We were lucky to catch up with Anna Barnett recently and have shared our conversation below.

Anna , appreciate you joining us today. Did you always know you wanted to pursue a creative or artistic career? When did you first know?

There’s this book I read in my early twenties, Letters to a Young Poet, by Rainer Maria Rilke, where he’s talking to this soldier about whether the soldier should change careers and become a poet. Rilke basically goes: Would you die if you could not write? And when I first read that, I was like, no I wouldn’t die, I could do something else. But ten years later, I opened the book again, and the answer was yes, I would die. I can’t do anything else but be an artist.

I actually knew when I was a kid that I was an artist, but I let that get buried for most of my life. My family recently found some very old home videos, and seeing myself in them, I realized that I’ve been performing almost as soon as I could walk. I’m constantly in front of the camera trying to tell a story, or directing my brothers and sisters in some dance or skit. There are pictures of me still in a diaper dancing with my dad as he plays the guitar, or singing into a Fisher Price microphone. I wanted to be a novelist, and then a painter (I was very bad), and then an actress (also bad). I was always so sure that I was supposed to create in some form, but I stopped embodying it as an adult.

I didn’t actually start writing and performing music until I was 17, but I still treated it like a hobby. After college I got a 9-5 in research and worked in consulting for the next ten years. I told my coworkers jokingly I that my job was my life but my music was what kept me sane. That should have been a sign, haha.

That’s the story that a lot of people are taught though: art is nice, but it’s not a real life, and only fools actually pursue it. I wouldn’t have said that to anyone, or admitted it to myself, but it’s definitely what I believed.

I was in my early thirties before my artist self was powerful enough- or hungry enough- to take over. One trigger was the pandemic and the huge liminal experience that was. Things that were once important to me lost their value; part of me died and another part woke up.

Another catalyst was reading The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron, a very helpful and dangerous book—don’t read it if you don’t want to disrupt your life.

Anyways, this big revelation all culminated in me quitting my 9-5 last year. I started doing freelance gigs. I now have control over my schedule and workload, so I can give all my extra time and energy to my music.

Being a fully realized artist looks different for everyone, but for me, it meant creating flexibility in my work life so I had more mental space for my artistic life. I prioritized that part of myself instead of relegating it to the background and actually told people I was an artist with a capital A.

Figuring out how to actually make money from my art is ongoing, and more of my time goes towards figuring out the music industry than writing songs most days, but I’m still able to create much more than I could before. And I feel centered in a way I didn’t before.

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

I’m a singer and songwriter and one of the founders of Sweetboy. We’re an indie pop/rock band based in New York. I’m the lead singer, and I write the lyrics and melodies for our songs.

I call our music indie-pop-rock with a singer-songwriter vein. Our lyrics tell interesting stories supported by dynamic composition. I tell people we’re like Blondie meets Big Thief, or Paramore throws a party with Paul Simon, or Olivia Rodrigo sits down with Carole King for a cup of tea.

Having said that, I try not to get bogged down by genre rules or figuring out where we fit in the musical landscape. For me, it’s not so much of who we sound like as what we want to accomplish.

Think of bands like The Killers, Fleetwood Mac, Queen, Arcade Fire— their songs are made for an audience. Their music can make a whole room of people feel big emotions together, sing together, and move together. We want to write songs and perform that way: simply honoring being human with big, grand, beautiful, cathartic noise. We want our audience to feel at home, connected, and lifted up at our shows. To feel human.

I think there’s room for a little more energy and positivity in indie music today. I’m not saying that sad girl and boy songs aren’t awesome and that angst and anger don’t have a place. I love that music! But I don’t think we have much to add to the conversation. Sweetboy’s sound reflects a kind of tongue-in-cheek angst, a stubborn optimism that comes from living in a chaos world and choosing to dance our way into the dark.

I started Sweetboy with my co-founder and songwriting partner, Jon Flores, in 2018. We treated it as our creative outlet for a few years, adding new members and putting on shows some around NYC. In 2023 we decided to focus on it seriously. I quit my 9-5 day job and started doing freelance work so I could put more time into growing our fanbase and managing the band. Today, we’ve also got Connor O’Sullivan and Nick Oddo as full-time band members. We’ve put 11 new songs in the last 18 months and have three more singles ready to release by the end of this year.

As our name suggests, and because like attracts like, we’re all pretty kind-hearted and good people, and we have a lot of fun. We’re still small and self-funded and are trying to grow our fanbase online. We play out in NYC about once a month and are focused on touring and playing festivals next year. Open to suggestions from any readers on great places to visit and perform!

Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can provide some insight – you never know who might benefit from the enlightenment.

I think it’s interesting how much the music industry has changed, but not that many people know how much. I know when I started focusing on music more, I discovered so much. For one, labels are not the gatekeepers to getting heard anymore, which is a good thing, but it also means there are so many more artists in the market now and so much competition. Not competition in the manner of artists trying to be better than another so you will listen to them over another, but competition in getting your attention and getting the algorithms to put us in front of you! So much of our success depends on our ability to market ourselves online, which, for many people, translates directly to paid ads and boosted posts. It also means creating a TON of video content. There’s also a whole industry that’s cropped up that preys on small artists, trying to sell them playlisting services and PR and marketing, and only some of them are legit- which I’ve learned the hard way.

Overall, to be any type of professional artist today is akin to having a startup. A lot of energy artists could be using creating goes towards business operations, visual content creation, and social media, and that is all very taxing and very expensive. And it really, really does drain the artistic tank.

I’m not trying to throw a pity party here! For many of us, it is all worth it to share our work with you. Just keep it in mind when engaging with us online and in person. There are some free and very low-lift things you can do. Simply liking our posts helps our algorithm, which helps more people see us, listen to us, and potentially come to our shows. If you listen to us on Spotify a lot, save our songs and follow our page, which also helps our algorithm. Are you coming to our show anyway? Pre-buy our tickets to help us look good at the venues. And maybe hug us, because we’re probably tired.

And if you have the willingness and ability, support an indie artist by signing up for their Patreon. It’s so, so helpful
.

Looking back, are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?

There’s this really helpful person, Ari Herstand, a podcaster, writer, and musician who creates a lot of content around “the new music business.” He talks about what you need to do to get started and grow and covers just about everything you will face on the way. He is one of the few resources I’ve come across who seems genuinely interested in seeing new artists succeed rather than trying to get money from them. I wish I’d started reading his work months earlier, and I’d encourage every new musical artist to check him out.

Also, despite what I said earlier, read The Artist’s Way! It’s transformational and so valuable to your spirit as an artist. And do those Morning Pages, trust me.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://thesweetboyband.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sweetboyband
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sweetboyband
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSMV9jXcuWgYTz0gkgkAF7A
• Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/sweetboyband
• Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@sweetboyband
  https://www.patreon.com/thesweetboyband

Image Credits

Rachel Thalia
Samanta Mena