Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Denny Smith. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Denny, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Have you been able to earn a full-time living from your creative work? If so, can you walk us through your journey and how you made it happen? Was it like that from day one? If not, what were some of the major steps and milestones and do you think you could have sped up the process somehow knowing what you know now?

This is a tricky one to talk about, because I do several different things to pay my bills, and I’m not sure they all technically qualify as “creative work”.

Music has provided me with an income for most of my adult life, but not always as a result of writing, recording, or performing it. In fact, if I were going to rely solely on whatever skills I possess in those areas, I would have to seriously improve my hustle to make ends meet. Instead, since 1998, I’ve drawn a paycheck from the record shop I opened in the Spring of that year – Co-Op Records of Pekin, IL. That little operation has been buttering my bread, and allowing me to pursue artistic endeavors that; while frequently putting a bit of coin in my pocket as well, have proven far less lucrative than my adventures in retail.

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 was born in Salinas, California, where my dad was stationed during the Vietnam War, but my parents were originally from Central Illinois, so we relocated there not long after I showed up, and his enlistment ended. Two sisters and a brother got added to the staff along the way, and I had a pretty standard Midwestern upbringing – played sports, collected action figures & comic books, read everything I could get my hands on, fell in love with The Beatles & KISS, became obsessed with Science Fiction, delivered newspapers (and later pizzas, once I graduated from a bicycle to a driver’s license), and got into the kinds of trouble kids in the middle of nowhere tend to find themselves getting into sometimes.

Then I got a guitar.

I’m pretty sure that $100 Les Paul knockoff changed the course of my life.

Playing in local bands led to me getting a part-time job at a record shop, where one of my band mates worked. That part-time job quickly turned into a full-time Assistant Manager position, and just a couple of years later, I took the plunge and opened my own store in the next town over. That was 27 years ago.

Owning that shop has allowed me to bounce around the country in a van with various bands, move my family to Nashville, TN in 2003, and still makes it possible for me to dedicate most of my time to making music.

It can be a little stressful, managing a business remotely, from nearly 500 miles away, while simultaneously maintaining a grip on my band’s calendar, but I’m not sure what I’d do with myself if I didn’t wake up to those headaches each day. I’m lucky to have a great crew at Co-Op, and some amazing collaborators on the music side of things, so as long as I can keep the lights on up north, and gas in the tank here at home, I’m going to keep double-dipping, making AND selling records.

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

If time travel were a possibility, I sure wish YouTube had been around when I was first learning to play guitar, because I can’t tell you how many free lessons I’ve gotten by now, or quick tutorials on how to REALLY play something I THOUGHT I’d been playing correctly all these years.

Kids, you have no idea how fortunate you are to have this resource at your fingertips. Trust me.

Granted, this may not necessarily seem to foster true creativity, but improving your chops gives you the facility to more easily manifest the ideas knocking around in your brain, as well as helping to build the broadest possible pallete of colors to paint your compositions with. You can only get so far with a handful of Cowboy Chords, and a minor pentatonic scale.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

Walking in with nothing, and walking out with a completed song. There is no finer magic than the act of creation. Crafting something that moves people, and realizing that it didn’t exist AT ALL until you plucked it from the aether, and molded it into its ultimate shape is a feeling that’s hard to beat. I chase it as often as I possibly can.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.dennysmithmusic.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/thegreataffairs
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/thegreataffairs
• Youtube: www.youtube.com/thegreataffairs