We recently connected with Sunshine James and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Sunshine, 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?

After moving to Nashville three years ago I started working full time and paying my bills with music. It’s been a slow and steady path to get to where I’m at. I’ve been workin for a paycheck at some level since I was a kid and honestly never thought music could go beyond being a hobby. But after no matter how many times I tried a different path, I could never shake the itch to make music my full time life. I dropped out of college twice (I never finished a semester), I tried construction, I hated working in restaurants and never felt a sense of belonging somewhere until I moved to Nashville and refused to do anything else besides music. I bounced around Arizona, Buffalo and Denver from ages 16-28 doin everything I could musically from playing in bands, playing for other artist, writing with and learning to produce other artist, studio work, building studios, helping start an entire scene, helping build a label and doing my personal work as an artist. There’s been nothing but obstacles, wasted time, liars, manipulators, users, posers and any other horrible cliche you’ve heard about this business. But. I’ve also got lifelong friends, invaluable education in many aspects of this business and the control of my destiny. Nobody owns me and nobody tells me what to do. I’m hopefully just in the beginning of my story and although I could speed some things up with my knowledge now, I wouldn’t change any of it.

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

I’m a third generation Country Artist from Arizona. I grew up hanging out and playing music with my grandpa and all his old cowboy friends. I think I ended up in this industry because I’ve spent my whole life idolizing those guys and the lifestyle. Swapping lies and songs around the fire under the big starry sky seamed like a great life to me. But when you get a little older, you can’t afford college and you get sick of breaking your body while showing up to a job site as the sun rises, the motivational fire to chase the musical dream really heats up. The biggest “how?” for me getting in this industry, though, is that I’ve had nothing but support from my family and friends. One of my old mentors and bosses came to a gig one time and said “Good lord brother! You’re way better at this music stuff than you are at framing houses! Go get it” Haha.

I’m not sure I can say I have any disciplines or practices except saying yes to any project I’m asked to be apart of. Weather it’s singing, playing guitar (or any instrument I can fake), studio, live etc. I have no musical theory training or knowledge, but I’ve managed to figure it out and make people happy so far. I’ll do anything to get into as many rooms as possible with as many people as possible. I put my head down and do the work. Lately though I’ve really been focusing on my songwriting and performing. I wanna write songs for a living and perform them so that’s kept me selfishly busy in my world.

As far as what separates me, that’s a question you’d have to ask other people. All I can tell you is I believe strongly in my work ethic, my character and my strength. The greatest compliment Ive received is that I’m the same guy no matter what room I walk into or who walks into the room I’m in. That means the world to me because all I ever want to be is myself.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

There are so many aspects of this lifestyle and career path that are rewarding. I do what I love for a living, I run my own business, I feel a sense of pride, sense of purpose and I travel the country while making a living. Just to name a few perks.

What’s most important to me though, is that I have the opportunity to do for others what Travis Tritt, Johnny Russel, Waylon Jennings, Chad Kroeger, Brent Smith and the thousands of other song writers did for me. Now, I’m not there yet. But the opportunity is mine if I keep at it and work hard. It’s never boring at the bottom. You can only go up.

Have any books or other resources had a big impact on you?

There’s not one book, video, essay or anything of that nature that impacted me. There’s a million. Ive spent my life digging through every cd/dvd bin, book store, record store, streaming sources and internet search engines for interviews, documentary’s, live concerts or anything to do with music and how it’s made. I’m sure later I’ll think of a better example, but right now I’ll pick the one that pops into my head. That is an interview where Vince Gill talks about telling Mark Knopfler that he wasn’t going to join Dire Straits. Vince could’ve joined a massively successful band and had a good time playing guitar, but he chose to keep betting on himself despite his records not selling. Obviously we all know he want on to be who he is today. But what I saw was a guy who respectfully wanted to do things his way and choose his true happiness and fulfillment as an artist, songwriter and a studio and live musician. That had a huge impact on me at an important time where I almost quit music again.

I will make suggestions for anyone reading this though. There is unfortunately not a whole lot of country music documentaries and not all these titles are exact. But here are some good ones.

It starts with a song

Tennessee Whiskey: The Story of Dean Dillon

Hired Guns

Tales from the tour bus

Foo Fighters: Back and Forth

Small Town Southern Man:Alan Jackson

The Wrecking Crew

If I Leave Here Tomorrow: Lynard Skynard

Contact Info:

• Website: https://sunshinejames.com/home#bio
• Youtube: https://youtube.com/channel/UCHePa1zd7cTIRwUE1SHemxA