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

Kevin, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Learning the craft is often a unique journey from every creative – we’d love to hear about your journey and if knowing what you know now, you would have done anything differently to speed up the learning process.

I’ve always wanted to do something in the realm of the performing arts. Music was a logical choice, seeing as how it was a important part of my life.

In the beginning of my career in music there was a lot to learn about songwriting and performing, and the dream was to just have a record label take over and take care of the hard parts. Eventually it became clear that waiting for others to help was just wasting time, so it was time to take matters into our own hands.

This included working hard on the craft of songwriting and performance. The best way to do that was getting out there and ‘doing’ for as long as it took to get proficient. Similar to many skills, the more you learn, the more you realize how much more there is to learn.

Kevin, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

My name is Kevin Gibson, and I’ve the vocalist/lyricist in the bands Tub Ring and Super 8-Bit Brothers for over 30 years now. We’ve released around 15 albums in that time, and toured all across the world. Our style is a bit of the beaten path, so to survive in this business we had to do everything ourselves. This includes a lot of sacrifice and rather frightening life choices, so love of your craft is a necessity. Even today every release is a gamble, but it gets a little less daunting as you learn more of what to expect through experience.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

I had to learn that sometimes perfect is the enemy of good. Obviously I want the quality of the product I release to be top notch, but sometimes the amount of retooling and ‘perfecting’ a song can lead to it being worse than the original vison. I may be familiar with the process that brought me from the original idea to the final product, but if the end product is too convoluted it like releasing a sequel to a film before the original movie came out.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

The most rewarding aspect of my job is releasing the final product. It can take years of writing and working out a recording schedule to get to that point, but it’s worth it when I can finally sit back and enjoy the fruits of our labor.

A new album may resonate with people, or it may not, but at least its out in the world forever and I can have a sense of accomplishment until it’s time to start again. Also I can lurk around the web and read reactions in real time.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.s8bb.com
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/tubringband
• Twitter: twitter.com/tub_ring

Image Credits
Evan Cohan Jason Madden Lenny Gilmore