Chris Smither has released 20+ records so far in his 58 year career, had his songs recorded by the likes of Bonnie Raitt (who had a hit with his song 'Love Me Like a Man', and whom he's had a long working relationship with) and Emmylou Harris, and as you can imagine, he's seen all of the ups and downs and twists and turns in almost 6 decades of this career. We talk with him about all of this hard earned wisdom and experience, his zest for practicing, learning when to grab the reins and when to ride, his myriad hobbies including a voracious appetite for reading, and a whole lot more.
Chris Smither has released 20+ records so far in his 58 year career, had his songs recorded by the likes of Bonnie Raitt (who had a hit with his song 'Love Me Like a Man', and whom he's had a long working relationship with) and Emmylou Harris, and as you can imagine, he's seen all of the ups and downs and twists and turns in almost 6 decades of this career. We talk with him about all of this hard earned wisdom and experience, his zest for practicing, learning when to grab the reins and when to ride, his myriad hobbies including a voracious appetite for reading, and a whole lot more.
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All music written, performed, and produced by Aaron Shafer-Haiss.
Hey, and welcome to this week's episode of The Other 22 Hours Podcast. I'm your host, Aaron Shafer-Haiss. And I'm your host, Michaela Anne, and we are in the second year of this podcast and so excited to still be here and thank you for listening. Yeah, we are keenly aware that we wouldn't have this show without you guys here listening.
[00:00:25] Aaron & Michaela: so with that, we just have a few asks so that we can keep doing this and keep getting guests to share great ideas back with you guys. The first one, is to just follow or subscribe on your listening or viewing platform of choice.
The second one is to take a favorite episode, one of the 60 plus that we have. And. Share it with somebody that doesn't know what we're doing. Share it however you found out. If you saw a friend post on social media about the show, and decided to check it out, share it that way. If a friend just mentioned it to you, just mention it to another friend.
And lastly is I want to point you guys towards our Patreon. A lot of people don't understand that streaming podcasts is different than streaming music in that it pays absolutely nothing, not a fraction of nothing, like absolutely nothing. And so instead of selling ads and interrupting our conversations, we decided to start a Patreon community.
And as of right now, we essentially have one tier for everything that we offer and everything that we might offer in the future. It's about a cup of coffee a month and you get advanced notice on guests. It's you get community, you get some behind the scenes stuff, all those normal Patreon type things.
And there's a link for that in the show notes below if you're interested. And then we do have an extra special tier if you're a super fan and you want access to one on one coaching from Aaron or myself on production, songwriting, vocal technique, all the goodies. But one of the things that we really love about this podcast and pride ourselves in is that we.
aren't music journalists. We are musicians ourselves. So we think of this more as a conversation rather than an interview and think that it feels akin to if we were sitting around the dinner table and sharing the honest, sometimes brutally honest realities of what is building a lifelong career around your art.
Which is a crazy thing to do. Most of it is outside of our control and so we like to focus on what is within our control, which tends to be our mindsets, our habits, our routines, our creativity in general. And we boil that down to the question, what do you do to create sustainability in your life?
So you can sustain your creativity. And we got to talk a lot about that today with our guest, Chris Smither.
Chris Smither has had a music career for, he said, he thinks 58 years. Incredible. But as he described it, a very slow climb and lots of up and downs. Uh, He has a fascinating background growing up in Ecuador, New Orleans, and Paris before becoming enamored with finger picking style blues guitar, like Mississippi John Hurt and starting out on his own career path.
And that path has taken him all over the world. It has taken him through 20 plus records. He has had songs recorded by Bonnie Raitt, including Love Me Like a Man, which was a big hit for Bonnie Raitt, and also recorded by Diana Krall. Emmylou Harris has recorded his songs. It has just been a really varied, vibrant career for Chris.
And we got to talk a lot about a lot of the non career stuff, which this podcast, it really depends on the episodes. Some episodes are heavy on the industry side. Some are heavy on the life side. And he shared a lot about 12 years of alcoholism, getting sober, what effect that had on his creativity. Sustaining it into his late seventies. He's, I believe, 79 years old and still being excited about practicing and touring and changing mindsets of realizing what his, focus wanted to be on the music and not on himself. It's a really beautiful conversation. And he has some really beautiful analogies.
One thing I've noticed with the guests that we've had on this show that can measure their career in decades versus years is that they have this calm wisdom and Chris shares so many nuggets in like one simple sentence. It is chocked full of incredible analogies and hard earned experience throughout those decades. So without further ado, here's our conversation with Chris Smither.
thank you for being here and have a great day. we always like to kind of restart when we are meeting someone for the first time. this whole podcast is really talking about
how you survive, what's all the other stuff you do in life besides the show to, sustain your creativity and yourself, and you've had a very long career.
[00:04:36] Chris: That's what they tell me, you know. don't quite believe it, but,
[00:04:41] Aaron & Michaela: How many years has it been? Do you even, do you know? Do you keep track of that?
[00:04:45] Chris: yeah. Let's see. It's been 58, I guess. I started we're in 2024, and I started performing in 1966. So,
[00:04:55] Aaron & Michaela: Wow. Yeah.
[00:04:57] Chris: 58 years, right?
[00:04:58] Aaron & Michaela: Yeah. And, And you got your start in Boston. Is that correct?
[00:05:03] Chris: I got my musical start there, yeah. I started in New Orleans and I was like totally into country blues and guitar playing and, it's funny cause New Orleans is such a big music town but it's not really a guitar town. And, especially not an acoustic guitar town, everybody's a guitar town.
What are you doing with that thing? How come you're playing all this old stuff? But,
[00:05:27] Aaron & Michaela: I just sort of left and my way up the East Coast. And when I finally got to Boston, I was pretty comfortable. It felt like a good place. And so,
[00:05:35] Chris: there's such a healthy community in Boston. Yeah. Even to this day with the community around Passim and and all of that It seems like a really
[00:05:43] Aaron & Michaela: vibrant spot before it was Passime. I was here when it was still Club 47.
Yeah, do you know Betsy Siggins?
[00:05:49] Chris: Very well.
[00:05:50] Aaron & Michaela: Okay. I love Betsy. I met her years ago and she just,so amazing to me because I'm always like, how do you, how are you still so excited about songs? I met her at Folk Alliance, I think. And she just took me in and was like, so overjoyed with all these songs.
I'm like, this still sounds new to you? she has an essence that I. envy. It's really beautiful.
[00:06:11] Chris: she was one of the first people I ever met in Cambridge. I mean, No, I got to the 47 and she was, at that point she was married to Bob Siggins, and Bob Siggins was part of the Charles River Valley Boys, and they were, So, uh, I'm not going
lot about it, but I'm going
[00:06:28] Aaron & Michaela: Mhm.
[00:06:29] Chris: a little bit
[00:06:30] Aaron & Michaela: and she's gone on to just be this advocate. I think, and
just, She's yeah,
from the outside, from the research I could glean from the internet it looked like it was kind of a slow build of your career is that correct?
[00:06:44] Chris: I would say so. I mean, There were big moments that were bigger than others, that seemed big to me, but the course of my career has been more or less
[00:06:53] Aaron & Michaela: Yeah.
[00:06:54] Chris: slope up with One notable dissent, I spent about 12 years drinking way too much and I And then things just picked up again. like to tell people though that these are the good old days. the best I've ever In terms of a professional profile,
[00:07:10] Aaron & Michaela: Yeah. It is nice to be at a point to be able to zoom back and see that upward trajectory, when you're in the day to day, when you're in the forest. it's a roller coaster. It's up and down hour to hour sometimes.
[00:07:24] Chris: Absolutely.
[00:07:25] Aaron & Michaela: Can you talk about that a little bit of what that has felt like at different phases for you of, if that has felt like really nice and organic and gradual or if there have been times when it's felt frustrating
I think at one point there was a point where I was frustrated and it just, I thought that life and the industry were being unfair. But that was before I got my head screwed on straight and realized that nobody knows what's happening.
[00:07:53] Chris: I mean, there's so much serendipity, so much luck involved that it's,
[00:07:57] Aaron & Michaela: Mm
[00:07:57] Chris: very difficult to lay blame someplace, and since you're the only thing that you can possibly change, really. There's no point my attitude toward that changed when, you want to call it goals, became much more clear to me.
I,I was a young man, when I was in my early twenties, I thought I was going to be the next big thing. that's what I hoped to be, you know. I was going to be a big star a fancy car.
[00:08:20] Aaron & Michaela: Yeah.
[00:08:22] Chris: I gradually came to realize that actually a short time after I got my health back, but that's like halfway through my career, that was just silly.
You know, That's not really what I wanted. What I really wanted was to be able to get up in front of people and have them listen and create something. However temporary, but something that felt real, you know, an interchange between the audience and me that, felt genuine to all of us. that's what I love to do.
It's what I still love to do. It's why I write the songs and make the records. once you realize that and realize that you're making a decent living at it, then the rest of it is just so much fluff. It sort of gets in the way. I have friends, contemporaries of mine, who have gotten very famous.
And, they enjoy their lives because they are mentally stable people. But, have anything like the kind of freedom I do. They can't even walk down the street,
Without people pestering them.
[00:09:16] Aaron & Michaela: when did you kind of have that realization? That your goal wasn't the fancy cars and was really like the, I guess, living wage of it all.
[00:09:25] Chris: I had a moment. You know, , on a festival stage in Canada,
the Winnipeg Festival, and I was on stage, think they had promised me a main stage appearance, in fact I was on the main stage, but I was there with ten other acts, and half of them were solo performers, they were big bands, and it just felt unfair to me.
And, it was coming around to be, it was like a song swap, you know. it was Mm
playing songs in rotation. It was coming close to my turn. I suddenly realized that I said, you're looking at this all wrong. This is not about you. This is about the music.
Clarity that I've never forgotten, I realized that all I had to do was play the music the best way I knew how.
My career, the me would get all the attention it needed. I didn't have to think about the me.
[00:10:13] Aaron & Michaela: hmm.
[00:10:14] Chris: I had to do was think about what I was doing with the audience, and attempt to put it over. it's just something that stayed with me the whole time.
Realizing that number one, it's not about me, but number two, that the audience, this is not an adversarial situation. The audience wants you to be good. That's a very hard thing to grasp sometimes. The fact that they're on your side, and they will hold you up for a while. support you. They won't do it forever.
You gotta deliver at some point. But it was a big realization for me stuck with me ever since.
[00:10:47] Aaron & Michaela: Where in your career path were you when you had that realization?
[00:10:52] Chris: 30 years ago. I don't know.
[00:10:54] Aaron & Michaela: 35 years ago.
and was this after your you said you spent about 12 years drinking too much
[00:11:00] Chris: I was sober by this time. okay? This is after healthy.
[00:11:03] Aaron & Michaela: Okay
[00:11:04] Chris: least in my body,
[00:11:05] Aaron & Michaela: Well, sometimes I wonder, you know, this isn't a show about addictions, but a lot of times it does come up because a lot of artists, musicians deal with alcoholism and sobriety. And, And I'm always so curious about that, of what that is. intersection is, is it just that a lot of people who are prone to addiction are also creative people drawn to this life?
Or is it something about this life that feeds that? Or is it all just coincidence that there's alcoholism and addiction in every industry and facet of life?
[00:11:37] Chris: you just said is the case. It's every industry. the only sort of coincidental part, is the fact that musicians, entertainers, are kind of expected to drink on the job,
that's not tolerated in business. But, if it were just, not achieving the success.
that you hoped for, then how come so many successful artists drunks
[00:11:59] Aaron & Michaela: I've wondered if it's more, it's not just, feeding, disappointment or trying to numb disappointment, but also just with success the massive like adrenaline drops from, you know, the more successful you are, the bigger stages you are on, the bigger highs, and then the come downs from that.
And if drugs and alcohol are ever a coping mechanism of trying to sustain something or then, feeling like you need to numb out when you're not on that, I can imagine a million reasons why super successful people are also alcoholics or drug addicts at times because of,those heightened extremes
[00:12:37] Chris: I think, basically, everybody in the world goes through periods where they want to feel better. And they self medicate. It's just self medication. I think it makes me feel better. And for a while it does. That's the treachery of it, see. for a while it does, and then, you find it hard to believe it's failure.
[00:12:54] Aaron & Michaela: hmm. do that anymore. And
[00:12:56] Chris: there are some people who are physically, especially with alcohol, you know, you can force feed them alcohol from morning, noon, and night for a year, and they never become alcoholics.
built for it, physically. They don't have what it takes. There are other people who, be it genetic, can't be quirk of the mind, but It does different things to
[00:13:20] Aaron & Michaela: did music and playing and songwriting feel different for you when you became sober?
[00:13:27] Chris: had to rethink the whole thing. That was when I realized again, and I came to this very late. I think a lot of writers do. That you can't just depend on the momentary inspiration.
[00:13:38] Aaron & Michaela: Mm hmm. you have to work at it.
hmm.
[00:13:41] Chris: Work at it all the time. Some songwriters never stop writing songs.
just write songs and they write songs and every once in a while they say, Oh, let's make a record and they pick out ten of them and they do that. I write for specific projects. because like I said, I like to perform. I like getting up and doing this thing in front of people and then if it starts to get stale, I think Well, you know, I need some new material.
so I like consciously okay, we're gonna start recording in November, which means I gotta get started around January to write
[00:14:12] Aaron & Michaela: Mhm.
[00:14:13] Chris: Normally it takes me about nine or ten months. You know, That's a good common gestation period, right, for
[00:14:19] Aaron & Michaela: Mhm.
[00:14:19] Chris: songs, at
[00:14:20] Aaron & Michaela: Mhm.
[00:14:21] Chris: and With any luck, that's enough to make a reference.
by this time you see, already booked the studios. It's sort of a self imposed deadline
It doesn't always work, but it usually does.
[00:14:33] Aaron & Michaela: I love that. I've brought up the quote on this show a few times, but I heard somebody say, sign up first and figure it out after, you know,
[00:14:41] Chris: Yeah, I agree with that.
[00:14:42] Aaron & Michaela: cause like getting started can be the hardest thing,
[00:14:44] Chris: It's half the job.
[00:14:45] Aaron & Michaela: you know? So yeah, if you book the time, it's like I'm either going to show up and yawn into a microphone or I'm going to have some songs to sing.
I love hearing that from you because it's almost like farming. You know, You have to like clear and plow the field and then plant the seeds and water and then you can harvest and we live in Nashville and a lot of Professional songwriter world can say this like, you know, you got to write every day 10 a.
m Start writing and I've never been able to be like that And I think I spent a long time feeling like maybe I'm just not really a good songwriter A real writer. And now we've had, 60 some of these conversations and I also have recorded five or six records at this point I went through my longest stretch of not writing.
I went two years without writing, which was terrifying but there was a lot of other life happening and now I've, come to peace with that recognition of some of us. have these phases
[00:15:38] Chris: Yeah.
[00:15:39] Aaron & Michaela: and need to, let the fields lie fallow for a little bit and then feed them Yeah.
[00:15:44] Chris: was going to say, fallow.
[00:15:46] Aaron & Michaela: do you feel like you need time off the road? Because I know you still play a lot of dates every year, right?
[00:15:51] Chris: Yeah, and especially this year, I know, with a new record out, I have to be out there. And I want to be out there because it's fun. When you got new material, a gas. and the new material, It infuses the old material with new life, too.
And you put a new slant on tunes.
kind of wonderful.
[00:16:09] Aaron & Michaela: Mm hmm. Mm hmm. This is the best part.
[00:16:11] Chris: This is
[00:16:12] Aaron & Michaela: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:16:14] Chris: Right now.
[00:16:14] Aaron & Michaela: That's my favorite part, too. Yeah, absolutely. I'm wondering, you've had a lot of different artists cut your songs over the years. Has that ever been part of your creative process with having in mind these other artists are cutting your songs or has it always been writing for yourself as an
[00:16:33] Chris: I never write with the idea that somebody else might do the tune. Once it's finished, I look at it and say, I'll think to myself, you know who could do this tune, so and so. The best person to do it is me. And should be famous for it.
[00:16:47] Aaron & Michaela: what does that feel like because I know like one of the bigger ones is love you like a man that Bonnie Raitt covered When someone who you love and is a friend but like has great success with your song, I'm sure it's so great. But is there ever any feelings of I wish my
version was that big?
Yeah.
[00:17:04] Chris: It's so wonderful when somebody does one of your, even if nobody ever hears it, just to have them do it I'm not the only songwriter who says that the songs are like your children and it's watching them succeed.
It's watching them go out and cross the street by themselves and look at the light first and not get run over. You know,
[00:17:21] Aaron & Michaela: hmm.
[00:17:23] Chris: You by the hand. And I love that. Somebody like Bonnie Raitt doing Love Me Like a Man, and also Diana Krall did that song too, and that me almost as much as Bonnie doing it.
you laugh all the way to the bank, because it's, it's
[00:17:39] Aaron & Michaela: Yeah.
[00:17:39] Chris: doesn't do anything for you, it
[00:17:41] Aaron & Michaela: Yeah.
[00:17:41] Chris: for you, you know. It's Also revelatory in a way. My record company, almost without me knowing it, put together a tribute record of a bunch of different artists doing my songs.
15 or 20 artists doing my songs. it was wonderful to listen to. recognize half of them until I did get into some of the lyrics. so many of them, I thought to myself, how on earth did they find that in that song? It's perfectly valid interpretation, and it never would have occurred to me in a million years.
yet, there it is. You know, It's definitely my song. it's definitely saying what they want it to say. It's, kind of wonderful.
[00:18:23] Aaron & Michaela: Yeah, that's a beautiful thing to think about, of you have to let them go a little bit, and then it's such a gift to see what others take from it.
Yeah. Yeah. then you look at them and you say, yeah, that's good, I like your friends too, you know. That's, that's, that's Yeah, definitely. I love that. one of the things that Angie sent over was a long list of hobbies from your wife slash manager. Is that correct? That your wife manages you?
[00:18:54] Chris: Yeah.
[00:18:54] Aaron & Michaela: Okay. I have two part question
[00:18:56] Chris: first question is what is it like to work with your wife and how long have you guys worked together on the business side?
been working on the business side longer than we've been involved personally. Okay. started off as mud manager.
She was partners with a man named Charlie Hunter They were thinking of a management company on the order some booking agencies.
you know, what artists need is They've already got a booking agent that books the same kind of act that they are, the same kind of artist that they are. But you know, there's nobody managing who makes a business of managing artists. And so they did that, and I was one of the first people that they called.
And I was out there, you know, trying really hard to rebuild my life. That was back in, just after the bad old days. And, I wasn't all alone in this effort. And uh, they worked really, really hard for me. And, that was also with me losing a long time partner that I had who died very suddenly.
[00:19:52] Aaron & Michaela: I'm sorry.
[00:19:53] Chris: we'd been together for 20 years and then suddenly she was gone. was an aneurysm.
[00:19:58] Aaron & Michaela: hmm. Yeah.
[00:20:02] Chris: and I was determined to just plow forward, just to try to do what I knew I should be doing. did that for about three years, I guess, and then I looked up and there was this woman who, making sure I stayed at it for and I said, wow, if she can take care of that, that well, maybe she can take care of me and I'll try to take care of her.
It was, and it worked out. I mean, we were both a little scared that. We were gonna ruin a good thing,
a good business relationship by mixing it with a domestic. Relationship, or personal relationship, but it's worked out pretty well. We stay out of each other's way,
keep that separate.
I mean she doesn't take anything for granted. She still consults me, I still consult with her on the professional questions.
And then you put on a different hat when you got to talk about what's for supper and where the kids are going to go to school.
[00:20:53] Aaron & Michaela: Yep. Yeah. we approach that similarly. I mean, we've been married for 10 years, but together for 17
and it's always been i'm a came up as like a side man, and i'm a producer now so it's always been that it's, you know, michaela's project It's her name.
It's her songs and all that. So it's always been i'm gonna defer to her I'm, not gonna assume anything ask questions all that Have you guys Had to consciously like carve time to be like, let's not talk about this is not business anymore You know, we find ourselves like brushing our teeth at night talking about Whatever needs to happen with the record.
It's not the time. Yeah, cuz we'll just backstory We met in college at music school and have had to navigate all this time Not working together working together. He's playing in my band or not He produces my records now and now we partner equally with this podcast and we definitely have to navigate when one of us is like I can't talk business right now.
Don't talk or like, are we in relationship mode? Are we, Are we husband and wife and parents right now? Or are we what is our roles?
[00:21:57] Chris: a while, to learn.
[00:21:58] Aaron & Michaela: In the beginning, you know, I would bring up work stuff at very inappropriate times. I mean, I sort of realize that now.
Yeah.
[00:22:06] Chris: don't ask about this tour is going to revolve around it. if you've ever been to Denver or St. know, while you're brushing your teeth and getting ready to go to bed,
[00:22:14] Aaron & Michaela: but we don't have that kind of conflict, really, because I think both of us instinctively realize there's a time and a place for everything
How long have you guys been together now?
[00:22:24] Chris: Well, If you're married 31 years.
[00:22:26] Aaron & Michaela: Wow. Yeah.
[00:22:30] Chris: seems impossible to
[00:22:31] Aaron & Michaela: Yeah.
[00:22:35] Chris: years is also
[00:22:37] Aaron & Michaela: sent over a list of hobbies to talk about because, you know, this whole thing is about what we do to help ourselves and it's like, or help ourselves, have a career that lasts past 50 years. Yeah. Which is crazy, but on the list, things like Okay.
cooking and gardening and baseball and reading and workouts and even practicing playing music. And I was wondering if one, to talk about some of that stuff and if that was just always naturally part of you, or if you had to consciously nurture time to cultivate those other interests outside of music and how that helps refresh you and, keep you Creative and interested in the music.
[00:23:20] Chris: do regardless. that I do in preference to other things. And some of them are things that I, a little more discipline. Practice is like that. But I know that if I sit at home for a week and I don't pick up the guitar, that's just ridiculous.
I can't do that and expect to perform at the, at a level that's gonna make me happy. So I tend to carve out at least an hour a day. Go in and pick the thing up You gotta sing too. , You know, you can't you can't let the voice just sit there. It's okay to let it rest for a day or two, especially if you've been out working, four and five nights in a row.
But you can't not sing.
You gotta keep your chops up. I'm so used to playing for people that's difficult. Sometimes it requires a degree of discipline that I'm surprised I have at times.
I won't cook for myself, but I love cooking for the family. I love cooking for other people.
[00:24:12] Aaron & Michaela: I have a question on the practicing. Is your practicing and playing these days on the maintenance side or are you still like chasing things? Are there still skills you're trying to gather, maybe a sound or a specific part kind of thing.
[00:24:25] Chris: I'm always on the lookout for new wrinkles. Because I'm a self taught musician. I, very good at what I do, but not the world's best guitar player.
By any means, there's these vast realms of guitar playing that I don't know anything about. But Goody will make suggestions. He'll say, listen to this, and just try to play that. Sometimes, I remember like 15, 20 years ago, said, me a major scale. So I did. I ripped him off one pretty quick, you know. he says, play me a minor scale. And I did, but it was a lot slower. You know, I had to sit there and think about it. And he said, just work at it. He says, when you can play a minor scale as easily you just played that major scale, you'd be astonished at like, how it'll help your playing, and how it'll help the way you think about things.
And he was right.
[00:25:13] Aaron & Michaela: You had mentioned that he suggested that 20 years ago or so. How long have you guys been working together?
[00:25:18] Chris: 25
[00:25:19] Aaron & Michaela: I mean, We've known each other a little longer than that, and and it was actually my friend, another singer songwriter, Peter Mulvey, who said, have you talked to Goody? I said well, I talk to him all the time, because I can see him on the street, I see him in music stores.
[00:25:32] Chris: He was working at a music store that I used to hang out in all the time. He said, he should produce you, he understands what you're doing.
[00:25:39] Chris: I did it. I'm not really good at taking the initiative and things like I
[00:25:44] Aaron & Michaela: hmm. Mm
[00:25:46] Chris: up to me and say, I got an idea for you.
but I, you know, I approached him he was pretty excited about the idea. But at any rate, it's, panned out over the years. He understands how not to step on what I'm doing and still expand it,
Had you had creative partnership with somebody like that prior to him?
Not really. I had several producers, all of whom, were a representative of a side of my approach to music making that I'm really glad I'm out of. Because I used to look at making records with absolute dread.
like final exam time. Now they're going to find out just how stupid you really are.
[00:26:21] Aaron & Michaela: Mm hmm. weak this stuff is. Before Goody, before David Goodrich, though, Stephen Bruton and I did, three albums together. And Stephen is the first one who ever showed me how to have fun in a studio. he said, come on, we're going to have a good time. I doubted it very sincerely, but we
Heh heh
heh.
[00:26:37] Chris: We had a really good time. Then we kind of reached the end of that. didn't seem to be any more in the tank. I felt like I wanted to change. went through several ideas and several, in retrospect, half hearted attempts to find a new producer. None of whom actually worked out.
And then I landed on Biddy. And we've been working together ever since. And it's just, it's gotten better every time.
[00:26:59] Aaron & Michaela: Nice. That's cool. I wanted to get back to the cooking and the hobbies that we were talking
about.
and the fallow periods that you were talking about in your writing cycle and in your creativity. did the hobbies kind of come up with that fallow period? You know what I mean? Did you start getting that discipline for them more in that time?
[00:27:17] Chris: Big hobby was guitar playing, I did it all the time, and then I would get into other things, I would meet people who did other things. I was big time into photography for years, and I still take a lot of pictures, and I still have a really good printer, and I make a lot of pictures, but photography was a hobby for Well, a good 15 years or so.
well longer actually. And as I say, I still take a lot of pictures. But it's just meeting people who uh, are really good at that sort of thing. they'll say something encouraging and you sort of want to get into it. I started playing golf when I was 50. I used to laugh at people who played golf. I used to think
[00:27:55] Aaron & Michaela: Yeah.
[00:27:55] Chris: dumbest thing in the world. And uh, now I'm not very good but I love to do it. .
do play with other people occasionally, for the companionship than any competition.
There's a kind of a zen to it. Quality to playing by yourself. You go out and walk, and walk, and you walk. once in a while you hit something.
[00:28:15] Aaron & Michaela: Mm-Hmm. . Yeah.
[00:28:18] Chris: It calms me out in very much the same way that meditation does.
[00:28:21] Aaron & Michaela: does golf help with your writing and your creativity? Like If you're having a block or something, do you
go I think so. I think so. Not in any direct way where I would say, Oh, you know, if I hadn't played that round of golf, I never would have written this tune. But it puts me in a
Mm
[00:28:35] Chris: of mind that's more receptive. That's just more in tune
I know there's some people who get really mad when they play golf, though.
Yeah.I don't think it's good for them. you I'm lucky in that I, I only remember the good shots. I never remember the bad ones. And I
[00:28:50] Aaron & Michaela: Mm hmm.
Oh, that's
great.
[00:28:52] Chris: I,
on the other hand, reading is something I've just done all my life. I was raised by a university professor and the house was full of books I could read almost before I went to school.
probably read a hundred books a year.
[00:29:05] Aaron & Michaela: Oh, amazing. What kind of books do you like? Like novels or
[00:29:09] Chris: All
[00:29:09] Aaron & Michaela: non fiction?
[00:29:10] Chris: Okay. Mm I mean,
My iPad is so full, I gotta dump half the stuff, you know, it's just there all the time.
read in bed, even if it's only a page or two, I have to do that or I won't go to sleep.
I read poetry, I read uh, philosophy, politics,
a compulsion. know, my daughter all of her stuff off of, handheld devices,
[00:29:33] Aaron & Michaela: hmm.
I I think about that a lot though. We have a three year old daughter and we from the time she was In the hospital we, read her a book, we've been reading to her from the very beginning, and she loves books, and we have a lot of books of our own around the house, but we also like, will read on our phones, and I often think about, does it matter that we're reading a book or the news on our phone does it translate the same way or does she just know that we're looking at a screen?
Sometimes I worry about that of if I'm holding a physical novel in front of her, but she's surrounded by her own beautiful books, so I think it's going to be okay. Yeah.
[00:30:17] Chris: back when my daughter was young enough to read to, physical copy of the book and then I would get digital version of the same book so that she could follow along. That was one of the ways that I was trying to teach her to read.
To associate, what she was listening to with the symbols that were on the page. And
[00:30:35] Aaron & Michaela:
[00:30:36] Chris: the next paragraph. That was to make sure she was keeping up. You
[00:30:44] Chris: was asking me what sort of thing I read to my daughter.
And I said well, she's really into what do you call them now, these young adult fantasy things like Hunger Games and all those things, and I said, but I read her know, the C. S. Lewis Lion Witch in the Wardrobe and all those things. I said, I've been wondering whether to read her The Lord of the Rings.
this guy says, Oh, you should, definitely. what, you think she's too young? And I said Well, I wonder about that. And he says, No, you should read it with her. Read it to her out loud, because when she's older, she'll read it for herself. Again, but she'll always hear your voice when she does.
And I thought, ooh, that's good. I like
[00:31:24] Aaron & Michaela: Yeah. That's really beautiful. That's really beautiful. Yeah. I think there is this book that my brother loved as a child and we had a tape recording of my grandfather reading it to him and I still like can conjure in my mind it was called Giants Indeed and I can just so quickly hear he passed away like 20 years ago and I still can conjure his.
This voice reading that story. That's really beautiful. One of the interesting things I, I think about with, these other hobbies and things that you love to do, you know, we like to interview people on this podcast who've been at this for a long time. you know, if we get pitched people who are like in their twenties on their first record, we're like, let's, come back in five, 10 years.
Cause We don't want to talk to people that are on the up. We want to talk to people who've gone through
[00:32:11] Chris: The ups and downs.
[00:32:12] Aaron & Michaela: yes. And but we, that doesn't mean we don't talk to younger people. We still do talk to younger people. And, but one of the things I find often with younger people is almost this feeling of being passionate about and doing other things can feel like a betrayal.
to music, that there's this pressure and especially on the career aspect, music has to be my all and everything. And to admit that I love, ceramics or this other interest that somehow it would reveal that I'm not as devoted, where I feel like a lot of older artists we've talked to, it becomes This knowledge of it's so vital to have these other things. Has that been a process for you at all or have you ever thought in those ways?
[00:32:57] Chris: I don't think I ever had a period where I thought I was betraying my primary interest just by doing something else.
I do know that in the beginning, it was much more of an obsession than it is now. and in a way it had to be. it's so hard to know what it is that goes into, making sure you can keep doing it, but almost have to be obsessed in the beginning because it's so hard.
You know, have to, stick to it, you know, otherwise you run off and sell insurance for a living, and, now that I think about it, I never had any reluctance to be interested in other things, but I did have an interest in not learning how to do anything else for a living.
I was afraid that when push came to shove, I would go off and do that, just because it was easier than trying to put up with the vagaries of the entertainment, and the recording, and the music business,
[00:33:49] Aaron & Michaela: yeah.
[00:33:50] Chris: It would be the easy way out, and if I didn't have any choice, I'd be more likely to actually pursue it, and possibly succeed at it.
[00:33:57] Aaron & Michaela: Interesting.
[00:33:58] Chris: know,
We get older, and we realize that there's lot of ways to feed the critter inside us that wants to, that generates these things.
You have to feed it all sorts of things. It requires a varied diet, just like a body.
[00:34:10] Aaron & Michaela: There's so many interesting things in there. The fact that you were reluctant to learn something new. I mean, it's like the, to me, that's like the long arc version of booking the studio time and then writing the songs. You know, if you don't learn anything else, you're kind of forcing your own hand
[00:34:24] Chris: the period, when I was drinking a lot and I wasn't really performing very much. I did some construction work. I've always been good with tools. I just learned that from my father when I was a kid I did that for a while. I was, worked for a mason for a while.
I learned how to lay block and lay brick and mix mud and that's back breaking work.
[00:34:43] Aaron & Michaela: it is.
[00:34:43] Chris: I remember one time when I, I was getting my health back and I was talking to somebody in a group meeting that I was in. I'd been talking to her for weeks, I think. I mean, we really didn't know much about each other except our names, and what we were trying to do in there.
one day she looked at me and she said, Chris, I don't even know what do you do? And I said, I'm a carpenter. then I stopped myself. Was about to say I'm a carpenter. And I said, actually, I'm a musician. Excuse me, I've got to make a phone call. And I went off and I called my boss and I quit.
[00:35:14] Aaron & Michaela: Wow. Amazing. Yeah.
[00:35:16] Chris: almost told her I was a carpenter and I'm not.
[00:35:18] Aaron & Michaela: Yeah. Can I ask too, because I'm always like, so interested in all the fine details, in your timeline, was that, for instance, after like, Bonnie Raitt had recorded Love Me Like a Man?
[00:35:32] Chris: Oh yeah.
[00:35:32] Aaron & Michaela: Yeah. Yeah. I'm always, we had Mary Chapin Carpenter on here and she told us a story of a
[00:35:38] Chris: She is a carpenter.
[00:35:40] Aaron & Michaela: She told us a story of how a manager didn't return her call for a year and she was like embarrassed to tell us and we were like, thank you for telling us because that's the point of this podcast. Like we say that this podcast is for other artists. to feel less alone.
[00:35:59] Chris: Yeah.
[00:35:59] Aaron & Michaela: I asked her, I was like, where in your career trajectory was this early days and she was like, Oh, no, this was after I had, been quadruple platinum selling many Grammys, I feel like the reason I asked those things is to give some perspective of we still can believe this myth the path to success.
is just and really understanding like some great things can happen and you can still have really, really hard things happen after even deeper dips and hit rock bottom
[00:36:30] Chris: Yep.
[00:36:31] Aaron & Michaela: climb your way back up. that's so interesting then. So it's, beautiful though, that you like heard yourself say. Oh, my brain has
associated.
[00:36:39] Chris: you look back in retrospect, you say, that's growth, that's improvement,
[00:36:44] Aaron & Michaela: So in this time while you were, paying your rent, paying your bills, doing these other jobs, were you still writing? were you still performing in there? Did you kind of step away from all of that?
[00:36:53] Chris: I was trying to, I didn't really start writing again until I hooked up with Carol and Charlie when they took me over. And said, would like to represent you if you're into that sort of thing. And,it was just at the point in, my recovery that I, I was feeling strong enough to do that.
And I said yes. But they pushed me. You know, I was so anxious not to lose that relationship that I, felt like I had to deliver, It was a mutual thing the way successful working arrangements usually are one hand feeds the other,
[00:37:25] Aaron & Michaela: it doesn't work. if it only goes one way. It really only works if uh, everybody's getting something out of it.
[00:37:32] Chris: But, also, at the same time, in that relationship, I've often felt like, I'm just a big locomotive, and I can pull a train, but I need somebody to steer.
can't get there, just for me. on the sheer power.
Has to direct it. There's gotta be a touch of finesse in there.
you know, you need an engineer, you need a brakeman, you need a conductor, you need somebody to
[00:37:53] Aaron & Michaela: hmm. of all those little things that make a train do what it actually does.
I see it a lot with younger people earlier on in their career where they think they can just white knuckle it and,
bend everything to their will.
[00:38:05] Chris: No, you can't. What's awful is that sometimes you can perpetuate the illusion that you actually can change things.
[00:38:12] Aaron & Michaela: Mm hmm.
[00:38:15] Chris: off the horse a few times to figure out that the best way is not to train the horse, but just learn how to ride. depend on the horse to do what you want it to do. Just learn how to stay on when the horse does what it wants to do. it seems so simple in retrospect, but it's a hard thing to learn sometimes.
[00:38:33] Aaron & Michaela: absolutely. That's a really beautiful metaphor that I've never thought about. Yeah we talk a lot about The death grip on our career aspect of being musicians and artists
[00:38:44] Chris: night.
[00:38:44] Aaron & Michaela: how that can bring so much suffering because we're trying to control everything. And again, that's what we like to talk about here.
Like industry stuff and business and career, it's so out of our control. so how to focus on the things you can control and what you just said of not trying to like, straighten out a wild horse, but just learning how to hold on.
It's really interesting.
[00:39:06] Chris: That's it.
[00:39:07] Aaron & Michaela: Is there anything that you can identifythat you use or look out for to determine for yourself, like when it is something that is controllable versus time to just let go of the reins
[00:39:20] Chris: you
[00:39:20] Aaron & Michaela: not sure.
[00:39:20] Chris: I don't run into that sort of situation so much anymore. , the axiom that I go by is that the only thing I can control really is me.
[00:39:29] Aaron & Michaela: Mm hmm. the only thing that I can exert any real meaningful change on or, keep the direction going. The rest of it is just question of being adaptable.
[00:39:40] Chris: and you can pick and choose, if something's going the wrong way, don't throw good money after bad. Get off, find something that feels more compatible. something that doesn't make you feel like you're swimming against the current.
always think you can find an easier, softer way. And then you realize that. What looked like the hard way is the easy way. not that hard to let go. Letting go is really A false proof. know, You're so reluctant let go of something that you've put a lot of effort into.
And sometimes it's just not only easier, but the right thing to do. go to something that feels more compatible.
[00:40:14] Aaron & Michaela: Yeah, I think that, you know, what you were saying, to, you know, Not swim against the current,
ties in with your metaphor of getting thrown off the horse a few times before you realize you need to hold on and just ride it. I think those, go hand in hand. It becomes a feel thing. And like you said one of the hardest things about letting go is, stepping out of the shadow of your ego in a way.
[00:40:35] Chris: Oh
[00:40:35] Aaron & Michaela: Where your ego is no, I can do this. I can do this. I am going to do this again, yeah, a false proof. you can just look past your ego for a second. chances are you might end up in the same spot that you're trying to get to. It'll just
either be a little longer or it'll certainly be a little easier. Well, And I think there can be this idea of like, well, but if I just hang on or I grip it harder, I can make it. And sometimes it's knowing when to say, okay, I'm going to let that go because yes, this business is hard.
Life is hard, but there are paths that you can choose to be more enjoyable or easeful or compatible. But it can be surprisingly hard to let go of, you know, for instance, working relationships that aren't working out that you wish were. And how, like you said, like letting go of it and moving on, you think is the hard choice.
And in hindsight, you might realize, that was the right
choice.
[00:41:27] Chris: right, but the easier way, really.
[00:41:29] Aaron & Michaela: Yeah.
[00:41:30] Chris: All sorts of things become absolutely clear. that should have been clear to you when you were two years old. And maybe they were, but you forgot. It's one of these
[00:41:39] Aaron & Michaela: hmm.
[00:41:40] Chris: you know,
A sense of purpose and fair dealings with other people.
I remember my mother once saying to me, Christopher, tell the truth. Not because it's the right thing to do, but because it's the easiest thing to do. And I thought she was crazy. But she was right.
[00:41:59] Aaron & Michaela: I've heard it attributed to Benjamin Franklin and Mark Twain and a bunch of other people, but it's, if you always tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything.
Well, that feels like a really beautiful place to come to an end and we really appreciate you taking this, hour of, time
and talking to us.
[00:42:21] Chris: to you.
[00:42:21] Aaron & Michaela: I'll have to email Betsy and tell her that I got to spend some time with you today.
[00:42:25] Chris: No, please do. Give her my best, will you?
[00:42:27] Aaron & Michaela: I will.
[00:42:28] Chris: Thank you, so much. Yeah. Thank you, Chris. It was great getting to meet you and thank you chatting with us today. Yeah.
Sure.
[00:42:34] Aaron & Michaela: All right.
Bye. All right. We wish you the best.