We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Patrick Newman a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Patrick thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. We’d love to hear the backstory behind a risk you’ve taken – whether big or small, walk us through what it was like and how it ultimately turned out.

Back during the pandemic when CLEEN first formed And we started taking it serious. Over the course of the next few years between writing and recording, I had to make pretty hard decisions. I’m married with a family of four and music was beginning to take up a lot of time to the point where if I worked 40 hours during the work week I was at least 40 hours to 60 hours in for music. This eventually became worse when we started getting more opportunities to play. Then I began doing collaborations and then began writing my own solo album entitled delirium drips under my name mellowtonan. So this put me at a point in my life where I was blowing 3 weeks of PTO time before March every year so by the middle of the year not only was I depleted paid time off but I was financially getting hit because I was having to take time off so excessively. This opened up my biggest risk of ever taking in my life. I ended up selling my home and buying another house cash to drop my monthly expenses 2k which also forced me to remodel a house in under 2 weeks and move my entire family with no help. While in the middle of all this I also decided to go into business for myself and go get my own mechanical license so I could work when I needed. It’s been a rough road but has allowed me to live as open and free and feral as I want and allows me to devote time as I want it to my family, my music, my skateboarding and whatever else I decide. I am boss of my own life now and I can never turn around and go back.

Patrick, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I am the front man for the band CLEEN as well as the sole creator of MELLOWTONAN. I’d like to say that I’m an artist I’m not a musician. I speak from the heart and unfortunately, sometimes that requires less skill and more heart but allows me to express myself on stage. Meanwhile plenty of musicians before and after me would bury me with talent LOL

You can hear this on CLEEN debut album “Excursion” which is a tripler written story which I disguised me getting sober as a post-apocalyptic or dystopian society story which I felt went hand in hand with what it felt like to try and get sober from drinking.

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

I honestly don’t know specifically but all’s. I know there’s nothing else on this Earth that gives me what music gives me and at this point I don’t believe that quitting could ever exist in my life. I don’t care if it’s one person listening or a million. I have to do this for myself

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

More recently, I’d backed out of an underground community after finding out about some sexual abusers that were prevalent in the community and are still out there. Most people would quit with what ridicule and bullying I had to deal with. Just standing up for myself and my bandmates but I wouldn’t regret it and I would do it again. Like I said I have to do this music. There’s no other option. I don’t have to deal with these people so I don’t need to associate with them. Really can’t wait for the day that their victims come forward publicly about it and they get what they deserve. The music industry is crawling with predators and that’s the one thing that you have to have good resilience against in this industry

Contact Info:

• Youtube: https://youtube.com/@mellowtonan?si=C3UQvak6FEV3ieD_
• Other: Cleen.bandcamp.com

  Www.Cleenband.com

Image Credits

Photography done by Samantha Newman