We recently connected with Thom Whitney and have shared our conversation below.

Thom, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Did you always know you wanted to pursue a creative or artistic career? When did you first know?

For me, this is something I have always known. Although, I would say that everyone says they want to be an artist until they find out what it really takes to earn a living that way. Looking back to my college days, I made a declaration to myself that I would find a path in life that allowed me to be creative no matter what.

I have always loved art of all kinds and I had an upbringing that exposed me to art, engineering, story telling & archeology. These have been reoccurring themes that have shaped my life and career choices. Today, I am a Landscape Designer, Musician & Song Writer mainly but I have done some photography, graphic design and miscellaneous artistic chores along the way. Being very project oriented can be beneficial as a creative because I love the process of taking any project from conception to completion whether it is a new album or a landscape renovation.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

Please listen to MUSUJI. I am probably best known for my work as the bass player for MUSUJI which is enjoying it’s 16th year of existence. We have played all over the country with countless other acts & played what we wanted to the whole time!! I also play bass for the band VALDEZ and do studio sessions for other artists as well. We just finished our last show supporting our album “Blanket Statement” & the support we received was unreal. It was amazing to play for so many awesome people & so many different venues over the year & a half string of shows. We took a little break & now we are starting to ramp up our writing & recording as we prepare to release some new music. Honestly, this is probably my favorite part of the cycle because we get to be greasy little studio kids for a couple months and we don’t have to move our gear every day. We also have one more music video from our last album in the works & hope to release that in the next few months!!

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

There are so many little rewards along the way & I tend to enjoy the journey more than the destination. I get really excited when we write music as a group or when we are recording & someone gets a really great take. There is an electricity to those moments that you can’t replicate anywhere. That being said, it is also a great feeling to have your creations come to life & I love playing our music live for people. We try to give the best live performances that we can & we are always trying to improve our show. There are obvious rewards like, getting a good review, playing with other artists that you respect or making enough money at a show to make it to the next one but they don’t have the same intensity as the small little moments we have when we are just in a room playing music for ourselves.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

There are two quotes that come to mind in regards to this question. The first is by Flea from the Red Hot Chili Peppers, “the most punk rock thing that you can do is to be yourself”. As an artist it can be easy to fall into a place of replication or to try too hard. It is very important to be honest with yourself & create the things that you like. I meet some musicians that don’t like to listen to their own music but I have never been in that boat. I genuinely enjoy the music we create & there is no such thing as being “cool” or not. Be yourself, play what you want & the rest will fall into place.

The second quote that came to mind is by Mike Tyson, “You always have a plan until you get punched in the mouth”. The main lesson that I take from this quote as it applies to the creative world is this, nothing will go perfectly & you have to be able to adapt or make the best out of any situation. At this point MUSUJI has released 4 studio albums & performed hundreds of times over a 16 year span … nothing has gone to “plan” & we don’t want it to.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/musuji
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/musujimusic
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@musujimusic

Image Credits
PHOTOS BY: CHARLA HARVEY – JESSE HASSLER – MATT BLAENX