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

Hi Carl, thanks for joining 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.

The only real mistake so far was not spending more time figuring out exactly what this whole thing needed to look like. If that got figured out early then it makes everything easier because there’s far less guesswork. You can just lock in on really sharpening the blade and putting your best foot forward. Didn’t do that and paid for it early on. Thankfully, time’s never been something I took for granted. Definitely got a lot better with that.

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

The short answer is that I compose. I typically figure the genre out later but it’s usually a crossbreed. It’s rare that I just decide to only do a metal song or only do a classical song. It’s usually a situation where I think a piano line or a square wave would sound sick with some hip-hop drums behind it. All depends on what sounds good to me.

As far as what sets me apart…it’s probably the patience. There’s this inherent expectation with most musicians that it’ll just happen overnight. That entitlement drives me insane, especially in an era where the pool is deeper than it’s ever been. You’re not entitled to anything but the work. If that doesn’t sustain you then you won’t last very long. I’ve been in this over a decade and it hasn’t gotten stale yet. All because you accept that the work is all you’re entitled to.

In your view, what can society to do to best support artists, creatives and a thriving creative ecosystem?

The answer to this question is complex. On one hand, it would require that they increase their knowledge level, which isn’t going to happen. People have an extremely reductive idea of what music is, and it gets worse when you get into mixing genres or if you’re into more obscure genres. All these things make the road harder.

Then there’s the undeniable fact that music became extremely inconvenient for people to pay for. Another roadblock.

The burden shifts further and further off the consumer as time goes on, and to expect them to have this innate obligation towards us is foolish. You gotta make ’em care.

However, on the musician side, we tend to feed people a lot of immaterial garbage that doesn’t matter. We keep talking about things like mood and emotions and people assume that’s the way most things get made.

So you might have a giant group of people thinking their favorite pop song happened because someone was really sad one day when pop is just a machine with rotating faces. A language with four words.

It’d take a whole lot of uncomfortable conversations on both sides.

Do you think there is something that non-creatives might struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can shed some light?

The time commitment. But this isn’t surprising because most people either go get regular jobs and accept what they’re given.

To be elite at anything takes an unreal level of sacrifice. Time I give to you is time I’m not spending sharpening the blade, writing, or getting other things done. And if the people in your life don’t understand that, they don’t need to be there. Everyone wants to believe they have a place in your life even if you embark on an endeavor like this. The fact of the matter is that most don’t and won’t. That reality is tough to accept for a lot of people.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://linktr.ee/carlmakesstuff
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/carlmakesstuff
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBYL7jMOC3Yy1sUBi-zDqpQ

Image Credits
Justin McCready Greg Crowson