We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Cousin Curtiss (Full name Curtiss O’Rorke Stedman). We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Cousin Curtiss below.

Cousin Curtiss, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. 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?

This June will mark my ninth year playing music for a living. Thinking about how it all started almost a decade ago is insane. I had a successful teaching career that I was willingly walking away from, my girlfriend and I sold everything we owned, and we hit the road June 1st, 2015 with our two dogs. We lived in a tiny house we built and traveled for over a year before landing in Colorado…kinda by accident. During that time our only source of income was from shows. As a result I had to say yes to every single show offer that I got. Many of those were four hour long shows in bars where no one really wants you there. But it was a helluva way to thicken up the skin and made inspiration for some of my favorite songs I’ve written to date.

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.

I’m originally from Michigan but part of me feels like a large portion of my identity formed in Alaska. I graduated from Northern Michigan University with a teaching degree and taught at an international school in Saint Lucia for a term and then moved to Alaska to teach at Tok School and then in Juneau at Thunder Mountain High School. I miss teaching and I miss the kids, lesson planning, reading their essays, etc. but I feel like playing music for a living is pretty sweet haha. Plus the kids that I taught are now of age where they can come to the shows and it’s surreal to get to hang out with them.

I started playing music when I was about 14 or 15 years old. I went to Hiawatha Music Festival a couple years before that and fell in love with the comraderie of musicians jamming around a fire. To my eyes not many of them knew each other but they could all speak the same language. I was hooked. I wanted in.

From there I jammed with friends in my hometown of Onekama, MI. We started a band called The Hustlers and played some shows throughout high school. We graduated and we all had plans to leave our small town and go different directions – college, the military, culinary school. We’d jam when we were all back “home” at the same time. I kept playing shows and hosting open mics at the university. Started writing more songs, silly songs. Ask the crowd to give me five topics and I’d put something together on the spot. There was one show where some folks who worked for the university came and afterwards asked “what do you charge?” I said, “I don’t.” I was just doing it because it was fun and the dorm lobby gave me free grilled cheese sandwhiches whenever I wanted.

From there the university started to hire me to play. Opened up for some national acts touring through. Then I got into the bar scene with my band “The Lovers.” Damn we had fun hahaha. At about the same time I started acting in college plays. Got the role of Rocky from Rocky Horror Show….without ever having seen the play or movie. That was a shock when they showed me the outfit. After that I auditioned for Roger in RENT and fell in love with the stage and theater in general. The costume department let me keep the leather jacket when it was all said and done.

After I graduated from college, I toured across the country for three months. Every town I thought I could live in after playing a show there, I would contact the local school district and submit a cover letter and resumè. I got a couple call backs but no real luck. “Not enough experience” was the common phrase. I went to a job fair and a few disctricts in Alaska were there. I chatted with them and basically said, “I’m in. I don’t really care where I go.” Then I got call backs immediately from a ton of schools, one of which was Tok. I kept playing music on the weekends and then I’d tour a bit in the summer months. After the summer tour of 2014 I decided to come back and teach one more year and then hit the road full-time music life and see if I could do it. Been on the road since and for the last few years with Harrison B. We met in Alaska and both have ties there, but tour across the country all year long.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

The most rewarding part of this life is truly being able to do what I love for a living. Clichè I know but I really do love it. There are certainly aspects about touring, the industry, etc that can kinda kick ya when you’re down but all in all, I love writing songs, playing music, traveling, meeting new and weird people. I love coming home with a lifetime of stories that took a month to experience. Finding the balance of it all is the biggest struggle in my mind but the more that we get out there and live, the better.

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

Good question. I kinda want to say not really? I mean there is a goal – keep doing it. The mission – because it’s fun. I don’t even know if I have a solid five year plan or anything. Each new show or festival announcement stokes the fire to continue writing better songs and playing better shows. I like the line from Lord of the Rings when Gandalf says something to the effect of “things are now in motion that cannot be undone.” I’ve adopted that as a self-fulfilling prophecy. We’re doing something special. Something that we haven’t seen other bands do with how we craft our tone, how we write dynamically just being a power duo. With every setback or success we just do our best to continue to be excited about it all. Kinda like a “okay… well hell yeah, that was fun, what’s next?” Maybe that’s the drive behind the creative journey.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.cousincurtiss.com
• Instagram: @cousincurtiss
• Facebook: facebook.com/cousincurtiss
• Youtube: youtube.com/cousincurtiss
• Other: https://open.spotify.com/artist/21rKdEEZau9U0Nbvfx0IOo?si=8p2MmaChSQ-PR9gonkYrzQ

Image Credits
All photos taken by Jason Myers – Memorandum Media Artists in the photos Cousin Curtiss & Harrison B