I try and absorb all the things that I respect in the artist's I've worked with.When we work with someone on, Live From Daryl's House, we really get inside their music which gives me an even broader idea of the writing process. I think I'm always learning from everything in life. There are really songs everywhere.
In order to have a lasting career you'll need to spend time performing live to build your own audience, as it's not all about social media. Word of mouth still rules.
My record, Evolution, is really about me evolving as an artist and trying a few new things. There's a song called, Road Worn, which is about spending so much time on the road and is a lot more jazzy sounding than most of my other music.
I have a pretty crazy work ethic, most people around me think it's a little off the charts, like I'm always working on something. The thing is, as hard as I work at what I do, I love it so much it really never feels like work at this point in my life.
I shoot with a few different camera's. A Sony A6000 with several lenses and a Lumix LX100 with a beautiful Leica lens. I like to travel light so I can have it with me most of the time. I really try and document all the places we travel to.
You'll also need to invest in yourself with the kind of promo that targets your specific audience to help build that word of mouth. Most importantly, believe in what you're doing and in your music and lyrics.
Fortunately, I'm in a band with people who really like and respect each other personally.That makes this whole experience so much better.
Of course you lose track of where you are sometimes, as you finish a show and ride in a tour bus from anywhere from 3 -12 hours and wake up in another city, and check into a hotel. So, I woke up after a few hours, packed all my stuff up and headed for the bus to depart for that day's show. I get to the lobby and our production person looked at me and said, "where are you headed?" - It was a day off!
Usually now a song starts just in my head with a melody or a lyric idea coming first.Then typically I'll go to a guitar, unless it's a instrumental then I'll usually build it on a keyboard instrument.
