THE $64,000 QUESTION!:
I was asked by another musician, "How did YOU (my emphasis) become successful?" I thought he really wanted to know, but... Another good friend game me some great advice. One night on stage, some of the musicians were tossing around some demeaning comments, and Dan Byars said, "You can do anything you wish in music if you just don't take anything personally".
One of the most unexpected and frustrating things to deal with is being taken seriously by other musicians while also being a doctor. I thought the only problem would be having enough time for music. Not to be.
I was about to go into a long diatribe concerning stereotyping doctors as rich people born with a "silver spoon in the mouth" because we had almost nothing! Wait...sorry, but it's difficult to heed my friend's advice. It's easy to fall into the trap. I'll just make one point on that subject...take a look at the picture under the "Photos" Tab and find the photo of me holding a guitar at about age two. The background scene is what's revealing.
TWO BASIC RULES:
These suggesions won't guarantee that any one particluar individual will become successful despite their truth and validity; however, I knew two things from the very start:
1. YOU WILL HAVE A FOLLOWING: It's true. No matter what type of music you sing or play, no matter how good you are, even if it's only your mother...you will have a following. There are factors that will determine how large your following will be, but you will have one. We've all seen people who we knew can't play a radio and yet are successful.
2. IT'S ABOUT RUNNING IN TO THAT ONE RIGHT PERSON: I KNEW that if that one right person heard my music, I would have at least a chance. Everyone's "RIGHT PERSON" is different. It's not winning American Idol for me, nor for MOST people! We all know that. However, although Rachel Crow didn't win the X-Factor, 2011, Clive Davis was sitting in the audience! He was her RIGHT PERSON, .
So, how did it happen for me? That's what I was asked...
Music, my love! Music, my bane! It's like we've always had a love-hate relationship! Why was every door I knocked on shut. Couldn't put my finger on it for quite some time. Without much, it took 15 to 20 years to accrue enough decent equipment to have what even slightly resembled a recording studio. However, we kept scrimping, building, writing music, performing when time allowed, and a small following began gather.
WEST TEXAS AND MAGIC:
Grew up in Odessa, Texas. Things were pretty much as described above. I began playing guitar at 5 years old. Well, at least I got a guitar for my birthday, my dad taught me the chord D7th, and my neighborhood friend, Doug Lee, pulled me up and down the street in his wagon he had hooked on to the back of his bicycle as I strummed a D7th chord over and over until my stage hand got tired and went home to eat dinner.
It's pretty easy to get by with junk equipment, form a band, get gigs, and perform when you still live with your parents. The stent with playing music locally lasted from 4th grade through high school. We had a nice following for a bunch of kids. I was 15 years old, playing with high school and college guys, and was a fair guitarist for the time (or, so I thought). However, a gauntlet was suddenly thrown. A friend turned me on to grammy winner / violin virtuoso Jean Luc-Ponty. I was mesmerized! Then, I saw Steve Morse and the Dixie Dregs on the Atlanta-based TV Show, "TUSH", and witnessed things being done that I didn't think were humanly possible! It was magic! Both thrilling and depressing.
STUDYING, LEARNING...IT CAN'T BE DONE!"
I had studied Clapton, Hendrix, Beck, Django Rheinhardt, Josh White, Merle Travis and others, but now I was being shown a plane of artistry so much higher than I knew that my next goal became to learn to play the way these guys were playing. I studied Ponty, Steve Morse, Joe Satriani, Eddie Van Halen, Alan Holdsworth, and every jazz and fusion "great" I could find. When I read in Guitar Player Magazine that Holdsworth was recording his grammy award winning albums in his garage, and when I recalled that Herb Alpert did the same thing (his smash hit, "The Lonely Bull"), I knew that my childhood goal was possible. I struck up a conversaton with a musical equipment sales rep, and I suggested to him that if one could record an Album or CD onto a cassette machine and have it sound very good, I could record directly onto a cassette machine and produce a pretty decent reording. He was kind and said that there were many, many people in the industry who would disagree with me, and then suggested some equipment I should purchase. (He was a good salesman!). By the way, my song "Chick'n Lick'n: A Bohemian Rap-City" which was used in Tom Green's Motion Picture, "Shred" was recorded on that cassette machine. Lesson: Don't let ANYONE tell you "it can't be done if you believe it can".
Anyway, we saved and scrimped and bought every piece of decent recording and musical equipment we could afford, but no matter how hard I worked, no matter how many songs I wrote and recorded, no matter how exciting or beautiful my music was, someting always happened to shut the door. I called every producer, song promoter, and even had the incredible opportunity of reaching one of the biggest producers in the world by telephone, and he actually listened to my CD and spoke with me for a good 1/2 hour! I'm keeping his name confidential, because I'm not about to be responsible for a flood of people thinking they can do the same thing. After listening to my CD, he gave me some great advice.
"WORD"...PECOS...SIGNED:
Life suddenly changed in a magical way. I'd been writing and recording only Christian Rock Music, and I took a chance. Sent a copy of a song I'd written and recorded to Word Music, One of the song screeners was from Pecos, TX, and she recognized "Odessa, TX" on the return address. She grabbed it immediately she said, listened to it, liked it, and she actually got the song SIGNED with Word Music, one of the biggest Christian Music Companies in the U.S. This was a great lesson! She was simply that "RIGHT PERSON". Lesson: Don't forget how one tape was literally plucked out of a pile of thousands.
"TAKE ME BACK TO TULSA"!, LEON RUSSELL, AND SOMEONE GOT SCARED:
A record producer heard a tape of some of my work, was impressed and asked me to come to Tulsa to play lead guitar on an album. The producer was Wayne Boosahda, the husband of award-winning Christian Contemporary Singer Stephanie Boosahda. The guy who gave Wayne the tape said that although guitar virtuoso Phil Keaggy was an outstanding guitarist, he said I was as good and that I could play in more genres than Keaggy (I didn't think so but was a kind compliment). The engineer who recorded the album at this beautiful ranch studio in Sapulpa, near Tulsa, was none other than Leon Russell's first producer. He asked me to move the family there and work as a studio musician. The door had flown wide open! But, I didn't do it. Hate to admit it, but I was scared. I was afraid. Mainly, it was because we had a junker car, 3 kids, no money, and I wasn't sure we could survive in Tulsa with me trying to make a start as a studio musician. I was at the doorway of being discovered, and was afraid to walk through the door. For years I blamed everyone else including God forso many doors being closed, but it was my own fault! Lesson: if a door opens wide, you have to walk through it! The corellary to that lesson is: If you don't walk through an open door, it's nobody's fault but your own! What an opportunity lost! But, you can't say, "I shoulda!" Don't do it.
SOME NEW IDEAS:
Accepted to medical school, but continued to learn from guitarists, played with some great musicians. There were guys in my class who had attended Juliard! We had a group called the "Arrhythmics" with some of the best musicians I've ever played with. I wanted more, musicially. I wanted to do something no one else had ever done. We had talent shows, and I started doing something no one had ever even thought of doing back then. I discovered that I could take a digital delay unit, lock the delay sequence, and keep it playing over and over as I played along with it. I had discovered how to do "looping" and was using it as far back as 1980. There were some musicians who were even laughing at me for doing this. At one of our talent shows, I started up a monotonous loop but played a ripping fast lead over it and got a standing ovation. For days, students, professsors, and others quizzed me on how in the world I pulled that off. A newspaper reporter did a story on me. I realized I was onto something, but that wasn't what I wanted. I wanted to develop a completely new wa of playing guitar. It took over 10 years, but I finally developed what I call the "rolling style" of playing guitar, and no one else has been able to figure it out, yet...even some that I've showed it to. But, that's a different story.
COUPLA FAT GUYS...A NEW MEDIUM:
It was 1999. Was already an established physician in Denver. Was web-camming with friends and meeting new people. Saw a couple of guys posting great videos of their cooking show. I audaciously emailed Dave Grier and asked how they did their videos. He was great, nice guy, he told me how they did it, and then asked what I was doing and asked for a CD. He contacted me right away and revealed that he and his partner were the founders of Chicago's Legendary Coupla Fat Guys Blues Band (their "Wide Album" is great!) and they also had a radio program that was streamed on the internet and asked if he could interview me for their "Celebrity of the Week" program which ran many seasoned, well known musicians, comedians, and other succesfful entertainers. He called, inteviewed me, and they played the show through the entire week of Thanksgiving. Dave posted on their website that my CD, "Sole Intention" is a "must have CD" along with Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Cream, the Beatles, and other huge groups of music. He posted a link to my Official Website stating, "Who is this guy?! This is the greatest guitarist/doctor in the world!!!" He said he was sending the song "Runner" over to "my buddies at ESPN" stating that the intro was incredible and it was great for a sports show.
NAR:
This website was posting music from "Indie" artists like me. They posted my CD's, my songs and played them on the air. The show began getting national attention and this is how I began getting radio airplay in Los Angeles, Hollywood, Boston, New York, etc. That first year of radio airplay got me the best royalty checks I've ever received. Also, had four #1 Hits on the Top 40 and Top 20, "Runner" voted 2002 Rock Song of the Year, Nominated 2002 Rock Artist of the Year, won the 2003 Rock Musician of the Year, and was voted in to the New Artist Radio Hall of Fame at the NAR Awards Ceremony in Nashville, TN in August of 2006.
"Kyd Wok" aired on the famous Dr. Demento Show, and when the Dr. revealed on the show that I was "real doctor" the invitation for newspaper interviews came in and therefore Hollywood and LA newspapers discussed my music and "the doctor" who was writing Comedic music played on Demento's show. Ya gotta hand to Dr. Demento, by the way...another guy named Yankovic got his start there. Nice man!
ALREADY IN A MUSEUM!???:
The curator of the International Museum of Peace and Solidarity in Kazakhstan asked if they could post my CD in the museum along with my poster, and asked if I would write a statement on my ideas and feelings for World Peace. It's still posted in the International Museum of Peace and Solidarity along with Phil Collins, Crystal Gayle, Senatory Ted Kennedy, the Prince of Belgium, 2 Nobel Laureates, and dozens of other celebrities and dignitaries from around the world.
IT'S ALL FREE: (This is just some advice on what NOT to do. This advice is free, too)
Napster made certain that my music was stolen and passed around the world. My song, "Kyd Wok", went around the world. However, it wasn't just about stealing music that my family and I had spent years and years of time on as well as tens of thousands of dollars to create, It was about markets around the world also stealing the music and SELLING IT, while we got NOTHING from those sales. Say what you will about how everyone deserves music "Free", but I would NEVER walk in to someone's place of business and walk out with their products and tell them I'm not paying, because I deserve it for free. There is nothing I can do about it. I don't have the clout or the money Metallica has, but the day I'm able to walk in to a grocery store, stock up my grocery cart with food, and walk out without paying and have them smile back at me and thank me for coming in and taking their food while paying nothing for it...that's the day I'll agree that all music should be free, as well.
There is a good movie starring Elvis Presley. He's trying to become a successful rock star and is playing a small town where the guys are jealous of the attention he's getting from the girls. They press him to sing a song right there in the cafe. He does it, and then asks the guy who pressed him to sing, "What do you do for a living?" He answered that he was a mechanic. Elvis told him to get outside and fix his car. Now, it was his turn, and Elvis wanted free mechanic work on his car. When the guy refused, Elvis proceeded to mop the floor with him.
The quote made in Tom Hank's movie "That Thing You Do": Guy Patterson's idol, jazz great Del Paxton, said if you can keep your wits about you, and hang on to your money, you MIGHT just land on your feet.
If you want to go the Indie Route (Independent) and if you can keep your sanity, keep your wits about you, and understand what you're up against, if you can understand there are millions of "HONEST" people, friends, and fans out there, and if you can remember the three key bits of advice:
1. You WILL have a following of some size.
2. You need to run in to the RIGHT PERSON.
3. Don't take anything personally,
You might just come out a success. Whichever way you choose, remember to keep rockin'! Always!
Chocky Kay
Bulldog Productions, LLC
