you’re original material
Every beginning band knows they need to choose;
Either you play covers, giving you a great chance at being regularly booked and a shot at becoming professional.
Or you write your own songs and see chances marginalize, but stakes spiking!
If you win here, you win big.
And it works the same for you, but with one major difference;
You don’t have a choice.
—
Although widely known that it is difficult to make money from your art, a large part of why that is, is usually not included in the story.
Which is that there are systems, organizations, and ingrained social structures and beliefs, that surround run of the mill productivity and success.
And that are absent or limited, in art.
Within systems and organizations, there are still nuances of course.
Where certain job levels are exploited, and others require working up to 80 hours a week to get to.
But overal there is an understanding of the principles, the dynamics.
Parts of this system are referred to as a rat race, but at least with a race the track is known.
In these places there is a blueprint, a way to establish where you are. There are best practices and books written about how to survive or even thrive in this system.
When for creatives the path is not just less traveled, but to be cut through with a machete.
Because typically, there is no path.
So the big difference between living from your art, and choosing a profession linked to a system, or in a system, is that you have to learn to move forward without a roadmap.
Without knowing where you are, and in the worst case even not knowing where you are going.
Because the whole concept of knowing your endgame, is tied to the hierarchy as well, of course!
The more that is known, the more of the map is known, and the easier it gets.
Two questions to indicate if what you want (of vaguely have a concept about) is difficult or not:
Q1 Do you have any role models, in the vein of how you want to work?
For beginning bands this question can usually be easily answered!
They will have many idols and people who inspired them with their music.
But so many of us will be carrying our Rock Star soul around through industries where no one has ever done it in a creative way.
Or at least no one we know of.
When it comes to creativity and art, it helps if your dominant creative expression is in a field where others have gone before you.
But rock n roll itself, wasn’t invented until halfway 20th century.
Every established creative industry once had someone, usually more people, who started not just moving the needle, but painting it, hanging it upside down, knitting a Rock Star outfit for it, or whatever creative thing it is they do!
By definition, creative industries do not appear out of nowhere;
People gave their lives for this.
So if you do not have examples, and it has not been done before, know that is a place where many have stood before you.
It’s where all things begin.
And then:
Q2 Are there known paths to make money, that are more safe?
Again, illustrated by the choice beginning bands make;
Yes, there are multiple options for bands and musicians, such as playing in a Tribute or Coverband, or becoming a studio musician, or a music teacher.
The two questions are actually related;
If your creative expression does not have others to set a positive example, then the options you have of playing it safe, will also be further off from what you had in mind.
Or simply non-existent.
To illustrate:
Before rock n’ roll existed, Yes an “aspiring avant-la-lettre Rock Star” could become a music teacher, as an alternative to this urge to express something liberating and rebellious but not knowing what because of course there was little inspiration to draw from!-
But they’d have to teach classical music, because they could hardly become a teacher in something that had not been invented.
So whatever your dreams are – whatever the art or your creative reinterpretation of your craft or profession which no one has dared to mess around with before –
Know that you are, in the words of Brené Brown, braving the wilderness here.
There have been people who became rock stars and played in successful bands, who were thoroughly unhappy there.
In retrospect, they would have been better off choosing a lower profile job so that they could specialize without the disruptive powers of being in the limelight.
But those must have been few compared to the ones who settled for what promised to be safety, when they actually had Rock Star DNA that was not designed to be unleashed in confided spaces. At all.
When set off in front of 60.000 people, that power would not just have been expected and somewhat required, but completely safe as well.
There is a story about the first rock n’ roll musician, Robert Johnson. He is surrounded by myth, but what is not a myth is that he was inducted into the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame, in 1986.
Legend has it, he sold his soul to the devil in order to learn to play the electric guitar very well.
And although I do not recommend selling your soul to the devil, I do believe the story of Robert Johnson, the first rock n’ roll star, is a tale of initiation, and of understanding.
He knew what he wanted was beyond human skill to obtain.
He knew he wasn’t going to get there through earthly means, just setting one foot in front of the other.
He gave his soul, and to the devil no less, because his goal was that important to him.
It is the same power that resides in you.
What are you holding on to, that is definitely granted to the Plan B coverband studio musicians of this world, but that needs to be tossed into the flames of you finally accepting your bigger purpose?
The world needs more studio musicians, more cover bands, more wonderful professionals who are very good at what it is they do, and are beloved members of their communities, and valued deeply for the good they bring and everything they mean for the people around them.
But your fire was meant to light up the night’s sky.
Your name, to be catapulted forward into a future where none of us will be alive to hear it.
You were born to sustain the pressure of the limelight, of 60.000 people or the world watching every move.
You could handle knowing the devil is waiting for you.
Because what awaits you when you turn inside, the screaming of a calling unanswered, and creativity denied, is a thousand times more scarier, than facing whatever is outside.
You didn’t exactly come with options.
.
~Suzanne Beenackers
Catacombe
become the Rock Star you were born to be
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What Do Rock Stars Need To Hear Today
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It is possible the above story has already given you an outline of what you want to discuss.
If you think you would benefit from a broader approach, my suggestion will be to sort your story into:
1. the earthly plane
Your possessions, worldly matters, income streams, worries and responsibilities you fear you can’t meet.
A helpful term could be how do things look from the perspective of financial freedom, or worldly freedom.
2. your purpose
What is the work you love doing, what are the moments big or small, that you know you are aligned. Has God told you, what you’re here for?
This is about creative freedom, or even karmic freedom.
Are you free to do the work, that is yours?
3. your Rock Star expansion
What is the fullest expression you are here to bring?
And what are the areas you’re playing small, as if cut off from your powers?
We investigate if in those areas, the rules you play by are yours, or society’s.
“3” is related to sexual freedom.
Like anything, it is up to you if that is part of our conversation or not.
Because all three points are just a suggestion, they offer a good framework providing one hour for every topic, to go deeper looking for answers.
But the setlist is not fixed.
I have merely built the stage for us, and we have three hours.
It is up for you to take it.
————-.
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