We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Mark Ward a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Mark, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with 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?
How I learned how to play any musical instrument or partake in every department of the filmmaking process or cook or cut hair or train Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu is the same way any skill is learned: slowly, and surely. Of course there are faster ways to pick up a skill, and burning the candle at both ends is a great way to end up as a puddle of wax on the floor, melted down and done with it all. The essential element here is patience, and grace with yourself. Mistakes are both inevitable and necessary. Mistakes are a blessing. Mistakes are an opportunity to improve. Mistakes are the impetuses that fuel progress. There’s no light without darkness, and no betterment without brick walls. The key is not letting these obstacles exist as impenetrable journey-enders; more often than not, if not every time without fail, the problem that stands in the way of momentum is a chance to take a step back, assess the whole, and reflect on your purpose, consider what brought you here, and search for ways around. Why bang your head against that brick wall when, if you just take a step back, you’d see a doorway, or realize the wall doesn’t go on forever and instead ends just to either side of you? The only obstacle that truly stands a chance of stopping us is our own mind and what we perceive to be impenetrable.
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?
Common practice is that to be in a musical ensemble, one must have musical ability. Decades of experience have revealed that what ultimately fosters a longlasting and healthy group is not the skill of the people involved but their personalities. Burnt Tavern, this 9-piece post-apocalyptic folk band, bucks that trend and values interpersonal skills over artistic skills by a wide margin. Anyone can learn any instrument, but egos can steer ships straight into icebergs. One of our members was brought into Burnt Tavern because she’s responsible, mature, diplomatic, excels in team environments, and is frankly an ideal person and friend. She also at the time was able to play zero musical instruments. Four years later, she’s a pivotal member of the group, and can now play six instruments. What’s most important to us is that we’re having a good time, the energy is right, and that we’re all people we can happily and comfortably spend time around. Work culture trumps the work itself every time. If contentedness is your goal, at least. And here, we recognize life is too short to spend your days minding avoidable stressors.
Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?
Burnt Tavern was hired by a bar to play a 3-hour set outside of their establishment during a street fair. Every day during the month leading up to the event, we tagged the bar in Story posts illustrating the kind of vibe we transmit, which is moodier, slower, more atmospheric. Were we concerned? Absolutely not, because that’s our thing, it couldn’t be any clearer in our content, and we’d kept that continuously abreast of what we’ll be doing, what we’ll be playing, and how it’ll all feel. Come the day of the event, people were there to see us, pedestrians stopped to watch and listen, and the people were into it. Except one of the barbacks. Soon after we started playing, he interrupted us mid-song to ask if we could play something more energetic, more upbeat and dance-y. Confused, half-thinking this was a joke, we obliged. Midway through the second song, he threatened to unplug our PA and put on the house music. Upon realizing he was not joking and that there was simply no moving forward here, we of course played our slowest, most droning song. Despite the crowd enjoying it, especially our people, he followed through, and pulled the plug. Some moments of chaos, confusion, and discord later, we immediately let everyone know that the show will be continuing at our own home studio and that everyone present was invited. We shouted it to the crowd, we posted about it on social media, and rather than let the bastards win and go home with our tails between our legs, we ended up throwing a memorable house party, made plenty of new fans and friends, and the event has become local lore.
For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?
The most rewarding part of any creative endeavor has been the collaborative aspect. As artists, we spend plenty of time working alone, creating in our caves, living in our heads and concocting worlds. But to bring that out into the world and invite others into yours introduces galaxies of talent. There’s a good chance that you like how you do things best, your style, your writing, your curation of your art. What that misses out on is the lifetimes of influence and talent you’re neglecting to consider. Hearing ideas from outside your own head can be terrifying and exhilarating and yield results you could never have possibly considered. To witness everyone else in the orbit of a project contribute their passions and ideas and skills is often if not always the most rewarding part of any collaborative effort.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://linktr.ee/burnttavern
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/burnttavern/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/burnttavern/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-2eB6xkmfF7zkGkLsaac5w
- Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@burnttavern
Image Credits
All photos taken by Shannon Meehan