We recently connected with Chad Gosselin and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Chad thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Earning a full time living from one’s creative career can be incredibly difficult. Have you been able to do so and if so, can you share some of the key parts of your journey and any important advice or lessons that might help creatives who haven’t been able to yet?

To date, I am lucky to say I have been able to make my life work as a full-time artist, but it has not been an easy path, and one I would only recommend to folks unless they see no other way to be happy on this planet. This has to be a total lifestyle to work, and I have made more sacrifices than most people would feel comfortable making in their own lives.

Day-to-day, I typically get on my laptop around 8 AM, and work until noon to 1 PM, booking shows, managing social media, making content, writing music, practicing piano or guitar, and planning for the future. Around 1 PM, I typically head to the gym for a few hours – which is my only realistic break during the day. From there, I typically engage in some kind of paid music work – whether it be teaching music lessons, preparing for a show that night, or preparing for a recording session. My work days rarely end before 9 PM. 12+ hours day are pretty common for most folks I know involved in this kind of work.

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 started playing guitar when I was 12, when one of my baseball teammates handed me a guitar after practice one day. Growing up in a single-parent household, I didn’t have many resources to take lessons, so I basically started writing music on it because I didn’t know what else to do. Slowly, I started learning more things from books, and early internet tabs, but the creative wonder and output developed right alongside my music education.

I play guitar/piano/synths/sing and write for The Big Lonesome. We’re a Boston-based indie-rock band, and have been touring the US and Canada since 2014. We are completely DIY, and I am proud of how much we’ve accomplished without the aid of a traditional record label – we’ve released three records, a bunch of singles, and are about to release our fourth record this summer. Continuing with the trend of our last release, this is our second album in a row completely self-produced and recorded.

Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative?

I think the biggest thing non-creatives don’t understand, is the sheer amount of hours and dedication the artist possesses to bring forth their creative outputs into the world, as well as the monetary investments necessary to bring them to light. Like I was mentioning earlier, 12 hour work days are the norm for me. I’ve worked through more holidays, evenings, vacations, and sick days than I care to remember, but the fact is, if I stop doing any of these things, the wheels fall off the bus. As artists and entrepreneurs, we always need to be balancing conflicting deadlines and overlapping timelines… album cycles intersect with social media content creation, broken up by preparing for one-off local shows peppered between weeks and months long tours. Its not for the faint of heart – but I wouldn’t trade it for anything!

Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

I think the biggest mission of my music and our band, is to send messages out into the world for the people that need to hear it. As a a band, we’ve had members struggle with trauma, addictions, isolation, depression, anxiety and the whole gamut of human experience. We try to filter these emotions and experiences through the music, to reach out to others who have or are currently going through the same sort of thing. We’re big on building communities, and connecting them everywhere we go!

Contact Info:

• Website: thebiglonesome.net
• Instagram: instagram.com/thebiglonesome
• Facebook: facebook.com/thebiglonesome
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@thebiglonesome

Image Credits
Jeff Friesen Luke Gura Ryan Fluke