We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Colton Cox a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Colton 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?

It’s kind of funny; I played upright bass in my school orchestra pretty early on, around 4th grade. I played that until my freshman year of high school, but I was never super passionate about it. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed playing, but it just didn’t captivate me all that much. However, my grandpa had an electric guitar the whole time I was growing up, and he used to play “Johnny B. Goode” by Chuck Berry all the time. I just was remember thinking it was the coolest thing ever. He also had some great classic rock CDs, like Bat Out of Hell and Appetite for Destruction, so I got an education in some fundamental rock records from him as well. As soon as I playing guitar myself freshman year, it was over. I started trying to write songs before I even really knew how to play. Can’t say if the songs were any good or not, but I had fun writing them!

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 grew up in Salina, Kansas, and, like most musicians, my life has been centered around music for nearly all 31 years of it. Since the first time I heard my grandpa play the Chuck Berry classic “Johnny B. Goode” on his ’97 red Fender Stratocaster, I’ve had an enduring love of rock n’ roll, especially from the late 60s and early 70s.

Though I was eager to start playing my music in front of people, there weren’t a lot of venues open for a teenager to play in Salina. The only venue I had available to me was a pizza joint that had an open mic night run by a guy who played in a fairly successful band in the 90s. I played that open mic night nearly every week, debuting new songs and building a repertoire of cover songs. This really helped me learn how to perform and shed off some of the nerves that comes along with playing live. Truly a foundational time in my career.

I then moved to Wichita, Kansas and attended Wichita State University, where I studied jazz and classical guitar. Though I still don’t consider myself a jazz player, I certainly learned a lot in my time at college, to a point that I had to nearly relearn how to play from the ground up. It really opened up my playing and turned me from a decent singer with passable guitar skills, to a fully formed musician.

Shortly after college, I got a job at a local music store and started playing local shows. I played in a few different projects, but the one that became most prominent was my funk rock act, Afro Jim. We released our Always Waiting EP in 2018, and started playing nearly every weekend for a good stretch. This was the first group that I took the helm of, doing nearly all of the songwriting, booking, and promotion. This band led to so many lasting friendships, and the guys in Afro Jim are still some of my best friends to this day. 9 times out of 10, if I need a musician to play a show with me, one of those guys are the first to receive a call.

In 2019, while taking a short break from performing in Afro Jim, I started delving into new material, fusing sounds from a wide spectrum of influences. While my previous work was more rooted in funk and classic rock, these newer songs were branching out in a lot of different directions; there were elements of 70s soul, 2000s indie rock, even neo-folk. I ultimately ended up shelving these songs until years later, when I decided to move to Kansas City in January of 2020 and embark on a solo career.

After making it of out the worst parts of the COVID-19 epidemic, and patiently waiting for venues to open back up, I released my debut EP, Internal Combustion, in July 2021, and promoted it on The Jolly Giants tour with my good friend and fellow KC artist, Calvin Arsenia. This was a really big learning experience for me, and I’m so glad that Calvin was able to help me navigate through my first small tour. He’s such an incredible asset to the KC music community, and I’m very thankful to call him my friend.

The lyrics in my songs are about a lot of different things, from anxiety to depression, apocalyptic visions, unrequited love, and even ego death. However, the main intent behind of all my songs are to provide comfort to people through the many insights about life I’ve picked up over the years. My hope is that my music can give other people the same relief from sadness and pain that it gave to me when I first wrote it.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

This is a great question, because I think being a professional artist has a LOT to do with learning to pivot, and learning to do it well. The way I learned this difficult lesson was when I started teaching private music lessons full time in 2021/2022. I loved the job deeply, but I made very little money doing it. I was taking a break from performing as well, so I didn’t have the same income from playing live that I normally did (which was not a lot, a wholly separate issue). After teaching for about a year, I had to finally throw in the towel and find a better paying job. It broke my heart, because I love teaching, but after losing my job in March of 2020 to Covid after I had just spent most of my money to move to KC 3 months prior, and surviving on doing GrubHub deliveries for 6+ months, I just didn’t have the willpower to keep going on such a tight budget. It all worked out for the best, and I ended up getting a job in music sales that is able to support me much better. It just goes to show you that you have to be prepared to make difficult decisions for yourself and do what you need to keep yourself happy and look out for your mental well-being.

Any resources you can share with us that might be helpful to other creatives?

One of the best resources I have come to draw on to learn more about conducting art as your main source of income are services like Artist Inc. There are other programs out there that are similar, but Artist Inc has some truly incredible people on their team that are all looking out for struggling artists that have no idea how to run their craft as a business. They’ll teach you everything from applying to grants to building your CV, writing an artist bio, doing your taxes as a creative, all sorts of stuff. Seeing how most traditional music colleges neglect to include important pieces of information like these, I see Artist Inc. and similar programs as a crucial piece of further education that most artists never get. If you are an artist and have never take a class focused on finances as a creative, you NEED to get yourself enrolled in an Artist Inc class.

Contact Info:

• Website: coltoncox.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/coltoncoxmusic/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/coltoncoxmusic/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/coltoncoxmusic
• Youtube: @coltoncoxmusic

Image Credits
Connor Seybert Brandon Jensen