Sound of...Podcast
Highlighting Maryland's musical artist's that have played our showcases and beyond! Hosted by Stephen Harrod (AKA Scott of the Andes), we delve into the songwriters journey and intentions as to why they create. If you want to know about Maryland's local songwriters, this is the podcast for you! Be sure to catch one of our showcases going on throughout the year, happy listening!
Sound of...Podcast
Seth Mitchell-EP6
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Hey everyone, welcome to the Sound of Podcast. I'm your host, Steven. We're spotlighting Maryland's local singer, songwriter, talent. On the show, we have Mr. Seth Mitchell. Seth Mitchell is a multi-instrumentalist. When he's not playing with Seth Mitchell band, he's playing by himself or in another band. This guy's all over the place. He's got three albums under his belt, and he has his own online music publication that is spotlighting the local talent in the DMV area. All this and more on Sound of Podcast. Hey, it's the Sound of a Podcast. Oh yeah. I'll start off every episode with a different You need a theme. Musical theme that's just iconic. I think, well, I think it was by the second episode. Maybe it was the maybe it's Bernsey's episode. We used one of her songs, which is good, which makes sense because if it's a podcast about musicians and songwriters, the audience should probably hear what they sound like.
SPEAKER_03At some point.
SPEAKER_00You don't think that's this episode? That could be too. Yeah. Seth. Seth Mitchell, crazy recognized guy. What's he doing?
SPEAKER_02Yeah. I'm so disappointed.
SPEAKER_00Well, Holt, if you're familiar with the the format, we go way back in the Wayback Machine of Do you remember what your first uh relationship with music was as a as a little Seth?
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Um my mom plays the piano, and so she would be practicing for things when I was an infant, I'm sure. Probably, you know, before I was born. Right. Uh could what's that noise out there? Then I I do remember having like a toy guitar, I mean truly plastic, plastic strings, um, but like sort of liking that I owned that as a as a little guy. And then I was six or seven when I started taking piano lessons with my mom. And um studying with one's parent is not optimal for like regiment and discipline in some ways, because you know, I I I felt like I had weekly lessons, but she's like, You did not have weekly lessons.
SPEAKER_00But you were sitting down and dedicated time for you.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, it's well I I was a I was a lousy piano player for for quite some time. My dad uh describes himself as a as someone who always wanted to learn how to play guitar, so he passed that on to me.
SPEAKER_00Uh his appreciation, just in general. I like the guitar.
SPEAKER_03But I mean, really, his dad was a uh guitar player and and and would sing old country songs, and and then my mom's dad and his brothers and his father, they were all like super musical. So there's like a lot of like music coming down, funneled into me on a you know, whatever genetic it's the genes, yeah. Epigenetic, maybe, but yes. Um the um but I so I did I did piano for a few years, I did trumpet after that.
SPEAKER_00I was equally lousy, and I really Is this you telling yourself this, or other people are like no one would argue, I think.
SPEAKER_03No one that was there. Um I'm glad you say so.
SPEAKER_00We have your trumpet teacher right behind the top.
SPEAKER_03Oh no, I'm so ashamed. But hey, I'm still working at trumpet a little bit here and there, but um, but uh for some reason my parents bought me a guitar when I was maybe 12, 13, third, probably think 13, and I just loved that thing. Like it the light bulb came on, and all I wanted to do was play the guitar.
SPEAKER_00Acoustic? Electric.
SPEAKER_03I started with acoustic. I got an electric probably a year after that.
SPEAKER_00Do you remember the the songs you were tinkering around with at the beginning?
SPEAKER_03Or was it I learned to play acoustic guitar to two cassettes, uh Garth Brooks uh title or uh you know, his his first like self-titled album and the No Fences album. And I would play those intros over and over again.
SPEAKER_00Do you remember the first concert that you went to?
SPEAKER_03I want to say the first concert that I like paid my own money to go to, yeah, was uh Dashboard Confessional Concert at St. Vincent College up in Pennsylvania. And maybe 2004. College. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00They don't do those much, do they?
SPEAKER_03They don't. That's a rare show these days, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Well, it's funny because you have who is it? Who's the band that's doing house shows now?
SPEAKER_03I just saw this trend. Yeah, like they're the Titans are now coming and stealing our gigs. Wait, you're playing like Tiny Room? I need this.
SPEAKER_00I'm playing a pool house.
SPEAKER_03I'll go play the stadiums, I guess, since you're taking the crappy gigs.
SPEAKER_00It's gonna kill me. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, the the the comment I saw on it listed a few. Like it's uh potentially a trend of like big acts doing small shows.
SPEAKER_00You know what though? That goes to show when the when the ticket people up at the tippy top, when they're doing what they're doing, why not? Just go play wherever. Right. And get the merch sales, and it's I I understand why it's happening. But anyways, um what would you remember your first show as like a as you? Oh, like you were you playing recitals? Were you doing the school stuff?
SPEAKER_03I I did I did one trumpet performance solo. It was like a church performance on a Sunday morning, and I was the prelude, and it was freezing cold in there, and my knee was shaking the entire time. It was just trumpet solo, and I like biffed the high note, and I went and I sat down and I never performed on trumpet again. Um but I never did piano recitals. Um I did a lot of like church band stuff on guitar and electric bass too. Uh and then I was maybe 15 and I got picked up by a bluegrass band that needed a guitar player so bad that the guy was like, I'll teach you how to play bluegrass guitar, I will pick you up, I will drop you off at your house. He lived, you know, just down the road. Like it was not that inconvenient, but it's still like a really big he needed a guitar player real bad.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Um and he asked you. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Like you didn't ask, he was like, yo, actually, he was teaching guitar lessons at the store where my mom was teaching piano lessons, and he said, You don't know anybody who plays acoustic guitar, do you? And she said, Yeah, my son does. He would love to be in your band. What is it? And uh, and I was like, Bluegrass mom, I want to play in like a punk band. She's like, Well, this is a good opportunity for you, and you can learn new things and stepping stone. You start in the mail room, that's right.
SPEAKER_00Start in the bluegrass room and work your way up.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, uh, and so um I I and I I started on acoustic guitar, and then our mandolin player went to Penn State and I switched over to mandolin, and then for a little while I was playing with the mandolin up high and an electric bass strapped on like a little switch in the middle of the song because we didn't have a bass. Yeah. And then um buddy of mine came in and played electric bass. Like I I could focus on mandolin, and uh, I wasn't very good. But that was where I first sang, though, was in the in the bluegrass band. I remember 15, maybe 16. I was kind of a late bloomer as a vocalist. Still, I think, I still think I am.
SPEAKER_00Um and you just went with it? I mean, how did you they're like you're gonna sing, and you're like, sure.
SPEAKER_03Everybody had to sing a few to put together enough of a set. Like we didn't have any great vocalists, so everybody was kind of and I think I was I might have been like the harmony singer too, the default harmony singer. Because the guy who ran the band we kind of made fun of him for this. And this is a maybe this is more of a Pennsylvania thing, but uh, he was a Mennonite that couldn't sing harmony. We're like, you're like you, you, you people don't even have piano players in your churches. You're supposed to all know how to do this. Um we made fun of him and I sang harmony. But yeah, I sang lead on on the first song in in that setting. Um I did start a punk rock band that never gigged.
SPEAKER_00What were you guys called? Those are the best, though, when you start a band and you don't play a single show. What is our name?
SPEAKER_03I don't know. We were second chance briefly, but I don't think that was what we were calling ourselves by the time we had a gig. We had a gig, but we broke up before the gig. Oh, that's the worst. Uh well, yeah. Drummer Unless it needed to happen. The drummer wanted to break up after the gig, and I was like, no, thank you. We'll break up right now.
SPEAKER_00Oh wow. You kind of pulled in the reins already. Why? You just didn't want to well.
SPEAKER_03So he the his three reasons for wanting to leave the band were um my singing, my guitar playing, and my songwriting. I was like, I don't really want to do this gig with you.
SPEAKER_00I mean, these are things that hopefully could have been sussed out before a gig was established. Like in when you're in there?
SPEAKER_02Even like I got an idea. What if we change the key or what if we do this to that song?
SPEAKER_00Like the night of too? Or like three weeks out. Okay. Well, that's a little bit because of AOL instant messenger. Of those days. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That was that was when would soft firing or soft breaking up maybe started.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I was like, I'm not really looking forward to performing with you if you hate everything about me as a musician. You know, like that feels weird.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I mean to kind of compare, it's like, I don't know, if you get into a a marriage or something like that, like three weeks. Yeah, I don't really like you. I don't really understand why.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, my assumptions were that you were okay with these things, you know.
SPEAKER_00Were you writing your own songs then as well? Yeah, we had we're doing a lot of my original stuff. Oh, okay. What were you singing about? As punk bands do.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, as punk bands do. I mean, it was mostly about uh how entirely unfair it was that my feelings weren't reciprocated. You've written that song perhaps? A couple of songs. We all have. Yeah. Yeah. That's the those are the ones I remember. Um, but I'm sure there were some crappy writing in there.
SPEAKER_00What kind of punk? It was like fast punk, pop punk, uh, what kind of punk we had.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I mean, this is this is um early 2000s. So like the the the like post-hardcore elements hadn't really crept in. We weren't doing like tempo changes. Um kind of straight down the middle, sort of uh, you know, good Charlotte blink style stuff. Yeah. I know there's a little gulf between those two artistically, but we lived in that gulf.
SPEAKER_00And when did you start? I mean, was it was it punk until a certain point?
SPEAKER_03Because obviously now you can classify yourself as like a Yeah, I grew up listening to a ton of country music in the house. And and that I think is helpful because 90s country especially had a big like they they left a lot of room for instruments for real performances of acoustic instruments. Um, and so that helped me understand the role of the guitar and develop a kind of sense of where it should go in the song. But then I I connected with punk rock, you know, as a teenager, and it's like actually I'm gonna do power chords now. I'm not gonna do first position open chords. I'm power chords all the way over here.
SPEAKER_00I mean, I think that's because your emotions are like that heightened in that. That's right.
SPEAKER_03That sense of urgency. Yeah, yeah, that that punk rock brings. Like if you're a teenager, like that's it connects with you, I think, on a primal level. What are we doing? Something is wrong, and I'm gonna sing about it, you know?
SPEAKER_00And I think all of that stuff is still important too. It's just I think as you get older, there's peaks and valleys of it.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I there's something about that urgency that I I am still interested in connecting with as a songwriter, as a performer, and as like an adult participant in society now, right? Like just to say, like, oh, I was wrong, everything's fine. Like, I don't want to go that far in my maturation.
SPEAKER_00Remember that song I did? No, that wasn't I wasn't being earnest. That was just me following.
SPEAKER_03I was just stupid. Everything's fine. I don't want to go, I don't want to go that far. But yeah, um, the punk rock days are they're good days. They're good days.
SPEAKER_00And and when did you kind of um transition more into to kind of the folk songwriter stuff?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, um, I mean I had a Nickel Creek, I had all three of the Nickel Creek albums that were that existed back then, and I really loved those. And as a mandolin player too, I was yeah, and I yeah, my parents, like I said, got me the acoustic guitar and then the bass and then mandolin and banjo, like listening a couple of years, and I so I was trying to develop proficiency in all these things and listening to music where they were being used. But some of the like some of that bluegrass, it's good, authentic bluegrass, like it's a little disorienting as a teenager. Like, what what is the thing in this music that I'm to connect with? Um guy sounds like he's 85 years old and he's singing about his farm being knocked down, like farms, nature, yeah, I don't know. Somebody from town who's having trouble. But yeah, the Nickel Creek albums were really influential to me. Um I reconnected with sort of written music right at the end of high school and joined the marching band. I played in the jazz band on guitar for two years. Um picked up a brass instrument again and was reading like baritone, you know, euphonium lines as best I could. Oh wow. Um and I then I went to college to study music. And uh I did music theory and composition. I graduated with it, dang it.
SPEAKER_00And um That's more than many can say than that. I took an intro to music class and that was it.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah. Um there's uh there's a lot to learn and then you use it, some of it, and then you use some things you didn't learn. Like, why did I learn the things that I wouldn't use? And why didn't I learn all the things? Anyway, yeah, you've everybody's gotta make their own way. Um but after that, um so I I kind of thought I was gonna be a like classical composer for a few years. You have to believe that to get the homework done.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Um and I graduated and I applied to grad school. I was like, well, not ready yet anymore, right? You can't actually you can, but I thought you can't just work as a composer, you know, you can't just start chipping away at it. Um and then I had no good funding options. And so I This was in Pennsylvania? This was in Pennsylvania, yeah.
SPEAKER_00What what was the music, uh local music like there?
SPEAKER_03You know, um I went to college in like the Scranton area, uh, and that's uh like a coal town. Uh it was a coal town. Now I guess it's just a town. Um there I still follow the music scene. Like I I probably have more insight into it now just from creeping on social media. Yeah, but like there are a few places where you could play original music, but not many. Like it's it's and it's not a lot of population density. I say this with love in my heart and my Pennsylvanian card on the table. But a lot of these economies and the cultures in both, you know, the like a coal town like Scranton or the Johnstown, which is a rust belt kind of steel town where I grew up. I think if you were to measure it, you would not find, broadly speaking, a ton of openness to new experience among your average sort of like you know, citizen.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. I mean, there's so many different pockets of that on the colour.
SPEAKER_03And there's not a lot of disposable income either. Like just economically. So these are are people that are working hard for the resources that they do have, and it's not like let's go pay a $15 cover to hear some guy with his weird new songs. Like, that's not culturally gonna happen. Maybe it's just a population density thing. Maybe it there's the same percentage of those people as there are here, but there's just so many more people around here.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it it is a density thing, I would say.
SPEAKER_03But I also think there's some cultural values where um, and I mean, I I knew a lot of people that love music. I mean, like classic rock aficionados.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, people go to concerts, yeah. Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_03I think about like one of my friends' uh my one of my friends' dads, who um was running a venue, playing in a band that played in a venue, keyboard player, like entire Springsteen discography off the top of his. I mean, he was great, it was great. Um and he was very supportive of me as an artist, you know, as a as a as a young person and a young artist too, but like weren't a lot of those guys out there, maybe. And they were all encouraging, but like it's just the the opportunities don't exist in those small towns like they do elsewhere.
SPEAKER_00Where did you so when you were writing kind of your first songwriter songs, where where do you think you were kind of pulling your experiences from? I mean, if the punk stuff was the unrequited love and everything sucks, what do you were you also translating similar things in your songwriting spectrum?
SPEAKER_03I mean, well that and that that had been my experience was people girls don't like me back, and you know, the world seems like it's it's it's it's not uh not a welcoming place. A revolutionary concept, right?
SPEAKER_00However long music exists.
SPEAKER_03I don't know that I answered so I I I guess the the the previous question when I got into like songwriter-y stuff, more like the folk stuff, was after I sort of like burned out as a composer, and I realized like I just need like 16 musicians to practice my stuff for hours and then no one wants to listen to it. Like, I gotta take music back into my own hands. So that was when I sort of decided I'm a singer-songwriter again. This is what I was meant to be all along. I want more control over the execution of my art. I want to be performing it. So I'll use what I know and what interests me to write it, and then I'll perform it too. I won't be conducting, I won't be sitting in the audience watching other people do my music. I'm doing it again.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's kind of gotta be a bizarre experience, right? Of I mean, oh I hope people don't mess up.
SPEAKER_03Oh, they did. Yeah, I wonder what happens now.
SPEAKER_00You berate them in front of the audience. You cut the song off.
SPEAKER_03That was like the last piece I composed. It was like seven-piece brass ensemble, and um, this was um for the one-year anniversary of the dedication of the Fort Ord National Monument in just north of Monterey, California, where Fort Ord had been kind of decommissioned. And they took a big chunk of natural, like untouched land that you know, years and years prior, the US Army had been using for like training operations, and they were like, it's a national monument. Don't cut those trees down, we don't need another casino. A year later, they had a little ceremony, and I got to write a piece for uh seven-piece brass ensemble, and they told me, okay, they've got two of these and three of these and one of the and I so I wrote the piece for that. And then they're like, Oh, yeah, sorry, no, he he moved, he's gone, and we have a new one of these instead. So they gave you the materials, but then they're like, Oh, you don't have to be able to do it. So it was like it was like they had this many trumpets and this many baritones or something, and so I had to convert a part, uh, an octave away. Yeah, like uh mostly work, you know. Um, and came to the day of, and um, I'm gonna say I should have had a ring binder, but I just got up there with a folder and the score, and I was conducting and it was windy. And so, yeah, the wind blew one of the pages, and the mayor of Marina, California picked it up and brought it back to me. Um nice guy.
SPEAKER_00Nice guy, yes. Thank you, Mr.
SPEAKER_03Mayor. Um, and this these were military um musicians, but they were not in the military band. Like they had other jobs, they were just doing this because they loved it. Um, and the trumpet player who had a master's in performance, I like wrote a trumpet intro. It was just like a trumpet solo for the intro, and it did not go well. And afterwards, she was like, I'm so sorry, I should have told you I have terrible performance anxiety. I was like, Yeah, you could have actually. I would have worked with that had I known. That was like it's kind of like the punk thing again.
SPEAKER_00Hey, you know this. Oh, by the way.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, but that was the last time uh I was Seth Mitchell, the composer.
SPEAKER_00I was like, I'm gonna be a singer-songwriter again. What was your first gig as a singer-songwriter? I like what do you remember from that? Yeah, um were you did you hit an open mic first, or where did you shed your skin?
SPEAKER_03I at that time I was in the military as well. I joined the military after graduating with my degree in music theory and composition, because uh what else are you gonna do? Um, and they they shipped me out, or I was in San Angelo, Texas for a few months, and I picked up some like three-hour bar gigs, and uh the feedback I got was less mid-tempo sad songs, more covers. I was like, okay, well, I can do that because all of my originals are mid-tempo sad songs, so I'll just kill those.
SPEAKER_00And uh or just speed them up.
SPEAKER_03Uh or just I learned that trick later, I think. Um but then in Hawaii, I uh when I was stationed in Hawaii for three years, I I got plugged in with the um open mic scene, started to get some of my own showcases. I worked in a duo act for a while where I was playing cello and singing harmony for the other guy. We did a lot, uh, we got a lot of opportunities that way. Um, but yeah, I'd never uh Hawaii's a great music scene, but the kind of music that I gravitate towards is different than the stuff that they love. I mean, they have like they love reggae. Jack Johnson is out there, he's like folk adjacent. When you say like I I like folk singer-songwriter music, I'm thinking like John Prine.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_03And they're not. They're thinking like, oh, like depends who you talk to. Jason Moraz type stuff.
SPEAKER_00Because he has an acoustic guitar, that means it's folk.
SPEAKER_03That is not at all who I'm talking about. Um, so I'm basically praying playing my John Pryne-inspired originals to people who like Jason Moraz, and uh never felt like I fit. But yeah.
SPEAKER_00Well, you know the trick with that, I feel like, that you gotta do is you get through all your lyrics, you get through the sadness or whatever, and then at the end of it you just like coda with, but it's gonna be okay. You do your best. And then you switch to a reggae groove.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. I did actually reggae one of my songs. Which is like I thought it was fun. Yeah. But it was still I don't know.
SPEAKER_00The lukewarm response to it.
SPEAKER_03It was and I you know, I look at the the scene itself and and um Open mics are mostly people that are there to perform at them. And the friends that they dragged along. Yes. Bless those people. And um when I was playing the most open mics, I felt like I've got to do this. There was I I I would use the word desperation. Not that I was desperate, but there there's a that underlying current of desperation. I'm gonna play this open mic and I'm gonna play my best stuff. And if it works, people are gonna see that I'm a good singer-songwriter, that I'm a good musician, they're gonna like what I'm doing, and more opportunities will come from that. And so if somebody gets up before me, I'm not listening to them. I might be. If I'm listening to them though, I mean this is this is me. When I was at that phase of my life, I was listening to them, thinking, I can take this guy. I don't mean in a fight, of course. But like my music is better developed than his. I have I know more what I'm doing. Or, oh, oh, look at that. He's pandering, he's writing all these smooth songs. People like, oh, look at this guy, get a load of him. Which means he's better than me, probably. But I just I felt like I was operating from such a place of scarcity. Old judgment, you know, yeah, but but like there's not enough appreciation in this room for all of us, right? No one here has come here to encourage or appreciate. Maybe, and this could be all projection, because this is 100% where I was at that phase of my my life and my life. No, I I can see that. But like, so I need I don't need all of the affirmation that's in this room, but I do need enough to not feel like I'm gonna die. Um that's a rough place to be as a musician. You have nothing to give. I had nothing to give to people. I couldn't encourage them, I couldn't even see them as artists.
SPEAKER_00Where do you think that came that comes from? Um just like a feeling of inadequacy or not of faith.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of inadequacy kind of feelings there. I mean, I honestly, as I've and I I uh I've been putting in the work and I've really grown to a place of generosity as a as an artist where I I and it feels so much better. Um but I have spent some time going back to that punk band where I thought he was my friend, the drummer. I thought he had my back. I thought we were in this together, and he's like, actually, I hate everything about you as a musician. Um so like whoa, so am I still trying to work that off? Work that feeling away? Maybe.
SPEAKER_00I don't know. Yeah, and it's hard. Uh I think being I think so much of music spaces, it really depends on how it's being run and what the vibe is. And and that can come from the host, that can come from the venue.
SPEAKER_02Yep.
SPEAKER_00And if it doesn't feel, if it feels like a place of everybody's trying to one up each other in that, you know, emaciosity, if I can make up a word, yeah, then then that's what it's gonna be like. And the thing that I flipped about it was that once everybody is on stage, that is that is their time and that is their moment where they they can shine. And I always have tried to um be open within that and really listen to what they're trying to do and where that's coming from. Because it's like you said, of my um my biases might come through of like, well, I wouldn't write a song like that, or these are and but then I realize that's me. And that's me coming from my experiences and they're coming from where they're coming from, and hopefully I'm going to learn more about that through their songs or just talking with them after the fact.
SPEAKER_03Right. I found it is so much more enjoyable and interesting and rewarding to like not compete with artists. I mean, at some level, there's only so many gigs in a year. Yeah, 100%. Um and I it's easier for me to say that now that I have some. You know what I mean? I go back in time and when I had no gigs, I was subbing in one bluegrass band. And like this that scarcity mentality, which is is it is a way I felt about myself and the world, but it also isn't completely divorced from reality.
SPEAKER_00No, I mean it's it's it's a racket, you know? People need slots filled, and people need uh musicians to be in different places, and I think you know that depends on where you want to play and how you want to play, and and in what capacity and how you're representing yourself.
SPEAKER_03But but I also think too that um I mean you imagine an infinite marketing budget. If I could make every person, every person who speaks English, or the whole world, it's infinite, let's do the whole world. Everyone in the whole world listen to my music. What actual percentage would like my music? I mean, we can look at the Beatles, we can look at Taylor Swift, we can look at artists that have basically that level of saturation from a marketing standpoint. Do you think one percent of people regularly turn on Taylor Swift music and enjoy it?
SPEAKER_00Even in the US, that's three million quantifiably I don't know.
SPEAKER_03I think it might be two percent. I'm sure we can chat right, that's crazy. But like my people, it might be a million people that would be like if they when they connect with my music, this guy, I love what he's doing, and I want to I want this to be part of the music that I listen to. If it's one million people, that's awesome. I don't know how I'm gonna find them. I don't have an infinite marketing budget.
SPEAKER_00But that's out and you hear about that with other bands though, too. Well-established bands. They're talking about going on like their second tour ever, even the first, you know, which was back in the day sponsored by record companies or whatever, but they talk about like, is anybody gonna show up?
SPEAKER_03Like, is anybody but yeah, there so there's people that will like my music, and there's people that will like your music, and there's an overlap. There's people that will like both of our music. But the odds are that one percent of the population will like mine, one percent will like yours. They might be the same one percent, they might overlap a little bit, but helping you connect with your audience, you helping me, like this is not a zero-sum game. Not at all.
SPEAKER_00No, I mean I I think it's kind of a walk-away situation of and and I really try to champion that with just in the way that I listen to local artists now. Of like, I want I want to get something out of this as a as a listener, not as a consumer, but as a listener in a human being, of that I'm really trying to listen for songs that will resonate with me and then can hopefully resonate within the community. And that's objective or subjective, it's subjective of what I'm what my ears are listening for might be different than what anybody else is listening for. Because maybe somebody wants to hear like a feel-good hit at the time when I'm like, nah, dude, doom and gloom. But make catchy doom and give me the sadness. Yeah, main line at the well that reminds me that you had that song, I think it was the first song that I uh saw you play about uh sobriety, right?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, what is that song called? I have a couple. Um, it might have been what else could I be? Would it have like an old-timey Chet Atkins style guitar part?
SPEAKER_00Maybe, but I'm I'm also remembering there was a lyric in there about castles. Am I making this up?
SPEAKER_03So there's I think I did those songs on the same night. Okay. Um, yeah, nothing worth having. Is it that song? I think so. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Is there a lyric in there about castles or high is the castle and deep is the moat?
SPEAKER_03That's what it was. Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00First of all, I love castles.
SPEAKER_03Oh, I immediately responded. Yeah. Uh yeah, that song is uh is important to me, means a lot to me. I mean, all my songs are I love them all equally, right? Yeah. But um, yeah, that that song has uh has a fun guitar part with an open tuning uh one string. I tune the B down to an A, which I got it from Bob Dylan. Oh, yeah. But it's not like a common, it's not like drop D, it's the same amount of retunes, but it's not like everybody's pulling it out of their back pocket. Um and it's kind of like a break the fourth wall song.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I think I remember you saying that too.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, um, and I I had um it was the last one I wrote for the album that it's on. Um yeah, it's um it's got some of that urgency. Well, so this is the older the older version of the punk rock urgency. You know, when you you know as a teenager I felt urgency all the time. I gotta do something now. But but in that song, like the speaker is summoning the listener to recognize that time is finite, like you've gotta choose. Almost like like the punk rock energy has been lost and he's trying to bring it back.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, like you're you're you you were at your maybe not you were you were a different person when you were shooting hoops in high school or playing college ball and stuff.
SPEAKER_03Now you're not doing any of these things, but what are you doing, right? Like dwindling down are your days on this earth. It's time you stopped waiting for something. That's the line I think enough.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I I immediately responded to that, I think, in that way. But that's the thing, is that I think people are gonna be listening for different things in songs because you want it to be applicable um as a as a songwriter, I think. I mean, that's kind of why like I I don't want to give away the sauce too much, but I try not to overexplain myself um as a good man in an intro for a song, yeah. And I really try not to say this song is about or this was a time when because it and and I've definitely said it on here, somebody bingo it if they can, but at the end of the day, it's it's not your song anymore when you play it live. That's right. Yeah. I mean it it's coming through you.
SPEAKER_03It leaves you, yeah, and it's out flying around in the world. Yeah. And yeah. Yeah, I I um I don't like to do that in the song too much either. Um and so I I think I I um I consider the intro. And I I used to be really strict with song intros, as little as possible.
SPEAKER_00Uh like spe like intro in a sort of like yeah, speaking before the song.
SPEAKER_03Um and um and I I've I've eased into it, but I recently sort of like I don't know, caught myself in the mirror on that. I sort of metaphorically was like, I'm talking too much, aren't I? When did that happen? We let ourselves go. Um and I don't know that I have it dialed in, but yeah, I think even the um the like uh like the theme of the song should be like in the song. It shouldn't be like, I'm so sad, and I'm writing the song about sadness. Like you can do that song, but just like just talk about your circumstances, and then at the end they'd be like, I think that guy's sad. I think that's a better song.
SPEAKER_00Maybe this is a weird way to think about it, but sometimes it's how I think about music, but it's um like a movie, like a movie has a color grading to it. That's right, it has a style like Blade Runner, a science fiction movie looks like a science fiction movie, and they're committed, filmmakers are committed to show, don't tell.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, and and I think good songwriting, yeah, yeah. Uh but I think good songwriting can be accomplished with a similar kind of discipline. Obviously, it's a verbal medium, but um but yeah, I think I think piecing it together, like like you need to leave some room for the audience to actually connect the dots and to fill in some dots with their experiences. Um you're saying there too, even like it's not your song anymore.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and I you know, I think that depends on well, it depends on the audience, I guess, in that some some people are gonna want to be handheld and then some are gonna want to have you know some ambiguity to it. And I think that space that you're talking about of where they can fill in stuff. Yeah. And it's it's more with metal music that I'm that I still listen to and will forever. But like there's some of these, and actually I blame it on the lack of physical media that I don't have anymore. If I don't look at the lyrics anymore, right, right. Um, usually I did, but like uh sometimes for some of the metal music I'm listening to, I have no idea what they're singing about. Like I can't understand them. I mean, there there's some for different bands where it's like I I get it and the vocals are there, but like I the example I'm thinking of is like Mastodon. I I love Mastodon, I've seen them multiple times and I love their music, but there's times where like I don't know what they're talking about. Like I don't understand their lyrics at times. And uh but the music carries it enough that I'm like this is that feeling that you're generating.
SPEAKER_03I uh I love Cuban music and I'm not proficient in Spanish.
SPEAKER_00Well, how does it make you feel? Amazing, right?
SPEAKER_03Like, yeah, I I and I think that and then those are both good examples, I would say, of music that like carries a feeling with and the lyrics are like they're just one other element of that. And if you get the lyrics, that's great. And if you're only kind of getting the lyrics, like you probably still got the message because they're so aligned, they're like so well put together. I don't know if all my songs are that smart. Well, that gets into like how do you I I do like subversive songs though, and this is something that as I've pivoted towards bluegrass, which was largely a response to just the strength. I do have it in me from when I was a kid and I got tapped for that bluegrass band. And I'm like, I I do love this music. It I love the way that the acoustic instruments have differentiated parts to carry the energy, and I can work with that as a writer and as a performer. Um, but I've had to fight some of my like sad boy instincts, and I in a way that I think Paul Simon has done also, because he could write mid-tempo mopey stuff all day, and and he did for about a decade after leaving Simon and Garden. It was still very interesting, but he was bringing in jazz musicians and other things to like add to the sound. And then with Graceland, he found like that South African rhythm section that just took it off the charts, and then he did a similar thing with Rhythm of the Saints, and so to me, that's kind of what bluegrass does. Like it takes my music that could kind of get monotonous if I'm not being super disciplined, and it brings it to life in like a three-dimensional way. But I do have songs where it's like toe tapping, it is like a you know, rip snorting good time of a bluegrass song, and then you look at the the lyrics, and it's like in a cage by the window, neath a cloth for the night. There it flutters and it sings and it longs to take flight. This heart. It's like, whoa! Yeah, that's what I'm trying to do. It's just yeah, a little bit subversive. Um, hopefully, I'm not mocking my audience though. Do you think I do?
SPEAKER_00No, okay, no, I don't know.
SPEAKER_03People don't like to be tricked, and I don't know if that's good news for me as a songwriter. Uh, I don't know.
SPEAKER_00No, I think people do like to be tricked. I think I think in a grander uh you know way, like I don't know. Like it's it's all kind of smoke and mirrors when you think about it. It's good literature. It's good, it's good literature, it's good. Um, though I I would argue that the line between you know fiction and and nonfiction is getting blurred more and more, at least from like a science fiction level.
SPEAKER_03But like I do that on purpose in my songs. Yeah. I I'm deliberately blurring lines between fiction and nonfiction. I'm most comfortable that way. I know some people don't do it at all. And it's like every word I sing to you is 100% true. Yeah, that's true. I mean, if if it works for them, then it works. Uh that is not the case of in my music. I uh do you how do you do you percentify it?
SPEAKER_00No, I wouldn't be. I leave that for the audience today. Okay. I was gonna say, is a conscious effort where you write and you're like, no, 30% of it is.
SPEAKER_03There was one song that I wrote 11 verses before I had three that felt like they were actually safe to send into the world. It started so close to home.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_03I had to push it out wider and wider.
SPEAKER_00Do you spend a lot of time editing with that and like sitting out?
SPEAKER_03That's that that I really had to wrestle that one.
SPEAKER_00Okay.
SPEAKER_03Like I I'm getting I'm writing fewer songs now and I'm fighting more for the song I want rather than kind of just following the thread.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_03But it is an act of following the thread. I think I'm just pulling in bigger songs now, or more developed ideas, things I haven't done before. And the more you write, the fewer of those exist.
SPEAKER_00So yeah, I mean it it is a muscle like everything, and uh that's important. Do you ever feel uh worn out with it? Of you're like, I don't know about this thread, or is this thread going to into a space that I'm just it's already been touched upon?
SPEAKER_03Well, that's the biggest question, the toughest question for me as a songwriter is like, is this idea an entire song, or is this the third line of the second verse? It's one of those. And I'm either gonna write a boring song or a song who the third line of the second verse is just like, ooh, I liked that imagery. I wish that was the song.
SPEAKER_00I think sometimes I go back and I find like a piece that was a line from a verse. I'm like, oh, that's okay. What is that?
SPEAKER_03I never really kill songs, I just scrap them for parts.
SPEAKER_00It's uh yeah, it's a it's a uh an amalgamation of of different elements.
SPEAKER_03I'd like to uh steal your microphone here for a minute and uh and make a pitch, can I?
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_03It's similar to what you're doing here, which I love, yeah, by the way. I'm very excited that you're doing this podcast. Oh yeah.
SPEAKER_00We were gonna get to it.
SPEAKER_03Okay. Let's talk about it. But similar and yet different, maybe even perfectly complementary. I myself am undertaking a side project. I am a songwriter like you. That's more important to me. Maybe that's more important to you than being a podcast host, I'm guessing. But not right now, it isn't, but you know. Um, but your town music is a thing that I would like to talk about.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And so uh you've heard of it. Let's talk about it. Yeah. Oh, I follow them. You follow it. I follow you through social media. Yes, yes. So your town music.
SPEAKER_03Um, I have this theory that there's enough talent around here, and that while I wish there were more opportunities and they paid a little better, there really are a lot of opportunities, and that's not the in terms of the equation, that's not the big lack. Um, there's like a lot of people around here, and maybe this is the defense industry or government or whatever, but there's a lot of disposable income floating around here, too. And there's also a lot of like technical talent and the ability to get your music out into the world. So we don't need more recording engineers, we don't need there to be more audience, potential audience members around here. We don't need to be more musicians, we don't need there to be more venues. Again, I wouldn't say no to that, but like it's not like a huge gap. So, as I'm trying to like solve the equation, like, how do I get my songs and the songs other people are writing that like are worth people's time to the awareness of the people that do not know about them yet? Um, I think we need something that is just dedicated to that, and that's what your town music is supposed to be. We have a little uh sleight of hand in the graphic design that emphasizes our own music as well. Um so it's local music and it if you live around here, it's your local music and it's not someone else's local music. There's stuff coming out that no one's ever heard. Right? Just made. It's not a cover of a song. It wasn't in some industry pipeline for 15 months, waiting for some other similar sounding single to go big. Um, your town music exists to write about this music. We have a website where we put up reviews of singles, EPs, and albums, and we have social media pages where we try to push those out into the collective awareness.
SPEAKER_00Um it's a publication.
SPEAKER_03It's like a magazine.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. A digital magazine?
SPEAKER_03Totally digital on the oh man, print would be fun, but uh maybe having more than one article a week would help. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Well, that you could just have it as a piece of paper and put it on people's cards.
SPEAKER_03Just put it in a put it in an envelope. Yeah, stick it on people's cards. Um, it is all volunteer. I do not have a budget for this except to pay for the website and the hosting and all that. Um, and so I am doing most of the writing. Uh, my friend Michael Stone, who's another bluegrasser guitar player, singer-songwriter, he's uh he's writing. We have Bernsey, previous guest on your podcast as our editor. Um, and uh a couple other prospects that might be joining as writers, but um it's not enough people.
SPEAKER_00So you need more.
SPEAKER_03We need more. This is an open call. Yeah, writing is hard work. Writing about music is like dancing about architecture, as they say. Um, it is difficult to write about music, and so like you need to be willing to like fuss with sentences, it's not all fun and games. Um, but we have writing guides and we have good editing systems, and so it's not if you're willing to try it, it's not impossible. But I would love to be able to do three pieces a week because there's that much good music being made.
SPEAKER_00It's true. How are you selecting or where do you start?
SPEAKER_03Well, I so I I've I have a good pipeline of um people that I've gotten submittals coming in through the the website. If you're an artist, you can send us your thing. It has to be local, original, recorded. And because of our bandwidth limitations, it ought to be recent as well. I would love to go back to some music even from last year and get it the attention it 100%. Deserves, but I'm we were a little little you know short staffed around here. Um, but then it's kind of uh I mean, to be honest, the last two I had a pipeline of six songs that I'd already um hunted down or typed out myself, uh, the lyrics. Please put your lyrics online, people. Um and uh and I just put it in a random wheel picker thing and uh spun it. And uh that's how I did the n the last two. So I don't know who's next. Oh no, I do know who's next.
SPEAKER_00Um I haven't written it yet, but um that takes a lot of conscious effort, though. You're listening to the song, you're listening to the music. Yes, you do. I don't know how many people do that thing. Yeah, people do.
SPEAKER_03But like I believe that my music deserves that kind of attention. I have a file created on your last three-song EP, but now I see you release another one.
SPEAKER_00I did, yeah.
SPEAKER_03So I I gotta ask, what do I do? Do I start over? No, honestly, I I kind of I I love albums and I love EPs, but I paused those because it was me, it just takes so many listens to become familiar with what's going on in 12 songs compared to one song. And I was hoping that the writers would flock to us a little more quickly than they have. I'm not going anywhere, but for my own sustainability purposes, as I am a pretty active performer too, and I have a day job. Uh, I'm writing 300 to 500 word reviews of singles right now. A couple caveats though. I'm not saying this stinks, I'm not assigning a number rating.
SPEAKER_00I've people like that though, too. People respond to that. That's the off-shaping publication.
SPEAKER_03Um, well, I've had a couple songs like Enter the Awareness. I'm like, I just don't know that this work is gonna be easy. Like, if I shine a light on this, even what I'm seeing is man, if they keep at it, they're gonna really get some good material. But I don't feel like this is easy. I don't want to point at it. I don't want to shine too much of a light on it because it's just not ready. And I've got songs that aren't as good as it's like. That's hard, that's a hard decision to make it. But but so I just I I I I consider those kind of unactioned songs, and there's only been a couple of them. Most of the stuff's getting put out, man. If you listen to it like it matters, you'll see this song should matter. I think that's true of your stuff, I think it's true of my stuff, and I want your town music to give that to people that risk all that they risk and do all the work that they do to put their music into the world. That someone out there is gonna listen to this closely and help other people understand its value.
SPEAKER_00Wait, say that again? Listen to music like it matters? Is that what it wants?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, because I mean, if if um, you know, uh stadium you know sort of stadium fair for artists. I mean, even you look at some of these guys that have been selling out stadiums for 50 freaking years, just retired. Um a thousand dollars to get a ticket to go see it, right? But if they put out a new album, people are gonna turn on, oh let me listen. And this Rolling Stones had a new album a couple years ago.
SPEAKER_00They did, yeah.
SPEAKER_03Like, let me hear what the 77-year-old Rolling Stones are up to these days. We're gonna listen to that album like it matters. But nobody listens to our stuff that way. Few people listen to our stuff that way. But what if I I just I want to live in a world where when you release a song, it someone notices. Yeah. And and so your time music is designed to be a place that notices. All volunteer labor, yeah. Um, but then also make it easier for other people to notice because I hope that we get a readership. Uh and I hope that we write things about artists and their songs that they can use to say, I didn't say that this song is awesome and I'm a genius, but they did. Yeah, and I didn't put it in chat GPT to also, by the way, I'm proud to say we use no general, not even for editing. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Amazing. Yeah, well, I mean, why would we do that? It's gonna be more important to say those things in the future, I feel like. So I'm glad we have that.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Um, but I I think it's a it could be a game changer on a small scale, but a rising tide lifts all boats, man.
SPEAKER_00I'm there for it. I support you.
SPEAKER_03And you're doing the same thing with this podcast, too. And that's I'm trying, yeah.
SPEAKER_00I mean, it's you know, it's going back to what you said about the songs being uh deserving to be listened to. It's the same thing with when I go into a room and I hear an original songwriter play something, and I'm like, that was wonderful. Where did that come from? Oh, yeah. How did that come to them? Um, and this is a person here in my backyard. That's right. You don't have to go to the stadium to see your heroes.
SPEAKER_03And wait for the documentary, the Netflix documentary, 10 years after the stuff was made.
SPEAKER_00You're if if depending on where you want to be at or where you feel comfortable within that, and this isn't just for musicians, this is people that support music in general, you you don't have to say uh or or you don't have to wait for the documentary. You're experiencing the documentary now. It's happening now.
SPEAKER_03You could be part of their of their career. Um yeah.
SPEAKER_00And it's interesting where the disconnect is of that of like if I'm gonna watch whatever streaming Netflix show because there are those people and they're out there a million miles away making the the big bucks or whatever, but there's people like that in depending on if you're open to it and accepting of it, there is people within your immediate community that are doing that as well. They might not have the resources in the same way that the big boys do, but they're still doing it.
SPEAKER_03I'm uh future state for your time music. I do want to start doing playlists of the artists where it's not just the one song, maybe right now I'm writing about one song instead of, but like where you can kind of go. I I want to I want to develop our genre offerings, and I don't care much about genre, but people do. And so I want you to know I love this one, and here are other similar artists that have you know been reviewed by your time music, and it's their whole discography instead of just the one that we wrote about or whatever. Um, and then if we get enough of a of a followership and enough of a you know a platform, I'd like to um maybe not too defiantly say, Hey, one month, one week, whatever, all local music. You want to take the challenge? Doesn't that sound neat? There's so much music here. You could really and it once you know you the audiences do the work, and I'm trying to help with that work, but then once they do the work of figuring out who's local that's like the kind of music that I like. Yeah. And it might be might might be Scott of the Andes, might be Seth Mitchell. It could also not be us. That's cool. Like, but figure out what it is and and just push pause on the Rolling Stones for a week. Yeah, and not forever, but give us your streams and we'll make pennies, man. Just pennies will roll in. Jingle, money more, they're done, right?
SPEAKER_00They're done with the pennies, digital pennies. I when I go to a show of a local person, and I I think I've said this or I I don't feel a hundred percent like a fan yet when some pen when somebody's uh slinging merch because I want to go to them multiple times before I and this is the way my brain works, of it is an investment for me, and I do feel that there's a symbiotic relationship. And it helps being in a a local scene in that way of that you can talk to those people. You don't have to pay a bazillion dollars for the VIP treatment, you can talk to them afterwards, and you can become invested in their music, and then you realize also, hey, if they're slinging merch, I want to contribute to that, and I want to display I am a I'm a proud fan in that way. And it's definitely something that I take seriously with some of the local people that that I've seen now multiple times, yeah um because it it matters to me. Um that's and I know not every person thinks that way.
SPEAKER_03I I think um that especially the the the money part is tough, especially for some of our peers. Um we're 25 bucks means different things to different people. Yeah, and I never want to judge anybody for if they can't afford a t-shirt, like that's cool. If they're not t-shirt wearing people, yeah, too. I'm not gonna judge anybody for not not buying merch. Um I'm bad at even ordering merch. I have stickers and t-shirts. I mean, I'm not like a big one. I got your sticker, I got your Glenn Burning Man sticker.
SPEAKER_00Awesome. That's the that that was the other thing. I was like, oh, this guy's funny. This guy's not will or is willing to uh not take himself too seriously. That's the goal, man. Which is also important. Well, I think but the earnestness is within the songs, but then your demeanor is playful, which is helpful.
SPEAKER_03I I have a I have a uh sort of metaphor for this artistically. Um you know, like a a tree when it's a little sapling, like six inches high or whatever, it's like so soft and green that you could kill it with your thumbnail. Like you it's so vulnerable. But uh a year goes by and it starts to get you could still probably mow it with a lawnmower, but it it it starts to get thicker bark. And then by the time it's five, ten years old, it's uh you couldn't you hit it with a lawnmower and you need a new mower. Like you you could literally wreck a pickup truck around itself. It's so strong. And yet at the end of each branch, new branches, new shoots that are just as tender and green as it was coming out of the seed. And I think that's how you gotta be as an artist. You've got to get thick skin, you've gotta be able to survive a collision, you've got to be able to resource yourself and stand up against criticism or whatever that might create pain, but you're lifting that tenderness and vulnerability away from where people can hurt you. And it's actually there's more of it than there was when you were just one little green shoot.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's a super good metaphor.
SPEAKER_03It helped me a lot.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I mean, well, and and then you have so many other um you're strong in that way. That's right. Yeah, I get way.
SPEAKER_03People can lean on you.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. That's a good metaphor, yeah. Until lightning strikes. Right.
SPEAKER_03Well, that's when you make a million dollars. Oh, lightning strikes.
SPEAKER_00Oh yeah, that's that's the metaphor too. Um wrapping it up, I I guess I'll just ask the broader question of um Seth Mitchell. Why do you why do you need music? You know, I tried to quit it.
SPEAKER_03I um I I after college and not going to grad school, I joined the Air Force. I was very serious. And I was about six months in, and um I accidentally wrote a song, and then like instantly three more came. I was like, uh, I'm still a musician. Um I used to make fun of myself for that. Like, oh, it's like a drug habit, but not as destructive to your body, you know. Um and the more work I've done kind of in a psychological and healing space, the more I I realize that this benefits me. Um, and I have good friends who are doing similar work and saying, uh, how do I connect with something creative and life-giving? And I'm like, I don't know, man. Because for me it's always been music. Like it it meets that need. And it's it's created uh I think about the you know, sort of like uh scarcity mentality and and the way that maybe even my addiction to music could have prevented me from making friendships in those some of those contexts. I don't know. We'll never know. Um, but I think that ultimately it is much more of a healing and life-giving thing for me, and I'm glad that it's been with me through the more difficult years, and and now I think I am more resourced, I'm more impervious to damage and able to do things like your time music. Um, but I don't know, man. I just can't imagine my life without it.
SPEAKER_00Wonderful. Seth Mitchell, thank you so much, man. Thank you, Steven. Thanks so much for listening. You can follow us on Instagram for show announcements and other episodes. And if you dig the artist stuff, give them a follow-up, give them a like. And if you want to go the extra mile, check them out at one of their shows, buy their merch, keep the scene alive. And I'll see you out there. Take care,