We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Freebird Astro-Naughty . We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Freebird below.

Freebird , appreciate you joining us today. How did you learn to do what you do? Knowing what you know now, what could you have done to speed up your learning process? What skills do you think were most essential? What obstacles stood in the way of learning more?

Thank you so very much for granting me the opportunity to be here today. I will have to answer this question in different parts. Part one, I essentially was studying music for my whole life without even realizing that fact. Life was not always easy and music showed me comfort when there was none anywhere else. I had a deep affection with it and the music helped get me through some difficult points in my life. On the flip side of that, it has been there to grow with me, and was there during the good times too. The brightest days, darkest hours, and everything in between, music was always there. I had different music types for whatever was happening. Study music, intimacy music, activity music, chill out Freebird music, life music. I never got hung up on specific genres. Sure, there would be years that I would stick to one or two, but they would always evolve and regress without limit.

It is a little complex, and hard to explain exactly, but I will try my best. I have not always had the strongest self image. In actuality it was quite the opposite. I never felt like I was qualified to be a musician. I wrote myself off due to the extremely high respect I held for music as a whole, and also because of my self-doubt. That being said, songs would just form organically in my mind all the time. I would come up with songs out of nowhere. I’d be walking down the street, and by the time I got where I was going, I would have a whole song finished. I was pulling tunes and rhymes out of thin air. I just never wrote them down or took them seriously, for many years. It was just something that I did for fun for myself, not for others. I have always been cerebral, a tad sensitive about certain things, and perhaps a bit peculiar at times. I applied myself, and worked through much of that, but it is a difficult state to operate from in general. I just did not even consider myself to be any substance musically speaking.

As time passed I would pretty consistently come up with some relatively remarkable content. I was starting to notice that what I was doing was kind of on point. I still had mental barriers in my way to break through, but I was wishing that I had the confidence to do my thing in front of others. Just the thought alone of standing before one person and singing a song was enough to make me feel physically ill. I had difficulty overcoming that.

My self doubts and insecurities surely did not hinder my songbook’s progress. I had probably somewhere around fifty or more songs written, designed, styled, flowed, and ready; only, nobody knew it but me. As technology progressed I was able to get my hands on some items that let me start tinkering with music production. I would learn one free program, and then move to the next, then rinse and repeat. It was fun to me. It was how I spent my alone time.

Fast forward ten years or so, add in some really hard knocks, and I was not doing well emotionally. I was broken. I was looking for a way to heal and I went to have a meeting with Mother Nature about it. The three day ceremony was very difficult. It showed me things that I needed to see. I learned the good and bad, up and down, right and wrong, dark and light. After it lowered and lifted me, it helped me to understand that it was selfish for me to keep this music to myself and that if I truly wanted to make a difference then I needed to do it through sound. I swear it was like it aligned me with purpose and snatched the self doubt from my being at the same time. It called me music man and asked me to please let it out for goodness sake. I left out of there knowing my mission and have taken all the steps since to make her proud of me and will continue to do so.

With a new mindset, it took many steps and diligence, but I finally figured out ways to advance. Now, here we are. Knowing what I know now. If I would have been publicly making music throughout my life, I would have been doing it wrong. I would have been pushing what I think they want to hear instead of pushing what they need to hear, if that makes any sense. Certainly I would have washed away in the mainstream and gotten lost. Would I have been killing it on stage? yes, absolutely. Would I have also been speaking about the wrong things? Yes. Also, absolutely.

So, when I get discouraged by my late start, I always keep in mind the fact that, ya, we might would be famous by now, but it would not be pretty.

Freebird , love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

After the integration with Plant Medicine, I knew my path, but I felt like Frodo Baggins taking his first steps toward the mountain. There certainly was a long road ahead and I knew it. I had a new direction and a clear head, but there was still a lot of confusion. I was invited on a road trip with some outstanding individuals and we traveled America together for a couple of months. After the road trip ended I decided to carry on all by myself and search for somewhere to plant my roots and grow as a person and musician. It was mostly Coast Lines and National Parks along the way to finding Denver, and also, plenty of determination. I was quite Farrel there for a bit.

I was on the Oregon Coast just winging it, while loving nature and life. I found one little secluded beach spot and I perched there for about a week doing nothing but writing songs, taking pictures and just being. While I was there my artist name came about organically. I was sitting there thinking about my consistent feather earrings, excursions, and how everybody had me very mislabeled as a human. I was going to be Freebird the Astronaut, but it implied drug use, so I had to find a way to spin it. To be honest it was meant to be kind of spiteful in a way toward many people that were quite wrong about who I am. Spite is not quite the right word because that is a negative entity, and I was operating from a place of positivity. So, the name did not derive from spite, but it still was meant to be a punch in the jaw to a bunch of people that had me improperly tagged.

When you are out there being the light, most people think you have a motive. So, when you are kind, they think you are up to something. I was steadily rocking with goodness and people were tarnishing it for whatever reasons. Many people were super hating on me and saying some things about me that made me look like the bad guy. I was the kind, caring, helpful, empathetic, bad boy. The name just kind of happened. I laughed a little when I said it. Astro-Naughty? Well, that certainly is what they think, and it is awesome. I toggled back and forth with it for a while and then decided to run full speed ahead.

Though I am firmly Freebird Astro-Naughty, and I do have my moments, my music is far from bad, perspectively speaking. My music is full of love, light, goodness, and thought-provoking words. I move with divinity and find ways to implement it into my sound. The music I make is authentic. If I speak of hard times in my music then I also speak about overcoming them. I make music people can lean on and connect with. It’s not sappy. It is just real music that comes from experience and know-how. You will not hear me knock anyone or bash anything. I am a conscious human being that wants to make people laugh, smile, and dance. I also want to make them think and help them to want to do better. I want to show people that hard knocks do not define us and that just because life was hard it doesn’t mean that I have to be jaded by it. I can have had a hard life and still keep a smile on my face while speaking love and kindness. Negativity is a choice that people pick when they think that they have to.

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

I am glad for this question because, after years of wasting money and time by buying equipment and software that was irrelevant to my mission, I have finally figured out the proper way to make music and get it out there. This will be very helpful for many people with musical aspirations.

Forget whatever they are pushing on you at Radio Shack, they are in it for profit only. They do not care about you. They want your money, and will tell you anything to get it. Let’s crack their heads real quick by saying that you do not need any of that unless you are a DJ, Pianist, Drummer, or Guitarist.. What I wish someone would have said to me a decade ago in terms of learning, is to go buy a desktop Macintosh computer, Apple’s proprietary music production software program called Logic Pro X, a good digital keyboard or two, an excellent quality condenser microphone, a USB operating a multi-channel mixer, and an interface so that the mic will work, and that is all you need to succeed as song maker and vocalist. Well, that and the distribution platform, didtrokid.com that provides artists a platform to get their music sent out to all the streaming sites.

I practiced and learned all of the different production software programs (DAWs) like Protools and Ableton, and ya, they have their highlights. They work fine, but from a practicality and results standpoint, Logic Pro X is the difference-maker. Everyone has their preferences and I am sure that people will argue with me about this, but I am the one telling you how to make it happen. The discombobulated people out there need to know. Sometimes I think that people don’t want you to know. There are many musicians out there doing the same thing as me. Trial and error until it works and then they figure it out and keep it to themselves, because now they have the edge, right? Well, I do things a little differently. I want people to push the music out. I went through the barbed wire and came back with a safe passage for everyone else. I don’t think about things like, oh, that’s my competition, or this knowledge is valuable, let’s hold it over their heads. I will lead the way and say that I figured it out. This works great. Tap into this. I do not say, pay me to know this.

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

I would like to say that there are artists, and then there are imposters out there that are just acting the part. When I say imposters, I mean people that feel like they can benefit from doing something, so then they do it to come up. That is not art, not even a smidgen. That is ugly and I do not like it. I don’t mean NFTs, that is not what I am talking about. The great Charles Bukowski once wrote a piece titled “So You Want to Be a Writer” and it will clarify for me.

“If it doesn’t come bursting out of you in spite of everything, don’t do it.

Unless it comes unasked out of your heart and your mind and your mouth and your gut, don’t do it.

If you have to sit for hours staring at your computer screen or hunched over your typewriter searching for words, don’t do it.

If you’re doing it for money or fame, don’t do it.

If you’re doing it because you want women in your bed, don’t do it.

If you have to sit there and rewrite it again and again, don’t do it.

If it’s hard work just thinking about doing it, don’t do it.

If you’re trying to write like somebody else, forget about it.

If you have to wait for it to roar out of you, then wait patiently.

If it never does roar out of you, do something else.

If you first have to read it to your wife or your girlfriend or your boyfriend or your parents or to anybody at all,
you’re not ready.

Don’t be like so many writers, don’t be like so many thousands of people who call themselves writers, don’t be dull and boring and pretentious, don’t be consumed with self- love.

The libraries of the world have yawned themselves to sleep over your kind. don’t add to that. don’t do it.

unless it comes out of your soul like a rocket, unless being still would drive you to madness or suicide or murder, don’t do it.

Unless the sun inside you is burning your gut, don’t do it.

When it is truly time, and if you have been chosen, it will do it by itself and it will keep on doing it until you die or it dies in you.

There is no other way and there never was.”

I love leading people to prolific art. That one has guided my life for many moons. Now, we can discuss the rewards of being a creative. It is most rewarding when I am creating. I do not want to use the words escape, because it is not like that. When an artist is pouring themself into their work, they are tapped into something else and are not thinking about their problems, worries, or anything else at all besides what is in front of them. The process is truly amazing and it helps people reflect, grow, heal, and all the good things. Self-expression through art is a truly beautiful thing. Regardless if anyone appreciates the art or not, that does not knock its value. When an artist is creating, they are putting themselves into their work. A part of them goes into that and it is a really special and fun way to connect with strangers. The most rewarding part of being a creative is the growth that stems from the process and the connections it makes.

I would like to take a moment to show appreciation for my record label, Bentley Records. They took me in as a developing artist and put a lot of faith and belief in me. My head was already in the game, but they have been helping me level up in thought and action. We now have 13 commercial tracks live on all of the streaming platforms, and it feels really amazing to be working with such a quality team. I am so very blessed and look forward to growing with them.

Contact Info:

• Website: Bentleyrecords.io and Freebirdastronaughty.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/freebirdastro/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Freebirdastro/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/Freebirdastro
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHaZErTi-FniOvMVfMB0rBw
• Other: Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/2Mdvn3ROCFE21l5mtRwgPc?si=SZFhKp0RRu2d1H-by7vpmQ Apple Music: https://music.apple.com/us/artist/freebird-astronaughty/1573156099

Image Credits
Bentley Records