We recently connected with Jewel Kirkendoll and have shared our conversation below.

Jewel, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. We’d love to hear your thoughts about family businesses.

My life as a musician began as a family business. Growing up, my family worked together in construction and after work would play together in the church band. My grandfather played baritone, grandmother played piano, uncle plays trumpet, mother plays saxophone, and father plays drums. So it was only natural for my brother and I to start an instrument, and at the young age of 3 years old, I started violin. My brother started violin 2 years later.

And those were my beginnings! Constantly surrounded by music and family. It was an absolute honor and privilege to start my life with such strong musical roots. My brother and I started performing at the Rose City Farmers market around 2015, back when it was in the parking lot of Jul’s, now known as Javi’s. Music has always been deeply engrained in our family.

Now, Gypsum & the Travelers did not begin as a family affair, but when I hired my now husband, Hunter, on drums in 2019, everything began to change.

Hunter’s background follows a similar but vastly different pathway. His father played guitar and had his own band. Hunter’s brother plays guitar and is the front man of The Sideshow Tragedy out of Austin, TX. While my musical background was very classical and church involved, Hunter was on the other end of the spectrum, Punk and Rock n Roll.

Hunter was a single father to our child, Rivers, who was 8 years old at the time when I met them. As soon as I met Rivers, he started begging me to teach him violin. I told him to really think about it, because once he started, he wouldn’t be able to quit until he turned 18 years old. It’s a big commitment, and I take musical education very seriously. Well, fast forward to today, Rivers, now 13 years old, has been proudly playing violin for 5 years, oboe for 2 years, drums for an unknown amount of time, and is now getting extremely good on bass. The family band began with Hunter and I, but has since grown to include Rivers, and occasionally our youngest, Avery, who is about 1.5 years old, on the shaker.

Hunter now plays guitar for me (the more instruments you know, the better), and Rivers jumps back and forth between drums and bass, depending on the venue.

The one downside to having a teenager work with you in such a public setting, especially early in the morning at a farmers market, is the occasional attitude. I PROMISE the kid loves playing, but have you ever woken up a teenager on a SATURDAY morning before noon? It is not for the weak!!

All jokes aside, having Rivers in the band is a lot of fun and creates a lot of goofy memories that we will all cherish as we grow old. I will be honest, we do have our moments of frustration and disagreement, but being able to give my kids a step up in a musical career, should they decide to continue as adults, gives them such an advantage. Rivers has been performing at farmers markets with us since he was around 10 years old, and now that he is older, we are starting to bring him to bigger gigs. Having that amount of experience for a resume, and just for life, is very beneficial. Rivers, at just 13 years old, is already leaps and bounds ahead of where Hunter and I were as budding adult musicians. I am very excited to see, and hear, where this journey takes Rivers. And while I would absolutely love to keep Rivers performing with Gypsum & the Travelers, there is no telling where music will take him, and I’m not going to get in the way of greatness.

All of that being said, having your children learn a valuable skill that teaches them hard work, dedication, and will allow them to build a career for themselves without a college degree? It’s pretty awesome. And while I will, and do, highly encourage college for my children, and currently being in college myself, I have made it this far without a degree, and I owe all of that to my mom, for having me learn and stick with such a valuable skill. Thanks, Mom.

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.

Howdy! I am Jewel, but most people around East Texas probably know me as Gypsum, or simply, that one girl that plays violin. I was quite literally born into music, I have no memories before learning violin, and it is the very fabric of my being. If you put my DNA under a microscope, you could read it like a staff, with wild and frantic notes flitting about.

I have been playing violin for 23 years, writing songs for about 11 years, teaching violin for 10 years, and performing professionally for about 15 years. Gypsum & the Travelers has been active in the East Texas music scene since 2017, and it’s my first love.

In the arts, they say that if you don’t perform, you teach. And I will say that both are extremely rewarding and so much fun. I got into teaching private lessons while in high school. I already had 13 years of violin experience, which made me an ideal candidate for a teaching position at a local studio. I have since began my self-employment journey, have my own clientele, and I hope to one day own my own space for folks like me to teach music lessons in. But for now, I just teach out of my humble stoop near the hospital district of Tyler.

Outside of teaching, performing at local farmers markets and various venues, Hunter and I perform at various assisted living facilities and nursing homes. We also perform for weddings, private events, and the occasional funeral.

Our entire musical existence is to be completely intertwined and enthralled with the local community. Everything we do in our musical careers is tied to the community in some way. And we love it. I can’t speak for Hunter, but being part of this community is what I live for. Seeing East Texas, meeting all the friendly people, looking at all of your beautiful faces, it’s what I live for. I love my community, and I am absolutely thrilled to serve y’all.

At the core of what we do, we aren’t musicians, we are members of the community. We are here to serve y’all. And I hope you enjoy what you hear.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

I know, I know, it looks like we are just having a ton of fun performing. So where is the work? The work began when I made my first terrible noise at 3 years old, and when Hunter made his first uneasy strum at 14 years old. We have quite literally been crafting these skills for our entire lives.

Most of our hard work will never be seen. Most people just see the fun side of music, the videos, the performance, the banter with our audience. Occasionally you’ll see some of the difficulties, like when someone heckles us yelling “FREEBIRD” or offering us some unsolicited advice to cover Taylor Swift, nothing against my Swifties, but it’s just not our style. Real situations, I might add. This job can create some awkward situations! At one point, our former guitarist was held at knife point while a lady tried to steal our tip jar!! Like I said, awkward situations! But most of our work is behind the scenes. Performing is a lot of fun, but it’s not even half of what we do!

Two words: Cold Calls. So many cold calls. I have spent countless hours calling, emailing, messaging, posting, sending letters trying to book gigs… just kidding, we don’t send letters (however, I have thought about it). The amount of times I have been told “no” is disheartening. But what am I to do? Give up? Never! We’ve been told we play too loud, and then told we play too quiet. We’ve been hired for Sunday brunch on a monthly basis only to then be fired because we don’t play Jazz. We’ve been booked by one person, who didn’t communicate with the rest of the business, only to be forgotten about and double booked on top of!! And the best thing that is offered is an “I’m sorry!!” When we lose a job or someone makes a mistake booking, there is no safety net. We just lose. And that sucks. And that is IF we are booking paying jobs.

Most of the gigs you’re seeing us at around East Texas are tips only. There is no pay, no guarantee. If the weather is great, we could make a thousand dollars, if it’s raining, we could make two. Now, I absolutely love performing at some of these places, but eventually, we’d like to get paid! We have children to feed, I’ll have you know!!

Performing at the nursing homes and assisted living facilities has really been a saving grace for us. There have been multiple occasions this year when we have really wanted to give up. People aren’t showing up to see us, we are feeling underappreciated, we are definitely underpaid. But I will say, every time we leave the nursing homes, the residents shake our hands and tell us how much they appreciate us being there, and it lights a fire in our hearts to keep going. All I ever really wanted to do was to make a difference, and they remind me every time we perform for them that we are making a difference. It just looks differently than how I pictured it. So we keep going.

We’d love to hear the story of how you turned a side-hustle into a something much bigger.

Being a musician, everything feels like a side hustle, to music. I have worn many hats, I’ve worked at Smoothie King, Starbucks, Guitar Center, a few local schools, a flower farm, a veterinary clinic, as a server at a nursing home, I briefly made sushi at a local sushi restaurant, and I’m sure I’m forgetting some here and there. There have been times where I had 2 or 3 jobs alongside music. And while many people believe music to be a side hustle, it has never been one for me.

My main passion in life, outside of being a good mother, is being successful in music. To define success in the music industry is dependent on who you talk to. Some people might say it’s once you’ve received a certain award, or performed on a particular stage, or had your song reach top charts somewhere. But you’re not reading to find out what someone else’s version of success is, so here is mine. I just want to pay my bills doing what I love. Everything beyond that is just a bonus.

If you would’ve asked me 10 years ago, I would have looked you in the eyes, and in all seriousness, told you that I would be famous. No if, ands, or buts. It was a fact to me. Now, 2 kids later, the famous life seems not so fun. To be constantly under the watchful eye of literally everyone, with no privacy, and being constantly critiqued for quite plainly, being a human, does not sound appealing in the slightest.

Now, do I still slightly wish for it? Yes! For my music to be heard and reach ears worldwide would be a dream! If I could accomplish it without all the negatives.

At the end of the day, just like every other artist, I just want my art to matter to someone. And it does. It matters to me. So I am a success.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gypsum.travelers
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/gypsum.and.the.travelers
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@gypsumthetravelers
• Soundcloud: https://l.instagram.com/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fon.soundcloud.com%2FkuAbBphhWGbrLkVL7&e=AT1sxs1jbADAU69H1sSB9aXZs1SowCgawr_F9b1V1o2NtfbRDlH-C0DGHjwv4pHqlpNiN18IR2kt6MzVKsKZJa0TDxUbDhE0W8Alvw
• Other: https://open.spotify.com/artist/67pS99sEjOKV6tiUIUbCc1?si=2QXGHnlMQM2kpB2dBJspog

Image Credits

Toabi’s World (water marked). Mimmzy Photography (water marked). Hazard Photography by Carlie Hazard (the black & white of Hunter).