We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Adam Lifto a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Alright, Adam thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Learning the craft is often a unique journey from every creative – we’d love to hear about your journey and if knowing what you know now, you would have done anything differently to speed up the learning process.
When I re-spawned as a musician and band leader in 2022 with my current group Twin Citizen, after a decade’s-long hiatus from the Twin Cities local music scene, I had no idea just how different things had become from a visual arts and promotional standpoint. Between 2004 and 2012, when I was in two different local bands called The Unmundane, and Crooks & Shanks, promotion was very organic and grassroots oriented, and although a google search says that Facebook Events started back in 2004, I don’t remember any of these features being used in promotion in that earlier time frame. Getting attention and promoting Twin Citizen’s music, shows, and content in 2024 has been a very different animal to learn. Prior to this new adventure in Twin Citizen, I had maybe a couple hundred Facebook followers on my personal page, had opened up an Instagram and Twitter account when they first launched, but had never used then, and had no idea how to tag anyone or what hashtags were even used for. Needless to say, when I jumped in and started to promote my new band two years aga, I felt old, ill-equipped, and like a digital infant. Thankfully, I had a wide spectrum of teachers in my circle that helped me get up to speed quickly, including a 19-year-old co-worker who helped me get use to the inner workings of Canva, which is an online design and visual communication platform, my father-in-law who is an AI-engine guru, and my wife who could teach me the basics of how to utilize social media tools such as tagging individuals, hashtags, stories, reels, posts, and how to connect one social media to another. After I picked up the basics of all of these tools, despite the fact that if I didn’t have a band to promote, I wouldn’t touch social media with a 10-foot pole, I have developed into a rather accomplished social media designer, promoter, and AI artist. The term, “AI artist,” certainly has roots firmly in the place of controversy, and would like to provide my own explanation of this for your readers. Just like any art form, there is a wide spectrum of talent and skill in the AI world. For instance, it does not take any talent to download some random pictures of yourself, or some other content, into an AI engine, have it spit a bunch of photos at you, and then post into social media. Don’t get me wrong, its fun to see what AI can do at first, and it is what first caught my attention when I started, but after it’s novelty runs out, most people stop using it. For me, it was the first time I was able to translate the visual fantasies in my head into digital files on my computer. I also do not equate AI art making to the unbelievable skills that people have developed and practiced over time. The best comparison I can come up with between AI art and actual artists comes from my own background as a musician in that there are thousands of software programs that can develop digital representations of guitar, and in my opinion, never as cool as the real thing, but for someone who isn’t interested in learning the guitar, or doesn’t have the financial capital to pay someone to record guitar on their albums, its super useful tool. I think of AI art much in the same vein, in that I don’t have the time or passion to learn how to create the art I see in my head, and considering the fact that Twin Citizen is barely a self-sustaining financial endeavor at this time, I cannot afford to pay someone to create the multitude of designs I need to be competitive in the local scene. I would consider myself an intermediate AI Art content developer, and have worked hard to learn the tricks of the trade through Midjourney over the past two years, but if you look at the AI art my father-in-law, Mike Peterson is making, he is on a whole other stratosphere of talent that I can only hope to get to one day. Once I have the images I am looking for, I drop those AI images into Canva to do the lettering and promotional communications for posts, stories, reels, and videos, and lastly drop them into the appropriate social media platform with tags, hashtags, and sometimes promotions to keep them from disappearing into the digital blackhole. Over the past two years, with the development of this process, I believe I have been able to put our group, Twin Citizen on the map, in a way that many other groups have not been able to.
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.
My name is Adam Lifto, and I am a man in long-term recovery from substance use and mental health disorders. The reason it is important for me to identify as a man in long-term recovery is because it has allowed me to become the laser-focused and authentic husband, father, brother, friend, musician, promoter, digital designer, and content creator that I am today. Twin Citizen is a indie, funky, and psychedelic rock band out of the Minneapolis and Saint Paul area and we offer our followers incredibly diverse music, merchandise, eclectic musical events, and digital content that makes our brand special and flavorful. Four out of the five members of Twin Citizen are in long-term recovery from substance use and mental health disorders and we have been attempting to be trailblazers for other people who might want to make a change in their life, and providing an example of how it can be done in epic proportions.
What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?
On the front end I want to make something clear, I am in no way shaming, guilting, or attempting to make the point that all people are problem drinkers or drug users, or that most musicians or artists struggle with substance use and mental health disorders. With that said, in my experience, I have seen a lot of individuals, both our icons such as Prince, and those of us grinding in the smaller clubs on a Tuesday night for a small amount of cash, crash and burn due to the use of drugs and alcohol to cope with mental health disorders and the anxieties of baring our souls on stage or canvas. Myself, along with many of my bandmates, have lived this destructive path in the past, therefore, we have banded together as Twin Citizen to be an example to those who might want a new way to live, and a new way to be authentically vulnerable in their craft, so that others can see it can be done, and done in momentous and epic proportion.
Are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?
I wish someone in the recovery community would have told me or introduced me to the multitude of other people who were musicians, artists, and creatives in recovery. The Twin Cities has a rich and fertile artistic community of recovery-minded folks that would have helped me make changes and get started with this journey earlier in my life.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.twincitizenmnmusic.com and www.twincitizenepk.com
- Instagram: https://instagram.com/twincitizenmnmusic
- Facebook: https://facebook.com/twincitizenmnmusic
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/twincitizenband
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCagEV8RLGJwFQ2U1zroshPg
- Other: TikTok: @twincitizenmnmusic Bandcamp: https://twincitizenmn.bandcamp.com/
Image Credits
Adam Kyek On the Personal Photo, and Adam Lifto on all other additional photos