We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Daniel Saint Black a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Daniel , thanks for joining us today. What did your parents do right and how has that impacted you in your life and career?

My parents relentlessly championed my passion. As a kid my passions involved horses, skateboarding, basketball, Indiana Jones, and countless other things. They forced all of us (3 boys) to take music lessons but we could choose what we wanted to learn. I don’t think they even tried to find balance but they nailed the balance of “rules” and freedom to explore. If I chose to want to be a professional basketball player they were at all my high school games, buying me gear, and fired up when I made a shot. Neither one of my parents told me that I “couldn’t” do something, or that it wouldn’t work out for me if I put my mind to it. They were relentless champions of whatever it was that I set my mind to. Im eternally grateful for this.

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?

As a kid the only thing that was able to keep my attention was music. All of our evenings centered around our old piano and playing music together. I went to college and could never figure out my major because I knew I would need to make money but I didn’t know how to reconcile with my passion and desire to just focus on music. I grew up in rural new mexico – there definitely is not a thriving music scene at all. I went to college in Arizona and still had a really hard time imagining a viable situation to make music and money at the same time. Its odd thinking back to it now that the dream always stayed alive despite having to work 2-3 jobs to pay rent. I never really planned for these doors to open but one by one they started to. the first opportunities i got in music were in churches. I learned how to arrange, make demos, and play with a band. From there I got hired by an LA based Christian band called Urban Rescue to play keys. With that opportunity and working with various other christian artists in that time i started to feel like i needed to be based in a music community. I had no idea how it was going to pan out for my future but my wife Elizabeth and I decided to move to Nasvhille in 2019. After a week of being here I made a crucial friend named Tommee. Tommee went out of his way to help me navigate the music industry and encouraged me to put out my own songs with me singing on them (i never would have thought to put my own stuff out, assumed i would work for other people always). From there I began to release about 10 songs or so every year. It has been a rollercoaster! Ive had some little wins along the way but the dream is still very much alive for my music. I would define that dream and making this world a better place in any way I can, and making people feel something. Im still learning every day how to navigate this crazy world of art and commerce. I aim to keep coming back to every day a heart of gratefulness and not one of entitlement. I aim to continue to learn and grow and am excited to see what each moment in my future looks and feels like. Altogether now Ive been workinng in music since the church music days. I started with that in 2014 just picking up weekend contracts to play guitar or whatever. Its been a crazy road from then to what Im doing now.

I just put out a single and I have a full length record coming out feb 9th

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

when I first started writing songs I lost count of how many times I felt like I wrote an amazing song and got no response of any kind about it. For a long time I was actually paying to “work” in the music industry. I worked a job so that I could make songs for others. Those others rarely if ever paid me anything. Sometimes those people would release the songs even and earn royalties on them and never pay me any of those royalties for the song I made for them. None of that ever mattered to me because I just love songs so much. Time and time again I have had ups and downs but I have stayed committed to making the best songs I can make every time I come into the studio. How people receive it and what they do with the songs isn’t up to me.

Are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?

therapy. I feel like so many people growing up around me had a negative connotation about therapy. I think getting therapy and having Music Cares as an organization help me to get the help I needed as a creative was essential. I wish I knew about it sooner and started going to therapy years ago. I needed to have a place to discover, be safe, and have permission to go deeper within my own experience without that being connected to me making dollars or not.

Contact Info:

• Website: Danielsaintblack.com
• Instagram: instagram.com/danielstblack
• Twitter: twitter.com/danielstblack
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBQ5V3UtAEeHng7Hh4zxqqA/videos?view_as=subscriber

Image Credits
Joseph Ross Photo