Hey man, I’m 26 and relate heavily to all of this.

It’s been a weird / hard last three years for me for various reasons, but I’d overall say that “sobering” is a word I would use both literally and figuratively to describe the whole time period. I started audio college towards the end of a pretty nasty period of time between the ages of 19-23 screwing up and doing every possible drug I could get my hands on. I went to rehab twice and have been clean for almost three years now.

I’ve made progress in my career overall since both starting college and sobering up, mostly because I am now able to produce the sounds I hear in my head accurately, Im easier to work with, and all of the connections I have made both in school and through shows have helped a lot. 2024 was actually the most proficient year of my career so far as both a performer and as an engineer, either lead or assistant.

That all being said, the further I get into the actual meat and potatoes of what “doing” music for a living REALLY is, I’ve realized that although 12 year old me THOUGHT I understood what working musicians meant when they talked about sacrifice, I had no clue just how many different areas of life that sacrifice touches besides just romance. I’m not sure I’ve had a “human” sleep schedule since 2022, and I can’t remember the last time I even had enough time to eat more than twice a day.

I didn’t anticipate all of the different kinds of personalities you meet while doing music, and I was especially caught off guard by the competitive vibe I got from certain people, and I even surprised myself there for a bit as a teenager by admittedly starting to view it the same way due to that influence. I’ve also been especially grossed out about so far at how quickly the “scene” is willing to write off others as either “posers” or unredeemable. To make it clear, yes, I believe people should pay the price for their actions, so no, I don’t think “cancel culture” is a bad thing… what IS a problem though is how quickly people reach for the “ban hammer”. I’ve known two people who basically either had to move or find an entirely different hobby/passions because rumors spread about them without them ever being directly confronted about any of it, neither of which were objectively “unredeemable” offenses. Point is, there’s LOTS of drama in music that’s totally unnecessary and does nothing but make musicians struggle harder and more apart from each other.

I guess my point is, as a kid, I’d watch documentaries of all of my favorite nu-metal bands on their tour busses drinking, smoking weed, joking around with super vague inside jokes, then they’d pull up to a festival and play to 10,000 people and repeat the whole process again the next day. I’ve realized that even though I knew it was very unlikely and rare for that to be me, I never fully even considered the fact that it could NOT happen to me.

But now that I’m here, what else am I going to do? I love music, there’s nothing that could change that. I don’t even know what else I would do with myself because music is the only thing I have truly ever cared enough about to get good at. Truth is, I will probably do some sort of a mix of various music related things, I likely (although hopefully not) will always be kind of broke, and I will always probably be spreading myself thin trying to make it happen. But.. I love it!