We recently connected with Charles Sponseller and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Charles thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. When did you first know you wanted to pursue a creative/artistic path professionally?

When I was probably a sophomore in high school I was starting to play guitar everyday whenever I could. I never really liked being at school but we had a guitar class I would take almost every semester and if not the teacher would let me sneak in and grab one during lunch. Throughout the rest of high school I realized I didn’t want to do anything else for a living besides play guitar, so I started looking for a full band to play with to start gaining more experience.

Charles , before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

My name is Honky Kong and I play drums for Hoodoo Jive. I first started drumming when I was 13 because I wasn’t good at sports and I couldn’t sing, and I quickly grew addicted to it. I started playing with Hoodoo Jive about a year back, and am fortunate enough to play with four great musicians and I hope I get to play many more shows with them.

How can we best help foster a strong, supportive environment for artists and creatives?

I think the best thing we can do to support preforming artists is break free completely from Ticketmaster and support the independent venues and promoters that give opportunities to locals bands like ourselves.

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

There is a nonstop strive to better myself and try to attain the impossible perfection within my drumming which provides me with at least the illusion of purpose that I don’t exactly get from stocking shelves.