James Allen’s Post

When I was in University, I wanted to be either Neil Young or Friedrich Nietzsche. I walked around saying things like, “We must think beyond good and evil – or at least live on Sugar Mountain." Clever, but it didn’t help much in Freshman Calculus. (I received a C minus)    When I later discovered that Nietzsche died sad and young, and Neil Young was alive & hip with Joni Mitchell, I decided to dedicate myself to a music career. By which I mean... I listened to records.    What was clear to me was that the life of a musician was very cool – you just magically wrote songs, played guitar, consumed lots of drugs, hung out with groovy people at festivals, and sported big, thick Canadian sideburns. But surprisingly, no music festivals called me, so I did other things.     But about a decade ago, I started a music label, which allowed me to hang out with real musicians. And my goodness, they are nerdy, and lovely people. Turns out, mastering an instrument is hard, demanding discipline and dedication.     And thriving in a broken music industry takes grit. Being creative in a studio involves complex dynamics – requiring high EQ and self-awareness to work with other creatives in service of the song. So much goodness. And I rarely see big, bushy sideburns.     While I was dreaming of being one of them – listening to Pink Floyd and watching fish in an aquarium in the smoke-filled “bullseye” room of my frat house – they were in the music lab mastering scales. While I was playing a mean air guitar to ‘Once in a Lifetime’, they were studying music theory.    All of this came back to me while interviewing Elliot Wenman – a music producer, about studio dynamics. I asked him about the inevitable chaos of a studio – the songwriter with her goals, the session musicians with theirs – all these egos in one soundproof room. In a business context, if you assemble that many folks with their egos in a soundproof room with a creative task – there will be a murder.    “How do you deal with egos in a creative process?” I asked Elliot. Elliot talked about ‘Prosody’, a concept from Aristotle about focusing on the essential thing. He mentioned Rick Rubin lighting a candle to channel focus. And even shared some rules from Tennessee about how to fairly compensate creatives in a collective enterprise. No discussion of drugs or air guitar.    It turns out, creativity is not the opposite of discipline, thoughtfulness, or hard work. Great art is born from sweat and mastery. Sadly, for me, you don’t become Neil Young by listening to Neil Young and staring at fish. You nerd yourself up and master your scales. (a bit of a pun. Echoes of a dad joke)    You can hear my full conversation with Elliot in this week’s episode of the Founder’s Mentality Podcast. Listen here: https://lnkd.in/egKbehRk   And to all the nerdy musicians who’ve touched my life this decade: I love you and thank you for handing this old stoner, stuck on ‘Sugar Mountain’, some needed life lessons.