Keep Creatives Creating.
Sold Out Arenas, Broke Musicians, and the Birth of Soundstripe
I’ve heard it said, “To choose a creative vocation is to choose poverty.”
While the world doesn’t inherently owe anyone anything, I personally believe that if a person is humble, talented, hard working and persistent, opportunity should follow.
I’ve been lucky enough to call music, primarily as a live guitarist, my career since 2005. In these last 12 years I’ve experienced the extreme ups and downs of what it is to make a living as a creative. At one point, I was playing guitar in a successful band for a completely sold out arena tour AND within the same year, was technically… homeless. All I had was a motorcycle and a storage unit to my name. After eight years on the road I was dying for consistency. That’s when my then jam band buddy, now business partner, Travis and I started dreaming of better ways to make a living as a creative.
After a LOT of failed ideas we finally started molding Soundstripe, where we have one over arching mission. “To Keep Creatives Creating.” It might sound simple but it’s what gets me out of bed in the morning.
Each and every one of us in the developed world has to work to survive and we spend most of our waking hours in this life doing just that. Working. I want to spend the rest of my work life creating jobs that people love because when people love what they do, they do their best work and it benefits us all.
While I believe, the world needs art just as much as it needs government, politicians work their way toward fat 401k’s and country clubs while most musicians, photographers and authors starve. Do not however, hear this as a complaint. Complaining about circumstances does very little to drive change. I view this current reality as more of a creative problem that’s begging for creative solutions.
I view this current reality as more of a creative problem that’s begging for creative solutions.
Soundstripe strives to be one small creative solution to this problem. I have very high hopes that there are many more solutions to come that will help creatives keep creating. To quote a friend and mentor of mine, “if your dreams don’t scare you, they are not big enough.”
Keep dreaming. Keep creating.
