We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Sandi King a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Sandi, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Do you think your parents have had a meaningful impact on you and your journey?

Both my parents knew I would figure a way to be a creative in this life, and both had their own ways of supporting. You can catch my mom (Momma Sue as everyone calls her) out at almost every show and performance I do. She loves music, being married to a musician for many years (my dad) she has an intimate knowledge of what it is to pursue this career before I ever tried. She has always figuratively held the door open for me to follow whatever it was I wanted to do. She instilled a great work ethic in me, and as a single mom for a lot of my life she inadvertently taught me how to get stuff done for myself because I could not rely on anyone else to do things for me. My dad (Ron King) passed away recently (Jan 2021) but he is, and always will be, an enormous part of me musically and as a the person I am. He was a musician, trumpet player to be exact. He had pursued music his entire life in some form or another, it is from watching him I learned about the hard work and persistence needed for this career. I had no false hopes for how easy a life in the arts would be, and that is partially why I chose to follow other career paths before I finally submitted, over a decade ago, to try and make music work for myself. Both of my parents trusted me to work hard and fight for what I want or need. That is something I am not sure how to teach someone, but somehow their blend of values and ways of parenting lead me to this. I am so grateful to have them both as my parents!

Sandi, 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?

I started singing as soon as I could speak, my parents would say. Some of my earliest memories are of singing in the living room to jazz tunes while my dad was playing trumpet practicing for a gig. The first time I sang professionally I was 11 years old, my favorite album was Natalie Cole’s tribute to her dad Nat singing all his classic tunes so the leader of the big band my dad was in transcribed a few of my favorites for me. At the time I had no idea what a big deal that was, a band leader writing out all the sheet music for his 20 piece band just so this tiny little 11 year old could sing her favorite tunes. I soon learned what a stellar opportunity this was, and became a regular in the band. I learned how to read music over my dad’s shoulder while he was playing parts, and then on to high school choir and musicals. I dabbled in music my whole life but always in the background. I had become a chef in San Francisco and was sure that would be my main career, but a few bumps in life’s path took me to LA and then back to San Diego in 2012 where I decided to give music a real go. At 31 I dove into a brand new career head first, started gigging around southern California with my previous band 22 Kings, then booked and executed a national tour learning about it all as I went. I met my husband (Joshua Taylor) through the San Diego music scene, we started a band together (King Taylor Project) and one of our main goals in this music scene is to celebrate and highlight all the hardworking and extremely talented musicians we’ve got in this town. It’s been a wild 11 years, loads of teaching myself how to navigate this ever changing music career, pivoting on a dime when the whole thing changes, and trying to cultivate a sense of community here.

Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can provide some insight – you never know who might benefit from the enlightenment.

This career is like walking around with your raw nerves exposed every single day. Everyday we have to make decisions about things that impact how we feel about ourselves on a core level. As a job. Not many other people have to tie in every single aspect of their job into their self worth the way I have seen and experienced myself in this career. There is no such thing as a “workday” because every moment you are potentially working to further and better yourself creatively or professionally. How do you know you are on the right path when the career has no “path”? There is no road map, no boxes to check before you can clock out, no boss to tell you that you’re doing it right.

The way the industry has changed means that now indie artists have to do so much of this themselves, things that have nothing to do with the art itself. Try to create something that is true and honest but then become the salesperson, marketing team, promoter, hype man, manager, agent, digital media creator, social media manager, video editor, booker, event planner, graphic designer, and more. Being a creative is no magical mystery beyond understanding but it can be very hard to open yourself up so completely to try and create something true to yourself and then immediately turn the artist brain off to spend MOST of your time doing things that have nothing to do with the music itself. I do not say all of this as a “woe is us” but more pointing out that this is a job, everyone of us has some combination of talent and hard work. But you can’t tell sometimes from the outside and that is something I have run into when trying to explain this career to people with more traditional careers. It is extremely fulfilling, and extremely hard. Every single artist you know wakes up every day and makes the choice to continue this career.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

Performance, connection, and community. If I had my way I would be performing most of the time, wether it be in the studio or on a stage. The moments I am singing are always the times I feel the most connected with music, the other musicians, and the audience. All the work I put in behind the scenes is just a tool to get myself on stage in front of a microphone. I feel like an honest version of myself and that allows me to feel the connection that music creates in all of us.

And as far as community goes, I truly enjoy metaphorically, and literally sometimes, grabbing the hands of other amazing musicians to lift us all up together. Being an indie musician is odd, and unconventional. Sometimes we all just have to look at each other and be our own cheerleaders. Music isn’t monetarily valued the way it used to be, or the way other products are even. Streaming is notoriously awful for artists making a living, and it’s hard to get people out to live shows if they cost money yet huge names can charge hundreds of dollars. When we find our people we make sure they know they are appreciated, fans and fellow musicians. We’ve got a really great music scene here in San Diego, and by supporting each other we are starting to make waves. This community is pretty special.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.kingtaylorproject.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tinygrem/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sandi.king99/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@KingTaylorProject

Image Credits
Ken Culver, Jason Cox, Sydney Valiente, Jim Kappel, John Hancock, Martin Mann