Out of the Frying Pan...

Greetings from inside the cage!

The last six months have been some of the most trying in my life, both personally and professionally. A few folks might have noticed that I set up a great deal of media outlets for The Lazarus Gene and then just let them sit there, gathering the first layers of dust as I've been engrossed with creating the music itself. Learning to self-promote is not easy - not only am I competing with an ever-changing world of business models, marketers, and artists, most of whom are far more business savvy and experienced than myself, but I'm fighting my own lifelong demons of low self-worth. However, I believe that what I have to convey through The Lazarus Gene is too important for me to let those demons, both external and internal, win. But it's still a steep, uphill struggle. Writing this blog is itself an exercise in spite of myself (I hear a lot of terrible things in my head, such as, "Dude, no one's going to read it"; "You have no fans and you won't gain any"; "You are a nobody with the false ego of a somebody"; etc. And those are the nicer ones). But in the interest of doing the wise, marketable thing, here I am, writing my intimate thoughts about working on and working in music.

I'm an artist, and it is my one drive to share what I feel. But sharing is becoming increasingly difficult for artists these days. Everyone shares now, and everyone thinks that everything they have to share is worth sharing. Perhaps we can all agree that as human beings we are all, on some cliche, idealistic, but beautifully poetic level, "equal" in our fundamental worth... but that doesn't mean that everyone who runs their mouth online deserves the attention they get.

In the world of marketing, I have had to face a crisis of conscience - that is, learning to live with giving myself an edge over competition, believing myself to be worth hearing over and against others, and attempting to create a reason why people should listen to me. In the competitive world of art, not everyone can win. And if I win, it means someone else loses. Luckily for me, the support I've had from other artists has been extremely sparse, so I've come to the conclusion that being in this for myself is A-O-K. (But the few other artists who have and do support me, I will always be there in turn for them, because, while selfishness may be the nature of the human animal, reciprocity is how that selfish animal will ultimately be the most successful). Now, having accepted that it's okay to believe I'm worth hearing, and that it's okay to beat out others, I then have to face actually learning how to make my voice heard. That has not been easy to pull off, not least of all because I have thus far no audience. I know they're there, we just haven't found each other yet.

I'm not a business-minded person and I'm not an organized person. Only now, in my 30s, I'm having to learn to discipline myself in a whole new way. I'm facing demons I didn't even know existed in me, largely because I've glided complacently through the last 15 years of my life, ignoring or downright suppressing my drive to become a known and appreciated artist. In the battle against oneself, it's not easy to come to a ceasefire, and if any part of you truly "wins," then another part of you has to die, and that will leave a large hole in your life that might just eventually destroy you. Well, I've got enough holes in my life - I don't need any more. So I've had not to destroy my demons, but instead to rope them and make them work for me.

When it comes to what I create, I've never been democratic. In art I am an autocrat in the purest sense of the term. I understand that in our contemporary, plugged-in world everyone has a voice or at least wants to believe they have a voice. This has created new kinds of fans and critics. Or at least a new degree of them. The new fan wants to be intimately involved in the artist's process. They want constant updates, they want to comment, they want to critique, and they want actualized input. It is often suggested by market strategists that new artists find ways to make their audiences feel involved. This goes way back in the music business, but it's blown up substantially over the last two decades. Sometimes that comes in the form of voting on logos, album art, or t-shirt designs. Sometimes it means voting on set-lists. Yet, while I cannot help but to rely on those who support me and I need to do everything I can to win an audience, I resist the very idea of anyone getting their "fingers" into my work. But, being that at the moment my audience is nil, I need to be open and willing to get them involved. Not only that, I have to encourage them, without being as outwardly cynical about it as I am about most everything else in this world. (Ironic... The Lazarus Gene is some of the most cynical music you will ever hear, so I cannot pretend to be "excited" and "enthusiastic" about opening up myself to other human beings like good salesmen always are, as that would render the music itself hypocritical and superfluous. However, perhaps when I actually do find people who care about the music, relate to it, understand it, get something genuine out of it which helps them to feel and articulate something they need to express, well, then perhaps I will be damn excited and enthusiastic without a hint of irony! I've yet to experience such support however, so this is yet to be seen).

The real stick in the mud is that I don't like anyone involved during the process. I bring in a very small handful of select people whose opinions I have come to trust over years of building relationships with them as individuals, and I seek their input on very specific areas. The first album by The Lazarus Gene will feature only one outside artist, providing a vocal track for one song. Everything else was written, arranged, and performed by me. In the past I have had an engineer and producer, who knows me and my music very well, working with me and advising me, but on this album I could not afford to pay someone to engineer the whole thing. (Though I was fortunate enough to have him engineer some vocals for a few songs that really needed his expertise). More to the point, I have desired nothing more than to make sure that the first offering from The Lazarus Gene was as pure as possible. This album has to be me. Me and whoever happens to enjoy it or relate to it after it's already been released, that is.

I don't like the idea of outside influence on my work. My subconscious perceives it as "meddling," sometimes even when I specifically ask for help. I have to fight against myself to allow others to be involved, and that's just on an individual level. Of course in the end there are things I cannot do. I have to pay someone to master my album, I have to pay someone to press it, and if I could afford it, I'd pay someone to market it. The marketing however, is something I need to get my fingers into. I need to be as directly involved with that as I am with the music itself, because it's part of the image I'm putting out into the world, an image that needs to be just right to both please me and entice an audience.

My radically individualistic and, let's face it, selfish approach to music goes all the way back to when I started playing seriously. My middle school and high school friends were far too cool to let a goofy misfit like me play in their bands. It never had anything to do with my playing, because none of them ever bothered to even listen to me play. It was me they rejected, not my abilities. So I bought a 4-track (anyone remember those?) and learned how to compose for all the instruments, play as many as I could, and synthesize or program the ones I couldn't. Trent Reznor was my music god, and Marilyn Manson my personal savior. Between the two of them, they taught me how to do things my way (which of course at the time was largely their way. As with all artists, it took me a long time to remotely find my own voice. And of course I'm still very much in the process of honing in on what exactly is "my sound"). Eventually I played with a few groups here and there, but that was because I was the only keyboardist anyone knew, and I'd eventually abandoned all the "friends" of my earlier teens for people who actually accepted me for all my weirdness and comical misanthropy. But it wasn't satisfying. The music was almost never what I truly wanted to play, and seldom was it what I wrote. I mainly played with those groups for the experience of live performance and the social acceptance I'd hoped would accompany it. That reality could only stretch so far before my pangs to play my own music would resurface. 

The world has changed. Marketing has changed. We're no longer sure which bands are doing it right. Who is fittest for survival? As a result of the confusing landscape, I'm still figuring out whether the goal of my first album is to attract a fan base and generate enough income to supplement whatever other work comes my way and enable me to record the next album and tour behind it, or if my goal is to attract a fan base and generate enough attention and buzz to entice a record label and convince them that I'm good enough to sign and to subsequently give me as much artistic freedom as I deserve. I don't like the idea of having fans too involved with my creative process, but record labels do the same thing in different ways. And it's hard to tell which is more problematic to the artistic process. The record label does so much of the hard work, marketing, promotions, etc., for the artist (and sweet Jesus, it would be beautiful to not have to worry about that wicked maze). But without fans, I will be nothing, and ultimately their opinions matter much more than a label's would, since they're the ones buying the records and consequently enabling me to continue whether I'm signed or not. However, a record label would get that music to the fans possibly more effectively than I would. So, you see the dilemma.

Of course I create art mainly because I've got no choice and I would probably implode if I didn't, but without an audience to listen to it, it's just masturbation - a momentary sense of satisfaction but ultimately unfulfilling. One way or another, art cannot be completely one-sided. Art only ever came to exist because something needed to be communicated in a way that surpassed or transcended a more direct approach (That sounds pretentious, but think about how music can make a whole room full of people move their bodies without telling them anything through spoken language or visual stimulation. Think about the ideas, thoughts, and feelings a parable or myth can invoke where a simple moral aphorism might fail to inspire).

Art is communication, the communication of feelings, thoughts, and more often a wildly fluctuating mixture of both. If I'm not communicating with someone, I'm talking to myself or a god I can never know for certain is there.

There is nothing more beautiful than when a group of people are together and can feel a piece of music together. One of the very first "spiritual" experiences of my life was at a Marilyn Manson concert when I was 17. The lights went dim and all we could see was him on stage. The opening chords to "Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)" began and everyone in the venue ignited their lighters (this was before everyone had a cellphone). I looked behind me into the vast, black, seemingly endless crowd full of weirdos, misfits, nerds, and heathens illuminated faintly by the tiny flames. All were singing together and swaying together. It was beautiful. A lot of them probably had as little in common with each other as Vlad the Impaler had with Siddhartha Gautama, and yet there we all were singing and feeling together. It was truly a high without the drugs, the same kind experienced by students of meditation (as I would discover later), shamans in trance, and athletes when they're in "the zone."

Art has that power. An eerie power to inspire and unite, which is why some religions use music intrinsically with their ceremonies and others ban it completely in the fear that secular forms will hypnotize their followers away. Art is social. Art is communal. And it was for that purpose that music, as humans know it, evolved.

However, when I'm actually writing the songs, arranging them, finding the right visual artwork to put with them, I am an absolute control freak. I think a lot of people can appreciate the possessiveness one feels toward the thing created. Yet, in the end, I cannot but admit that it belongs to everyone who hears it just as much as it does to me. There are certain things I simply cannot compromise on as a songwriter. But there are others which I'm sure, with time, patience, and discipline, I can be willing to open up more to my listeners. In this day and age if I treat my audience as "outsiders" I won't attract them, and I won't keep them.

Of course I realize that one of the first no-nos of self-marketing is to admit naked insecurity, announce anything that could be construed as self-deprecating, and remotely hint at the fact that one is uncomfortable with normal socialization, interaction, and interpersonal exchange (in that sense, marketing one's work and dating are remarkably similar). Telling people I hope will be fans that I'm uncomfortable interacting with people? Not the smartest move I could make. But my music is all about facing those very problems, overcoming them and sometimes being overcome by them. I'm not telling an inspirational story in my music, that would be inauthentic. I'm merely expressing reality as I see it - the job of an artist. Sometimes it's beautiful and there is victory. Sometimes it is ugly and there is defeat. More often it is an excruciating flux of victory and defeat.

The Lazarus Gene's first album, entitled "Break The Cage," is almost complete. The songs are done and I'm currently figuring out the exact track order before sending it off to be mastered and completing the artwork (yes, it will have physical packaging with lyrics and everything, just like the old days. I, as a music fan, like to have something in my hands when I buy an album. It extends what I'm listening to into a tangible form, it makes the music a physical experience, and I believe that the current trend of clicking and downloading will become boring to true fans before long. I download lots of albums, but I always buy the pressed copies of my favorite bands. But if I'm wrong and people are not wont to buy up the physical albums as I hope they eventually will, the art will still of course be available for PDF download with the album. I've got my bases covered).

The album is almost there, ready to be polished off and put on display. I've had a few trusted artists listen to the album and give me their input, and after one or two more, I will set the track order in stone and then the wheels will truly be in motion. The next step after that is to play live and give people an experience they will want to repeat, and of course have the album ready on hand for them to take home with them.

I suppose I already do succumb to compromise and advisement on my music, but only from trusted individuals. Perhaps when and if I gain the audience I believe I deserve, over time we will build a similar relationship, albeit in a slightly different way. They'll trust me that I'll deliver, and I'll trust them that they'll support. And through that exchange, we can perhaps come to share even more and I'll be less afraid to open up the process a bit when I'm recording and packaging future albums. I guess we'll only know for certain when we get there.


With infinite gratitude and appreciation to any and all who read this,

DBH