achieving childhood goals
photo by @filipponevisuals
now that the live string version of feel less is out, i want to talk about how it came to be. there was always this myth growing up that to make it in the music industry, someone would have to “discover” you and then everything you ever wanted was just handed to you on a silver platter. shows like American Idol thrive on this sort of fantasy-machine and i think that concept does an excellent job at promoting the show, but a terrible job at helping artists learn the grind and passion required to make a career out of it. i’m never really interested in anyone who wants to “cash out” from the industry once they make it, because my goal of money is to free up more of my time so that i can make more music. i also think having a massive hit as the first thing in your career might be one of the biggest death sentences an artist can have because it prepares them for a false reality of ease and success in an industry that is brutal and competitive.
that being said, a lot of the things that are ‘bucket list’ items need to be financed, and motivated from the artist. if you don’t want it to happen, nothing will. and you have to convince others that it will be worth it, (while not being sure if it will be). i fought hard to make this happen, it took weeks of finessing a myriad of things. the location, the lighting, the film crew, the film score, and then i spent a month afterwards mixing the audio (which was a whole other challenge that i definitely minimized in my head… “let’s record live strings and mix them with a live vocal all recorded in the same room, but make it still feel electronic and like a dance record? no problem!”).
i did have a sense of pride as i watched it though. maybe some fucked-up part of childhood-punk-band-me is like “see what we do IS real music,” or something. not that i even believe the bullshit that there is such a thing as real music or not real music. i also don’t fully understand why i have the desires to do certain creative projects that i can’t get out of my head… for YEARS. all i know is when i watched it i was like… fuck yeah, we did that.
it’s my bday tomorrow, go stream feel less :)
thanks for reading, txt me if u enjoy these.
-felix