We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Caitlin Quisenberry. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Caitlin below.
Alright, Caitlin thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. We’d love to hear about when you first realized that you wanted to pursue a creative path professionally.
Music and creativity ran through my bones from a young age. When people would ask me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I would reply with one of the following artistic endeavors: singer, artist, fashion designer, or actress. Then somewhere along the way, probably starting in high school, I got the creativity beaten out of me. What became center focus was getting good grades, getting into a top university, and figuring out a major that others would be deem “impressive” or “worthy”. I contemplated majoring in psychology and going to medical school to be a psychiatrist, political science and going into politics, or majoring in philosophy to become a lawyer. I finally settled on philosophy and set up my entire college career around, once again, getting good grades to now get into the top law schools.
I was so concerned with how others viewed me. I wanted people to think I was smart, hard-working, ambitious, and successful. I wanted others to look up to me. I wanted my parents to have plenty to brag about to their friends. I wanted to be rich and make lots of money. Not once did I think about what would make me (my soul) happiest. I never seriously thought about majoring in music, art, acting, or graphic design. How could I? Would I be viewed as successful if I majored in art? Would people praise me for my intelligence if I told them I was pursuing acting or music? Saying this now almost sounds silly to me, but that’s only because I have developed a completely different perspective.
If I could go back in time, I would start by asking my younger self these questions.
1. What does success mean and look like to you?
2. What is your purpose? Why were you put on this Earth?
3. If you could create your dream life, what would that look like?
4. Think about yourself as a child. Who is that inner child within you? What would make them happy?
These are hard questions, especially for a high schooler, but man are they important. Can you imagine if we stressed the importance of these questions on our youth? I mean really… Is an A in sophomore biology more important than figuring out your life’s purpose? And that’s not to say the answers to these questions can’t change overtime. Hell, they sure have for me… But what an advantage it would be to start asking yourself those questions early on. Wouldn’t it be nice to avoid a midlife crisis where you feel so out of touch with who you are and what you are doing?
When I was 22 and a new graduate from Pepperdine University, I was taking a gap year studying for the LSAT. I felt lost and had lost my zest for life. My energy was depleted because I was so out of touch with who I was to my core. Luckily for me, boredom is often followed by creativity…
This brings me to where I am today. Obviously, I’m not a lawyer and that’s because I started asking myself these important questions. I realized that my definition of success had a lot more to do with happiness and fulfilling my life’s purpose than it did with impressing others and making money. Sure, those things are still important to me, but they are just the cherry on top and no longer the main course.
The magic moment of making music my chosen career path came to me one night when I posted a song of me singing Chris Stapleton’s, “Millionaire” on my Instagram. It caught the attention of a producer in Nashville. That is when my life took a drastic turn. I followed my heart and my own advice and flew to Nashville from Denver and started recording music. From that moment when I took that leap of faith, my heart was full, and my head was clear that this was what I wanted to do professionally.
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 grew up singing in churches and school choirs. At the age of 14, I recorded an EP with GRAMMY-winning producer Robert Cutarella, then the following year I nabbed a golden ticket on American Idol. When I attended Pepperdine, I shifted my focus to academics and majored in Philosophy to become a lawyer, because as much as I loved singing, I didn’t see it as a way I could make a good living. But during this time, I still kept music in my life, so I also studied vocal performance and was trained classically, singing opera and a cappella music. I even studied abroad in Lausanne, Switzerland with renowned opera singer, Karine Mkrtchyan. When I graduated, I was chosen to sing lead vocals for Harbor Unplugged bluegrass concert. That is when I was bitten by the country bug and fell in love with singing that genera.
As I previously mentioned, getting contacted by a producer in Nashville is when my life took a turn. Once I took the even bigger leap and moved to Nashville to pursue music full-time, I quickly found out that it was like starting a small business from scratch. I didn’t have a team in place nor the funding to afford that. All my money went to recording music. So, everything I needed, had to be created by me. I have spent hundreds of hours on YouTube learning everything like how to upload music, how to make a website, EPK, how to brand myself, how to make lyric videos, how to design merchandise, where to get it, how to sell it, how to film myself, record myself, how to edit videos, how to grow my socials, how to run ads for my music, how to do my own PR, and the learning never stops! I’m in the process now of learning how to produce music so I can make my own demos for the music I write. During this time, I was always wishing I had a team to help me, so I could just spend my time creating – writing, recording and performing music, but along the way, I realized how great it was that I knew how to do all of this now. I’m completely self-reliant and although I look forward to one day having a team in place to help me, I will now have a greater appreciation for them and a better understanding of their job. I’m writing and recording with the best who have taken me under their wings, given me advice, and taught me things only a seasoned professional would know. Ben Simonetti is one of my producers, who I also write with, has multiple #1 songs and is the main writer and producer for The Zac Brown Band. My other producer is Sal Oliveri, who has been nominated for a Grammy and has a #1 with Chris Stapleton and Pink.
I’ve been able to capitalize on my knowledge, skills and the advice I’ve been given in several ways. I’ve built websites for other artists and was just contacted by an international online education company, Daisie, who saw the content I was creating on my Instagram and asked if I would start teaching creative classes about socials, artistry, branding, etc… My knowledge doesn’t just come from my hours on YouTube; it comes from my producers, writers I’ve worked with, other artists, and my own trial and errors. I’ve also taken classes and have booked one on one time with gurus in the industry.
I believe there are a couple things that set me apart from the enormous sea of talent in my field. The first is that my road to county music is very unusual. I believe being classically trained has given me a vocal range that is unique as well as given me a distinct pronunciation of my lyrics. I compare it to dance – a classically trained ballerina has a strong base allowing her to also perform hip hop or jazz with the highest level of technique. Another aspect that I look at as an advantage is that I jumped into the music industry with no prior knowledge, and that has really allowed my creativity to flourish.
Things I can provide other creatives or artists: I write a weekly CQ newsletter that comes out every Monday morning to inspire other creatives. I’ve been doing this for over a year now and haven’t missed a week. This is free and my way of giving back to my supporters and listeners. It offers a story of the week, quote of the week and question of the week, all geared to motivate, educate, and inspire creativity. You can read all the newsletters on my website and see if they resonate with you before signing up to receive them weekly. As I mentioned earlier, I am starting to teach creative online classes through Daisie where I will be sharing my knowledge on everything from starting a career in the music industry, to being a fine artist – as I am also a painter. Side note – if you sign up for Daisie, let them know I sent you. They reward their instructors who have new sign ups through them, so you would really be helping me out! I hope to see you in one of my classes! Lastly, I am getting ready to launch a Patreon where you can get a much closer look into my life and join me for online painting, songwriting, BTS of my life and being a part of my journey as I share all my music and knowledge along the way.
What I am most proud of is that I am brave, and I believe in myself. I put myself out in the public eye every single day. I have thick skin which I got from being an actress in Hollywood since I was 11 years old (I’m most known for my role in the ABC sitcom, “Blackish”). That’s another story in my life, but I would fly back and forth from Denver to LA for auditions and jobs. Those experiences have helped me with my music career, as I learned from a very early age that “no” just means to keep striving for the “yes”. The no’s just make you stronger and make the successes even sweeter.
I have only been pursuing my music career full-time since I dropped my first single, “BLUE” on February 9, 2020. In that time, I’ve had 2 music videos picked up by CMT, have been coined “Nashville’s Newest Darling” by Hype Magazine, have received placements in numerous publication like “American Songwriter” and Spotify editorial playlists, like New Boots, Breakout Country, New Music Nashville and Women of Country to name a few. I have a song that just went over 460,000 streams and I’m hoping it’s on its way to 1M! Recently, I was nominated for “New Artist of the Year” by the Rocky Mountain Country Music Awards – I was honored to be the only woman nominated out of 7 nominees.
For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?
The most rewarding aspect of being an artist is there is no wrong way to do anything. When you are an artist or a creative, you must strive to create new ways to do things. You can learn from others, but don’t copy them – being authentic truly is what will make you stand out because no one is YOU. They can’t do YOU, so you must stay true to who you are and what you want to put out into the world. It’s truly rewarding to have the freedom to create anything you want and share it with others. It’s so gratifying when the lyrics of a song resonate with others and help them feel like they aren’t alone in their despair, or when your song is their jam when they want something to lift their spirits. Being a painter also allows me to combine my 2 passions. I enjoy creating pieces that represent lyrics I’ve written for songs. I paint the lyrics on the canvas, intertwining them with the subject. That’s what’s so great about being an artist/creative – SKIES THE LIMIT!
Any resources you can share with us that might be helpful to other creatives?
I wish I knew about Daisie, the online platform I will be teaching classes on. It’s only $35 to join for a year and you can take as many classes as you’d like – they offer everything under the sun! I’m always thirsty for new knowledge, so I’m signing up for some of them myself. If I could go back in time, I wish I would have taken classes in graphic design. I’m able to do some of that on my own but have to send out harder jobs. Unfortunately, being in the music business is no long just about the music, you must also be a content creator – it’s actually ½ your job. So, earlier resources and learning in that area would have been very beneficial and shortened my learning curve. Advice I have been given: Make them a fan of you, then they will become a fan of your music.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.caitlinquisenberry.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/caitlinquisenberrymusic/?hl=en
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/caitlinquisenberrymusic/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/caitlin-quisenberry-659526135
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/caitlinquis
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCc9efYcy0bYL3ra-x5k-mWA