We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Aleik Maddox. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Aleik below.

Aleik, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Can you talk to us about how you learned to do what you do?

I have always been a hands on, trial and error learner. I started by playing back what I was hearing around me. Once I started learning different songs and chords, I would noodle around on guitar and find a chord or phrase that sounded similar to another song. There I’d go stumbling through the form learning that song as well. I probably would have spent more time learning chords and theory to speed up my process. I used to overcomplicate playing because I didn’t quite understand how the strings worked together. I’m still not great at theory, but I can get through learning a song a lot quicker now. The most essential skill to me was being able to mimic things that I saw. Like I said I would overcomplicate things, so I got into the habit of watching the hands of each player to see what I could do differently. My biggest obstacle was the pressure I put on myself which is something I still battle. It’s easy to feel inadequate when there are so many different ways to be good at something. I’ve learned in recent years that it’s more about what moves you and your listeners.

Aleik, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I have been a musician all my life. But I’ve been performing professionally for seven years now. I first entered the scene playing at family cookouts with a couple friends from high school when I was eighteen and from there we started playing local restaurants. From the beginning I enjoyed the performance aspect of it and wanted to give my all to the crowd whether it was a crowd of twenty or only a crowd of two. The people who come to hear you deserve that. My favorite part of what I do is watching the ice break for everyone in the audience. To me, having live music to focus on cuts down on awkward silences and can keep one from being too in their head about being social. Also, seeing freedom on someone who’s the center of attention can help me relax into my own freedom when I’m out. Life can be so much more fun when we take some of the seriousness of our struggles out of it or at least have space to hear and talk about it. I feel like that’s one of the big purposes of creatives, to take a mess and make it a masterpiece as an example for other people in their own lives.

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

The biggest lesson I had to unlearn was that there is no threat of competition. Although I do believe in healthy competition such as learning a difficult song you heard someone playing, or trading licks with each other. Things that sharpen your skills in the right ways and for the proper reasons. But there is no such thing as being “The Best” or “The Greatest” and even if you are, it will be short lived. I grew up in a small town, so being young and being musically talented became big news very quickly and it became somewhat of an ego boost. When I’d go out and here someone doing something I couldn’t, I would beat myself mentally until I learned how to do it, or found a way around it. Now that I’ve traveled I’ve realized that none of what I can do matters to anyone but me and I should be happy with me regardless of what I can or can’t do. The beauty of it, the beauty of creativity in general is that everyone is the greatest the moment they start doing their thing, so there’s no real reason to compete only reasons to learn, grow and support one another.

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

My goal as a creative is to give people space to feel. There’s been countless times where I’ve felt seen because someone wrote a song about an emotion I never thought they’d feel. Like Prince singing about a heartbreak. All too often I have felt ashamed about a feeling or situation, but the stage and show is the one place where it becomes a power. I want to share that power with the listener. If it moves someone to tears, laughter, dancing, or any other expression that doesn’t involve harming others I want that person to have the freedom to own the action unapologetically. Sometimes everything is fine, but when things get rough sometimes we need someone to say the things our mouth cant seem to communicate at the time.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.aleikmaddoxmusic.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/aleikmaddoxmusic/?img_index=1
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aleikmaddoxmusic
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@aleikmaddoxmusic5391