Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Chris Reed. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Chris, appreciate you joining us today. Do you take vacations? Why or why not?
As I get older, I have come to value and find vacation time with my wife or with our kids as one of the most important things to make happen. Earlier in my career I felt I didn’t have the funds to take many trips. I could have used credit cards of course, but as a musician and business owner, I never knew how much income I would have from year to year so I have spent the last 20 years doing my best to keep my debt minimal. But, now that I have a better idea of what to expect each year and the importance of traveling for the moral of my marriage and family and mental health, I prioritize it. The COVID lockdowns really made that lesson even more apparent than I already knew it was.
My wife and I will often rent houses on a river or beach for a week with our kids as well as take regular trips to museums and any fun outings as a family.
Since our kids are 4 & 7 at the moment, there is a lot of value for her and I to get away and not have to be Mommy and Daddy. Whether it be just the two of us or with friends. Over the last 5 years, we’ve rented beach houses up and down the California coast for the two of us to enjoy, gone to New Orleans for Mardi Gras, been to Vegas with friends, taken a midweek trip to wine country , a one night hotel stay at the beach, or a night in San Francisco. No matter what it is, we try to, at least, get away for a few nights once a month
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
My name is Chris Reed and I live in the Bay Area, CA. I’m 39, a husband to my wife who I have been with since 2001. I have two daughters names Indigo (4) and Violet(7). I’ve always been drawn to the arts since a young age and started singing in choirs when I was 4. I did plays and musicals and started playing alto saxophone in 3rd grade. I began writing, directing and staring in my own plays and musicals at the age of 13 at which time I took them on tour and performed up and down the West Coast for 9 years. My older brother passed away when I was 11 years old and writing, singing and acting was the only thing that brought me joy during those most difficult years. The arts is what got me through each day and even school in general. it was what motivated me. It’s how I made friends, how I dealt with grief and how I have always nurtured my soul. It is the most affective therapy I know and the best way to unleash my unbridled soul.
As I grew up and worked in restaurants and bars and went from job to job, eventually, when I landed back in the Bay Area after moving to Southern California for a few years, I was offered a job at a local elementary school as the band director. They had recently made budget cuts and couldn’t afford a real teacher really. I had to learn how to play the flute, clarinet, trumpet and percussion and get to work before school because that is when band was. I had never been a morning person and that alone was a challenge, but I did my best.
I still worked bartending at a couple places as I directed that band and spent my off nights playing saxophone, harmonica and singing at a local blues club during their jam nights. All other nights were spent going from one open mic to another. I quickly began hosting some of the open mics and started my own. This led to throwing shows at a few venues across town which began to help fund my reggae band that I had formed and was the lead singer in. We played all across California, recorded studio albums, singles, plays Vans Warped tour, were featured on MTV’s website and had one of our songs featured in Miami’s Fashion Week.
Within a a year of being the band director at that school, the classroom was broken into and all the drum gear was stolen and then I got the call that the school couldn’t replace any of it and their budget was cut even more and I was out of a job. I found a position at another school as a band director and did that for a year.
As I kept playing and recording music both solo and with my reggae band Aivar, I started a business, Arts Initiative, with my dad providing a band program at a local school. I had 65 students my first year and that grew year after year until it reached 125 elementary aged kids. Each year my dad and I added another school to our roster and within a few years had programs in over a dozen schools.
Since then I have branched out and started theatre programs, directing dozens of elementary school productions, run and taught classroom music programs and added a private lessons division to the business.
I’ve started another business, Modern Minded (www.modernminded.org), to help handle that work load and our programs collectively serve up to 3,000 students annually and perform concerts for over 25,000 people a year in over 120 concerts.
I’ve continued playing music, even after Aivar broke up in 2011 and started another band named Sunny State. W’ve been featured in countless publications and released a handful of singles and music videos.
www.sunnystatemusic.com
While I always enjoyed teaching, I knew as my daughters were born I would need to hire more people to handle the work load and I have done just that. In fact, I no longer teach at all but get to hire other music professionals to work in these programs. It is very satisfying work and very flexible as I can set the schedule based upon their availability so it is a win win for all. I handle all the behind the scenes work from home and get to spend a lot of time with my wife and kids and keep up on all the household chores everyday.
I will say, the pandemic has been very hard on my businesses but, fortunately, they’re just starting to bounce back a bit, which I am so grateful for.
One thing that really changed during the pandemic for me was the amount it impacts my ability to perform and stay motivated as a musician. During the pandemic I was awarded the honor of becoming a member of the Recording Academy which hosts the Grammys. But even with that honor I struggled with leading Sunny State and performing as a solo artist. Luckily, life has a way of working itself out and a friend of mine invited me to join his band, Kruel Summer as their bassist, back up singer and I even get to dabble on the keyboards a bit. www.kruelsummermusic.com
Needless to say, life is busy, but, as it always has been, it is full of the arts. And I sleep pretty well at night—aside from my 4 year old waking me up at random hours haha— because I am bringing art and music to thousands of people a year, I get to provide for my family as the sole-bread-winner in the home and get to perform, using my musical abilities on stage with Kruel Summer. Not to mention help the musicians live a flexible life as they teach what they love, music!
I know I won’t go out of this world wishing I worked less and saw my kids more, because I am here everyday for them, cooking for them, taking them to school, laughing and dancing with them daily.
Can you open up about a time when you had a really close call with the business?
On March 13th, 2020, the world went into lockdown. It was the beginning of our band concert season. We were told schools were closed and concerts were canceled. That meant 73 concerts were canceled for my two businesses. I had angry parents who wanted refunds and sad kids who had spent all year working hard for concerts they would never get to perform. At that time I had 3 classroom music programs also running where we were working with 3,200 students. Those all transferred online for the remainder of the school year.
All my income evaporated.
As the next school year started, I was not allowed to run any of my programs so we set up an online band but our enrollment went from having 500-600 kids across our various band programs to 40…
That was enough income for one month of bills.
I added a feature in my business where we would offer virtual music lessons, one on one and that helped a hair.
I leaned on my credit cards, drained our checking, savings, emergency and cashed out my ETFs which I had been planning to use as retirement. I cashed out my IRAs and eventually was able to get on unemployment for a couple months, which saved my family.
Somehow we survived that school year and when the next one began we adapted to putting all the kids in special instrument masks, but still our enrollment was not nearly back to what it had been in previous years and was only at 150 students and no classroom music programs. No theatre programs and we couldn’t afford to pay anyone to even work for us. it was tough and very scary. I didn’t know if we would ever bounce back.
But, somehow, we are back to pre-pandemic enrollment in our band programs and we are all so very grateful for it!
We did it. We stuck it out, adapted and survived that and now I know, we can literally survive anything as a business.
Is there a mission driving your creative journey?
My mission and goal, first and foremost, is to provide a quality life for my family. Next, it is to do so while living with integrity and hopefully doing it while maintaining a flexible life style. Next I hope to only add positivity and goodness into this world. Through the work I do with Modern Minded and Art Initiative, I am able to do just that. And with my performances with Kruel Summer, I am also able to do that and have a great time while doing so!
Contact Info:
- Website: modernminded.org
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/chrisreedofficial
- Facebook: facebook.com/chrisreedmusic
- Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/chrisreedmusic
- Twitter: http://twitter.com/chrisreedmusic
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC93oNImOljW1zVXRO7PNgOA
- Other: https://www.youtube.com/chrisreedmusic chrisreedmusic.com
SUNNY STATE SPOTIFY https://open.spotify.com/artist/7JEbkyECKYJPv9oSA5USZd?si=LnhgXLRVQn-4I0SS82nViQ - CHRIS REED SPOTIFY https://open.spotify.com/artist/7fSHonpmis0tgenXPHZwg2?si=SEmZS_PISrGiM281dmb1eQ