We were lucky to catch up with Scott DeClaire Jr. recently and have shared our conversation below.
Scott, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. 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?
I’ve been singing since before I could remember, sang in a choir with my mom when I was 7. I’ve been playing guitar since college. I’ve been writing for almost 10 years. For so long, the thing that stood in my way was pride. I always tried to do things myself. I “taught myself” the guitar, I avoided singing during puberty until I felt I had a better handle on my voice, and I wrote songs by myself in the car on the way to work. If I could go back and do things over again, I would have humbled myself and gotten some training. My perfectionism and longing to feel like I was good enough kept me from asking for help. In the past 2 years, for the first time in my life, I let others into my creative process. I started guitar lessons, voice lessons, started cowriting, started working with producers. At the end of this year, I will have recorded and released over 15 singles in the last two years. I’ve seen exponential growth as a songwriter and artist all because I let people in. Community is huge, especially in the music industry. The old adage “its not what you know, its who you know” is all too true. I don’t believe we were ever meant to do this life alone. We were always meant to be in community with others. It’s a beautiful thing when we rely on the strengths of others and in turn learn our own strengths. You want to accelerate your growth in your business, relationships, or anything else in life? My advice is get help early and often, find experts and learn from them, and let go of any pride that keeps you from growing.
Scott, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
My journey into the music industry has been a long one. I didn’t grow up with dreams of being on stage. Don’t get me wrong, I performed at my church and at school on multiple occasions, but I was actually much more into sports. I didn’t have the raw talent or athleticism needed to be great but I worked my tail off and found success just working hard and wanting it more than others. I’ve always had a love for music, but early in life I had low self confidence that kept me from pursuing it. As a result, the talents and gifting for music has been a slow growth over time. I grew up singing from childhood, lost confidence during puberty, started playing guitar for an outlet in college and didn’t start writing songs until I had a long commute for work. The funny thing is that every step of the journey was pivotal for the hard knocks of life that I didn’t see coming. Music ended up being a space where I could process the difficult things in life as I tried to lean in hard on my faith. My first ever single was a song called “In the Dark” that I wrote coming out of a hard time where my middle son was born with a cleft lip and palate. Later, my wife and I wrote a song called “It’s a Miracle” at a cowriting retreat the processed some of the battle my wife faced with depression and self-harm due to some of the struggles we were facing. Music has become a place to talk about the struggles I have faced and OVERCOME. What I hope and pray my music does for people is first help them to identify their own feelings and know that they are not alone and secondly to give them hope that they can find victory too! The thing I am most proud of when it comes to what I am writing and releasing is that I am being real about life. I think all too often people look at Christians as “goody-two-shoes” or “holier than thou”. They get this impression of Christians as being prideful and arrogant and intolerant. In reality, we ALL struggle with things. My faith doesn’t make me better than anyone else. It just gives me a hope that I want to share with others in case they are looking for it too. In my content on social media, I try to be real with people about Christianity and want people to feel open to question and challenge my faith. I enjoy doing my best to clear up misconceptions about the Bible. I know I don’t know everything and hearing questions from others helps me research and learn more and have found this to always strengthen my faith rather than make it weaker. Some Christians might feel threatened or angered by challenges, but I’ve learned that getting defensive does nothing but further divide us. Open dialogue doesn’t need to be scary. I hope to find common ground with people – we won’t agree on everything and that is ok – but surely we can be respectful to each other and learn from each other.
How can we best help foster a strong, supportive environment for artists and creatives?
The toughest thing for creatives I believe is that it is so difficult to get your works considered in “mainstream”. For people in the music industry, mainstream radio is monopolized by artists signed by labels. Festivals and concert venues want to see your following. To get anywhere, artists have to grind! How I think society could help is by being willing to take some time to look outside of the box for entertainment. For example, when you go to Spotify, do you ever try searching for music from other artists? Or do you stick to your own playlists and the artists that you already know? I am guilty of doing the latter myself. I’ve just now started to listen to other artists in my genre and even artists outside of my genre. There is so much talent out there and its a shame that no one knows about these other amazing artists. I also think that if more venues/festivals/etc. included stages for lesser known artists, it would open up the door for more talented artists to get discovered. I know venues would have to take a chance, but if we are solely trying to make a thriving ecosystem for the artists and creatives, then the more opportunities the better. That goes for Christian music too, smaller churches who can’t afford the big named artists I think could still do more to provide opportunities for lesser known local artists.
What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?
My faith is a huge part of my life. In no way would I ever try to force my beliefs on someone else. Faith is a choice. But at the same time, if I believe that Jesus Christ is who he said he was and I don’t share it, I’m not sure I could live with myself. And if I can give hope to someone, whether they believe or not, isn’t that worth it?
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.scottdeclairejr.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/scottdeclairejr/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/scottdeclairejr/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/scottdeclairejr/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/ScottDeClaireJr
- Other: TikTok – https://www.tiktok.com/@scottdeclairejr
Image Credits
Railroad picture and Profile picture taken by Seth Henderson. All other action and brand pictures were taken by Kathryn DeClaire (my wife).