My day-job transition story
When I wrote about day jobs the other day, I put out a call for people to send me their stories about how they managed to make the transition from normal employment to (self-)employment in the arts. And I realized that I should share mine!
I was primed from birth to enter the default workforce. Weirdly, my mom has a Master’s in music performance, and my dad was a serial entrepreneur, so you would think that they would have encouraged me from the get-go to figure out how to make my passion and talent for music into a career! But, also, they were raised by parents who grew up in The Great Depression — and so I was not raised with the idea that one could or should do music for a living.
So although I was super serious about music, after college I did what I thought I was supposed to do and I went out and got a random job. And then another random job, and then another random job. And then somehow I ended up working for Wells Fargo Bank for the better part of a decade. It was hard not to end up working for Wells Fargo in San Francisco in the late 90s; they were gobbling up every other bank and so had a ton of high-paying entry-level jobs. But, wow, talk about the exemplar of what a day job can become if you’re not careful. It sucked.
And the whole time, all I wanted to do was music. And, also, I specifically wanted not to work some random job! I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but employers and bosses are terrible a whole lot of the time. Weird how when the essential dynamics of a situation are exploitative a lot of the people involved can turn toxic. But I digress.
My point is, I know from a decade’s worth of suffering how it feels to want to do only music with your life. For some people, that dream might be performing — for me, it was being a producer. I got there! But I for sure didn’t get there in a straight line.
I had a little studio all through my twenties and I made a number of records with people and I learned a lot in the process. And then I got fired from that Wells Fargo job. Although it felt shameful at the time, it was the best thing that ever happened to me.
I knew just enough engineering at that point that I was able to con my way into doing sound at a sketchy nightclub. I was good at it, and my opportunities grew quickly, and I ended up spending about seven years touring around the world doing live sound. It wasn’t what I really wanted to do, but it was in the ballpark and it was a start!
And then in 2011 there was a downturn in the music industry and I found myself with no touring offers, and I was forced finally to figure out how to start making producing my actual main gig — after 17 years of dreaming and wishing that I could do that!
I don’t want to say that those 17 years were wasted, because I don’t think that’s true. They’re part of the path that led me to this moment, and I’m overjoyed with what my life looks like in this moment. So it’s all good. But, if I had to do it again, I would do it much sooner. I had my first little studio when I was 23; I could have absolutely figured out how to get paying clients. I just didn’t believe that I could do it. I thought that I needed to be at a certain level before I could start making money producing records.
But, like — have you heard how bad some recordings are? Including some very famous recordings? If you are waiting until you’re “good enough” to start producing other people’s music — don’t bother. There is for sure someone way less good than you who is already making money doing it. Just get in there and start. If you work in a heart-first way you’ll do just fine — and you won’t take 17 extra years to get there.
No ragrets — jamie
