Last week I was asked to Tour with Rage of Angels in September. I said Yes. I didn’t even think twice about it. I have received a lot of love and support in my journey and I am grateful. It has counterbalanced the rash of criticism I’ve received as well. Especially this past weekend. I won’t go into details but I can tell you I have a hard time being Buddha like in those instances (another lesson. Geez).
Why is it that I bought into the criticism instead of the praise? I think we, as artists, tend to do that. There is a fine line between promoting yourself and boasting. When we are promoting ourselves we sometimes look at it as boasting and pull ourselves back and say, “No. Don’t say that. People will think you’re an egomaniac.” I just take a deep breath and know that not everybody is going to like nor condone what I do. I just focus on my path and move forward.
I had a great conversation with an old friend in New Orleans yesterday. He was my drummer at one point in my career. It was a brilliant conversation that lead into promoting ourselves as artists. We don’t like to do it. We like to just use our craft to touch people. We don’t like to go out and talk about ourselves, but we have to. Especially in this day and age. I like the song from Aerosmith that says, ‘Let the music do the talking.’ That’s all great if you can get people to listen to the music. That’s the hard part. So promotion is an essential part of this business. I would love to have a Manager, and a Publicist and all the administrative stuff so I could just concentrate on writing. But, its not that way…. and in a way I’m grateful. Why am I grateful? Because it keeps it real. I get to see directly how I influence people. I get to interact and change things around on the fly when they don’t work. Like yesterday…. Jeff, my friend in New Orleans, does a lot of promotion for charities. He took one look at my donation page and said to me… Dave. $10,000? Really? You need $10,000 to go tour Europe? I was like, well no. But I need to pay off my motorcycle, pay rent, look for another job… blah blah blah blah. Anyway he convinced me to be a bit more realistic about it and he was right. So without second guessing him I knocked it down to $5000 which will allow me to scrape by and get there and back. I love the fact that I have a friend that can lovingly tell me that I am fucking up. Ha ha. It put me right into a space of release and not control. In a space of trust that it will all work out and everything will be fine.
At the end of August I will be taking a leave of absence from my design job to follow my dream. I’m scared and excited at the same time. I don’t know what lies ahead. I’m not sure I’ll have a job when I come back to L.A. even. But dreams are more important than jobs. Dream BIG!
If you would like to make a donation to help me on my way to Europe I would appreciate it. $5, $10, $20, $50… anything will help. Thank you for allowing me to share my gift with you. Just click on the link below and it will take you to my donation page.
Peace!!
D
