We were lucky to catch up with Ezra Vancil recently and have shared our conversation below.

Ezra, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Earning a full time living from one’s creative career can be incredibly difficult. Have you been able to do so and if so, can you share some of the key parts of your journey and any important advice or lessons that might help creatives who haven’t been able to yet?

I’ve had two distinct periods in my life when I relied primarily on my original music to make a living. The first time I stumbled into a living in music, the second time was a clear choice. Each of these periods lasted for two to three years, after which I returned to a more conventional job. Nevertheless, those years taught me valuable lessons that have stayed with me for a lifetime. Perhaps the most significant lesson I learned is that being a true artist doesn’t necessarily mean making a living from your art. In fact, if I were to expect my music to support me financially, it might even undermine the very reason I create music in the first place.

In the first era of my music career, I was a small-town teen with a passion for songwriting and starting a band. We played at various venues around DFW, including Poor Dave’s Pub and Club Dada in Deep Ellum and lower Greenville Avenue. Music was an all-consuming obsession for me, and we took every show we could get. Our first release was a live album of one of our shows at DADA, followed by an EP recorded for free by a professor at the local community college.

One day, a friend of one of the bandmates heard our tapes and was so impressed with our music that he took a second mortgage on his house to fund our first studio album at Planet Dallas. The head engineer at the studio was also impressed with our sound and called a management team in L.A. to let them know about us. They had left their card at the studio a few weeks earlier, asking to be contacted if something special came up.

Things moved quickly from there – we were signed to a development deal and a management contract, and we soon had our own band house, a small studio, and a tour van. We were doing radio interviews and shows outside of DFW, and all our needs were provided for. However, with money, groupies, and free time came a flood of parties, drugs, and alcohol. The usual rock n’ roll necessities were easily accessed, and the whole band began a downward slide into a drunken haze of missteps, jealousies, and bad decisions.

Chaos soon overtook the band – from a drug raid on the band house to even one of our band members being shot. Though he lived, the band did not. It was a tragedy because the band was really incredible, but it was a tragedy of our own making.

When I was young and in the first era of my music career, I had no concept of money or business. To me, business meant getting money. I didn’t think beyond that, and I didn’t consider that maybe we had some responsibility to create something of value, take care of ourselves, and have a plan beyond just the next gig. Looking back, I realize how naive and shortsighted I was, but at the time, my sole focus was on the music.

After the band dissolved, there was some bad blood and legal wrangling at the end of it all. However, the L.A. team continued with me, perhaps because I was the songwriter. They signed me to a small label they had associations with in L.A., and they started recording my songs and shopping me around. It was a new beginning, but I was also acutely aware of the lessons I had learned during the first era of my music career, and I knew that I had to approach things differently this time around.

Back then, the process was called a “development deal,” although I’m not sure if they still use that term. Essentially, the record label was grooming me as an artist with the intention of selling my act to the highest bidder.

During that time, it was all about wining and dining. I was picked up in limos, taken on shopping sprees, and even went on a trip to Hawaii with my gal. We recorded in top studios for days on end. However, I was oblivious to the fact that the money being spent was essentially a loan or draw that I would have to pay back at some point. It’s not like I read those long boring contracts. That loan did come into play later on, but I’ll skip the details of that for this story.

Despite my lack of financial knowledge, I was committed to presenting myself in a more serious and professional manner, both musically and personally. This meant avoiding alcohol and other things that had caused the downfall of my previous band. I wanted to create something of value, to take care of myself, and to have a plan beyond just the next gig. It was a learning experience. And I started in small ways to understand the business side of things.

However, I soon faced another challenge – they wanted to change me. Not just in small ways, but fundamentally. I was being constantly prodded, manipulated, and molded into something more palatable for the music industry at that time. This was something I struggled to comprehend. To make it big, I had to become a product that could be easily marketed to the masses. It was an uncomfortable box to be squeezed into, like a steak being forced into the shape of a McNugget.

While I could handle most of the changes they wanted me to make – like altering my hair, appearance, and even adding electric guitars to my acoustic music – there were certain changes that truly bothered me. One of these was the constant pressure to lose weight, with occasional polite pressure to slim down my ‘baby fat cheeks.’ The other was their insistence on changing my lyrics—this ultimately became the last straw.

I don’t blame those L.A. folks. I understand what they were trying to achieve. They saw me as a product, a brand that needed to conform to the market. To achieve this, I had to polish my rough edges, such as my lyrics, which could have potentially offended many. They also wanted me to look more specialized, which meant changing my high school-like appearance. In hindsight, I understand that they were simply doing their jobs as business people.

However, even though I comprehend their intentions, it never truly sat well with me. I make music for a different reason. I believe it’s to reveal my soul, not some marketable version of it. I was uncertain of what that reason was at the time, but I felt that it had to be authentic.

In some time, I was dropped. I think this whole thing went on for about three years.

It was a tough blow, but I understood that it was just business. Still, it left me feeling lost and unsure of what to do next. I had dropped out of school to pursue music and now had no money and no prospects. To make ends meet, I turned to the skills I had learned growing up: painting and carpentry. I started out as a carpenter’s assistant, and then eventually became a painter. It was a humbling experience, but I was grateful for the work. Music became less of a focus in my life as I struggled to pay the bills, but I never stopped writing. Even in those dark times, I knew that music was still a part of me, waiting to shine again.

In the coming decades, my music did shine now and then. I was fortunate enough to secure an international publishing deal and showcase at SXSW, among other notable accomplishments. I even managed to pack some large venues with various bands I had started. But despite these successes, my music never quite reached the same height as it did during those initial years. And of course, it still wasn’t enough to make a living for me, my wife, and our child. Nevertheless, I kept writing and playing, driven by an inner passion that more so resembled an addiction at that point.

My life eventually descended into a dark pit of alcoholism and despair. For nearly a decade, I was trapped in a never-ending cycle of depression, anxiety, panic attacks, and addiction. It was a literal hell-on-earth. I could go on about the details, but that’s a story for another time. Suffice it to say that it was a dark period, so dark that I lost my grip on reality, my music, my family, and everything that mattered in this world. I was a suicidal wreck, barely holding on.

After a long and difficult struggle with alcohol addiction, I was finally able to get sober. My primary goal at the time was simply to reclaim some semblance of a normal life and repair the many relationships I had damaged during my years of addiction. To my surprise, however, music soon re-entered my life. Before I knew it, I was once again immersed in the world of music, and it wasn’t long before I began to feel a renewed sense of passion and purpose.

This was the second time I attempted to make a living through music; if the L.A. years were the wining and dining years, these were the slim years.

It was vastly different from my previous experience. Gone were the days of limos and big-shot L.A. contacts; now it was just me and my guitar. To make matters worse, there was no evidence that I could actually make a living this way. No one came to my shows, and nobody seemed to be listening to my music. Despite all of this, I stubbornly made the decision to pursue music and only music. I told myself that I would live under a bridge if I had to, as long as I could continue making music. And this meant to me, that I had to make my living from music.

During this time, I did whatever I could with my music to make ends meet. Busking was one way I made money. But I also tried something completely new for me: I started portraying myself online, live on video, just as I was, without worrying about my appearance or what I would say. It turned out that people really connected with this raw, unfiltered version of myself. Gradually, I began to rebuild an online audience. I did regular house concerts and started filling up small venues. Although it was small, they were incredibly supportive, contributing to my crowdfunding campaigns and generously overpaying for my merchandise.

Once again, I had little business sense. My priority was just to scrape together enough money each month to pay the bills and put food on the table for my family. But often, the money didn’t come. There were times when we couldn’t afford to keep the lights on. I had to go to Starbucks just to use their Wi-Fi to promote my shows. I remember one time flying to a gig in Virginia with only fifty dollars, which quickly got eaten up by the first couple of Uber rides. I didn’t even have enough money for food. I saw they had food in the VIP area, so I stuffed some in my pockets, grateful for anything to help me make it through the week. That’s how tough things were.

Luckily, there were a few times when I lucked out and received some large payouts – for example, I wrote some stories and some articles about my music life that made some money. But as time went on, it became a real struggle.

Nevertheless, I managed to hold on long enough to see record labels and management groups calling me once again. I started to negotiate contracts and soon had several offers on the table, ranging from labels to management to publishing. After a long period of negotiations, I was ready to sign with a New York manager. However, the talks became focused on my lyrics, my appearance, and all the usual branding topics. I was prepared this time, but I just couldn’t bring myself to change my lyrics for any reason. So, feeling the same pressures I had escaped as a youth, at the last minute, I walked away from the deal.

It’s not like I didn’t understand the importance of branding and shaping my music for the audience to some extent. I had read many music business and marketing books by this time, and I knew how important it was to develop my style and create a consistent online presence. But the truth was, I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. It felt wrong.

My financial situation was getting worse and worse. I knew I couldn’t continue this way for much longer. I had one last shot, an opportunity with a label in L.A. I decided to accept the deal, even though they were also pushing for changes to my music and style that I wasn’t comfortable with. I felt desperate, like this was my last chance.

It Just so happen that the day the contract came in the mail for me to sign, so did a phone call from my brother. He had a business idea for me. Something that I would be good at, but that would also leave me more freedom to pursue making my music. The idea was to help me start a marketing company.

The irony of it may not come across well in this story. I actually threw the label contract in the trash and said yes to my brother. He is a businessman. I knew he could teach me what I needed to know.

It’s been a few years since then, and I’ve come to understand the realities of business more than ever before. It turns out that marketing is something I’m really good at, but only for other people’s products, not my own. My brother was right. It took me a while to get my day-to-day business operations in order, but once I did, I gained freedom to do little tours, record when I want, write and do all the things I love about music.

Now I understand why I struggled so much before. The music business is just that – a business. The music or the artist is a commodity, a product that must meet an existing audience’s expectations or find/create an audience.

It has to follow the principles of business and marketing, or it will fail. While some musicians may have odd big wins, like I did, and crawl along for a few more years, ultimately, if they don’t recognize that they are a business and understand the principles that matter to their success, they will fail.

In the past, labels used to do all this for the artist, but now it’s expected of the artist to turn themselves into a product. The music business may have clever ways of keeping some authenticity in the package, but it doesn’t change the fact that it operates on the same principles as most businesses.

Some artists are fine with this. They are built to work within the system, fitting well within a genre and expressing themselves in ways that have gone before them. There’s little pain when it comes time to shape themselves into the ‘product’.

But I’m not one of those artists. I desperately don’t want to conform to anything in my art. The part of me that makes the music is like a little child inside me, and he’ll deal with a few rules and slick campaigns once in a while, but he’ll never fully conform without losing that beautiful childlike playfulness I enjoy. So I don’t ask it of him. I let him play, and let the chips fall where they may.

My music career is very robust now. It makes enough money to support the projects. I keep busy with playing, touring, and recording, and I have an audience that I enjoy. The fact that I’ve given up making a living from music doesn’t mean that I use no marketing techniques or adhere to no business or marketing principles. I do occasionally, but when that artist child in me wants to do something else, I say, “let’s ditch this scene and go write a new song.”

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I am an American singer/songwriter based in East Texas, and my name is Ezra Vancil. My music draws inspiration from folk troubadours of the past, such as Cat Stevens, John Denver, Bob Dylan, and Gordon Lightfoot. Over the years, I have explored a variety of genres, including rock, pop, and experimental music. However, I have found a permanent home in the community of Americana artists. My recent albums have delved deeply into the themes of my own marriage and family, exploring the devastating consequences of addiction and divorce, as well as the hope and redemption that can be found in rebuilding a family through forgiveness and perseverance. My introspective lyrics convey a message that even the most broken relationships can be mended with time and effort, ultimately offering a message of hope and healing to my listeners.

I also have a band with my daughter called Cozi anda Flounder, which kind of walks the line between Americana and Indie rock.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

When I was young, I learned that having a positive self-image was all about ‘thinking’ it into existence. I truly believe that positive self-talk and self-respect are crucial, but as I’ve grown older, I’ve come to realize that these affirmations and statements are empty without actions to back them up. Respect yourself by being kind to yourself, but also prove to yourself that you deserve that respect by taking action that is worthy of it – like keeping a promise you made to yourself. Only then can you truly build a positive self-image that’s rooted in something tangible.

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

My drive now is to keep going not just for me, but for those who have been with me on the music journey. when you get older, and the responsibilities pile up, the greatest mountain you must cross is to continue to create. So that is my only mission really. Continue. Keep going, Create.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://ezravancil.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ezravancil/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ezravancilmusic
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/ezravancil
• Other: https://ezravancil.bandcamp.com

Image Credits
Photos by Siouxshi Photography