Music Made me Rich

I don't fully know why I'm so driven to make music. Sometimes I wish I did. Even as an artist—a relatively fun profession which is equal parts childhood calling and marketing manager—there are still moments where I question why I do any of it. Why I've sacrificed other pursuits to do what I love.

Sure it's romantic, but it's not always obvious what the pay off is. Could I have spent more time doing something else and become rich?

I used to think so. I even tried it once. The problem is, "rich" is not a bank statement. It's a mind set.

When you're an artist, on the brightest days, there's an inherent freedom and deep satisfaction to creating something brand new, something that no one's ever heard before, which you can really be proud of. On the other side of that, there's a soul-crushing grind that you're required to undertake to get anyone to hear it at all.

Then there's the pre-show performance anxiety, which might ruin your day. But it's balanced by a feeling of utter relief and universal love when it's all over. You want to hug strangers. Sometimes you do. And then you'll go home and repeat the cycle again, if you can stomach it.

During your early experiences with this rollercoaster, you will definitely ask yourself "why?" a lot more than you want to.

And I guess the only real answer is because that's how we artists are wired. We'll take the highs and lows over the boring stagnation of other options.

I've tried to do many other things and I can fake it for a bit. But the need to create, play, and listen to music is inherent within me. Deeply so. And it'll make you do funny things.

I played my second Montauk Music Fest recently. As I was walking around, playing and talking to other artists, the thing that stood out to me most throughout the weekend was—we're all like this. There were so many people like me who quite obviously had "the bug." The addiction-like need to be involved in the beauty of music, in whatever capacity.

Some people love it so much, they do circles around the industry. They go from artist, to artist marketer, to booker, to sound engineer, and back to artist again, all to experience the satisfaction of doing what they feel is aligned with who they are.

Even people with money realize that there's no number that can quench the very human thirst for the spiritual connection of music. And so you have judges, doctors, and billionaires with bands.

Kinda funny, isn't it? The rich emulating the poor. Maybe the poor aren't really poor at all, outside of their finances. That's how I often feel. Wealth can be defined by a number of different parameters, other than money.

And maybe that's the why, after all.

Maybe music really does make you rich.