Just wanted to let you know how thankful I am that I get to converse and collaborate with inspiring, creative, innovative individuals every single day. I pinch myself over and over to make sure I’m not dreaming. Thanks for allowing me the opportunity to ask: Who? What? Where? When? Why? How? I will be forever that inquisitive kid questioning and trying to understand the world, my place in the world and myself. Thought I’d share a mash-up of some of the punk rock wisdom and hip hop insight I’ve gained on my journey:
To keep playing music; that’s what we [Rancid] love, that’s what we do. I have new ideas, always new things. People always ask me ‘Is Operation Ivy gonna get back together?’ You know they’re my homies—Matt Freeman is my brother—but it’s like, ‘Nah man, I’m on to something new. I want to do new shit.’ …to live a good life and take care of myself and have my friends and family around me. I’m blessed to still have my family here. My dad and mum are still here and still been married after 50 years. My brother got back from Iraq. My other brother is one of the bookers at Gilman Street. As an artist I just want to keep doing new shit. I got some ideas, always! They never stop… I love playing music! That’s my number one thing. It’s all I have ever done.
It’s achieving a goal that you set for yourself, that goal may not be money. For me, Eleventh Hour was a successful endeavour. It had a lot more to do with me and what was going on in my life than trying to sell the album for money. It wasn’t about that. It was about getting this knowledge in my head to work out everything I need to. It came out dope. On this album I was right there, concentrated and focused. I didn’t want this album to be scattered—that took a lot of work. After years of not focusing and just doing it… I’m used to just doing… after a while I figured that wasn’t enough. I felt like I had to put more effort into it. Realising that was successful to me. There was a lot of things around me that tried to stop me. I just kept going. Now I’m ready to go after more success. I’ve grown.
Anger [laughs] and frustration at how stupid people still are [laughs] but you know what? I read a lot of books from centuries ago and people were stupid then and then they’re still stupid now a hundred years later! They don’t learn. Only a select, I won’t say handful ’cause it’s more than that but, some people are just happy meandering through life and not having to think about anything or have any responsibility for their actions. They don’t want to know either. They just want to wander through life and get their pay check at the end of the week and that’s it. That’s fine but that shit just boogles my mind. I could never go through life like that.
It means everything because I don’t think that you can use that term loosely in the art world period. I don’t think that everyone that calls themselves artists is that. You could be an act signed to a label but that definitely doesn’t define you as an artist to me. To me an artist is a person who is instrumental in being groundbreaking and trying to push the envelope and that are very instrumental in what they write and the music choices that they make – they can make you feel a certain way. They’re definitely not cookie cutter; they have a long shelf life.
“If somebody got more successful than me, it was partly my success. My success wasn’t based on how I could push down everyone around me. My success was based on how much I could push everybody up… And in the process they pushed me up, and I pushed them up, and we kept doing that…” ~George Lucas
I’m with Mr Lucas, my friends’ success feels like my own. In our society we are taught to compete against one another, to win and to look after number one. Over the years I’ve learnt that it’s far better for everyone if we help one another and work together rather than competing against each other. A lot of times we forget that as a group, a collective we can be stronger than as individuals. It’s advantageous to all when we work collectively.
Become your friend’s greatest cheerleader. Spread the word about what they do. Pool your talents. It’s so beautiful to see collectives form and in action creating. Share information, contacts, networks, ideas. Give where and when you can. Don’t ask for a hook up. Support what your friends do—it’s their livelihood. Why not pay full price for their service, product, or performance. Help them build their empire. You can be neighbours in Possibility City!
When we help each other we build community.
“Never doubt that a small, group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” ~ Margaret Mead
Let’s grow together!
PS- People tend to remember those that have helped them or looked out for them.
We’ll chart the inner darkness & emerge victorious / with our heads held high, we’ll make a stand / for what we believe in / I believe in me, I believe in you / I believe together we’ll make it through ~Los Angels
The biggest obstacle that most people face to achieving their dreams and aspirations in life is themselves.
My experiences in life thus far have taught me a really important thing: everything pretty much stems from two places, either ‘fear’ or ‘love’. The true bottom line of it all is that in order to achieve our best life, we need to work on getting out of our own way; we need to work on getting rid of the fear in our lives. Hands up now! Who’s with me?
I know firsthand that ‘fear’ can be a very debilitating thing… heck a few years back I spent days lying on the couch (underneath my parents house where I was living) in a self-imposed isolation with curtains drawn and doors locked, watching the ceiling fan go round sure that I had fucked my life up beyond repair. If I gave up then though, like I felt I really wanted to, if I gave into that fear, I wouldn’t be here talking to all you wonderful people! Look at all I would have missed out on!
When others are negative towards you and your projects/work, I’ve found that you can use that as fuel to fan the fire and get things done. You tend to channel the negative into positive, the whole ‘I’ll show you!’ attitude kicks in. Yet in times when it’s our own negativity well we can be downright horrible to ourselves. We can be our own worst enemy. It’s time to tell yourself ‘I’ll show you!’ he he :)
On the road to success you will encounter many instances of fear, self-doubt, thoughts of things you ‘should’ be doing as opposed to what you’d really love to be doing (working for the man vs. working for yourself, hello!), and you’ll possibly give yourself every excuse under the sun as to why you can’t do what you want to do. Well I’m here to tell you that you can do everything you’ve ever wanted to do. I believe in you.
One of the greatest myths about failing (man I’ve been conditioned to believe and grew up being taught that it is such a negative thing) is that if things don’t work out how you envisioned them to it’s the end of the world and you’re a big loser. Let me tell ya, no! lovelies it isn’t the end of the world and no! you’re not a loser. People really underestimate their ability to recover, bounce back and move forward from these situations. One of my biggest pieces of advice I could give you from my experience with these matters is ‘fail quickly and move on’. Keep moving, go forward!
I read a book a while back (sorry I can’t remember the title, I have like 10 books on the go at once! Ha! If you know the story and remember the book please let me know so I can give credit where credits due) and in it there was a story about an art class… let me share:
At the start of a semester the art class, a ceramics class, was divided into two groups. Both groups were assigned the task of making a ceramic bowl. Group One were instructed to make as many bowls as they could before handing in their final piece. Group Two were told they could only make one piece in total, have one try and to hand that in.
Group One got to work, their first attempts were terrible, one fail after another but they kept going until they had a store perfect finished piece. Group two sat around theorising how to make the best bowl and in the end came up with something that was not so great. The teacher told the students that they had set this task so they could learn the lesson of how important it is to learn from your mistakes and to build on what you’ve learnt for the next time; to not be scared of getting things less than perfect.
Another obstacle on the Camp Fail program is being scared of the unknown. Do you want to miss out on amazing opportunities because you’re scared? I sure as hell don’t. See growing up I was a shy kid (I’m definitely still that little golden brown skinned, big-eyed shy kid at times now), I never really put my hand up for things because I was always scared that I might not be able to do whatever it was and the other kids at school would laugh at me—I already copped enough bullying because of my colour and ethnicity but that’s a whole other story—being made fun of even more and the possibility of failing was not appealing in the slightest. Therefore my fear stopped me from participating, learning something new and more than likely having a good time.
Now looking back at it all, I ask myself ‘what would have been the worst case scenario?’ answer = the kids would have teased me, so what? And I may have learnt there are things I’m not so great at, so what? In the greater scheme of things there are so many things to try and do and beautiful people to meet that it’s just plain silly to let a minor blip (or ‘fail’ for lack of a better word) get the better of you.
When working with your fear of the unknown try to imagine the worst case scenario in your head and how ‘bad’ that could really be? I bet the answer is not so bad at all. In my experience of connecting with successful people over the years through my work I’ve gotten some solid advice:
I have this theory of the future being around the corner. If you think of a road, the road is always curved. The future is always that point just around the corner, you can’t quite see it. You will certainly get there but you can’t see it. You have no idea what’s on the road? You’ll never know until you get around the corner and by the time you get around the corner there’ll be more around the corner ahead. I don’t really think that we can prepare. What we can do is make sure we are healthy and in as good as shape possible now and flexible enough to be able to contend with whatever we are faced with—that we’re balanced. If you’re putting too much attention on the possibility of the future you’re probably likely to drive right the hell off the road in front of you. Its best just to keep the eyes on the road [laughs].
I really like destroying things equally as much as I love creating things. It’s part of what needs to happen. You have to destroy the old to make way for the new. To me, in the same way you say that you’re making this book and putting all your ideas together and all your emotions and feelings, it’s like you’re building a coffin and a funeral for a certain phase of your life. At least that’s what it seems to me because that’s the way I make records. It’s a snapshot of what I’m going through at the time I make them. As I get closer and closer to finishing the record and I get all the tracks and go to make a mix, then I make a master and I have an actual tangible thing that I can listen to and other people can relate to, at that moment it dies. That’s when I get to destroy that whole part of my existence to start fresh and say, “Where do I go now?” I have a testament now; I have a painting or a picture, something that reminds me where I was and where I’ve been. That’s not to say there won’t be elements of that in things—there’s always conceptual continuity elements tied to the core of our work because there are always things that are going to be there. It’s definitely a thing of letting go and putting to rest. That’s why for the most part it’s sometimes hard to part with a record. Sometimes you work on it for so long and then by the time you’ve done mixing there are still a few days where it is still yours and you haven’t given a copy to anyone and you know that the minute you give a copy to someone that’s when it’s over and it’s no longer yours—therefore it dies. Before I used to struggle with that part, but now I go through it quickly and accept it so I can move through it quicker and can go, “Where’s the new part? Where am I going now? Where’s the new destination?”
And finally (phew! This has been a loooong post), another key I’ve learnt to avoid the Camp Fail route is to simply take action! Set yourself little goals and go after them! Don’t forget to celebrate when you’ve achieved them! You’ll find that having a whole bunch of little ‘wins’ under your (pyramid studded belt or pink tool belt if you’re the lovely Shanti) will help spur you on to even more, and even greater successes. You just need to take little baby steps.
Things can always be scary the first time you attempt them. But remember, you fail more if you don’t even try. And on that note I’ll leave you with one of the most amazing pieces of advice I will always carry with me:
“No matter how much you fuck up, or think you’ve fucked up remember to always have compassion for yourself. Be kind and gentle to yourself.” ~Noah Levine.
Love & radness!
PS- A little musical inspiration to get you going from Gwendals & Co.
