My friend sent me a video about the start of Collective Soul. I have always enjoyed their music, especially coming at a formative time in my musical years, I’d say they definitely had an inspiration in forming some of my tastes. I still like their albums.

I watched about the first 15 minutes of the Collective Soul thing. It was interesting about how he did everything on that first album, from playing to singing and recording on tapes that were left over from other sessions. The whole first album was made and produced by him, and his hit was him using a paper towel roll to produce an effect.

Collective soul got massive off of college radio play and into mainstream success. He had to tap his brothers band to get enough people to play for a show, and they played the hit song 5 times in a row, which takes more balls than I have playing in a band. I would never play a song more than twice…

In the “making it big department”;

My take is that it really goes to show how “knowing” people and luck play a larger part into the process of wealth or success. Juxtapose this with a video I saw a video on insta from someone who wrote the “Party in the USA” song for Miley Cyrus. She said she just went into the studio and talked about what she did that day and then the label shopped it to Miley and she bought it. It paid her rent for 3 years in L.A.

You can spend your life in the studio, honing chops, or walk in with a song in 15 minutes and if you know someone who buys it, that’s music. I don’t deny Collective Soul is talented and deserves all the success, but it’s amazing how things just come together for some and not for others. I don’t particularly like Miley Cyrus, but that song made her a hit as well.

Sometimes you might have to just show up. Another anecdote is that I knew a boxer who won a world championship because he happened to be there, after another boxer couldn’t compete. And a wrestler take second in the nation because there were only 2 in his weight class. I myself have taken many 3rd and 4th places in prestigious PA wrestling tourneys simply because there were 3 kids. In the beginning of my career, of course.

I think it definitely shows that people who take “art” too seriously are full of shit. I know what it takes to write a song, and it can be laborious to fucking easy, and it’s not even the music that sells sometimes. You can write music that’s classically correct, but not the right flavor. You can get lucky with a beat and lyrics that are brain dead but somehow catchy. It takes more than mechanics, and some weird process I don’t think we understand quite yet. Maybe ai will figure it out.

Maybe it’s just that attitude of being there-which in itself is excitement of doing something. If you did that work to get there, you might as well go all out?

To me, I think it just means that hard work and luck meeting opportunity are close and necessary for most people. Others hit the lottery in a way, and it seems like many of us in the west do in one way or another. Philosophically, I guess that it means that if we look into our life and introspective, we can find those minor events where we’ve been lucky or hit that own personal lottery in a way. It’s just a matter of perspective.

Honestly, I do get jealous that I didn’t hit it big, and look at my own songs and artwork as masterpieces, but then again, I have hit the lottery in my own unique way, blessed with health, family and other issues. If I truly look at it, I’m still thankful that I have what I have experienced in my time on this planet. And I supposed that’s the best bliss, is being happy with what you have, where you are, and what you’re doing.

I probably bluster too much, Hero worship is unnecessary, and you shouldn’t take yourself too seriously.