Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Taylor Tote. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Taylor, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Can you open up about a risk you’ve taken – what it was like taking that risk, why you took the risk and how it turned out?
The biggest risk I’ve taken was on my most recent project due to be released this summer called “Middle Name.”
In late 2022, I received an offer for a full-time position that was too good to be true. It was in the entertainment industry, had an incredible salary, was bicoastal, and my employer was very similar to myself and seemed very supportive of me both in and out of the job. This would also give me the financial freedom to reinvest back into my music career which is something I always felt like I lacked. It’s hard being an original artist where it feels like making money is a constant battle and everything you do to promote yourself and your music always costs more money than you actually have. I didn’t want to have to wonder anymore about how I was going to fund myself and so I took this job.
Once I took the job, I felt very comfortable to then hire an artist consultant, a top notch vocal coach, and start investing in my next release which would involve a music video with actors, multiple locations, DPs, PAs, etc. It felt good to finally be able to hire people at a level in which I knew they would take care of everything I needed, while I was working full-time in order to pay them (which is kind of backwards but a story/rant for another time). But unfortunately, my amazing too-good-to-be-true job turned out to be too good to be true. It was a total nightmare and long story short, my employer has committed major employment fraud as well as other workplace violations. They never paid me and I found myself in a complete spiral. No one talks about how stressful it is finding and losing a job, but especially no one ever talks about how mentally challenging being scammed is. I found myself in a deep dark pit for awhile. I was embarrassed, blamed myself, and thought about how I could’ve done things differently even though in the end, none of it was my fault. But also found myself in a situation where I now didn’t have the money to pay my team and fund my projects that I was so excited for.
I decided pretty early on that this was something I could not allow to affect my music career and the choices I made to better myself. It was going to be hard, but I knew I had to bite the bullet and continue with the project. Money has always felt like something that held me back and I didn’t want another excuse for why I couldn’t do something. I never spent this much of my own money towards the thing that means the most to me. I somewhat looked at it as an experiment- how differently will the outcome be if I invest more into this project as opposed to my previous ones? The outcome so far has been drastically different. Even though the project isn’t out yet, I see how everyone’s expertise matters. The commitment to myself from myself is different, I busted my butt to make this work booking any jobs I could get. This is just a whole different ball game with a team knocking it out of the park, we hit a home run with this one. I’m so excited to see how many people it’s going to reach and how they’ll all receive it. This is the biggest risk I’ve ever taken but the best investment I ever made.
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 grew up in New Jersey just fifteen minutes from Asbury Park. If you don’t know, Asbury Park is home to a lot of legendary music venues and is widely known for being the origin of Bruce Springsteen and Bon Jovi. The music scene, huge emphasis on original music, there is truly unlike any other and I think that had a really big impact on how my career has evolved over the years,
I have been singing since I could talk. Everyone always asks me what inspired me to do music or sing in the first place and the truth is nothing. Singing was just always something that felt a part of me. I don’t really remember how or why. I didn’t look at an artist or performer one day and go, “Oh, I want to do that!” I just did it. I’m sure maybe there’s something there from such a young age that goes beyond when my memory started to kick in but to me, I don’t have some super inspirational reason why I started. I just loved it.
I sang any chance I could – in chorus, at talent shows, I’d run up to the entertainment at restaurants when I was like 10 asking them if I could sing a song. I eventually went to vocal lessons and my teacher, Jody, would invite me to sing at her gigs. I did all the musicals at school and sang the National Anthem at our school’s basketball games. I started doing open mics which led me to start gigging professionally when I was about 17. I joined a rock band in which we were able to book paid shows and acoustic gigs. I believe it was about two years after that band was formed that we broke up since a lot of members were starting college and I started my own band under my name which evolved to The Taylor Tote Band over time.
My band was awesome. My band members were supportive, loyal but also incredible players. I’m truly forever grateful to them. Our live shows were insanely fun and we had great chemistry on stage. Not to toot my own horn, but kind of, I think we had musicianship well beyond our years. We played conferences such as NAMM both in Anaheim, CA and Nashville, TN. We played all over Asbury Park, frequenting The Stone Pony. We performed at Penn State THON a couple of times which we performed in front somewhere between 10,000-15,000 students. We were the regional winners of NYC’s Hard Rock Cafe competition. In addition, we also played in Connecticut, Delaware, and Pennsylvania. We were together for around 4-5 years.
The thing that I struggled with the most in that time was our recorded sound. I had always seen myself as a Pop artist but my band and my music were coming off more Rock and Country. There’s nothing wrong with that, but didn’t sit right with what I felt internally. I love that I’m diverse and I don’t mind doing different genres once in awhile but I knew something needed to change.
The Taylor Tote Band slowly fizzled out on great terms and I decided to move to New York City in 2019. Just a few months in, I received a call from Remember Jones asking me to sing as a background vocalist with them for their summer tour nationwide. It was one of the most insightful experiences I ever had as not only a performer but as a musician. I learned how to use my voice more as an instrument supporting the band and song as a whole rather than being the sole focus. It was quite interesting since I had always been the lead, but I enjoyed being a part of something that was bigger than myself. I’d never been on a tour that long either (about eight weeks) and with a twelve piece band! We also went on a three week winter tour in 2020, right before the pandemic hit.
Not to get into the nitty gritty of the pandemic, because we all know how that went, it gave me time to reflect on what I wanted from my solo career and focusing more on recorded music. I started working more closely with my friend and now producer, Russell Hayden, on Pop songs that felt more me than ever before. We released a four song EP during lockdown which we recorded 95% of remotely through Zoom, FaceTime, and voice memos. Once restrictions started lifting we then recording another 3-4 songs which we released as singles and we still have more projects in the works to be released this summer! As I said before, I love my diversity as an artist and I’d love to get back to some of my singer-songwriter roots on some future projects. I don’t think any genre is truly out of question for me, it evolves with the project, the emotion, my personality, and my artistry. Who I am is where I am and that’ll always be expressed through my art.
In your view, what can society to do to best support artists, creatives and a thriving creative ecosystem?
The best thing society can do is interact, no matter how big or small the artist is. It’s free to interact on social media, share a post, and such a small cost to stream or buy a song. I think sharing and interacting are the biggest things. The more engagement a post has, the more it’s seen and that helps indie artists immensely. It’s practically free to cheer someone on.
Going to live shows is huge and the next level up from that. Tickets are really not that expensive when you compare it to a night out. Small/Local act bills typically range from $10-25 depending how many people are playing, where and when. Maybe instead of just going to a bar, search up a live music venue or artists you like, see where they’re playing and have a couple of drinks there. You never know who you’re going to see and how much just your presence impacts their career.
For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?
The best part is when someone tells me how much they relate to something I’ve created. My last release “I Like U But…” was extremely personal and a very emotional experience. I wanted to incorporate some humor in the video, and some of the lyrics too, but the storylines in that video are dramatized versions of real things that happened to me. I literally had a guy breakup with me while telling me he wanted to marry me at the same time, it was heartbreaking but bizarre. I dated a guy who was deported, invited me to visit him in his country then uninvited me the week before my flight after going through hell and back updating my passport and obtaining my travel visa. It was brutal!! Putting myself back in that headspace to work on the video and release was pretty challenging especially when I felt like I was over it by that point. But when I had people reach out to me saying they laughed, cried, and related watching and listening to my project, that was what made it worth it for me. I feel less alone but so does the audience.
My friend, Sam, who plays the second love interest in that video who asks me to move in then ghosts me when I show up with my things, helped brainstorm that scene. That was the scene that inspired by my visa experience but it felt too hard to convey that in a short music video so we simplified and came up with what we have now. When I told Sam the idea he said, “Oh my God, Taylor… my cousin literally just went through this exact situation. Its so heartbreaking but for the video hilariously relatable and people will love it.” That’s what ultimately makes me want to do something and inspires me to move forward with an idea. I’m not really here to be super introspective and deep- honestly just surface level relatable to be like I hear you, see you, and feel you and we’re getting through it together. 
Contact Info:
- Website: www.taylortote.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/taytote/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/taylortotemusic
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/taylortotemusic
- Other: https://open.spotify.com/artist/2hTjlIsUKmL8Zjq1Xjv4AL
Image Credits
Lawrence Perry Film on Rye Manish Gosalia