Hey folks,
Another LONG day in the salt mines. In the planning stages of bringing Wood Newton, myself and another hit writer up to upstate New York next year for a weekend of songwriting, shows, private coaching and GOLF. My tour guys this week were co-owners of a golf course near Sarycuse 'Sso we are putting together a huge deal in the spring. Our old buddy Tony was there last night and passed on some helpful hints on how to do it. interestingly enough, one of the guys is an Italian who owns the ACE hardware store up there. Tony is an Italian who owned the TRUE VALUE hardware store in his area. Maybe this is the new thing, me getting Italians together in their hardware stores. Might have to drag OD's butt around as a hardware consultant in our new ventures!
OD, it was me getting on EDDIE MONTGOMERY'S tour bus a couple years ago. I was with my buddy Gary Hannan (Tequila Makes her Clothes Fall Off) who was on there with me. Those two guys bring a WHOLE NEW DEFINITION to drinking beyond the falling down stage!!! We didn't as much play songs as Eddie played me 19 songs that were being considered for the new (now the most recent) Montgomery Gentry project. They were ALL monsterly well written songs, all incredible recordings, all full radio ready songs. And these were just the demos. This is what all the outsiders have to contend with and how involved and professional the recordings have to be not to mention the songs being amazingly well written. Almost all of them would blow what is on the radio right now completely off the charts. And half of them were written by Eddie himself. So people trying to do this from the outside better realize that the people they are wanting to get to, might just write and be better than they EVER EVEN THINK OF BEING!
This stuff is NOT for the amateur or faint of heart! This is THE BIG LEAGUES.
Melissa, I do have the cure for your nerves. You do too, but you keep skipping over it. Do you remember a few months ago when you were talking about open mics, writers nights in your area? Do you remember talking about finding some new writers, artists, etc. that were doing things not far from you? Do you remember all that?
Well during all this time if you had been out PLAYING with them, writing with them, perfoming on those open mics, actually doing this, you would have gotten the edge off so that when you played with the band when it "meant something" you might still have an edge but would have dealt with it a lot easier.
This is not easy folks. If you just write songs every once in a while, and only write with yourself, your songs are going to have limitations. If you only get out once in a while to perform or even check out someopne else, it is not going to be easy to find people to support YOU. If you cannot get out of the living room and actually perform and work through it, you are never going to be proficient at it. This is a NIKE commerical. JUST DO IT. This is not for bystanders or people who don't take it more seriously than expecting it to drop into their laps. This is WORK. it is a second job. It is like raising and nurturing kids. It is a serious addiction that DEMANDS TO BE FED. You have to actually WORK at this if you want any results.
Get out there and play some. Nerves will take care of themselves.
MAB