Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Justin Smith. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Hi Justin, thanks for joining us today. When did you first know you wanted to pursue a creative/artistic path professionally?

This is perhaps the most important thing I can say about a career in any creative industry, as well as one of my favorite stories to tell. It wasnt funny at the time, but now i find it hilarious.

The truth is, I never had a ‘eureka’ moment where everything clicked and I clearly understood that my life was going to revolve around music. I remember doing an interview with Rolling Stone magazine years ago. I was part of a blues/rock trio with JD Simo on guitar/vocals, and Adam Abrashoff on drums. They are, to this day, two of my favorite musicians in the entire world. So this representative for the magazine comes to our show to interview us, and of course the first question is the same one I’m currently answering. JD responds first. He begins talking about his early childhood in Chicago, maybe 3 or 4 years old, and his father would take him to Chess Records, and he was immediately enchanted. They would listen to the old blues records, and he knew, unequivocally, that he was destined to be a guitarist. Knowing my story, I was beginning to feel a bit embarrassed. Then comes Adam’s response, and it’s similar to JD’s. At around 5 years old, he would set up pots and pans and bang on them with spoons. He discovered his natural aptitude for rhythm, started drum lessons, and was playing with in clubs by his early teens. At this point, I’m borderline panicking. Almost every musician I knew at that point had some amazingly compelling story about their inauguration into the creative world, and mine was anything but. I even considered making something up on the spot, but it was too late. It was my turn to respond. My real story is that I started playing drums at around 11 years old. I was terrible, and impatient, so I gave up after a month or two. Then I tried electric guitar, but my hands were too small at the time to easily grab some of the chords, so I gave that up too. When I was 13, I picked up a bass guitar, and even though I was every bit as bad at it as I was at drums or electric guitar, I could at least wrap my brain and hands around the basic concepts. It was just rewarding enough for me not to turn my back on it. When I turned 18, I had absolutely no idea what to do with my life. All I knew was that I was living at home with my mother, which I did not want to do, (no offense, mom) and I was working at the local Dairy Queen, which I also did not want to do. My mother was pretty insistent that I go to college, and music was the only thing at which I was remotely competent, so I decided to go to school for that. I attended Berklee College Of Music for a year, and when I could no longer afford that, I transferred to Belmont University in Nashville, and graduated in 2006. My original major was film scoring, because video games were basically my only other interest at the time, and I wanted to write music for them. Belmont University, however, did not offer film scoring as a major, so I switched to music performance with electric bass as my primary instrument. I never even intended to stay in Nashville after graduating. College was just such a convenient networking opportunity that I stayed because I knew people who would call me for work. It all happened almost by accident. This used to petrify me. My impostor syndrome soared to astronomical heights. For a long time, I believed that I could not possibly deserve a place among these people that all seemed so sure of themselves and their path forward. Over a decade passed before I was able to see my problems from a different perspective. Regardless of how I felt about myself and my personal journey, we were all THERE. Existing in the same space in the same industry at the same time. How we got there did not matter in the slightest. The journey could be a perfectly straight line, or the flightpath of a drunken bumblebee trying to fly through a slightly open window. All that mattered was that we were there, creating something together. Wether you’re born into it, stumble into it, or anything in between, all that matters is that you do it. And believe me, if I can do it, anybody can. Creativity is for everyone, and I love that.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers

I was born and raised on the east side of Cleveland, Ohio. As a child, I enjoyed playing video games, which eventually led to an interest in music. My first paid job as a musician came at the age of 18, when I played bass for a local high school’s production of Bye Bye Birdie. In 2002 I attended the Berklee College of music, and in 2003 transfered to Belmont University. I graduated in 2006 with a Bachelor of Music degree, with an emphasis on performance, electric bass being my primary instrument. Since then, I’ve been fortunate to travel the world performing with acts large and small, to audiences large and small, for paychecks large and small.

During the pandemic lockdown, when the live entertainment industry was completely eviscerated, I rekindled my love affair with orchestral music, and acquired materials necessary to pursue my original interest of writing music for video games. I look forward to focusing a little more on that in the future.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

There is a long-standing and pervasive myth in the entertainment industry known as ‘exposure’, that has been used to take advantage of nearly every type of creative, from songwriter to graphic designer, for ages. The concept being that the visibility one can gain by providing a service for a project with a large following, though largely intangible, is worth more than the standard amount of legal tender usually offered for said service. I was sold this lie, and bought it every bit as readily as anyone eager to get out and make their mark on the world. However, I was told that I should take every job I have time for, use them as networking channels, and the money would come later. I came to realize as time went by, that although I would get called for work more often, the compensation never evolved past ‘exposure’. I was spending more and more time working essentially for free, as we all know banks, credit card companies, and landlords don’t accept ‘exposure’ as a form of payment. At one point I had to apply for a credit card so I could use it for my monthly car payment so my car wouldn’t get repossessed. It wasn’t until I started turning down free work and actually charging money for my time that I started on the path to sustainability. The calls for unpaid work dropped off, and i got more and more calls for better and better pay. Because of that i was able to pick and choose what projects i wanted to be a part of, whoch also had an enormously positive effect on my mental health. It may sound obvious, but to a lot of people in creative industries, it really is not. I think the best advice I could give is never to work for free. You can take on passion projects when you have time, and you can ever barter for goods and services. Just don’t work for free. Your time is worth more than that.

Alright – so here’s a fun one. What do you think about NFTs?

I appreciate the initial intention to use them as a means of protection against copyright infringement. It seems, however, that their implementation has relegated them to a status similar to Beanie Babies but for crypto people. Except with Beanie Babies, at the end of the day at least you own an actual Beanie Baby.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @NotTonyDanza
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/justinsmith42

Image Credits
Photo 1: Kim Page Photo 2: Cory Michael Photo 3: Alexandra Brown Photos 4&5: Sarah Kennedy