BY BERT STEPHANI
Yesterday I finished Dave Grohl’s book “The Storyteller”. I can’t say that I’m a fan of his music but it was interesting to read the life story of an artist. I admire his fearless way of being himself and create. To be honest, I’m a bit jealous of his mindset. As I see myself as a storyteller as well, the book made me ask myself some questions:
Am I too lazy?
Where’s the Rock and Roll in my life?
Where are the stories?
And last night, while I was lying in bed, I thought about the KAGE Collective.
We have just paid the rent for our recording studio, aka our Squarespace subscription, just like we did last year, although the studio remained empty. I don’t blame anyone, not even myself. We all have work and families that rightfully take up the bulk of our time. And we also have our own media channels to fill with images and words. Those are the channels that bring in the work so they should be first on our mind.
The KAGE studio is not where we perform our greatest hits, it’s a safe place to experiment away from the mainstream audience. It’s a place for failure and growth. It’s a place that I NEED. I won’t keep paying for this studio if I never use it.
I’ve been an artist for long enough to know that you can’t just sit and wait for inspiration to strike. Sure, it happens every now and then but don’t hold your breath. You can have meetings with the band about ideas for a new album but although fun, these meetings are usually unproductive. The only way that I know of to get going … is to get going. It doesn’t matter on what, just start creating.
So here I am at our recording studio, gently strumming my laptop and tuning my camera in an unfamiliar key just to see where that leads me.
The other band members are way more talented than I am so I hope someone will drop by the studio to jam together. At this point it’s irrelevant to where it will lead. It’s about just doing it, experiment. Sooner or later part of a riff will surface from the chaos which will lead to a chorus, which will lead to a song, which will lead to an album, and so on.
One, two, and a one, two, three, four …
