We were lucky to catch up with Ian Forster recently and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Ian thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Did you always know you wanted to pursue a creative or artistic career? When did you first know?

As a child, I created stories with my friends. We drew comics, and I felt immense joy when the product was completed. “The Adventures of Ketchup Man, and Mustard Boy,” a work of genius, everyone check it out! People never seemed to be as excited as me, but I had unwavering belief in myself and what I created. Pretty soon, I was forced to take piano lessons. Those were somewhat interesting to me, and I enjoyed going to the lesson, but hated practicing. It was much too rigid. Little dots that told me what to play, and felt more like math than freedom. Sit here, hold your hands like this, and read these notes. I was never interested in reading, I had already memorized the melody anyway, why learn to read! I relied solely on my ear, and was usually able to fake reading the notes on the piano. My mother, embarrassed that she was paying someone to teach a child that wouldn’t practice, would put lots of pressure on me, which completely took the joy out of it. I’m glad she fought me as long as she did, that structure and what little I learned about reading has benefited me immensely. The discipline, the technique, and the musical understanding was all born from the structure, which are now all the tools I use to be creative. The order gave boundaries for my creativity to blossom, and without that I wouldn’t create anything, even if my my more basic instincts were to chaotically break all the rules in search of new ideas. Alas, it was a struggle which I eventually won, and she stopped paying.

One day, my buddy bought an acoustic guitar. He taught me in a less than a minute how to play smoke on the water. I was amazed! I had already learned a song. Guitar was easy! I came home and told my parents enthusiastically. A month later, my dad surprised me with a guitar of my own. Best birthday ever. No rules, it’s rock and roll. My piano background helped me have the foundation of chords and scales, which helped my ear understand where to lead me. Eventually, this lead me back to taking lessons, with a newfound appreciation for practice. Suddenly, the world of music was my own. I was never asked to practice again, I was discovering new things everyday. I still can’t read music very well, and I wish I could, but I’ve been lead by creativity and my ear my whole musical journey.

A few years later, someone showed me a CD a mutual friend of ours had cut. What? You’re telling me, a guy I know, who’s only a couple years older than me, made a whole CD? People can listen to it? By himself, and it’s good? I started trying to write songs right away. I was already obsessed with Relient K and Jon Foreman lyrics, and finding the deeper meanings behind every song. In naivety, I started putting acoustic based songs on SoundCloud. People were mostly really nice, even though my voice was pitchy and my timing was all over the place.

After a while, I realized I really badly wanted to be successful at this. Write good songs, mostly so that other people would tell me they were great songs. Originally, it was purely for the song’s sake. I created just to create something, and make it as good as I could. Suddenly, I was creating songs based on what other people were creating. My first few songs were quite literally just for the glory of God, and to inspire people to think consider the infinite and transcendent realm. My next few songs, as I discovered girls, were really to impress them. I wanted everyone to see how talented I could be. My ability to write a song about God started to fade, and suddenly girls were all I thought about or could write about. Heartbreak, attraction, obsessive love songs. There was a problem though, I didn’t really like songs that were like that, I just thought they would work. The songs I liked always meditated on a deeper, higher purpose.

I quit writing. I was sick of myself, and others like me. I saw the comparison culture that songwriters that I knew were undergoing. Vapid, meaningless lyrics just intended to “make it in the industry.” I wanted nothing to do with it. I’ll just lead worship at my local church, and give up all of my dreams of writing.

I was a pendulum, swinging too far to one side or the other. On one side was completely self involvement, the other one was a rejection of how and for what I was made. I found the center or at least as close as I can be now, when I met a Singer/Songwriter named Andrew Shiloh. He was so humble, wrote amazing songs, and didn’t promote himself much at all. Yet, all of his songs brought to tears, and every hair stood on end. There was such a power behind his music. As if this, the moment when I hear his song, live, is all the song was intended for. To be shared with me, so I can partake of it in the same way he did when he wrote it. Like sharing a great meal. As if every time the song is played, it has infinite potential and purpose, whether played for one person, or a thousand.

I dusted off my guitar, and started releasing music again. The goal? Make good music. Play good music. Share good music. It’s so simple, yet it took years for me reject pride, and false humility and just simply create.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I am a songwriter. I’ve written hundreds of songs, by myself and with other people, and I’m getting better everyday. I love it. In some capacity, songs were meant to be worked on by multiple people. We can’t lose the excitement of working together. Nowadays, we’re creating robots that are a composition of all of the works on the internet, crazy, rational, all of it. So in some way, AI’s ability to write is superior because of its access to all of the modern thought. It can learn to rhyme really quickly, and produce a song in seconds. However, it’s lacking spirit. It doesn’t have a reason for creating art, it’s not motivated by a transcendent infinite purpose. It runs an algorithm to create acceptable lyrics based on the parameters it’s given, and although the wording will be unique every time, it’ll always be embedded in the cliche of conforming the work for an audience. Whatever you like and are willing to pay money for, I will write. What a terrible way to create art.

We can create something better than the computers if we work together. The lived human experience brings in something so deep, it can’t be copied. Only the being with a heart understands the pain of heartbreak, and can communicate and deliver that in an engaging way. If two or more people are gathered together to create something beautiful, there’s a near infinite amount of painful, joyful, and cathartic experiences that each person can bring, and learn how to craft something inspiring from the wounds and victories of their lives. When I write a line, sometimes a friend can change one word to make it more clear. If we’re united in a pursuit of a higher goal, then the song just became higher than both of our capabilities.

This is the type of art I want to create. Something that will last. Not derivative based on all cliche’s of what’s successful now, or a cheap amalgamation of all of the modern thought of the recent few years encapsulated inside a pathological robot. I want to create something worthy of the infinite realm, the glory of God, and the recreation of our souls, as the famous Bach quote goes. I can’t accomplish this without a unique, beautiful individual working on it with me.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

I can reflect the image of God when I create. Instead of creating to earn or gain anything, I am creative because that’s what I was created to be. An all loving, infinite Being decided that this world wasn’t complete until he put me on the face of it. That must mean something pretty profound. The Bible teaches that He created me with his very Word, meaning he spoke me (and everything) into existence, and knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I long to create things of beauty as well, for the sake of others. If my catalogue of music can be listened to, and no one is inspired that maybe, just maybe, their life matters and that they were also created for a purpose, then why did I even write anything, to make money? My words were intended to be used to create something that’s better than before they were spoken or sung. So many people live as if they were an accident. No human was an accident! All of creation groans in eager anticipation for the maturing of the sons and daughters of God, and the first step toward purpose would be to realize that every single human has the opportunity to be one of His children. Music is integral in the journey of the meaning of life.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

I’ve had to unlearn a pretty damaging idea that another creative shared to me when I was young. I was told I had to quit all my jobs and pursue music full time to “make it.” I cringed at the idea, but resigned myself to the belief that either I was a full time musician, or I wasn’t going to ever to do anything worthwhile in the world of songwriting. This lead me to basically quit. I didn’t have the means to create music that was going to put me in a position to “make it,” so why start?

While the person who shared this with me was emphasizing the need to take risks and believe in yourself if you really wanted to make it, their narrow explanation of what it took to succeed in music, and their narrow view of success came across in a powerful way, that, combined with my own insecurities, debilitated my ability to pursue it at all.

I’m a teacher, I teach 5th grade writing. I have summers off to pursue all the creative projects I want. Even in the summers, with near infinite free time, I create just about as much as when I worked for 8 hours that day. Creating comes from inspiration, and have something to write about. I find having the structure of a beautiful, worthy day job provides me with plenty of inspiration to write songs, and that while I’m driving, or stealing secret moments to work on my craft makes me more inspired than when all of my time is technically “open” for whatever I want. Many times, I’ve used “free time” for selfish purposes that aren’t progressing my music in anyway. Being a teacher makes me a better songwriter, and being a songwriter makes me a better teacher. Life experience only gives me something to write about, and having a day job to be able to provide necessary funds to produce music is crucial as well in a purely practical sense.

If I had ignored that advice from the start, and stopped worrying about how I was going to “make it” and purely focused my craft, and releasing the best song I could at any given moment, I’d be a lot further in my journey. I have no production schedules, I just need to be moving forward with my current best work. As long as the ball is rolling on the production of my songs, I’m content. Each song I’ve created has been imperfect. Musically, I’m incredibly willing to make mistakes, and each song has been a stepping stone to another song, show or opportunity for someone to help me make another one! I want it to be self sustaining someday, but it won’t be if I’m not moving forward.

Whatever stops your moving forward, analyze that, and get rid of the weights, the snares, and traps that so easily entangle you, and run the race with endurance!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://l.instagram.com/?u=https%3A%2F%2Flinktr.ee%2Fianforstermusic%3Ffbclid%3DPAZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAaZC49o0WajEg_zFuucT3SepAtohOFnyrS_ZehaRDBGUSBd81PqM2q8seWY_aem_NXyUBrLZ3k9SQ_vqs7m0Ig&e=AT3tVjSXEFHo5U6TnnX_5ZqZK_Ij-JwLRTWYC_iHqFCTPJOSU6XmRGLNjqYvhOicJPJ-jmMgmEzhSgXl13SgnuFsB5mRxYqSbASmZTBlxslpPHNqCEI-Ig
• Instagram: @forster.i
• Facebook: Ian Forster Music
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@ianforster9143

Image Credits

Laurin Hunter Smith

Peter Larson