Glen Phillips, lead singer of Toad the Wet Sprocket as well as a solo artist, has released 7 records with the band - 2 of which are multiplatinum - and 7 solo albums, spanning a career that started 37 years ago when Glen was just 15 years old. We talk about creating, and navigating the industry as both an active platinum-selling band, after the break-up, and now as the band has reformed, focusing and prioritizing the sheer joy of creating, how community can inspire and inform your creativity, and more.
Glen Phillips, lead singer of Toad the Wet Sprocket as well as a solo artist, has released 7 records with the band - 2 of which are multiplatinum - and 7 solo albums, spanning a career that started 37 years ago when Glen was just 15 years old. We talk about creating, and navigating the industry as both an active platinum-selling band, after the break-up, and now as the band has reformed, focusing and prioritizing the sheer joy of creating, how community can inspire and inform your creativity, and more.
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All music written, performed, and produced by Aaron Shafer-Haiss.
[00:00:00] Aaron: Hey, and welcome to this week's episode of The Other 22 Hours Podcast. I'm your host, Aaron Shafer-Haiss.
[00:00:04] Michaela: And I'm your host, Michaela Anne. And we are coming up on the end of our very first year of hosting this podcast. We've had 45 plus guests since the month of March. And so if you are an early listener, thank you so much for being with us this year.
If you're brand new, your first time listening today, thank you for checking us out.
[00:00:25] Aaron: Yeah. And for those of you that are returning listeners and. Check out last week's episode of Lore of Years. You might have noticed in the conversation that we dropped that we're taking a little bit of a break and we have today's episode and we have an episode coming out next week and then we're going to take two months off from releasing new episodes, take a little bit of our own medicine and step back, take a breather, work on some other creative endeavors, and then we'll be back at the beginning of March.
So in the meantime, we come with our normal ask. The way that we're able to continue doing this. Show is by having more listeners and the way we get more listeners is through word of mouth so if this is your favorite episode or if maybe you have a Favorite episode from earlier in the year if you wouldn't mind just passing that on to somebody that doesn't know about our show and might get Something from it.
We'd really appreciate that.
[00:01:08] Michaela: And we're not your typical music promo show. We're not music journalists. We are musicians ourselves. And the whole premise of this podcast is to have conversations about life in the in between times, how artists and creatives stay connected, healthy, and sane while creating a lifelong career on their
[00:01:28] Aaron: art. as I'm sure we all know, there is a lot in this career that is outside of our control. And so we really like to focus on what is within our control, being our mindsets, our habits, our creativity, our. relationship to creativity. And so with that, we've distilled that down to a question that we don't blatantly ask our guests, but it's the core of this show.
And that is, what do you do to create sustainability in your lives so that you can sustain your creativity? And we asked that question of Glenn Phillips today. he's a singer songwriter, probably best known as the frontman of seminal 90s band Toad the Wet Sprocket. Glenn started with that band when he was 15 and as he shares in this they didn't even shop for record deals Somebody from ASCAP started dubbing a demo tape of theirs and sending it to A& R people and They got an offer from Columbia Records when he was 17 years old and that went on to have multiple platinum records in the 90s and All come to an end when he was only 27.
[00:02:30] Michaela: Yeah, Glenn was very candid, very honest about what that journey is like to have the highest of highs and then some pretty low lows and how to continue to build a life. Music industry careers are peaks and valleys and he's definitely experienced that and it was a really beautiful conversation hearing about some of His mindsets that he's had to work through and getting back to play Through music play in the most playful sense of the word play joyous sense. Yeah,
[00:03:02] Aaron: we said, Glenn was very generous with what he's learned.
A lot about mindfulness, a lot about the ins and outs of what a career in music looks like today even if you did have a big band in the 90s and he has a great sense of humor.
About all of it, So without further ado, here's our conversation with Glenn Phillips.
[00:03:18] Michaela: We've only had this for almost a year now, and I think you are probably our most commercially successful. Guest and Started at such a young age. So you started touring pretty full time like by the time you were 18 Is that
[00:03:33] Glen: Mm hmm. Yeah.
[00:03:34] Michaela: and had pretty massive commercial success like in your early 20s
[00:03:39] Glen: And then was pretty much unsignable and done by 27.
[00:03:44] Aaron: Wow wild can you tell us more about that?
[00:03:48] Glen: Just, how can I say, I mean, the band got to a point, where we weren't communicating well and nobody really put us in a room and was like, by the way, you don't get two chances at this. this is probably. The only time you get this kind of opportunity in your life. So if he needs to do solo projects, go to your solo projects some counseling as a band, get some interventions happening and deal with it because the chance of lightning striking again is incredibly low.
And yeah, we broke up when uh, that was the year my dad died the band broke up. I had two kids and I couldn't get a record deal anywhere and walking into, A& R places and being embittered is not a great way to get people on your side. So it was really playing the victim and yeah, nobody wanted to work with me, it was a pretty harrowing time. Took me a while to get over.
[00:04:40] Aaron: Yeah, how did that that affect your creativity? Did you continue to write through that time or did you think that maybe hanging up your shoes was the way to go?
[00:04:49] Glen: I still don't know how to do anything else. Um, At the time I mean it was a combination of Feeling really entitled and also feeling like this was, God catching up for me for my hubris thinking I was special or could have a career or could succeed at anything and the kind of generational familial. of like, see, I'm a failure. This is what was always going to happen. And I only got set up to fail and I got incredibly depressed and did a lot of touring and sent away a lot of audience by going on tour when I probably should have been, getting some mental health care. but I had a family to feed.
So I just kept going out on the road. And in the midst of that, wonderful things also happened. My kids were amazing, and I, started playing a lot at Largo in Los Angeles, where a lot of other musicians who suddenly didn't have what were considered viable careers were also playing, and so there was a lot of camaraderie in that.
But it was It was a really hard readjustment.
[00:05:53] Michaela: were some of the things that you did? To help yourself process that and move through it.
[00:05:59] Glen: At the time, I don't know if I had a lot of knowledge of what resource was available to me in the way that I do now. I did therapy on and off, I, was on antidepressants for a while, but it was the family doctor hand you the Zoloft and go, bye bye. And I will say it probably saved my life.
At the time when I got on it, at the point where my now former wife said you need to go get help, I hadn't read a book in a year. I couldn't concentrate and anything that was interesting was too emotionally jarring. And there was this week I hadn't, I couldn't sleep for an entire week.
I was so anxious and I went and the doctor gave me Zoloft and I read the whole Dune Trilogy in a week and started sleeping again.
But once again, they don't do that with, okay, you have to do this much therapy. you know, and we're going to try to get you off of it once you're stabilized and you're kind of mental process, you're better. you know, stuff catches up if you only kind of address the biological, side of it, doesn't really address the, spiritual or mental side of it. So
[00:07:03] Michaela: Yeah.
[00:07:03] Glen: that took a lot longer.
[00:07:06] Michaela: So much of this industry, the music business, I'm constantly at odds and grappling with like how unhealthy I think it is for our brains how do people stay grounded and spiritually centered if they're like going out in their experiences that they go on a stage and thousands of people just adore them for this one thing that they do constantly and like the ego and, and I would think if you're Starting that at 18, and in your early 20s when your brain is still developing, like how that informs your mental structure, and this is without having real neurological understanding.
I just think it would be that much harder than to deal with the aftermath, which is inevitable for everybody in this industry. It, what, everything that goes up comes down, and it's a really challenging part of this business, but to take in so much validation and be like, oh, I'm good, I'm good, I'm good, and then to just be.
Turned on, on a small level, it's pretty destructive. On a massive level, and then add in age,
it's just like, how could you have experienced that and not had a deep struggle with
[00:08:19] Glen: a strange one. and complaining about being a rock star isn't something that it's not a good look, right? So it's also, if people are going, what's so sad? It's like, my platinum selling pad got dropped Yeah.
it's like, know, no one's really gonna, Jump into that victim story, but it's a weird one too. And it's, you know, any loss of privilege feels like oppression. I've heard that said before.
And to have the experience of life going my way without me trying, we worked hard, but we also got incredibly lucky even getting signed.
We just, I tell this story here and there, but like my theater teacher, I started in theater and my drama teacher in high school, it was his first year as a high school teacher and he was talking to the class about why he was a teacher and saying, just love the theater more than anything.
And he saw his friends going to New York and Los Angeles and Chicago. And he had this realization that he didn't want to spend the rest of his life selling himself. that it would break his heart. And I'm like, that's me. I'm too sensitive. And I thought, okay, I'll be a high school teacher. I'll teach like arts and humanities, maybe social, I'd love sociology, anthropology.
Like I thought I would do that. And the band, we hadn't even sent out a demo. we'd recorded like a cassette locally and then it got into the hands of this guy Nick Terzo, who at the time was at ASCAP and he started doing cassette dubs and sending them to A& R people. And so the next thing we knew we were We had a record deal and I'd planned on going up to San Francisco state.
I was going to just take that route. Like my parents are hard science academics. I dunno, that seemed like the path that would have been appropriate for me. even when we were on the label, I think Donnie Einer could never understand that the president of Columbia I was so ambivalent about success.
I didn't believe in fame. there's a lot of stuff around that concept of success that I never believed in. And I always fought against and I did a lot of self sabotage in that as well. There's the part of you that's going, is this real? Is this actually happening?
Is this my life? And then there's the other part of you going I hate celebrity culture. I can't stand it. and that ladder where no success is enough. If you're you too, if you're the biggest band in the world, it's still. If you're scaling down even slightly in any given year, it's feels like a failure, right?
Or,
[00:10:43] Michaela: I say yup like I know, but
like,
[00:10:45] Glen: yup. a guy who met Edge and asked him, I did, but, there's never ever enough. And, And I would say late stage capitalism, America in general, you never have enough, it's not built into our culture. You're supposed to get more and borrow against so you're always living beyond your means.
never have, whether it's Bhutan or, the Netherlands. You know, It's just, I got a flat, I got a bicycle. I got enough, medical care if I need it, that won't take the house or the bicycle away from me. It's like really basic stuff. And we're always chasing something here.
And it's not really good for the soul. I have this theory that all true medicines are turned into drugs in our culture, whether it's music, whether it's, spirituality and, relationship with whatever God or not the last few years for me, this is wandering a lot.
Like I found a lot of purpose in getting back to, music as something that's not performance oriented. So I started doing community song leading about seven years ago, which is, uplifting songs sung in a circle for each other. And you're kind of, for people. A lot of them have church damage or have been shamed out of thinking they could sing even though they want to. And some of them have, don't have great voices, but they love singing and they were told to shut up. it's standing in a circle and most of the songs, instead of harmony, they're like contrapuntal.
So it's counter melody because non musicians can handle that better. Simple songs, and you go for about an hour and a half, and teach and sing these, and there's no audience. There's no performance. It's like singing for each other the way people did until we figured out how to commodify it. And it's a really beautiful experience.
And so for me, stuff like that has made me love music again and realize that you can do it. In ways that aren't about getting to the next place. But they're more about being in the place you're at.
[00:12:46] Aaron: That's really beautiful. We've had a few guests share something similar in the sense that your creativity is yours and it is always with you and your ability to sing, your ability to make music. You can do that anywhere, regardless of whether there's an audience or regardless of whether you're by yourself or whatever it is.
And there's just joy in that and the ability to create this music and the ability to pull something out of the ether I think that can easily be overlooked with what you were saying with this capitalistic society of stagnation is the devil, basically when it's a pretty remarkable thing to just be able to sustain your creativity, especially when you choose to make a career out of that.
[00:13:25] Michaela: I've thought about this a lot recently in these conversations and I also do songwriting coaching and do like mentorship programs and I've been a music teacher of vocal coaching and teaching guitar and piano for over a decade. But there's always this idea that in today's society, that if you have any musical talent or ability, you need to commodify it.
And for it to be worth anything, it needs to be recognized. Are you going on The Voice? Are you going to try out for American Idol? And not this idea that we're all musical creative beings. And we have a two and a half year old daughter, and watching her every day just has made me realize so much more, like Artistry and creativity is human.
It's in all of us. It's not something that some of us are blessed with. everybody does it. They don't care who's listening. If they're what their voice sounds like, they're just like fully present in the moment, I want to color, I want to create, I want to sing a song. It's just as natural as breathing and that mind shift.
It has been interesting for myself of this isn't something that has to be, oh, I'm so special because I can do this. This is something that like we all have, maybe like the necessity to do, to feel alive and feel like we can make sense of our experiences. But we live in a society that has decided that's not the case.
And I think it's just not true.
[00:14:53] Glen: It's a strange thing. Yeah, the segmentation. I don't know if I'd be alive if I didn't have practices that embodied me, right? And there's something about music, it's the, people think as well when you're on stage the best moment is everybody's looking at me, everybody.
But the best moments on stage are when you disappear, the song is bigger than you, and you have enough ability. to let the song take you somewhere unexpected and magical. I mean, It's about non being more than something egoic and central, or even when you're watching a dance, for me, like the difference between like a Baryshnikov or Michael Flatley, not to bag on Michael Flatley, but I will like the Lord of the dance guy is you see him and you think Oh, he thinks dance is lucky to have him.
Whereas he looks like, he feels like he is lucky to have dance and it's that difference is like, is this something that you're like? Me, or it's just like, Oh my God, look at what just happened. Look at what just happened. This is a miracle. This is beautiful. Not what I did. What happened?
It's amazing. you know, and even if, you know, a two year old drawing, like hands with, 20 fingers each and, purple skin and, you know, all the great weird kid drawings, like just seeing your kids sitting there concentrating for so long on something.
So hard and like there's so much going on in there.
It's a way of, disappearing into life. and there's different ways to be embodied. I mean, whether it's dance, whether it's music, whether it's, theater, drawing, writing, yoga, running, biking, climbing, there's so many ways, being with animals they're all. really valid and really beautiful. And like I was going to say earlier, I don't know what I would do if I didn't have things that brought me completely into the moment. Cause when I'm not in the moment, I'm regretting the past and fearing the future and having all these issues. so, um, I've, increasingly recognized and valued that part of it as I get older As my creativity becomes some ways more difficult to access on a regular, I feel like I need assignments or play or ways to get back to play.
And curiosity, ways to get back there instead of like, Oh God, when I get home from tour, it's often what do I got to do now? I got to write the best album I've ever written.
Mhm.
gotta write amazing songs that will change the world. And that's like way too much heaviness. I should be when I get home.
Like, what do you want to do? It's like, I want to play. I want to have a lot of fun. Like this guitar, like I've been playing it every day, but I haven't really been practicing. So maybe I'll practice. And, you know,
[00:17:28] Aaron: Yeah.
[00:17:29] Glen: I do a songwriting group with Matthew Electrician. Do you know him?
[00:17:33] Michaela: Not personally, but yes.
[00:17:34] Glen: Yeah, I've been terrible at it.
I have not been as regular as I should be, but every week he does the Bob Schneider style, sends out a title, except he, if you don't write the song, doesn't kick you out of the group.
[00:17:46] Aaron: nice.
[00:17:47] Glen: Yeah, it's a little less alpha male than Bob's group, but it's uh,
such a wonderful group of songwriters.
And, you know, I did my last solo album was all songs from the songwriting game. juSt cause it's great to get a title and figure out what it's about. It makes it play. And it's like tricking myself into playing instead of hiding in a corner, feeling unworthy of, work that I feel I should be producing.
[00:18:12] Aaron: that kind of is a good little segue into this question that I've had because having platinum records at the time that your band did in my judgment is different than having a platinum record today which is equivalent to you know, whatever billion streams. hOw was that experience with, coming back and be like, the next record needs to be better than that.
[00:18:28] Glen: in our early twenties, we did two albums totally independently and just cut them live on the floor. And then when we did the Fear record with All I Want, Walk on the Ocean. I loved big records like Talk Talk and Peter Gabriel All the productions that Trevor Horn did, and been listening to this, college rock post punk stuff, but also I just loved these big, Tears for Fears records, just where they cared so much like the David Silvian solo stuff, with Steve Night, like they're just amazing sounding records.
And so we wanted to do something big. And the next record, Dulcinea. We weren't really thinking singles. We were wanting to do something that sounded like we sounded live. Two guitars, the vocals, one extra keyboard, because we usually had a utility guy with us. And we wanted to make something that was more muscular and live Chuck Plotkin was our A& R guy and he, produced Dylan Springsteen and he was just there going like, my job is to protect you guys from the radio guys.
I want you guys just to make the best album you want to make and we'll worry about everything else later. So, It was a dream gig.
[00:19:38] Aaron: Yeah. Oh
[00:19:39] Glen: We just got to do what we wanted to do. On our last record, Coil, we took more money. Which we probably shouldn't have done, and all of a sudden there was more pressure, and we had to have singles, and we had an A& R guy who would listen and go, Okay, that could be a single.
That was his only comment on anything. Where Chuck's sitting there going like, This is a wild stew, like how do you wanna, sequence this? Cause you can do a lot of different emotional journeys with this material, And you've really gotta think of like, Where you wanna bring people.
It was great with him.
[00:20:09] Aaron: That's amazing. we've had John Doe as a guest on here and he was talking the same thing. About a record that X made and they took more money than they'd ever taken. And it basically that was like, the lineup changes and it was just, you know, he's like, it's probably our worst record.
[00:20:24] Glen: I'm assuming it was See How We Are. It's a great song.
[00:20:28] Aaron: Right. It's, It's an amazing exactly.
[00:20:30] Glen: not a bad
[00:20:31] Aaron: yeah. But in the moment, he's like, you know, we, there was the pressure. We got this big advance and all of a sudden, this is stacked against you. And when you stack that pressure against creativity and the ability to, the freedom and the play and the experimentation, it can be daunting.
[00:20:46] Glen: Yeah. And, we went against the grain on our last album. We didn't go with the producer that the company wanted us to go to. And we were told before it came out we're going to let it get to this point and once we've made our money back and then we're pulling the plug. And they did.
geez.
[00:21:01] Aaron: you had already released four records with them or something So there's already it there was a history there and they're just like we don't care We're just gonna make our money and see
[00:21:09] Glen: Yeah, it was more of a he than a they. But yes uh, but literally, punitively you didn't listen to me. You didn't follow my advice. You went with the producer I didn't want you to go with. And let me tell you exactly what's going to happen. And that is exactly what happened. you sign up, you take the money and you don't play the game. That's, there's a little hubris in that. I mean, it's, it's a silly thing to do. And that was the age, I think, of bands with this indie attitude, signing on major labels and then whining about it. mean, for me, the nineties was, was a lot of that. PeOple not wanting to play their singles live and, rejecting the radio.
I think people now are like, I would love to have a hit. It's
Yeah.
going to want to have a kid and medical insurance, you
[00:21:50] Michaela: yeah, it's like, I feel like there was a time that people were like, Oh my God, someone's song is on a TV commercial oh, selling out. And now I feel like very quickly everyone's like, Could I just get a song on a TV commercial? Like, the, The industry has shifted so much. I'm, I'm super curious if you feel comfortable talking about it.
I think in a lot of mindsets, you know, you think of people who have like hits in the 90s. Oh, you're set for life. But I'm not. But I'm curious what the economics of that, yeah, are, especially as it's shifted to streaming. you talk about like, oh, okay, I'm, could be judged of like, whining my platinum selling band got dropped.
But the reality is, you have to keep working. It's not like you can just go to your mansion and cash checks for the rest of your life and be okay, right?
[00:22:37] Glen: Yeah, I didn't make that much. And I remember we saw our first ever, the way major labels work too. We saw our first ever check and we made a point, we licensed the first record for 50, 000, the second for 75. Wait, was it 2550? And I think we got 75, 000 to record as the advance for everything for the Fear album.
Like, We weren't taking big advances. We were taking advances that were only for the recording fund. we were making Expensive records in studios, 75, 000 now seems like a ton of money to record with. But then again, we all have this setup in our room. Uh, It's different. But, back then, if you were doing full band in the studio, it was going to cost.
And We didn't take massive advances, and we took minimal tour support as soon as we could get off tour support. We did, our whole idea was that we were getting more points on the back end, and that we were going to earn the money we made. And we had sold, I think, it was when Dulcinea went platinum.
we'd had Fear go platinum and a half, and then when Dulcinea went platinum. That was the month we saw our first ever check from Sony.
Wow.
so, you know, It's one thing to go, they got tons of money. It's another thing we still haven't recouped. Cause they were spending it on radio and all these other things.
So, Videos were really expensive to make back
[00:23:57] Michaela: Oh, yeah. Mm hmm.
[00:23:59] Glen: Was very, so we would spend, whatever it was, 75, 000 on the record. And then I think we spent 300, 000 on a video
Wow.
It's insane, because they had to get like, I think it was Sam Bauer, because he directed Smells Like Teen Spirit, so we had to have that guy, for the fall down.
We spent so much money. But that was, once again, major label in the era. I mean, the coming off of that, We haven't had a single placement from the two records, NDP, that we put out when we got back together. like, all I want gets placed in scenes where there's someone's having a 90s flashback,
So those trickle in we're not a massive streaming band. We weren't that big. There's, no sales anymore. So our living is entirely on the road at this point, almost entirely. And, you know, to, give way too many details, like my publishing for everything I've written since Toad, including the newer Toad records, like I, I didn't make the a hundred dollar we'll write you a check barrier for the last quarter,
25 years of my work. So
[00:24:59] Michaela: you sharing that with us because, again, another part of this conversation, I feel like there's so much, especially in the music industry, of keeping quiet what the reality of everyone's financial situations are, and it creates this farce there's such a disconnect in my mind and I'm constantly like what's real?
is that band making money on tour? what's success? And like, what does success translate to as far as like actual take home pay and, oh, they look like they're doing well, but that means they're barely making 20, 000 a year. Like I want to know all those things and I want to know like what people's bottom lines are because.
I spent a long time thinking, Oh, I'm just doing this wrong. How come I can't make a living? And as I would start talking about it more, more people would reveal like, Oh yeah, I always lose money in here or I'm not making money in this or my royalty checks look like this. And I was like, Oh,
okay.
[00:25:54] Glen: but it's different. I know people who never have to leave their house. Who, entirely who make bank off of Sync, nobody knows who they are. They make three times what I make and it's all Sync, or they're scoring or they're doing other work. Toad does well on, on the road.
We've been. Working hard, when we got back together, it was very difficult. I had a lot of personal stuff to like, either work out or just let ride until, you know, we're not, great communicators. So a lot of stuff just had to work itself out over time. But everybody's been in a really good state of mind.
You can see the positivity There were times, I think, when we were on the road where we looked like we hated each other. And we probably did. And didn't want to be there. And we probably didn't. And right now everybody's good. You know, We're getting along. We're happy to be there. We really care about it.
Everybody's invested in it. And it's made a real difference. And so our numbers have been going up. And our job, because we had a large enough audience back in the day, has been simply reconnecting with the people I meet every day. I mean, Once again, this is an incredibly lucky position is I get to bump into people who go like, you're in Toad.
Like you're one of my favorite bands. Do you ever play anymore? What do you do now? It's like we tour every year. Um, And that's the guy that I want to come to the show, my job is to get that guy going. And even through my solo stuff, like I have a very engaged, but very small audience.
my Spotify, I'm like 7, 000 monthly listeners. once again, I know people who can't tour, never had a hit in their life. They got one song on a good playlist and they have like. 10 times the amount of listeners I have. Like I have no listeners on Spotify. I just, doesn't exist for me.
But I can go to Cine wineries and fill them. And so I've worked on the live thing for 20 years. I would like
To be able to afford to stay home more. but then again, a lot of those options require being a talking head on the internet or tick talking or doing these things that I just don't want to be in that business either.
So, At some point we all have a day job, right? Even if you're on the road, you're a truck driver all day. When I'm out solo, I make enough that it's worth it. Even though, car rental's up, gas is up, lodging is up. I mostly tour, when I can, I take my friend Jonathan Kingham with me.
He's a Nashville guy. My best friend, we all like, finding weird restaurants in the middle of nowhere, like great conversations. We share a room half the time. Cause it's like, he'll open for me and I'll pay him and, you know, we make it all work and we save money on the, but I don't have a merch guy or a tour man, I do everything, I just got a manager for the first time.
And I think six years, six years, eight years, I just got a manager again. Which, for me to trust that and, accept the help and not be like, ah, you'll do it wrong. You'll do it too expensive. That's my experience with managers in the past is they'll take care of your travel, but you'll spend twice as much. Toad is doing well enough right now that I can afford to feel less scarce with everything else and less panicked. I mean, I got divorced ten years ago, and Yeah, it was a huge change in my life. And, this worry okay, I gotta start saving again.
I don't have a house. and almost bought one. Before lockdown and didn't, which was, in hindsight, a really terrible decision because now I probably never will be able to, but, it's weird. I know I'm one of the lucky guys because of, I have friends who work so hard and on the other hand, the people who aren't like the lead singer from a nineties band that did well.
Develop other skills and are more targeted in them. And so it's like, lockdown, I started doing more songwriting teaching online, but I never got to the point of like hanging out a shingle or making a coursework or doing the smart things that you do. But people were asking, so I was like, yeah, okay, pay me.
We'll go on zoom. Yeah, great.
And, doing the you know, song leading, the community singing stuff, but that's less about money and more just about love. figuring out different things. Just was talking to a voice acting director. I'm really hoping I can get voice acting work.
Cause like for me, it's like, get to still play for a living, make silly voices hopefully get my after insurance again.
[00:30:22] Aaron: I will say your voice is very pleasing. Yeah. We, we've, you know, I think this will be our 45th episode. We've listened to a lot of voices through headphones and yours is
[00:30:30] Michaela: very pleasing. I'm feeling very relaxed.
[00:30:32] Glen: Maybe I'll do meditation tapes. Actually, I did this audition for this woman and she said, you, you sound like a therapist. could you go back? This is supposed to be an asshole superhero. Yeah.
not a therapist.
[00:30:44] Michaela: Well, I. I think though what you're sharing is like again, what's so tricky sometimes in this business the core is your music, but then you're, you need to survive, you need to pay your bills, and then you also like need to convince people that you're doing well enough to want to work with you or want to come to your shows.
And there's all these different metrics. And like you said, you're Spotify. Isn't blasting off, but you're able to sell tickets and it's just a really good reminder that there's so many different areas of this business not getting too caught up in like setting your worth to be determined by one of them and having to have the flexibility To keep going with wherever it seems like, okay, this is working, I'm gonna focus here, and then what energy do I need to try and build somewhere else?
[00:31:32] Glen: we're all sold on a bit of a dream. That we're, we want to be the guy out in front or the girl out in front, right? We're that person who's the star or the star producer or the star. And there are so many niches available for everybody. think some of what I was saying earlier is I think of my friends who, often lose money on tour.
And they've gone more into songwriting placement like Garrison Starr. Do you know her?
[00:31:57] Aaron: I know the name. Yeah,
[00:31:59] Glen: Amazing singer. And I love this year within like the last year and everything indigo girls have taken her out on the road and had her up and had her up to sync like they've been platforming her and she's just she's so damn good.
And she has so much heart great songwriter. years ago. I remember when you know, songwriters would complain about oh, it's not working. And then you bring up David Mead. And David Mead is one of the best songwriters ever. he made these records, like you listen to them and they're like Paul McCartney level hit.
just like, Oh my God, this song's good. They're so smart. They're so good. And I think he's, paying the rent more with real estate and does well.
And, he's got a comfortable life and I think is happy and gets to make music cause he loves it now. But I remember touring and I would meet musicians who may talk about like David Meade God damn. If that guy is not on the charts, it's broken. Right. Then it's not personal anymore. I think of that with Garrison. I think of that with him. I think like, There's those artists where they're as good as anything, and better than most, and they're working their asses off, that's the weird thing, and then there's the setup where somehow they're a failure or a dropped ball, and we're squeezing everybody through this tiny tube of a particular kind of attention and pay, And the people I know who've been on all the edges of that, I think like Ruby Amanfu, just years and years of like work and singing, like being on the side and like breaking through as a songwriter, once again, being platformed by other artists, like finally getting visibility and being able to like, make a serious splash.
But finding that path can take a very long time. And for some people, the piece at the end of the day is returning. I haven't talked to David about it, but that idea of if you're returning music to this place where it's instead of the thing that's torturing you and that you're not doing what you feel like you should be doing that, you can return it to the thing you go do when you play. And you can return it to the thing that gives you joy. And, my daughter, Freya is my youngest daughter. She's 22 now, and she's got the voice of an angel. She's just the most beautiful singer. And I made a point of never pushing her. But you know, in high school she was playing shows with a friend and people were freaking out because her voice is so amazing.
And she didn't like the attention. She didn't like being on stage. She, teaches kindergarten now and she does nannying and she likes singing to kids. perfectly happy. Doesn't want to do it in a club.
[00:34:27] Michaela: Yeah.
[00:34:28] Glen: to kids and yeah. And she gets to keep loving singing.
[00:34:33] Aaron: Yeah, it's amazing. I made a little EP for an artist this spring. He has a great voice, really great finger picky guitar player. He works for the State Department and he's a diplomat and he's very straightforward like no being a diplomat like I wanted to do this I went to Columbia and studied for relations because I wanted to be a diplomat.
I love international policy I love communication and talking and resolving differences through communication And so I'm doing my dream job, but I also like to make music I might play a show here or there when I'm not out on assignment and but like this is my, passion, and dream job is actually being in the state and it's beautiful, I've read this.
It's not a great book. It's called real artists. Don't starve
and I'll save everybody the 999 or whatever. The, the, the key chapter sentence basically is throughout history, artists have always had benefactors, Michelangelo worked on commission, And sometimes that benefactor is a day job or, some steady job that allows you the freedom financially and mentally to create the art that you want to create and enjoy it.
[00:35:36] Glen: And the people I know who do that once again, the ones who weren't the singer songwriter, cause I just went out solo thinking I could continue in that way. And, that's the thing they have there. music editors, they're doing soundtracks, they're doing music for sync, they're writing songs for kids shows, they're working in publishing companies, real estate, I mean, doing anything.
and they feel often successful and satisfied, and they maybe get that wistful ah, if I could yeah, but I wasn't ever going to be Bruce Springsteen fine.
[00:36:09] Michaela: I feel like that. dream that so many of us start with when you start to realize like being Bruce Springsteen or being the Rolling Stones is such a small percentage of musicians that will make it to that height. Yeah,
[00:36:23] Glen: Yeah. Mm
[00:36:25] Michaela: reaching like, great levels of success and awards and accolades.
What's been kind of. forming more in my mind is just how fleeting those high moments are, and that's actually not what to build a career on. That those are great if they happen. But I was thinking about this the other day of like, how much my younger self, thought of certain gigs or different things I was doing as just a means to an end. I'll suffer through these shows or this tour or whatever to get to the next. thing, whatever that next thing is. And I've recently, obviously like having a child, like everything recalibrates, how do I want to spend my time? How do I want to spend my money? I'm not just all in a hundred percent of, yes, I will do any opportunity that comes my way to play music.
There's a lot more to consider. And I've really recently had that idea of like, oh, I don't want to do things that I think are just a means to the next thing. I want to play a bar gig because I want to play a bar gig. I want to play a living room house concert because I want to play that living room house concert.
because I think that was operating on this, value system of what level was valued as an artist or a musician. That's where you got to get or you're a failure. So this is a stepping stone. And my mind, thankfully, especially because of all these conversations we get to have on the other 22 hours has really been shifting of, you have to want to do whatever you're doing to really enjoy it.
[00:37:50] Glen: Hopefully, yeah. Yeah. mean, If you want to, if you want to enjoy it. And it's even understanding, you know, I've there's the rule of, private gigs, corporate gigs, where the more they pay you, the less the audience will listen. it's almost inverse. Like,
Yeah.
if I do that show, I can be home more days this month. But nobody's going to listen to a single song, but it's like, that's cool. It's worth it. It's worth the days at home. my current manager, it's like one of the things I like about him is he talks about the power of saying no and creating not tons of scarcity, but a little bit of you know, anticipation on an audience. and keeping your mystery going. Like that idea that, they shouldn't know everything about you all the time. There's being present, but leave a little mystery in there don't say yes to everything. Like you don't need to be out there, desperately trying to do everything.
And that can be really hard to trust. I've had, back to my psychological profile. It's been a thing I've been thinking about recently. Like the men in my family, we have this thing of we're creative and decent people, but you know, there's three generations of feeling kind of like a failure. And, feel like my dad was, scientist, but not a great businessman. And he would collapse into that. Like I've realized, like it took me 50 years, but it's like, God, I'm not like my dad like that. He was a lot like his dad was this, you know, intellectual and jazz musician.
He got knocked out of all his dreams by the depression and never forgave the world for disappointing him. And, died from a heart attack at 50 as an alcoholic and so that bitterness there's parts of that that are in the family, and getting to look at my life and see it in terms of gratitude instead of in terms of victimhood is number one, it's a truer portrait of it.
anD number two, to like getting out of a scarcity mindset. And I'm not saying that there's a whole like wellness world. Like you gotta leave, you gotta go to an abundance mindset and then life will shower you with shit. I don't believe in that either. want to be perfectly clear.
[00:39:55] Michaela: But you live in Santa Barbara.
[00:39:56] Glen: I
[00:40:03] Michaela: mean, it's a beautiful place worth living. I was just
[00:40:06] Glen: a beautiful and my you
[00:40:07] Michaela: new age spirituality that's
[00:40:09] Glen: oh, there's that. Yeah. It's totally new agey here. Yes,
but that idea of, having some kind of attitude that's not based on like, I'll never have enough it makes you make stupid decisions, non creative decisions, panicked decisions. You should have your eye on the future enough to not be an idiot.
And, things that I didn't do when there was more money were like, invest it back when it would have made a massive difference. Um, But I always thought the economy was about to crash, so I never did.
[00:40:39] Aaron: there. I think about these kind of anxiety driven panic decisions when you're stuck in this know, uh, scarcity mindset you're following down an elevator shaft and the first thing to grab onto you're going to, it's just a human instinct when you're operating in that anxiety and then on the, the power of saying no and keeping kind of an abundant mindset.
You had mentioned Largo earlier and we had a conversation. One of our first was with Kenneth and Joey from the milk carton kids and Joey had this great. Viewpoint on saying no to things. He's like, don't look at it. It's like turning something down. Look at it as what you're saying yes to by saying no to this one thing, you're leaving the possibility of having more time at home, more time to write, if it doesn't feel right by turning something down, you're saying yes to all of these other things that can be more fulfilling or more sustainable or on and on.
[00:41:28] Glen: It's
[00:41:28] Michaela: crazy how simple that is, but how whoa, it actually feels to think about that, any opportunity, it's always the focus of like, if I say no, I'm going to miss out on this, and like, not once have I ever thought, but what are you then opening yourself up to by not doing that, until Joey said that.
[00:41:49] Glen: Well, And there's also thinking of learning to identify your resistance. is my resistance a gut feeling that this is not really the right thing to be doing? Or is my resistance because this is touching on a like a deep seated fear?
Is it tickling my anxiety in a way that's like the thing I should lean into, or is it actually giving me a proper warning sign of this isn't worth your time.
This isn't your scene. this
[00:42:17] Aaron: That's a powerful differentiation there.
[00:42:19] Glen: and it's, it can be a really hard one to make. It's, it can be a very difficult one
[00:42:23] Michaela: I feel like I've lived most of my adult life confusing feelings of my body warning me with, Oh, this is exciting anxiety that I need to lean into and chase after. And it always ends poorly. And only in recent years have I thought, Oh, that feeling that comes up. That's like anxiety saying Protect yourself, stay home and my younger self was like, I'm chasing that. I feel anxious and unsafe. I'm going to go straight into the fire and that is. And it's crazy to differentiate between those two truths.
[00:42:59] Glen: In my dating years I got really in touch with that I'm remarried again this year. Congratulations.
thank you. But there was that dating thing of Oh, this person I get really up around. It's like, Nope, that's an alarm system. That's, that's, that's, That's not love.
That's alarms. So figured that one out eventually. And once again, I've thought for a while that maybe it's easiest to make art if you are poor or rich, like if you have a trust fund and you can't fail, then you're free. You do what you want. If it doesn't work, it's fine.
You get to do it again. If you don't have anything at least if you have, just enough to make the art itself, if you can't actually. Get a guitar, get to a gig. There's a certain entry level of privilege by paint, whatever it may be. But you also have nothing to lose.
And I think if you have a kind of middle class range, you're getting by. You're a full time artist of some kind. but you're not killing it. That to me is where the mind rats come in because you do have stuff to lose and making it as an artist, there's at least with a certain personality, less room for error.
Or it can feel like there's less room for error. This is the thing I've been trying to get myself out of. Maybe that's just an excuse on my part, but it's this like, well, if I, don't do this, if I take a risk on this, like the stakes are too high and doing what's safe over and over. Cause I know it'll pay the bills and get, and then, then I'm doing that.
I'm on the road for six months a year and I'm not happy cause I'm never home.
[00:44:34] Michaela: YOu're currently comfortable enough where it's hard to push yourself.
[00:44:38] Glen: Sometimes I feel like I can get there. And if I can come up with an idea that I actually really believe in and I'm excited about, I can move forward on that. That's why for me, it's the return to play and not saying play as something casual, but I mean, you know, you play guitar, right? That's the right verb for it.
You play piano but it's a high level, well educated play. just
Mm hmm. It's called play doesn't mean it's necessarily frivolous. But it's, to get back in a mindset where I'm willing to rather than think I've got to write like such a deep heartbreak and like I need to connect so deeply.
Just write oblidi, oblida, right?
[00:45:16] Aaron: Yeah.
[00:45:17] Glen: Delightful, immortal crap. You know?
[00:45:21] Aaron: I love it. feels great those songs and those experiences occupy a really important space whether you release the song or not. I like to have a hard drive that's sitting underneath my desk here that is songs that I've Written and made here that are never gonna be released, but the idea is that it's me playing You know, I just throw some paint at the wall and it might be really ugly and that's okay like allowing myself the freedom to let it be really ugly and that's cool
[00:45:47] Glen: And it's a thing about being in a place like Nashville too. went there for six months and then came back home. And I'm close to L. A., but I haven't been going down there regularly in years. And I'd really like to again. The thing about being in Santa Barbara is we get You know, as far as artists, there's a handful of touring artists.
There's a lot of like, quasi retirees, like Martin Gore is not going to write with me. I go to LA and or Nashville and you just get coffee in Nashville and you end up with a co write. Because there's songwriters there and you go, Oh my God, I haven't seen like, I love being there.
And I wrote five days a week,
Mhm.
at least one session. And it's like, I was in good shape as a writer there just because of the company. And, almost none of those songs found their way anywhere. But the experience of writing with people, getting to know people that way, I mean, it's profound. I think that's part of the being at home as a musician. When we were young and I was touring, I had young kids, I would get home and I would just go into kid mode, play, clean cook.
Mhm.
it was great. I loved being when I was home, a completely available dad, it was fantastic.
And then my kids got older and I didn't know how to be at home really well. I didn't know how to manage my time or work on long term projects I would get home and I would just be, feel like an idiot. remember my ex actually coming on tour towards the end of the marriage.
And, it was just like, we're playing at City Winer in New York, needed to get the hotel, check in, get back, get merch, do everything. And she just had this moment of like, you're really good at this. You're really good at this.
Mhm.
yeah, dude, this is my job. And she didn't know how to say, but she hadn't seen me be like that at home. like this realization that I was very competent in the world in which I worked, but I was not very competent in being a partner at home. Once the kids were older and didn't need me, I just kinda, I didn't know how to do it. So I think for people who are in a music city, it's a huge leg up, like at any level.
Once again, whether you're making a living as a musician, or whether you're open miking and just trying to find people to write with, like Nashville is full of people who just want to be near music.
that part of, whatever it is, the other 22 hours being able to do stuff that is.
this hybrid of your social world and your professional world like that's the thing with Largo or, going and, playing Watkins Family Hour. everybody would just go like my favorite musical experiences. Some of them were just being at their house after Watkins Family Hour and everybody just keep playing till two in the morning And it was so amazing. And had nothing to do with getting ahead. It wasn't about opportunity. It was just about loving playing music. and you have to be in the right places for that to happen with the right groups of musicians and the right attitudes. And there is, I think, something in that middle class musician Nashville thing of people who everyone's gone up.
Everyone's had their hit. Everyone's had their big year their small year. It's a job there in a way that it, I would say even in LA, like people are trying to get into film. You're trying to like there's still nothing is ever enough where I feel like there's more of an attitude in Nashville of it's a hard business and people are trying to figure out how to make it work, but it's a normal business and that attitude just in itself is so refreshing.
To not be some weird unicorn on your own, but to, be in a neighborhood to live across the street from somebody where you can go I can't find my 57. I'm doing a drum session. Like, sure.
[00:49:34] Aaron: It's very much that that's, you know, we. moved to town, we lived in New York City for 12 years before we came down. And when we came down to look for a house to rent, every person that we met with to see houses like this is a heartbreak town, until you get a couple number ones under your belt, you know, it's going to be real hard.
And these are just, real estate agents telling us that. And then a few years later, when we were looking to buy a house It kind of really clicked that, we had mortgage underwriters and stuff, they could look at us as two musicians and understand Oh, she has a record deal and, Oh, she was recording a record this year and touring this year.
So income is all over the place and Dwayne Eddie's daughter was going to write us a loan. Like, you know,
[00:50:11] Glen: Uhhuh.
[00:50:11] Aaron: this is the music city thing where it's, you know, nobody bats an eye when you meet, Joe in line at the post office, and you're like, oh, I'm a musician. They're like, yep, cool
[00:50:20] Michaela: well, and I think there's also like we're in our mid to late 30s and For me, it feels like a really nice Beginning of a new phase because I feel like in your 20s, especially in early 30s like so many of all of us were like a little more frenzied trying to get the thing and get a record deal and this is all also on a low, like you know, not like a mainstream, massively successful level, this is like indie labels, Americana world, and I feel like so many of us in our kind of friend group and age group have been in this long enough to be like, Okay, this is what we're doing for life and our expectations are shifting and we've got, all gotten our little different tastes and buzzy years and it's come down and, a lot of people getting more to the place of like, oh, okay, the industry doesn't determine who we are as artists.
It's really fickled. It's not personal. Who's chosen or not is going to shift year to year, but we all play music. you know, at different times, I think we've taken for granted living in a town where all of our friends are musicians and it can feel pretty oppressive and Oh my God, we need to find a friend who's a scientist or do something else.
But recently I've, felt so lucky of like. How fun it is to collaborate with people, not because we're going to make a record that's hopefully going to get a deal and make some playlist on Spotify, just because it's so fun to get to create with somebody else. I recently like,
[00:51:50] Glen: at a high level.
[00:51:51] Michaela: yeah when, when people are really good at it,
[00:51:54] Glen: yeah,
[00:51:55] Michaela: yeah, I went on a writer's retreat recently with three girlfriends who are all great musicians and songwriters and we wrote songs.
All day, separately and together, and then we had dinner, and then we just for fun wrote songs just the four of us, as a group, and I was like, how fun is this? We weren't like, all right we're tired of working, we're going to like watch a movie. We just like kept wanting to write songs together, and I was like, this is so fun that these are my friends who I love, who I also think are so skilled at what they do, and we get this experience of creating
[00:52:28] Glen: envious and that sounds amazing.
[00:52:30] Michaela: It
[00:52:30] Glen: But it's true, the community part And once again, doing it for the love of it. And if you're doing it for the love of it, and I think this is the thing in Nashville that I see in the friends I know who work there, you do it for the love of it, and it ends up becoming mostly, usually, enough.
it's not about leapfrogging, there's something about generosity, there's something about openness, there's, friendliness, not, working on stuff just because you think it's great. Or would be fun. And it's not the answer for everyone, but seems at some point that's like the best answer you can get is doing it for the love and then seeing what emerges.
And that once again marquee billing is overrated. if you're doing well and respected as a vocal coach, teacher, songwriting, like it can be extremely lucrative and not. overtake your life and you can know that you're making the world a better place and helping people and doing something good making people's lives better and making more art come out just through those things.
And at the same time, you can maintain your anonymity and do whatever you want creatively. You can get as weird as you it's great.
[00:53:41] Aaron: That's a really beautiful kind of spot to put a bow on the conversation. we've really enjoyed having you on here. Thank you for being so candid and so generous with your experiences and your insights.
[00:53:51] Glen: If you ever need any non AI voiceover work, please contact me.
[00:53:56] Michaela: We don't have advertisers yet for this podcast so we can give you a spot.
[00:54:00] Aaron: laughter laughter
[00:54:03] Glen: or Helix? What are you going to
[00:54:04] Aaron: Yeah, I'll take a sleep number. That's
[00:54:06] Glen: You'll take the sleep number? Okay. They've been doing less podcast advertising, but Yeah.
[00:54:11] Aaron: Well,
[00:54:11] Michaela: Thank you so much. It's been so cool to get to talk to you and maybe someday we'll see you in Santa Barbara.
[00:54:16] Glen: Yeah. Or I will see you in
[00:54:18] Michaela: Yeah, definitely.
[00:54:18] Aaron: Yeah, absolutely.
[00:54:19] Michaela: Thank you. Have a great week. Take care.
[00:54:21] Glen: Bye.