 00:43:37.220
Well, it is kind of lucky.

00:43:39.020 –> 00:43:47.760
But I guess it all started with being part of a scene in Charlottesville, where I used to live before I moved closer to Harrisonburg.

00:43:50.020 –> 00:43:59.880
And yeah, I was just kind of like in this vibrant India, everybody kind of making their art in different mediums and cross-pollinating.

00:43:59.880 –> 00:44:06.260
And I would just have these relationships with photographers in the area.

00:44:06.260 –> 00:44:15.200
And we would comment on each other’s posts and see each other on town and high five.

00:44:16.140 –> 00:44:24.600
And I think I would ask them or they would ask me to model for something or collaborate.

00:44:24.600 –> 00:44:31.840
I think they were kind of getting more established as photographers and I was getting more established as a musician.

00:44:31.840 –> 00:44:47.100
So that was a good pairing to kind of cross-pollinate and maybe they wouldn’t have a clear idea of what they wanted to do or they’d have an idea, but then I could kind of run with it and be like, oh, that would work for this song and this is the imagery that I’m thinking of that.

00:44:47.100 –> 00:44:56.900
So we just pick a date and do a shoot and now you can even do the thing where you collaborate on a post and that’s really cool.

00:44:56.900 –> 00:45:09.460
But one of those photographers, lucky for me, was also a videographer where I think I asked him if he wanted to make a music video and he’s made documentaries.

00:45:09.460 –> 00:45:11.840
His name’s Brian Weimer, Amoeba Films.

00:45:12.160 –> 00:45:35.800
We made a video and it was really fun and I kind of sold it to him because I had a photographer, my best friend at the time was a photographer and she wanted to do more with video and she was experimenting with a gimbal, one of those things that keeps the camera even.

00:45:35.800 –> 00:45:47.320
So she just took some, I would say, stock footage of me and I didn’t get it from her for a couple of years and finally, I was like, why don’t I just play around with that in my iMovie and I got it.

00:45:47.460 –> 00:45:55.940
It was almost like a sign for the, I don’t know, it was eerily synchronistic, but I kind of believe in the magic of the universe, so I’m not surprised.

00:45:55.940 –> 00:45:59.640
But it’s still a cool story and I have to say it hasn’t done this ever since.

00:45:59.640 –> 00:46:06.040
But all the footage just lined up perfectly with one of my songs and it’s called Mountain Walk.

00:46:06.600 –> 00:46:08.240
It’s still one of my top viewed.

00:46:08.240 –> 00:46:11.780
It went a little bit viral and it went really well.

00:46:11.780 –> 00:46:13.700
So I think that gave me a big boost of confidence.

00:46:13.700 –> 00:46:15.080
I was like, oh, I can do this.

00:46:15.080 –> 00:46:23.400
So when I pitched the music video idea to Brian, I was like, why don’t you just film it and I’ll grab the footage and I’ll edit it.

00:46:23.400 –> 00:46:25.060
I think he was like, well, sure.

00:46:25.060 –> 00:46:50.140
Because then all he has to do is show up, have fun filming me, and then hand it off because I have done a music video for my song Surprise and there’s just something about, especially if someone offers to collaborate and you’re not paying them, it can just go on and on and on and on with the edits and back and forth, and you have to remind them a million times.

00:46:50.140 –> 00:46:56.580
But if you’re only paying them, maybe their heart isn’t in it and they can’t see inside of your brain exactly what you want.

00:46:56.580 –> 00:47:11.820
So I’ve enjoyed just stealing all that footage and dumping it into my iMovie situation and I’ve always loved TV and film, and it was a bit of a vice.

00:47:11.820 –> 00:47:28.540
And I feel like now I realize it was pointing towards a passion of I enjoy video editing myself and telling a story and kind of coming up with all of this symbology.

00:47:28.540 –> 00:47:34.460
So yeah, fortunately for me, Brian is willing to do it for free.

00:47:34.460 –> 00:47:42.980
The only thing I have to pay for is, and he’s a fan, and I feel like he should be my patron because he likes my music.

00:47:42.980 –> 00:47:46.980
But instead of being a patron, he’s a very generous videographer.

00:47:47.700 –> 00:47:56.920
And I’ve had that with another one of my fans is a lawyer or like lawyer adjacent, paralegal or something, a coach for people in negotiating.

00:47:56.920 –> 00:48:00.780
And he’s been offering me like legal advice instead of being a patron.

00:48:00.780 –> 00:48:08.880
So I think I’ve experienced some of that where there’s, I’m again not having to pay for things normally that I would have to pay a lot for.

00:48:08.880 –> 00:48:11.920
I guess to wrap it up, I just, yeah, I love video editing.

00:48:11.980 –> 00:48:23.520
Oh yeah, and then with the, the part I do have to pay for is if I am, I kind of listen to the song and I try to imagine like imagery, a storyline.

00:48:23.520 –> 00:48:25.920
Fortunately, that’s really easy for my brain.

00:48:25.920 –> 00:48:27.940
I was, my mom loves dreams.

00:48:27.940 –> 00:48:31.040
So I’m like a Jungian interpretation.

00:48:31.040 –> 00:48:36.600
So my brain kind of just goes into this like dreamy state of visualizing things.

00:48:36.600 –> 00:48:37.760
And I’m very into nature.

00:48:37.760 –> 00:48:39.820
So it’s not usually something crazy or innate.

00:48:39.820 –> 00:48:43.080
Like it’s usually like, okay, I’m out in nature and I’m buried in the ground.

00:48:43.080 –> 00:48:45.600
And then I spring up and there’s flowers in my eyes.

00:48:45.600 –> 00:48:49.140
And it’s like, so I don’t usually have to pay that much.

00:48:49.140 –> 00:48:52.440
But there’ll be a little element that like I need to order.

00:48:52.440 –> 00:48:57.620
Can I go on eBay or I go thrifting or I look around at what I have in my house.

00:48:57.620 –> 00:49:15.280
Or I think, I love thinking of like, okay, what’s something I actually need in real life or kind of want, but then I could also use in a music video, so like, for example, I’ve wanted a machete for a while because there’s some woods near our house that I want to like carve out a trail that we like to walk.

00:49:15.280 –> 00:49:23.980
And so yeah, in my last music video, Granite Bones, I bought like, I haven’t tried it out yet, but it’s been winter.

00:49:23.980 –> 00:49:26.940
But it’s like a sword that you can also use as a machete.

00:49:26.940 –> 00:49:29.180
So that’s another thrifty hack.

00:49:29.180 –> 00:49:32.440
But or like in one of my music videos, I was an astronaut.

00:49:33.720 –> 00:49:35.740
But I mean, not like a real astronaut.

00:49:35.740 –> 00:49:41.580
I was out in the woods and I bought like a big vintage snowsuit that’s white.

00:49:41.580 –> 00:49:46.360
And I was like, I want to have a snowsuit so I can like ride my bike in the winter and be warm.

00:49:46.360 –> 00:49:52.500
Although I did learn it needs to be some kind of windbreaker, or leather material to keep you truly warm.

00:49:52.500 –> 00:49:57.200
So I’m probably going to consign that and try to make a little money back off of it.

00:49:57.200 –> 00:50:00.000
But yeah, it’s fun stuff.

00:50:01.380 –> 00:50:12.440
You reminded me that I’ve actually, I guess the really short answer to that question was relationships have been a big part of that, which is one thing I really heard.

00:50:12.440 –> 00:50:13.240
Excuse me.

00:50:13.240 –> 00:50:23.640
But you reminded me that I have a similar relationship with a local photographer, not as much a videographer, although he’s been doing some video for me and he’s planning to do one of my upcoming shows.

00:50:23.780 –> 00:50:26.960
And very similarly, I’m like, just give me the raw footage.

00:50:27.140 –> 00:50:28.000
I’ll do some edits.

00:50:28.100 –> 00:50:33.840
And I should tell him if he’s so inclined and wants to edit it, knock yourself out.

00:50:34.860 –> 00:50:40.380
But it gave me some ideas as you were talking for trying to help him as much as possible.

00:50:40.380 –> 00:50:42.940
I mean, I actually do pay him a little bit.

00:50:42.940 –> 00:50:51.820
He doesn’t even ask me for a fee, but it’s kind of like tip money to support him because it’s a nice thing that he’s done.

00:50:52.660 –> 00:50:56.040
Yeah, that’s a good hack.

00:50:56.940 –> 00:51:11.600
Okay, and lastly, I wanted to ask you, because I’m actually working on a series about this staying healthy to be creative, to stay creative and staying healthy on the road, which I know is a challenge from talking to a number of touring artists.

00:51:11.600 –> 00:51:19.120
So what’s a healthy habit or two that you subscribe to to keep the creative output continuous?

00:51:20.360 –> 00:51:28.320
I think my number one is I’ve had such a journey with sensitivities to food, like I’ve…

00:51:28.320 –> 00:51:29.620
Me too.

00:51:29.620 –> 00:51:40.780
Yeah, I think a lot of people are kind of awakening to some things that fight right with our food systems or like not all of us can eat everything that we want to eat all the time and feel healthy.

00:51:40.780 –> 00:51:43.260
I think I’m just getting old by the way.

00:51:43.280 –> 00:51:45.240
Heck yeah, yeah.

00:51:45.240 –> 00:51:48.980
I mean, never saw that coming, but here we are.

00:51:48.980 –> 00:52:10.000
So I honestly, I prioritize that above everything else and I don’t, it’s just what makes sense to me because if I wake up and I make from scratch all the food that I need for the day, I know that I’m going to feel good, I’m going to have the energy I need, I’m not going to crash, I’m not going to stress out about that.

00:52:10.000 –> 00:52:12.420
Yeah, I just feel like that’s the foundation for me.

00:52:12.420 –> 00:52:26.320
I do a lot of arm to table, cooking, whole foods because I just feel like, I’m just learning about how so many things in the grocery store are cut with other things and there’s no way to regulate it.

00:52:26.320 –> 00:52:39.900
I think in the modern world, we’ve gotten a little bit away from, it’s like my album, New, the Old, let’s take the wisdom from the ancient times and renew it.

00:52:39.900 –> 00:52:46.540
We used to only be able to eat farm to table and that’s or forest to table.

00:52:46.540 –> 00:52:50.900
I think there’s just some harsh realities about that.

00:52:50.900 –> 00:52:57.780
If you’re going to eat this processed convenient diet, you might be shortchanging yourself unfortunately.

00:52:57.780 –> 00:53:13.740
On the road, I remember I would get a lot of salads for dinner and just go on walks during the day and down to a market, because I was in Europe and Spain and such, and get a bunch of fruit and just eat.

00:53:13.740 –> 00:53:23.100
I mean, that’s not a balanced diet, I realize, but just try to still, even though you can’t spend as much time cooking, stay focused on those whole foods.

00:53:25.500 –> 00:53:32.920
I remember I would do yoga, and if we were ever by a river or a beach or a lake or something, go swimming.

00:53:32.920 –> 00:53:33.900
I love swimming.

00:53:33.900 –> 00:53:37.280
Just keep those healthy habits.

00:53:37.540 –> 00:53:41.700
Because when you’re on tour, life is kind of, I want to say it was two-dimensional.

00:53:41.700 –> 00:53:45.180
You’re like, it’s not so complex and multifaceted.

00:53:45.180 –> 00:53:50.480
It’s just travel, show, eat, sleep, travel, joke, eat, sleep.

00:53:50.480 –> 00:53:52.340
You know, there’s this kind of simplicity to it.

00:53:52.340 –> 00:53:59.800
So I found I actually couldn’t focus more on self-care routines because there wasn’t much else, you know?

00:53:59.800 –> 00:54:02.560
There wasn’t many other responsibilities.

00:54:02.560 –> 00:54:03.220
That’s interesting.

00:54:03.220 –> 00:54:06.060
I think a lot of people probably struggle.

00:54:06.180 –> 00:54:22.780
But, you know, in the limited number of times I brought it up with people, I can sense and see and hear, you know, that, yeah, that’s has been a challenge and, you know, that they want to obviously be better at it, which who doesn’t, right?

00:54:22.800 –> 00:54:26.580
You don’t want to feel good and know that they’re doing good things for themselves.

00:54:26.580 –> 00:54:27.080
Yeah.

00:54:27.080 –> 00:54:31.180
And I mean, if you’re in showbiz, you want to bring your best self.

00:54:32.560 –> 00:54:37.000
And there is that, you know, your face is here.

00:54:37.000 –> 00:54:42.360
You can see a lot in your face of whether you’re nourished and well-slept and happy.

00:54:42.360 –> 00:54:46.600
And, yeah, you just want to be shining in all the ways on the stage.

00:54:46.600 –> 00:55:06.200
So I definitely, when I have a show, I do like, I kind of dedicate my day to self-care up until the point where I have to leave and go gig because I do just want to bring my most relaxed, fulfilled, calm, present.

00:55:06.200 –> 00:55:11.860
Yeah, I just want all my needs to be met so I can just show up and let the creativity flow.

00:55:12.880 –> 00:55:24.700
And I, again, with New the Old, like I look back at our, what music used to be to ancient peoples and I mean, still is in traditional societies and tribes and such.

00:55:24.840 –> 00:55:35.100
It’s like, it’s just this part of human life and it happens regularly, like in the evening or as part of these rituals.

00:55:35.100 –> 00:55:45.300
And yeah, I don’t know where I was going with that, but just letting it be this natural, natural part of human existence.

00:55:45.300 –> 00:56:15.080
I imagine you were tying the way it was once to the way that you try to be on the show days and be self-care focused and just really focus on what’s going to happen and maybe even try to channel as best you can the focus and energy that you spent the day building up, sort of transfer that, which is kind of what I would imagine that you think about when you think of music and arts, decades and decades and centuries ago.

00:56:15.080 –> 00:56:16.480
Yeah.

00:56:16.480 –> 00:56:20.640
You can just paraphrase me, and you can do the podcast.

00:56:20.640 –> 00:56:21.320
That sounds great.

00:56:23.240 –> 00:56:24.380
That’s what I took from it anyway.

00:56:24.380 –> 00:56:25.820
I think that’s really great.

00:56:25.820 –> 00:56:30.280
I love the focus on the show days.

00:56:30.280 –> 00:56:33.760
I was just thinking about it in my own head on when I do perform.

00:56:33.760 –> 00:56:41.360
Obviously, I know that, you know, I know when I’m set up for a better performance based on how I feel when I get up that day.

00:56:41.420 –> 00:56:43.640
I usually have a lot going on that day.

00:56:43.640 –> 00:57:04.840
But you reminded me that it’s good for us to just sort of keep that self-care mode in the back of our minds and whatever we can manage to protect our well-being that day leading up to a show is great, and then hopefully leave a little bit of that attitude for after the show too, so we can kind of recover well and feel decent the next day.

00:57:04.840 –> 00:57:05.860
Yeah.

00:57:05.860 –> 00:57:17.260
Well, anmaramusic.com, I know that people can find out everything about you there, and they can also find your band camp and your new music, and a lot of other music you’ve done there.

00:57:17.420 –> 00:57:20.560
So thank you for your flexibility today.

00:57:20.560 –> 00:57:24.160
I’m sorry I spaced on our original time, and it was really great talking with you.

00:57:24.160 –> 00:57:28.780
Thanks for making time for me and honoring me being on your podcast.

00:57:28.780 –> 00:57:29.240
Absolutely.

00:57:29.240 –> 00:57:30.980
The pleasure was mine.

00:57:30.980 –> 00:57:32.300
Take care.

00:57:32.300 –> 00:57:35.180
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00:57:35.180 –> 00:57:37.240
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00:57:37.240 –> 00:57:40.060
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00:57:40.060 –> 00:57:51.740
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00:58:09.080 –> 00:58:12.860
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00:58:24.620 –> 00:58:28.920
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00:58:28.920 –> 00:58:44.440
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00:58:44.440 –> 00:58:48.540
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00:58:51.060 –> 00:58:52.440
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00:58:52.440 –> 00:58:54.640
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