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

Hi Stevie, thanks for joining us today. Are you able to earn a full-time living from your creative work? If so, can you walk us through your journey and how you made it happen?

I feel incredibly fortunate to be able to say that my day job is a musician, but it took a lot of time, work, and believing in myself to get to this point. After graduating college, I spent a few years working more “traditional” office jobs within the music industry. That’s one piece of advice I would give: whatever your dream job is, try to find other work within the same field that will put you in contact with others who may have connections you can leverage, or may be able to offer you opportunities themselves. I didn’t even know about the world of ballet accompaniment until one of the piano teachers at Greater Austin Music Academy (where I worked as the Office Manager), who knew I also played piano, asked if I could sub for him one day at a local studio. I had plenty of experience performing solo and as part of an orchestra or jazz band, but zero experience accompanying a ballet class. It was a risk that ultimately paid off, and I started playing at other studios gaining enough experience that when a job opportunity at Ballet Austin came across my plate, I felt confident enough to apply. Now knowing the extent of my adaptability, I would have encouraged myself to push even further beyond my perceived limits and apply for even loftier jobs. That’s the attitude I’m taking now.

Stevie, 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?

I’m an agender musician from Austin, TX. My main instruments are piano, flute, and alto saxophone. I perform as a solo artist, as part of couple local bands, and as a freelance session musician/accompanist for a variety of situations including ballet classes, collaborative albums, concerts, and weddings. My creative approach blends all of my interests together: queerness, video games, nerd culture, music, visual art, crochet, and more.

I’ve been an avid musician ever since beginning piano lessons at age 4. I started out classically trained, but really got into it when I realized I could learn to play music from my favourite video games. I picked up flute in middle school, then alto sax shortly before starting college. In 2012 I started my own YouTube channel to upload videos of my music covers, which evolved into my solo artist label SymphonicElectric. My dream is to be a video game composer; I use YouTube to post both covers and originals in order to grow my audience and put my name out there for developers to see if my music would be right for their projects.

I’m passionate about authentic story-telling, especially through a queer lens. My driving force is to create spaces where people feel loved, accepted, and welcome enough to be their true selves.

In your view, what can society to do to best support artists, creatives and a thriving creative ecosystem?

Fully reject generative AI. Delete ChatGPT from your devices, log out of Artstation, and commit to hiring real human artists for your projects. Not only is genAI extremely harmful for the planet, but it also steals all of its output from creatives who are already struggling to make ends meet.

Even if you can’t afford to support an artist monetarily, you can still make an impact by sharing their work, signal boosting, attending shows, even leaving a nice comment on their posts. This is the human experience that AI will never be able to replicate.

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.

It takes much more discipline and time management than it does motivation or inspiration. Creativity doesn’t happen in a vacuum–if you try to draw endlessly from your well without filling it back up, you’ll burn yourself out. Behind every song or video that I produce are years of practicing and honing my skills, training my ears to be able to discern what sounds just right and what needs tweaking. And because it takes so much consistent work, we deserve to be paid what we’re worth.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://symphonicelectric.wordpress.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/symphonicelectric/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/symphonicelectric
• Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/symphonicelectric