We recently connected with Maverick Rose and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Maverick thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Can you take us back in time to the first dollar you earned as a creative – how did it happen? What’s the story?

A little over ten years ago, I started teaching myself guitar. I had sung in bands and played drums in high school but this was something different. I started watching YouTube videos and learning chords and worked up how to sing while playing. About six months into that I could play four chords and knew three songs. I decided to go to my first open mic, I played my three songs and the host asked me to do a fourth. I couldn’t so I played the first song again. I kept working at it and attending local events and an independent pizzeria and bar asked me to do a gig. Great! But I still only knew five songs or so at this point. I agreed to the three hour gig, got my best friend to sit in on percussion and I played my five songs and then I just started making songs up. Thankfully it worked, I’m sure it wasn’t perfect but no live performance ever is. Essentially, opportunity knocked, I answered and dove in with both feet and I haven’t looked back since.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

Most people know me first as a musician as that is where I make the majority of my connections and my income but I consider myself more of an entertainer than specifically a musician as I am involved in multiple facets of the industry. I host an open mic, a podcast, a radio show, have appeared in film and done production work in addition to fronting various bands and playing solo and duo acoustic shows and even drumming. I am proud of music career though and was honored to win a Maggy Award last year for best musical act. I have also written and published two books of poetry with a third to be released in September of this year.

How can we best help foster a strong, supportive environment for artists and creatives?

Support the art you love. If someone creates something that you care about, champion it. In the current climate, smaller creative types have to do everything, and that’s ok, it’s part of the experience but it can be exhausting. Making art is the easy part, the constant hustle and self-promotion while managing social media, public image, bookings, etc is what’s difficult. It makes sense, it is show BUSINESS after all but the business side can be a tough learn. The biggest thing is having people who care show up. If you can’t afford to buy the art, share it on social media, like posts, talk to others about it. Everyone you love as an artist was a local artist first, most of them are where they are because someone saw what they were doing and told others.

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

As a performer, you get lots of feedback. People tend to say things to you they wouldn’t say to other random strangers. I will say the negative stuff tends to stick to you a lot more than the positives, you can get a hundred people saying “good job” but you tend to remember the one person who was rude, it takes time to learn to let that stuff go, but it still hurts. Early on I came into my career starry eyed thinking wanting it and showing up was enough and was very quickly told by people in the industry I’d never make it. It made me stronger, hungrier, it built a fire in me. People are just people, no different than you or me, if you know, deep inside where you’re supposed to be, don’t let anyone tell you any different. Know that it won’t be easy, it might not go the way you think, but don’t ever give up.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://Maverickrosemusic.com