They always have to do it their way. I do understand and will be happy to see them. How about if I said it like this:
Okay, for the next TEN years you are going to be driving around from city to city, waiting in lines to get a chance to sing 30 seconds of a song for judges, people that absolutely don't want to have anything to do with you. You are going to mostly get 'Next" and many times won't even get a chance to do anything, yet be sent home. You are going to meet thousands and thousands of kids, Fathers and mothers doing the same thing, that want you out of the way.
You are going to be working 15 hours a day, not only doing homework and your usual stuff but networking online 5 or 6 hours a day. You are going to miss every fun trip and every vaction your family and friends go on. You are going to invite bullying from people who think that YOU THINK YOU ARE BETTER THAN THEY ARE. You are going to get VERY nasty people online calling you every name in the book.
You are going to be ignored by people continually.
You are going to encounter the creepiest people you can imagine all telling you THAT THEY KNOW WHAT TO DO WITH AND FOR YOU. You are going to sign two or three really bad deals that end up costing you money. When you start to play gigs,you will get some attention, but then a lot of that attention will be very fleeting. You will win a couple of contests, but they will be over after they are over and nobody cares. You will lose more contests because the other people brought more people. You will get some really cool bookings and be very excited about them,tell all your friends, post it on Facebook, and then the day before will be dumped because the sponsor's daughter decided she wanted that slot.
You will spend the equivilant of two college educations doing songs people tell you are perfect, and then have them turned off at the intro by publishers or industry people. You will slave over everything you do, be cut to the quick when people criticise them, finally get them perfect, record them, perform them, and the FIRST THING PEOPLE IN THE INDUSTRY TELL YOU IS "NOW WE NEED TO GET YOU SOME SONGS!" You will always find out that your package, photos, videos,are out of date and you need to re-record, sboot, re-do everything. AT THEIR STUDIOS.
You will buy instruments that don't work out. You will purchase the latest in recording equipment only to find out that it takes a mechanical engineering degree to operate it AND that it went extinct them moment you bought it because the NEW SOFTWARE That just came out, doesn't correspond with what you bought.
You will spend a lot of money and months recording CD projects then write new songs you like better than the ones on your CD. You will be pushed to record songs you don't really like because they were written by a writer that had a hit song ten years ago. And it will be their bottom drawer material. You will sit in writing appoitments and all your ideas will be shot down. You will sit around doing nothing while two guys you don't know, write things you wouldn't say in ways you wouldn't say them. Then wonder why you are not that keen on the ideas.
You will finally get a couple of meetings and be told you are "too old to fit the demographic." Or you finally get a development deal, then after two years, find out the owner of the company went bankrupt and fled the country with what money was left. You will get a record out after three years of waiting only to be told that the company is 'changing direction" and the music you have been doing is "so five minutes ago."
Washed up before you get your first real car.
Still want to do this?
MAB