A month ago as I was researching the recent events with Pomplamoose I watched a video of Jack Conte speaking at an XOXO festival. One thing in particular that spoke to me was him talking about his period of time shortly after ‘making it big’. He had been putting out material frequently up until that point and then he felt the pressure of everything he created from then on having to live up to big media’s standards, what he calls an “artificial paradigm.” He didn’t release anything for at least three years because of this fear. In retrospect he says that he should’ve just kept doing what he was doing.

The way I look at that is that him and Nataly were simply having fun in their parents’ house making music, they didn’t quite care what people thought of their output. They had very cheap musical instruments and gear and did the best they could do with what they had but then all of sudden they entered the realm of ‘the big guys’ and felt they didn’t measure up.

I’ve been experiencing this same sort of pressure for quite a while as well. Which is weird because although I know I’m nowhere near being one of the great musical forces in the world I also know that I’m nowhere near being one of the worst. Even stranger is that when I remember setting my first steps on this musical journey I had such a willingness to share not only my grand ambitions but the very results of my creative output: my piano and guitar playing, my scored compositions. Naturally most of it sucked! But I didn’t care, I was having a great time unravelling the mysteries of music and felt good while doing so. Even better I knew I was getting better with each new challenge I undertook whether it was learning a new song or writing a new composition.

So as I enter this new year of 2015 I will do it with the heart of a child, bold and unafraid. Not that I don’t care about the quality of my work, God knows I do! But I want to trust gut when it comes to putting my work out there and not be afraid of the naysayers. Like the great philosopher Kat Williams said, “Haters gon’ hate, that’s they job.” That’s right, so while they’re hating I’m just gonna stay busy putting out dope music, hit after hit