Part 4: Epilogue

I am so grateful to have had this opportunity to share my story and insights via Amy Poehler’s Smart Girls. This has truly been an honor and an empowering experience for me. It’s so funny to think back on my younger self, just starting out, so full of bravado with so much to prove. I could never have imagined just where this journey would take me, and I can’t wait to see where we go from here. I thought I was at the peak of my career in my early 20’s. Whether somebody told me that or I made it up in my head, that’s what I believed. I’m so glad I didn’t give up on myself back then! I can’t imagine what my life would be like if I hadn’t had the courage to follow my heart and pursue the road less traveled. Even though we don’t always see eye to eye, my parents taught me how to find my strength through their strength and conviction. Their pursuit of the truth inspired me to pursue my truth as well. I think I’ve always known that the hardest stuff in life is the most rewarding, and no matter how hard we try, we aren’t gonna get what we really want without working for it. Maybe from the outside it seems possible, but it never lasts unless it’s rooted in the right place. Believe me - I’ve learned everything I know the hard way. 

It’s a funny thing to be free. We are so fortunate in this country, even with all it’s imperfections, to live as we choose. After so many years, waiting for somebody to give me permission to live my life on my own terms, I finally realized I’ve been free all along. I just have to own it. One of my favorite scenes in “A Bug’s Life” is when Flik and all the other ants, working feverishly to collect food for the a-hole grasshoppers before they come back from their vacation in Mexico, figure out there are a lot more ants than there are grasshoppers. They realize that if they claim their power and come together, they can protect and save themselves from tyranny. I love that moment of triumph! But what this means for me is that I can’t live my life in fear, and I can’t expect anyone to do for me what I can and must do for myself. I believe we teach others how to treat us, and though that process is really uncomfortable, in the end, if we don’t take responsibility for ourselves, we really have no one else to blame. I think that’s the best case scenario if we want to succeed. There’s power in taking ownership of our lives.  

I’m excited about what’s coming next! Every day is something new, often with someone new, and I’m constantly learning and growing in collaboration with others. I mentioned this in a previous essay, but writing and creating as a team has taught me how to trust myself again, to love myself again, and to value myself again. In turn, I’m learning to trust others, love others and value others. After my initial disappointment and heartbreak in the church, I told myself I didn’t need anybody else. I tried hard to go it alone, but I’ve found that the good stuff gets even better when there’s somebody there to celebrate with. My biggest challenge is receiving the gifts I’ve worked so hard for. Fear of success is just as real as fear of failure, I’ve found. (There’s that ownership thing again.) 

My new EP, “What If There Is No Destination,” was released June 16. I’m proud of it; I think it represents the best of me. Though my spiritual path is ever-evolving, I’ve always felt strongly that there is a Higher Power watching over me and protecting me. I believe in a bigger picture much greater than me, and I love being a part of it. I’ve been given so many opportunities in my life and career, and I’ve been blessed with more people than I can count who have appeared in just the right moment to show me the way to go and have given of themselves freely in support of my music. I can say, for the first time, that I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be, and I wouldn’t change it for the world. 

For those of us who come from strict religious backgrounds, it’s hard to imagine that we can create our own happiness. That idea wasn’t an option and if it ever came up, even as a curious question, it was met with the threat of imminent death. Needless to say, fear can be persuasive, and people who use their power to oppress others know that and prey upon it. I think females are especially vulnerable. It’s scary and exhausting to have to constantly fight for what we want, and sometimes our opponent is simply too big to take down, but the alternative is something I can’t live with. Plus, I feel that creative people have a responsibility to share our gifts, and true artists and truth seekers will continue to search our souls, with or without money, fame, acknowledgement and sometimes any kind of recognition. That’s the stuff we’re made of, and that’s the stuff that changes the world. 

Part 3: Where Do We Go From Here?

If you’ve read the first couple of essays, you know it’s been an intense process for me, getting to this new place of forgiveness and reinvention. Along the way, working so hard to find acceptance, redemption and validation as an artist, I lost myself. I lost my voice and my identity. I was definitely at a place in my career where I was throwing shit against the wall, hoping something would stick. Of all the music I’ve created over the years, the stuff I’m most proud of is the stuff that’s the most real; the most raw; the most vulnerable and typically, the most unexpected. (That’s also the stuff people respond to the most.) I believe that inspiration is a divine influence and my job as an artist and songwriter is to do my very best to deliver the intended message in any given moment. In my opinion, what makes the best songs is the degree to which everybody in the room is willing to be honest and brave. It can’t be about the money.  

My new EP, What If There Is No Destination, makes me feel like I used to feel about my music. A kid in my bedroom again, with my dual cassette jambox learning to play every Indigo Girls song or listening obsessively to Europe’s “The Final Countdown,” pretending I was playing lead guitar in the band. I was fearless, and I was hungry for it. It was just me and my guitar. Nobody telling me what I should do or how I should sing or that I should record it differently. I never second-guessed myself in the beginning. Don’t get me wrong - I’ve been fortunate enough to work with some of the best and most talented producers and engineers in the industry over the years, and I’ve learned a shit ton of invaluable tools from them, but I needed to empower myself to trust my own voice and vision on my own terms this time. 

I knew I wanted to perform each song live and then color the tracks around the performances. I wanted to create a sound and capture a moment in time, and I wanted it to feel authentic. So, I set up an Avantone CV-12 tube mic for vocals and an Ear Trumpets “Edwina” large diaphragm condenser mic for the acoustic and went for it. I played and sang to a click and only allowed myself 3-4 takes each. Then I picked the best ones. My goal was to get full takes of each performance - I really didn’t want to comp anything together if I could help it. I learned a lot by throwing myself into the fire, and I love the vibe that urgency created. I’ve made so many polished sounding records - it was nice to immerse myself in playing again and just let it be whatever it wanted to be. 

Over the years, no matter what kind of records I’ve made, people always tell me they love the stripped down solo acoustic approach the best. I think there’s an energy in the live performances that is hard to capture in the studio. It’s a living, breathing thing, and you can hear the humanity in the music, and that’s part of what makes it great. My guitar became an extension of me as soon as I picked it up. I took it everywhere and I played it all the time. When I had nobody to talk to, I had my guitar. I cried into it, slept with it, sweat on it, sang to it- that instrument knows everything about me. We created a big, dynamic sound, just the two of us, and I’ve never had to think about it. 

“Easy Mark” is the first song I had written by myself in… I don’t even know how long. I’ve been so comfortable co-writing that writing alone is intimidating. I had to challenge myself to write a song a month for the first half of last year just to prove I still could. This particular song came out of the desert of loneliness and anxiety I had been living in, sorting through a hoarder house of emotional baggage and beginning the arduous process of forgiveness and letting go. Writing it reconnected me to who I am. There’s something familiar about it that brings me full circle from where I started. I remember sending an earlier version to my manager and his response was, “I love it! It sounds just like you.” I’m pretty sure that’s the best compliment he could’ve given me. 

I wrote “Hollow” on the piano after returning from the first leg of the Joe Purdy tour last year. We were in the trenches together out there. Our country was just beginning to show signs of unraveling, with the looming election and building tensions, there were terror attacks and discriminatory bills being passed targeting the transgender community. I’m not transgender and have never struggled with wanting to change my sex, but I certainly know what it’s like to be glared at, stared down and excluded for being different. I know what it’s like to be treated unfairly just because you’re in the minority. I know what it’s like to have to make your own kind of beautiful. The obvious hypocrisy of people who have everything and don’t want to give up anything to help others is impossible to swallow. I have never understood the concept of going out of your way to hurt somebody else. To take away what they have just because you’re in a position of power to do so. Every self-righteous Christian wants to quote verses from Leviticus about homosexuality, but nobody wants to quote the verses about Jesus turning over tables in the temple over greed and idolatry. Nobody wants to talk about why Jesus chose to sit down with the woman at the well. Yeah, it’s a sweet story now, but I’m sure at the time everybody was watching in judgement. He had everything to lose by showing public love to that woman, and he didn’t give two shits about what anybody thought. She had a huge hole in her heart that needed filling, and that’s all that mattered. 

To whom much is given, much is required, and if you’ve never known that kind of isolation and despair, you can’t know the relief of somebody taking that weight off of your shoulders, even for a moment. Somebody making you feel worthy when you feel worthless inside. When love has always been conditional, true love is hard to take. You learn not to trust, and it takes a lot of work to undo that damage and reprogram your heart. After I wrote “Hollow,” I started telling the story onstage of how it came to be. I had never been so candid in my storytelling. I know I’ve never had much of a filter to begin with, but I took it even farther, talking about the church and talking about being gay. I talked about being rejected by the Christians who preached love and inclusion to me. I can’t tell you how overwhelming the response has been. I thought that opening myself up pushed people away, but I’m realizing that being vulnerable is what draws people in. We all have a unique story to tell, and there’s power in telling it. If we ever hope to change, we have to lean in to the things we’re most afraid of, and we’re gonna have to start listening to each other so we learn how to love again. 

“The Lucky One” was actually written for another project I was working on with my friend and collaborator Adrianne Gonzalez. We were in Nashville on a writing trip, and we wrote with Alex Wong that day. I love this song. Everything about it encapsulates the journey for me. All my life as an adult, I’ve struggled with seeing the forest for the trees. I guess sometimes it’s hard to see the fact that I’m still in the game as something to be proud of. The fact that I wake up every day doing what I love. It’s not always perfect and there are definitely parts of my history I wish I could change, but I made it through to the other side of the war, pretty much intact. Everything I’ve been through is helping me to move forward, and I’m getting closer to the things I really want. 

When Jeremy Silver, Liz Huett and I were writing “Tough Girl,” we had started with a different idea and a different vibe altogether. Whatever it was, there wasn’t much to it because we never landed on anything we could sink our teeth into. Usually that means it’s not worth pursuing, but if you can work until you break through the wall, you land on something real. That’s what happened here. We landed on “Tough Girl.” I thought we were writing for Liz’s upcoming Interscope Record, but it turned out I needed this song for me. Not that two people can’t record the same song, but I just connected so much with the message on this one. I also realized that it’s the mirror image of a song I wrote when I was 19 called “Ugly.” I was dying behind a fortress of pain, and I felt exactly the way I sang it. I’ve worked hard to get to a place where I’m okay with being open to being okay with letting other people love me. And it’s exhausting being angry all the time. Hahahaha! I mean, it’s true. I’m so grateful to have been a part of writing this song, and Jeremy and Liz are two of the best songwriters and people I know. The great thing about music is that this incarnation of the song wouldn’t be what it is without the three of us exactly. It was meant to be. I love that kind of magic. 

Once a friend in Nashville told me, “Garrison, there are some doors in life you have to walk through alone. It’s scary, and it’s lonely, but if you can do the work to get through it to the other side, you’ll never be the same.” That’s what’s happening here, through my story you’re witnessing. Thank you for being a part of my journey. As Greg Holden said to me the other day, “It’s not what you envisioned, but it’s just what you asked for.” Just like writing these essays. Who would’ve thought this would be something I’d be doing in conjunction with the release of a record? Yet, here I am, telling my story in my own words with people willing to listen. Don’t ever stop believing in miracles. The hope is what keeps us alive.  

Part 2: Just Start Walking

After my brief stint in college, I moved to Memphis and began focusing on my music career. Playing music is all I’ve ever wanted to do anyway. 

I rented a studio apartment and found a job at Ardent Records, a classic and revered recording studio in midtown. I had heard of Ardent through my college friends I played and toured with. Some of their favorite artists and bands had history with Ardent, namely Alex Chilton and Big Star. I felt like I was in my element there- everybody shared a love for music and for the industry. Plus, we were all a bunch of misfits. 

I was writing and playing shows every chance I got. I put a band together and continued touring on the road, and I was also developing a fan base in Memphis and getting some real attention as a new artist and songwriter on the scene. 

My first manager was a guy I met at Ole Miss through my music friends. He managed a really cool record store on the Oxford town square, and as such, was constantly chatting up sales guys from all the labels who would call about the artists they were working. (When actual records and record stores existed! Yes, that was once a thing.) I had recorded an EP called “Stupid Girl,” and it had the first version of my song “Superhero” on it. That was the song that changed my life. 

He had played “Superhero” for a guy named Ray who worked in sales at Geffen Records at the time, and Ray freaked out about it after one listen. He ended up passing the song around to everybody at the label, and the next thing you know, Ray was front and center for a show I was playing on the Highland strip. A few days after that show, I got a call from my manager at work asking me if I was sitting down. Of course I was sitting down, and the next thing I knew, we were on a plane to LA together to meet with the head of A&R and the president of Geffen. I officially signed my first record deal shortly thereafter. It was 1996, and I was 21. 

My life became kind of surreal at that point. I had left college, put my focus on music and gotten a record deal. Just like that. Though I had been touring and playing out since I was a teenager, I hadn’t really had to struggle all that much to be recognized. I hesitate to say I hadn’t payed any dues at that point, but I was very fortunate in how quickly things came together for me with respect to getting signed. It was all happening. 

I can’t remember how I came to be at the Women’s World Cup game in the late 90’s- the one at the rose bowl where Brandy Chastain took her shirt off- but when I got home from the game, a friend of mine had recorded the opening of the telecast where they had used about 90 seconds of “Superhero” for in the intro! There was a montage of the girls running out and scoring goals and kicking ass to the chorus of my song- it was empowering! Through my contacts at the record label, I ended up getting to meet the team on David Letterman on a trip to NYC. I have an official jersey that Tiffany Milbrett gave me with her name on it hanging in my closet. 

The first major tour I was on was opening solo acoustic for The Sundays for three weeks of sold out shows across the U.S. and Canada. They’re an English band who had a hit called “Here’s Where The Story Ends” in the 90’s. Actually, now that I think about it, they sounded a lot like Sixpence None The Richer. We were playing clubs like the Fillmore in San Francisco and old theaters like The State Theater in Seattle. You could’ve heard a pin drop every night in every room. After having played Lilith Fair solo acoustic, I was getting my head around performing by myself again, but it was still nerve-racking to play in front of that many people hanging on every word. It was a whole new level. I remember one night at the Fillmore, I decided to play a new song, and I started it 3 times with encouragement from the crowd before I had to just give up. I was so nervous that I couldn’t remember all the words!! The love and support I was getting from the audience was filling me up in a way that felt so validating. People were responding to my songs and my stories with what felt like genuine affection. I was still in a very raw and volatile place, and that was resonating with crowds and listeners. Being onstage felt like the safest place I could be, especially considering the circumstances I had just come out of. I could be whoever I wanted to be up there, for better or worse. 

After a couple years after signing my deal, Geffen dissolved into Interscope Records and I ended up leaving the label after jumping through lots of hoops and running in a ton of circles. I never felt like anybody at Interscope really understood me, and I wasn’t into having to prove myself to anyone at that point. In those days I took everything personally, and I was very defensive. The rug had literally been pulled out from under me, and I was having an identity crisis. I was too much of a boy and not enough of a girl. I felt insecure everywhere I went, assuming people were looking at me and judging me. I still didn’t have anybody to talk to who really understood what I was going through and what I had been through with the church. I always had a stylist for photo shoots and stuff, but they wanted to dress me up in clothes I would never wear in public, and I didn’t know how to vocalize my own vision. I couldn’t give myself permission to explore and define who I wanted to be because I had always been told who to be. Obviously a lot of my issues were tied up in the trauma and confusion of being ostracized by the Christian community, and so much of the hurt and anger I was feeling was totally unresolved. The demise of the Geffen I knew would be the first of many heartbreaks in my career, and I could never have expected how painful each one would be. I never cared about being famous; I’ve just always had a lot to say. Unfortunately, I equated my popularity in music with my worth as a person. And as my friend Jay Nash would say, “That’s a hard lesson to learn.”

I need to condense a bunch of time into few words here. Basically, I could sum up the next 15 years in the timeline by saying I continued to sign more record deals and tour most of the year. I opened for Steve Earle, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Shawn Colvin, John Doe, Melissa Etheridge, The Indigo Girls- most of my heroes, actually. I’ve had so many experiences in my career that I know are once-in-a lifetime opportunities. Still, somehow, nothing has ever really been good enough. 

I lost my voice chasing after acceptance. I know now that I was ultimately looking for redemption. I just wanted to know that I was good enough, and there was a giant hole inside my heart that needed filling. The only problem with that, I figured out, is that it’s a lot of work to fill up that hole day after day. Sometimes the only way to move forward is to just start walking. I believe I reached a point in my life where the anger I was holding on to was working against me. I guess you could say I hit a bottom. As an old friend in Nashville used to tell me, “It’s an inside job, G. Sometimes you just gotta sit in the soup.”

Over the last several years, I’ve pulled back on my touring career, shifting my focus from the race of the touring life to writing songs every day with different producers and artists. I produced and co-wrote a record with Margaret Cho that was nominated for a Grammy this year, which was amazing, and I’ve had tons of songs placed in television and films. I never used to write with other people. I think I felt threatened by it. I had a good friend tell me one time that she looked forward to the day when I got out of my own way. Oh, how right she was, and what a process that would turn out to be!! I have learned more than I ever could have imagined from working with others. I’ve learned to trust again, to listen, to appreciate somebody else’s strengths without having to make myself feel weaker. When I was younger, I felt entitled to the opportunities that came my way. I was so focused on getting to the next thing that I missed some of the joys for the drama of the struggle. Struggle is good; it teaches us a lot, if we let it. But as my beautiful partner Renè has taught me, we can’t dwell too long there. See, I became so obsessed with what I didn’t have- I wasn’t straight enough, girly enough, cool enough, sexy enough, rich enough, successful enough- you name it- I got so sidetracked with that narrative that I became a victim. I wasted a lot of time being bitter, in a feedback loop for many years, blaming any and everybody for all the ways things hadn’t panned out. I told myself I didn’t need to be an artist. I had told myself that part of my life was over. 

A year ago, I got a call out of the blue from my good friend Joe Purdy, asking me to open for him on a tour for his new record. I remember crying when I hung up the phone. Joe had made me feel relevant again. He could’ve picked anybody, and he picked me. I can’t explain it to you- you might think that’s stupid, but he gave me a great gift that day that I will always be grateful for. I had been working hard to distance myself from Garrison Starr the artist, believing that nobody wanted to hear what she has to say. The truth is I had forgotten that I don’t need anybody’s permission to make music, and I certainly can’t exist trying to please everybody in every way. So much of being an artist is the expression itself, at least for me. It’s being a part of something greater than myself. I am a conduit on my best day for a bigger message crying to be heard, and unless I am inspired, I can’t inspire others. My job is to keep my head down and do my work, and if it happens to be something people like, that’s icing on the cake. I see the artist life as a higher calling. It’s very much a blessing and a curse. 

In my life today, I am grateful. I discipline myself to focus on all the blessings, and I am painfully aware of the second chances I’ve been given. Somebody out there really wants me to make good on all the lessons I’ve had to learn the hard way, and I intend to make them proud. I know now that the lies I was told growing up are somebody else’s baggage. That’s somebody else’s cross to bear. All I have to do now is be me. 

Part 1: The Stuff We're Made Of

My name is Garrison Starr, and I was born in Memphis, TN, on April 29, 1975. I am a singer, songwriter, recording artist and producer, and I currently live in Los Angeles.

(Technically, I grew up in Northwest Mississippi in a small town called Hernando, about 20 miles south of Memphis. I like to make that distinction whenever I’m telling people where I’m from.) 

I loved growing up in Mississippi. I loved fishing with my dad, playing all the sports, walking everywhere, and getting lost in the country. Everything smells awesome most all of the time, and it’s nice to feel safe as a kid in a community where people are looking out for each other. I kind of feel like the old South is a magical place, and there really is nothing like the smell of fresh cut grass at dusk, the elegance of those giant magnolia trees and the croaking of frogs and cicadas. I used to drive at night down the back roads in the spring and summer with all my windows down listening to Tori Amos’ “Little Earthquakes”…. 

I started writing songs from the moment I could talk, basically- sometimes they were just melodies that I would sing and sing and sing. I would record them on my little tape recorder and somehow figure out how to layer multiple vocals by using a double tape deck. I guess that was my intro into making records…. Somewhere along the way I acquired some drum sticks, so now there was a cool beat and a melody. My mom’s favorite numbers were always “Don’t Throw Your Head” and “Your Lips Are White”. I used to talk to myself all day in my room, pretending my bed was a car I was working on, or that I was preaching to all my stuffed animals. I even created a radio show where you could call in about life’s little gripes and I would give you advice. I made up and acted out the commercials in-between the segments! My parents used to love to listen back to those cassettes and laugh. Anyway, at some point through those years of pieces of beats and melodies becoming full songs, my parents realized music was a thing, and they bought me my first guitar. I know my mom really had her heart set on me playing the piano, but she came around. 

I grew up in a fundamentalist Christian family and community. That means that everybody pretty much takes the Bible literally, and they’re really intense about it. Being an artist, the inflexibility of this brand of Christianity has always been a rub for me. I heard them talking about Jesus and the way to love, but the way they spoke about “non-believers” and people who didn’t fit into their paradigm was not loving. The contradiction was confusing and really obvious I thought. I worried about what would happen if I didn’t become exactly who they thought I should be. My being a tomboy also complicated matters. I hated dresses- I wanted to be like my dad. Not that I wanted to be a boy- I just wanted to be able to do stuff that boys did. It pissed me off when I wasn’t invited to participate because I was a girl. I could do most of that shit better than those boys could anyway. The only time it ever crossed my mind that I was female was when somebody else brought it up. 

When I started realizing I was gay, I was very young. Like, single digits young. I’ve always been annoyingly self-aware, and I was horrified at the thought of what this would mean. I knew I was in an impossible situation. I heard them talking about gay people and people who didn’t measure up to their standards. It was black and white. There were no exceptions. I felt sick and suffocated. I wanted so badly to just be whoever I was in that moment and feel ok about it. I didn’t want to have to choose a side. I didn’t want to have to call myself a “homosexual”. That sounded like a disease. I was just Garrison. Your friend. Your daughter. Your niece. Your student. What difference did it make that I might be gay? p.s. did I mention I’m an only child? 

I went to a private Christian high school in Memphis, and during those years, I started performing. I had a natural connection to the guitar. I remember picking it up and feeling an immediate chemistry. Somehow it just made sense to me. I would spend hours listening to Indigo Girls’ records, learning all their songs by ear. I was learning to put my own flavor and style into my singing and my songs. I was writing some deep stuff, and though the songs were fairly dramatic, they were real, and some of them were really good. My best friend and I had made a tape in high school called “5 Songs to Fame”. I guess you could say that’s what started it all…… We did sell quite a few of those things, playing at some chapels around town at other schools as well as for our own school assemblies sometimes. We also played around Memphis in some bars like Newby’s- those were some fun days, singing lots of cover songs and a handful of our originals. People loved it, and that was validating. Playing music was all I wanted to do, and I had so much to say. Being onstage was the only place I felt like I truly belonged. I felt untouchable up there, and I never wanted to come down. As my struggle with my sexuality became more intense, my music truly did become my only refuge from the world around me. 

After graduating high school, I ended up at Ole Miss, where I went through sorority rush and pledged Chi Omega. All my friends were doing it- I thought it would be fun! And it was fun for awhile- when people kinda thought I might be gay, but I was dating dudes, so they couldn’t really be sure. One night, though, somebody caught me making out with a girl and the news spread like wildfire. My roommate’s mom called me, freaking out, “Garrison, don’t you know what you’re doing is a sin???!!!”. To be fair, I didn’t know how I felt about any of it. I really didn’t have a chance to process what I was feeling for the first time, being able to express myself the way I wanted, before an army of terrified faces were interrogating the crap out of me. I was told I could no longer lead the music at our youth group meetings. A “friend” of mine in my sorority took me up to the roof of our dorm and told me “if you don’t walk away from this lifestyle, don’t say I didn’t warn you.” In fact, my roommate’s dad was (and still is) a minister at a big Memphis church, and he gathered my roommate at the time and all our friends up to their house and instructed them on how to exclude me from stuff in the name of Jesus. They were told “not to speak to me until I repent.” He called it “tough love”. I was humiliated. I left college after a little over a year. 

I moved to Memphis and lived there, working and performing for a couple of years when my friend Bradford decided to move to Los Angeles to start his management career. I impulsively told him I would get a place with him if I could join, and that was that. I was excited about having a fresh start in a brand new and exciting place. I could finally figure out what I wanted, out from under the cloud of impending doom and judgement I had been living with for so long. I felt free for the first time in my life. LA gets this weird rap for being superficial and shallow, but I’ve never had that experience here. I’ve only found like-minded, kind-hearted people who are really talented and gracious. And blessed, for that matter. LA has saved me in so many ways, I think it will always feel like home. 

The journey I have taken to be writing to you today is ongoing. I could tell you so many stories about the ways I’ve succeed and more about the ways I have failed. I’m passionate and outspoken about what I believe. Sometimes that works for me and sometimes it doesn’t. I’ve never been good at hiding it, that’s for sure. But the music and the artists that I love and am inspired by aren’t concerned about doing anything for anybody else’s reasons. They were the ones writing the stories and creating the landscapes. That’s all I’ve ever wanted to do. I am a truth seeker, and those records and those artists were always with me through some of my darkest and confusing times. When I felt alone and outcast. I had the music. When I was silenced, I could use my voice in my songs. What a gift! 

I became very bitter over the years about what I went through in my Christian upbringing. It’s still a struggle to move on from the memory of that emotional trauma that runs so deep and is so deeply connected to the way I see the world. So much of that belief system robbed me of a lot of my youth. It robbed me of innocence. It was really, really hard. And sometimes all that old stuff still gets me down. 

It’s easy to dwell on the things I can’t change, but I have so much to be grateful for today. When I start a downward spiral of any sort, (my girlfriend calls it “circling the drain”) I remind myself how far I have come. I remind myself of all the blessings, including my relationship with my parents and the wonderful and ridiculous life I’m living with my partner Rene, that have come out of that shit storm of codependency to land me in the happiest place I can remember. I remind myself that every time I have been lost, I have been found again, by so many friends along the way that I believe have been sent at the exact right time to keep me going. And not to mention all the songs I get to be a part of creating. 

I wanted to share this story of where I came from and how I came to be because I want you to know that whoever you are, and wherever you come from, you are perfect, just as you are. I think the most important lesson I’ve learned through all that’s led me to you today is that I can trust myself. I have everything I need inside to change the world around me, and in fact, the only times in my life I look back on with regret are the times I know I betrayed myself in order to please somebody else. 

I’ve made a lot of records and have played a lot of shows, and I know we’ll be talking more about that in the days to come… My latest EP is called “What If There Is No Destination”, and the first single is called “Put Your Weapon Down”. I’m so proud of this new music for so many reasons, but most of all I’m just so grateful to be living my life doing exactly what I want and love to be doing. 

Technically, the single is a re-release, as we put it out last year around the Orlando, FL, nightclub shooting to offer support. The song is still timely, I would say. Fear is a pervasive and dangerous enemy, and it takes courage to stand and face it. I believe through understanding we can find compassion and love for each other. It just takes work. Inconvenient work. But that is what they say right? Nothing good ever comes easy?