Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Stevie Redstone. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Stevie , looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. I’m sure there have been days where the challenges of being an artist or creative force you to think about what it would be like to just have a regular job. When’s the last time you felt that way? Did you have any insights from the experience?
In my experience, being a musician in this age doesn’t really have an off-switch. At least not for me. Unless I’m asleep, or enjoying quality and truly present time with my family, my mind is pretty much always grinding on whatever I’m currently working on, need to work on, or brainstorming new ideas for content, songs, promotion etc. Because of that, I do sometimes wonder what it would be like to work a 9-5, or more “normal” type of job where when I’m off, I’m OFF. Sometimes I secretly have a little envy for people who have that sort of structure. However, that envy tends to fade pretty fast. At the end of the day, I enjoy making art, making my own schedule (however restless it may be), and chasing down the dream more than the idea of being able to “check out.” I guess I like the torture.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers
Stevie Redstone here. Independent music artist, husband, father, cooking enthusiast, baseball nut, occasional amateur photographer hobbyist, not necessarily in that order. I sing, play keys, guitar, write songs, perform, and try to make my corner of the world a little better. I’ve been singing since I was a lil kiddo. Picked up guitar first, started writing songs, fell into the piano and WAM BAM, here we are!! I am most proud of being a good husband and father. Family is everything. Also super proud of honing my craft in songwriting and performance over the years, and making people smile, laugh, dance, think, escape their worlds for a hot minute.
Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?
Not to be too dramatic, but in my personal experience, (and I’m sure for many other artists), the journey reminds me a lot of the Greek myth of Sisyphus. He’s the one who’s rolling the giant boulder uphill only for it to roll back down just as it’s reaching the top, for all eternity. I’ve had so many moments in the biz where I feel I’m about to reach the next plateau of my career, only for the boulder to come rolling back down the hill. In recent memory, that was the pandemic. (familiar story, I know!). I had just put my record out independently, streaming was doing pretty well, I got some good press, I finally got a booking agent and had some festival dates on the books… you know, general momentum…. I don’t have to tell you what happened next. So that was a drag. After years of developing myself as an artist, and all the work that went into writing, recording, releasing, promoting that record, it definitely took some resilience to push back thoughts that maybe I should find something else to do! But I breathed through it, worked through it, my family helped me through it, and I found a way to persevere. At the end of the day, I truly feel and know that this is what I was born to do. I can’t control the business, or the universe for that matter. All I can control is the work, and my mental outlook along the way. There are many examples of creatives reaching unimaginable career heights only to learn that they’re still the same unhappy person. So I’m just grinding, but doing my best to keep things in perspective, and ENJOY THE JOURNEY.
Any resources you can share with us that might be helpful to other creatives?
A resource I wish I knew about earlier in my creative journey is a marketing agency / community called Indepreneur. There are many agencies that you can pay thousands of dollars each month to run ads for you and help you build your brand online. I won’t go into some of the horror stories as I try not to disparage people. But anyway, Indepreneur has an extremely robust online “classroom,” if you will, that consists of a pretty astounding amount of video trainings that teach you how to do what these agencies do, but on your own, and so much more. I can’t say enough about it. And this way you can spend the money you would spend on the agencies fees on your own ads instead. Campaigns with those companies come and go, but no one will ever care about your career as much as you do… Teach a man to fish…
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.stevieredstone.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/stevieredstone/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/stevieredstone
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/stevieredstone