We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Zac Barnett. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Zac below.
Hi Zac, thanks for joining us today. It’s always helpful to hear about times when someone’s had to take a risk – how did they think through the decision, why did they take the risk, and what ended up happening. We’d love to hear about a risk you’ve taken.
From a young age I knew I wanted to be some sort of musician. Growing up performing in bands & musical theatre productions I made the choice to commit full time in high school earning me a spot at Berklee college of music (where I really just wanted to meet like minded musicians to collaborate with). I had no financial backing, missed the cutoff for loans so I took the risk to ask a family friend to lend me just enough to attend 1 semester. Knowing I had limited time at the college I put everything in to networking, writing, playing live, & establishing myself as a valuable member of the schools community. With relentless hard work, I met my crew (the same people in American Authors today) & we took that next risk of leaving school to move to NYC & self fund tours through out the east coast. I moved cross country with nothing but a dream & a belief in my talent & truthfully there are definitely better singers out there but I worked my butt off & took risks when I saw the opportunities those risks could lead to. I believe in the talents I have & I have always been ready to make bets on what I’m most passionate in & because of that attribute I am where I’m at today.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
As I craft this answer from the jury duty waiting room (yes, even rockstars get called for jury duty) I fill my occupation in as “singer/songwriter”. I write & perform hit songs like “best day of my life” & “go big or go home” with my band American Authors. I pride us as a band that didn’t have many handouts & really had to problem solve & grind to make our dreams reality. We’ve all worked bizarre odd jobs to save up to buy a crappy van, press our own cds & t shirts, drop out of school to share a tiny dirty apartment in bushwick (before bushwick was cool). We wrote hundreds of songs, played hundreds of shows we booked ourselves to no audience, knowing that if we stay the course & don’t give up we will crack the code. & we eventually did. Years after a lackluster tour we self booked, a recently unemployed A&R who was affiliated with another band from that tour reached out to us to write songs together. We said yes (we said yes to about everything) & wrote mid level songs with him for a couple more years. Things still weren’t taking off but again we never gave up & always pushed at every opportunity we got offered. One random day when we went to that same former A&R’s studio to take another swing at writing “the song” we actually….did. He jokingly told us everything we write sounds sad & to write something happy & to spite him I started playing the melody to our first hit, Believer. We finished the song almost as a funny exercise only to step back & say this is actually kind of cool. That former A&R dusted off his Rolodex of industry connections, started sending the song around unfinished, & by the end of the week Altnation radio told us to finish the track & get it on iTunes because they were going to play it. With our new found sound in mind we wrote Best Day Of My Life as a B side (it took weeks to rewrite verses & swap parts around) & the rest is kind of history.
We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?
It’s more a lesson I’m still learning & adapting to is that things constantly change & you never know what road is going to take you where. No matter what you do in life, we all have that dream of being Coldplay. Being the best & the biggest & the most successful in what seems like the most straight forward path. I still want to be Coldplay & I’m about to release my 5th professional album but my business didn’t build the majority of our success from hit songs & stadium shows but instead from licensing our songs to tv & commercials. I barely knew that was a career field when we broke into it but now I’ve been a successful figure in the music industry primarily thanks to tv & film use. I still write the best songs I can, tour relentlessly & strive to be Coldplay, but I’m so thankful for the film work (& bizarre private shows for major corporations I also know didn’t exist) for helping fund my business. I meet so many people who have an idea they are one thing & only want live one way & frankly I see them really struggle. I wanted to write sad songs until one person pushed me to write something happy. I’ve have life changing experiences because I said yes to opportunity I doubted. I’ve allowed my business to keep growing after a decade because I have discussions & work towards adapting to the times & being honest with where I’m at professionally & where I want to be in the future. The main lesson I follow & advise others to follow is say yes to everything & try everything. You may think you’re amazing at one thing, & you probably are, but you may unlock a hidden talent of yours by saying yes to a new adventure.
What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?
I’ve always been a creative who wants to share my journey & perspective on the world but thanks to the success I found with American Authors, I was able to really hone my mission into spreading the idea of hope. AA unintentionally took off by writing songs with positive messages & when I see how that effects others it makes me want to continue to spread love & mainly hope. It’s rarely the “best day of my life” but I want to use my art to inspire others to see the light at the end of the tunnel. We all have issues & are going through so much but if we stay strong & work hard while holding on to hope things will get better & we can only go up when we are knocked down to our lowest. 
Contact Info:
- Website: www.weareamericanauthors.com
- Instagram: AmericanAuthors
- Facebook: weareamericanauthors
- Twitter: Aauthorsmusic
- Youtube: weareamericanauthors
- Tiktok: theamericanauthors