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

Suzie, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Do you wish you had waited to pursue your creative career or do you wish you had started sooner?

In many ways, I wish I had started my creative career sooner, but I also believe that it couldn’t have happened sooner. Growing up as the oldest child of Russian immigrants, I heard the words “doctor, lawyer, pharmacist” more times than I can count. My parents wanted me to have a prestigious career with predictable (and high) compensation; music was not on the menu. To be fair, we didn’t have any exposure to the music industry so we didn’t understand how people could have sustainable careers in music without basically hitting the jackpot. A career in music felt as attainable to me as winning the Powerball.

There are two things that are true about me that are important to know:

(1) I am a little bit of a people pleaser and therefore, a rule follower, so the expectation to find myself in a classic careers weighed heavily on me, and

(2) I am unapologetically authentic and despite my best efforts to please other people, I can’t do it at the expense of my sense of self, which is why I couldn’t become a doctor-lawyer-pharmacist like my parents would have preferred.

I ended up graduating from college and narrowly avoiding applying for some sort of graduate school, opting for a full-time job in law out of college so I could decide if the direction made sense to me before committing to another 3 years of school (spoiler alert: it did not). I eventually ended up finding a small company that just started up and over the next few years, transitioned from being the first employee to an owner and growing the company to a 7-figure business with my amazing business partner. The lessons I learned and the growth I experienced from that business changed my outlook on nearly everything, and with the additional perspective on persistence and consistency (not to mention the financial stability and scheduling flexibility), it felt like the right time to dive back into my passion and pursue a creative career in earnest.

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

My name is Suzie and I am an artist and a songwriter. I write honest music about my own life experiences. Most of my writing is done before 6:30am, before my two kids wake up. I am currently working on a solo album and releasing music with my band, The Narrative. For a long time, I believed a lot of false narratives about myself: that I wasn’t a good enough singer, or that I was too slow of a writer. Since the pandemic and having two kids, I have discovered that neither of these two things are true. I am now a better performer and a more prolific writer than ever before, and I have to thank a few stupidly simple things for it: consistency and persistence. As an artist, I hope that continuing to pursue my passion of writing and monetizing my music will inspire others to hold on to their own creativity and live their lives in a more complete way. I fear for anyone who might look back on their life at some point and regret that they didn’t make space for important parts of themselves. I hope that by sharing my story, and essentially starting my career after already having one, I can help others find happiness and lead more fulfilling lives.

When I was a little kid, my Russian grandmother taught me folks songs and had me perform in front of her peers. I started writing my own songs and plays, convincing friends to learn the songs and perform them with me. I also loved making our parents pay to see our living room performances, so there was an entrepreneurial spirit there from the beginning. I took a few years of piano lessons but my exposure was limited. I never played contemporary music on the piano, just classical music, so I didn’t understand how piano was relevant to writing songs. Initially, I wrote melodies and words with no instruments and eventually I learned to play the acoustic guitar and came back to playing keys.

I always knew I could sing, but I didn’t have a big impressive voice and I always felt intimidated by singers who could belt or do flashy vocalizations, so I was always a little timid in that way. It has been a tough road learning to stop comparing myself to others and to appreciate my unique voice for it’s soft, vulnerable, and fragile qualities.

Over the years, I have played in two different bands, toured internationally, and landed syncs in TV and film and I am looking to do that again now intention and direction.

What can society do to ensure an environment that’s helpful to artists and creatives?

As individuals, I think we can start with unapologetically supporting the people you already know personally who are artists or creatives. That can mean something as simple as engaging with and sharing their social media content every time they post something. It can mean prioritizing their art show or their upcoming performance. We are connected to so many people through so many communities from over the years. We’ve grown up with people, we’ve met people at different points in our educations, we all have co-workers, friends of family, extended family, the circles of people who meet who share interests with us, the list goes on and on… if we could just simply show up for each other in small ways, consistently, it would change everything.

One small change I made this year that I’m really enjoying is that I decided that all of my graphic t-shirts are going to be purchased directly from smaller or medium sized touring artists, and I’m just going to skip buying t-shirts from stores. It’s small, but I have quite the collection of fantastic t-shirts from this year alone, even buying shirts for friends who couldn’t make the events, and I feel great about buying tickets and also merchandise to support artists that I love.

Socially, I think artists and creatives would be tremendously benefited if society didn’t treat them in such a binary way.
It feels like artists can only be one of two things: massively successful or nobody. You either need to be making all your money making art, or you’re not valid. The in between gets lost. I think validating the in between, that you can be an artist and also still have another job, would be a great step socially. Making 100% of your living doing art isn’t necessary. Spending 100% of your time on art isn’t necessary. I think we all deserve to recognize how multi-dimensional we are as human beings, and to stop categorizing ourselves in such a narrow fashion.

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.

I think it’s helpful to know that creatives are compelled to create, it’s not really a choice. If a creative stops creating, it’s not because they necessarily want to, it’s more likely that circumstances are preventing them from making the time and space for it. Don’t be confused — they need to be doing it. If they aren’t doing it, they aren’t fulfilled. Creatives are sensitive and vulnerable and feel things deeply. They need to be supported and encouraged, especially by their closest friends and especially by their partners. So much time as a creative is spent wondering if there’s even a point to continue because of how many times you sacrifice some other part of your life to participate in your art. As you grow up or get older, you don’t outgrow your creativity. The desire to create doesn’t go away. It’s not unusual to need a break from it, but it will always come back for you.

Contact Info:

• Website: http://suziewithkeys.substack.com
• Instagram: http://instagram.com/suziewithkeys/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/suziezeldin/
• Other: www.tiktok.com/@suziewithkeys

Image Credits
Hilary J. Corts Annelise Loughead