Tough Town?

It's not that people don't care about music in this town. You'd have a hard time finding any place in the world more welcoming to budding musicians and songwriters. This is music-city. Everyone here is in love with music and musicians. Most musicians are regarded as something of an oddity in their places of origin. They are seen either as no-accounts who can't pay the rent or they are placed on a pedestal, lauded and applauded. In Nashville a musician is a dime a dozen. We are the 99 here. There may be something different or special about you but, in Nashville, it's not going to be the fact that you make music. That is almost a given here.

I don't know if it's true of other songwriters but when I discovered that I could write a song it was a major turning point in my life. Here was something that I was kind of good at, which in itself wasn't all that amazing. The really amazing part was that I really liked doing it. It was comfortable and made immediate sense to me. There was some sort of instinct that I had for writing that wasn't something I had to study or learn. It was just there. So I let it have it's way with me. I wrote and wrote and wrote. I wrote some more. I sang and sang and sang. I sang some more. I compared my work with what was on the radio and then went back to work. I was so comfortable in my songwriting skin that I began to allow that to define me. Music was my “thing” and I really enjoyed that fact.

Then I moved to Nashville and my “thing” was no longer “thing”-worthy. It was just something that almost everyone you meet does and quite often does just as well if not better than you. It's not so much that Nashville strips your grand ideas and dreams...it's that it strips your very identity from you. It takes that thing you've grasped onto as your beacon of hope and turns it into something dreadfully common....prosaic............dull..............just stop with that already.

So I wrote this song about Nashville and called it, “The Killing Kind”.

The Killing Kind (feat Anna Johnson) by timpepper

But I got to thinking about it and perhaps I was being a little unkind towards this town that embraces artists so heartily. Maybe Nashville is more like a loving but tough mentor who says, “ok...what else have you got? Who are you really? Can you do that but do it better?”. It kicks the rock star out of you and forces you to become a human again. It reminds you that the rules still apply to you despite your precious talent (that you didn't do anything to get anyway).

I submitted this song for critique through an online service. The reviewer was very thorough and I felt like he did a good job. It was money well spent. I've copied an excerpt of one of his points below:

“Lyrically there is room for you to take your content a step further. You could try adding a twist to really get the most out of those last 8 lines. For instance, you could show the other side, from the perspective of someone who didn't make it, or of someone who did, letting the listener in on what it took to make it. Alternatively, you could compare it to another force that people must grapple with, like time, or chance, showing how one force is colder, or more unpredictable, or more forgiving. Redemption is the counterpoint to condemnation, so touching on that element is a great way to offer a glimpse of the whole picture.”

I completely agree with his assessment and will bear it mind as I write future songs. But for this particular song I wanted to write from the perspective of someone stuck in a situation. If I'd followed that advice I might have made the song more “universal” but I think I also might have lost something in so doing. When you're in a situation and you feel stuck you're not thinking about the whole picture or the counterpoint. You're just feeling shitty and that's all you can see. I wanted this song to capture that moment of despair and disgust.

I think the redemption or counterpoint to this song is that through writing and playing it I've had to express publicly that sometimes this town feels incredibly difficult but I've also had to face the fact that it's taught me an awful lot and most of the time it's a pretty awesome place to be. Nashville won't flatter you...It will make you a better artist and maybe a better person.

On that note, here's a few things I've learned from living and playing music in this town:

• I still have a lot to learn.
• Talent alone is not enough. There's a hell of a lot of talent in this world. Embrace your talent. Love your talent. Enjoy your talent to the fullest possible extent. But above all DEVELOP it and DO something with it.
• Always be listening and and always be learning because you will never be as awesome as you think you are. Maybe you are that awesome but don't let it go to your head. Nobody's gonna want to drink a beer with you if you're that guy.
• I'd rather hang out with a good dude than a talented asshole. So be a good dude to everyone you meet.
• Focus on how you can help other people instead of wondering if your semi-famous 'contact' can help you get a show.
• Be genuine. Make friends rather than contacts.
• Don't play music for money. Play music because you love to play music or don't play music at all.
• Don't write songs for money. Write songs because you love to write songs or don't write songs at all.
• Be open to criticism and be open to change but don't be a pushover. You are an artist and it's possible people like your art BECAUSE it's different and wrong and imperfect and non-commercial.
• Strive to be true to yourself but also strive to be the best possible version of yourself.
• Strive for excellence rather than perfection.
• You may never make a dime from your music. It would be a shame to let that fact stop you from making it.
• You're in good company here in Nashville. Consider it a privilege to play and be played to here.
  
  

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  The recording above features Anna Johnson singing background vocals and was mixed by Chris Wright. 

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IT'S NASHVILLE...AND I LIKE IT.

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It's Tuesday night and I'm driving to Cafe Coco in Nashville, Tennessee. It's a little cold and rainy tonight and somebody's car has broken down in the center lane of the highway. In the slow moving traffic I have time to take in the scenery. In the distance I can see Nashville's skyline and lights. I've driven this route hundreds of times and I always get a little bit excited when I see it. There's something about living in a city where my heros live that gets me excited.


I'm on my way to play music. Every Tuesday night Cafe Coco hosts an open mic night. That means I can go play music for a live audience and I don't need a booking. I just have to show up early enough to put my name on the list. This isn't a high-profile gig. I won't be written up in any publications and I won't be playing to very many people tonight. I'll mostly be playing for other songwriters who've come out tonight for the same reason I have. We just want to play. I'd stay up on stage all night if I could but I only get two songs. I'll take it because I just want to play.


I came to Nashville a couple of years ago with my guitar in one hand and a sense of entitlement in the other. I thought I was on the cusp of being "discovered". I was going to play a few shows and get "noticed" by the "right people". I don't know who I thought those people were but I figured they would seek me out when they heard I was in town. You know...because I'm sooo talented.

Well none of that happened and in a strange way I'm happier that it didn't. I'd have been full of shit if any of that had happened because I was expecting it. I thought I deserved it. I would have been walking around thinking, "Yeah! See, I was right!" Instead I am humbled to be in a city where so many people are as good and better than me. I'm happy to be able to play shows and get out there and experience live music at it's best and worst in a city whose heartbeat is literally a kick drum. I've rediscovered the joy of getting on stage and making converts of the people sharing the room with me...even when it's only me and a couple of assholes that keep talking while I'm playing. I actually LIKE playing live again. I want to do it every day. I actually LIKE playing my guitar again. I am inspired again.

Make no mistake...there's only one thing I want to do with my life and it involves playing my guitar and writing songs every single day. Make no mistake...I believe in what I came here to do. Make no mistake....I'm going to be discovered, one person at a time. And I'm actually going to LIKE it. I've been at work all day and now, for at least a few minutes, the stage at Cafe Coco...and therefore the world obviously...is mine. And I LIKE it.

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ISAAC RUSSELL - HE'S REAL Y'ALL

The above video is a performance by Isaac Russell. I have written about him below and was originally going to provide a link to his site. But then I found this video and thought that I had to share it with you. WAAAY down at the bottom of this post is one of my own songs and I hope you will take to the time to listen to both Isaac and myself. It's kind of like a little concert...so go make some popcorn and get comfy...who needs t.v.?


A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of watching Isaac Russell play a set at 12th and Porter in Nashville. He was playing solo and opening for a few other bands. Isaac is a slightly awkward 18 year old with a big, bluesy, man’s voice. He’s got all these inward-facing features when he plays..his body hunched over the guitar, his head bowed in reverence and his feet slightly pigeon-toed, pointing toward one another. All of that suggests a contemplative, soulful, introverted singer-songwriter that you could hear just about anywhere in the world. But you couldn’t because when he starts to sing he booms out with this incredibly lovely, old voice. This is someone singing with authority. This guy has something to say and he’s very good at saying it. Pardon the lingo but this is a kid who’s been through some shit and he knows how to transport you through it with him while he remembers the stench of it. Some other acts played that night with full bands but Isaac Russell is what I remember from the show. For me, and I don’t know if it’s simply because I am drawn to this kind of music or if he really was that good, he stole the show.

He sat on a chair and played songs for a room full of people and it was awesome. These were real songs. Not the kind of song that so many people in Nashville are trying to write. I don’t believe Isaac has ever given a thought to writing a ‘hook’ or really considered the structure of a song much. He learned how to write songs by listening to the music he loves, which evidently includes Ray Charles because he awesomely covered one of his songs. Isaac Russell reminds me of what I love about music and that is this: If you have a great voice and a great song, all you really need to sell it is an audience.

Among the crowd of people that consider themselves musicians there seems to be an understood theory that all music falls into two categories. The first category is Pop Music which includes some very awesome Real Music (which is the second category) and also some very, very Crap Music which is a sub-category of the first category. Most of the Crap Music involves slightly to quite talented people who are above average looking or at least unique looking in a not bad way. The thing about Crap Music is that it’s not really that crap to listen to. A lot of Crap Music is well written and pretty enjoyable which is why so many people buy it. However it’s still Crap Music because it’s a formulaic copy of something that someone interesting created and the only thing awesome about it is the amount of money that has been spent on getting it onto the radio all over the world.

Now I know that different people like different kinds of music for different reasons. I also know that certain kinds of music fits certain kinds of events and I’ll admit that if you want to get up and dance Isaac Russell isn’t going to be your first choice…or really any of your choices. If you want to dance you have no problem because there is all kinds of Crap Music out there that will do just fine. But Isaac makes Real Music and damn good Real Music at that. It’s as unique as Isaac himself and he has the chops and vox to perform it convincingly. I caught myself wrapped up in the story of his songs and quite frankly feeling a bit sorry for the life this guy has had. I caught myself feeling real emotions because of what this kid was doing on stage. And that’s what I love about music and if it doesn’t do that for me then I think it’s Crap.

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The song posted in the player above is, "Cry Cry Cry". I've spent a lot of hours in my home studio recording this. It doesn't sound like a radio song because it's not supposed to. It is as unique as the person who created it. I like it and I hope you will too. But if you don't I'm not going to change it...and that's what I love about my music...I can play it the way I like it.

Find me at: www.facebook.com/tim.pepper and on Twitter: @OHtimpepper

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I Think, Therefore I Think. I Am Alive, Therefore I Am Alive.

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Steve Murray is a friend of mine. We used to play open mics together at Zack’s in Durban, South Africa. I met Steve through another friend of mine, Esjay who now lives in San Diego and who is the soul’s core of the band Stealing Love Jones. Before I moved to Nashville I got together with Steve to practice one afternoon and on a whim decided to record the proceedings. In the song you’ll hear Steve and I communicating and since this was a practice there’s a couple of rough bits. I always liked Steve’s style of playing and I miss having chats with him about Seinfeld and beers and music.

picture courtesy of: http://www.motorcycleridesnow.com/roadtrip

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There’s a million and three thoughts going through my brain about life, music, God, girls, babies. I need it to slow down so I can pick a few things out and take a bit of time looking over them. I’d like to reach in and find the ‘off’ switch sometimes but I know there’s not one there so all I can hope for is that things will slow down in there a bit.

You keep moving and doing what you have to do. You don’t focus on the stuff that seems impossible to understand. As soon as you focus on that you lose your mind completely because it all seems ridiculously complicated. But if you keep on keeping on; if you just keep doing your daily things your brain keeps working and these thoughts pop into your head in the middle of doing something else:

I spoke to a woman outside RuSan’s the other night. I was on a smoke break and so was she. She was digging through her purse with a cigarette dangling from her mouth and I offered her a light just as she found hers. So we started talking about the weather and which Hooter's was the best and she ended up telling me about a trip she’d taken on a motorcycle. “We kept to the back roads and only stopped to eat where the locals eat. We figured that the place with the most pick-up trucks outside was the local hang out and we usually got the best food and lowest prices at those places.” After a few minutes I realized that this woman was really cool.

I talked to my co-worker and buddy, Ron about it a little later and said to him that I was really glad I’d talked to her because she was with a party of people whom I’d served and my impression of them was terrible. If I hadn’t offered the lighter and hadn’t had the conversation I would have left that night with a totally wrong impression of her by association with her party.

People get crazy when they eat in restaurants. I know this because I work in one. Even though I know this I still fall into the trap of misjudging people. When it comes to food and restaurants all social normality and politeness falls away. People who keep their own kitchens as tidy as a surgery room will leave trash and bits of food and gum and toothpicks strewn about for their waiters to clean up (seriously people...I don't want your toothpicks..throw them away your own self). So you can’t always judge a person by the way they eat in restaurants (maybe first dates should remember that). But I still do judge people and it’s a shame that I do. I might be missing a lot of opportunities to hear great stories about motorcycle trips.

That’s what I mean though about things coming to you in the middle of doing something else. You get these flashes of comprehension all because you bothered to talk to a middle aged woman for two minutes about essentially nothing at all. I don’t think I could have mined that little life lesson from all the millions of thoughts in my head if I’d been sitting and thinking about it. Maybe you have to be doing life to understand life. Maybe you can’t sit and think everything to its logical conclusion. Instead the conclusions jump out at you when you’re out walking your dog, or ringing up a customer at the till (cash register) or plonking a plate of sushi in front of their nose. Maybe….

A Seven Hour Pursuit

Last year I moved from my sunny, warm home in South Africa to Nashville, Tennessee in pursuit of something. I thought I was pursuing a dream, and I suppose I am but it turns out that I’m in pursuit of something much larger too.

People talk of dreams as if they are specific things. The little kid who dreams of becoming an NFL football player knows exactly what position he (or she?) will play and for which team and which plays are going to make him (or her) the most awesome player that ever existed past, present or future. But grown-ups dreams are not so much about a specific job or thing as they are about quality of life.

My own dream has always been a little hazy. Industry people like to ask the question, “Tim, what exactly are you trying to do with your music?”. I understand the reason they ask that but what they don’t realize is that I don’t give a crap. How about this for an answer: “I want to wake up every day and look forward to playing some music. Maybe I’ll play for some people. Maybe I’ll just sit in my studio and write some new songs and fiddle with some new gear. Maybe I’ll play some music with my good friends who are also in my band and we’ll get a ‘new direction’ for our music. All of this will be happening in a comfortable house somewhere where it’s warm outside most of the time. Of course if I get tired of that day to day routine there will be some touring and when that’s not happening I still want to visit Europe (I’ve seen so little of it you know). My wife, who is awesome, will accompany me a lot of the time because although she is highly motivated and intelligent she doesn’t have to work and she kind of digs spending time with me. This comfy arrangement is made possible because my music pays for it. I don’t care how it pays for it. That’s not the important bit, Industry Person. The important bit is that people all over the world are listening to it and I don’t have to serve sushi anymore.”

Sometimes I think music sucks. I think this because I wish more people were listening to mine and because I know I’m better than some people who are living my dream. But I’ve done a few things in my life and here’s what I know…There’s absolutely nothing else I want to do with my life. It’s been the constant through all the ups and downs. Even when I hate it, I hate it with a passion and that’s more than I can say for most of the things I’ve done in my life.

The song “7 Hours” was written when I was newly rolled out onto the tarmac in Nashville. I was cold and missing home and my surrounds were dull and grey.

Lonely

The art of being lonely is a shrewd one. It’s cool to be free and all that. My time and my money belong to no-one but me. But tonight I went to a concert and then ate supper alone. Standing in a room full of people or eating at the bar (because that’s where they put you when you are a party of one) falls a little short of the full experience.

That ultra-stupid song, “Lonely. I’m so lonely. I’ve got nobody for my own.” keeps popping into my head. I’m the guy that hums the McDonalds tune until another song or t.v. commercial replaces it so it’s unavoidable really. Whatever happens to be on my mind works its way through the neurons and synapses in my brain and somewhere along the way gets turned into the tune that most closely matches the message.

The trick is to make sure that when you’re in a crowded room you hum quietly in your head and not so anyone else can hear you. Occasionally I do slip and that always draws looks of suspicion from whoever happens to be close enough to hear. There’s no coming back from that either because people generally avoid conversation with those deemed to be “not right”.

Gone are the romantic images in my mind’s eye of the cool loner that everyone secretly admires and wants to be like. I used to want to be Brad Pitt’s character from that movie, “Legends of The Fall”. But now I realize that he wasn’t cool. He was just lonely.

At my last count I had 507 friends on Facebook. Many of them are genuine friends and not just Facebook ‘friend’ friends. But tonight as I stood in the Cannery Ballroom on 8th street in Nashville, watching James Morrison I sort of wished that one or two of those friends were with me.

My America

I stepped off the plane from South Africa, in Washington, DC. I went outside and smoked a cigarette and surveyed what I could see of the city. It was early morning and gleaming. I saw people with coffees and cell phones looking busy and badly dressed.

I used to drive by Africans waiting at the bus stop on North Coast Road in my home town of Durban, South Africa. Those Africans had something I never saw in the fabulous people that lived in my neighborhood and went to gym at Virgin Active in La Lucia. They carried a sadness with them that was visible even when they were smiling. There was a hardness to them that couldn’t be covered up with their clothes.

I live in Nashville, Tennessee now. My neighbors; the people I see at the gas stations and in the malls all have that sadness I used to see in the Africans. I used to think that it was there because of the injustice of the lives of the African people. Living in their squatter camps and villages and commuting into nice neighborhoods every day to work. But here I see people who weren’t politically abused or unjustly oppressed living in a kind of squalor that that they bought into of their own free will. They have more money here and they have more stuff, nicer clothes, better cars, i-phones, i-pods, good jobs. But they’re just as lost and hopeless as those Africans who are still standing at that bus-stop every day.

The America in my memory is a backyard next to a football field with warm summer rains and bare-chested summer days. The America in my memory is a friendly place full of familiar places and things and routines. The America in my memory is proud and right and confident and righteous and just. Now it seems America has doubts. There is an awareness among Americans that maybe things are changing. All that seemed so sure and steady; our position in the world, our economy, our jobs are in question. “Where are our troops?”, “Why are they there?”, “Are we fighting the right battles?”, “Are we right?”; These are the questions America is asking. Where is my America now? Maybe it was only ever in my head.

Street signs bark at me everywhere I drive. “Jimmy’s Auto Parts and Repair” shouts in peeling paint. “Kroger” screams high atop its mast; a scream that can be heard a mile down the road. America is strip malls, signage and parking lots. America is fast food. America is fat people. America is BIG. Big is good. Bigger is better. Big cars. Big trucks. Big movie theatres. Big popcorn. Big people. Big houses. Big highways. Big signs. Big churches. Big sin. America is fast.
America is cars on highways always moving, always going, always driving. Where are you going America?

America is vast and beautiful. From the sky she is mountains, plains, trees and water. Rigid cities rise from the earth. They look small and peaceful, surrounded by so much nature, dwarfed by mountains. Tiny roads like symmetrical arteries spread and fade into the distance.

America is 9 to 5 and 5 til late. America never goes home. Always moving, eating, going, doing, meeting, greeting, partying, playing, running, gymming, driving, watching, seeing, using, buying, selling.

I am 32. My generation expects so much and appreciates so little. Everything is a ‘given’. Everything is taken for granted. There is no country where this is more apparent than in America.

But I love America. She is my home. She is my people. She is opportunity upon opportunity. She is welcoming and warm. She is a Sunday afternoon nap. She is a symphony of cultures, sometimes dissonant, but always music. She is free. She is everyone matters. She is a conversation with a stranger. She is speak your mind. She is wealthy.

America is a personal journey that for me has just begun.