The dreamer may be obscure, but the dreams loom large.
The rock star. The movie star. The icons whose fame proclaim the talent.
What if there is an exempt segment? What if there are creative and innovative people, who've just never had the right opportunity to be appreciated by the masses?
Music and artistic expression, in the modern world, seems to be a young man's game, at times. More and more often, we are subjected to pop singers and rock bands that hardly seem to have escaped puberty.
For this article, I interviewed three artists, all of whom are over forty years of age: Steven Schub, an actor and frontman for the band "HaSkaLA," living in Hollywood; Marci Geller, a singer and songwriter, living in New York; and Chris Boss, a guitarist and songwriter living in Maryland. I wanted to delve into the questions that must face artists as they gain experience, wisdom, and years. I didn't want to write the article as a straight interview, however; I wanted to weave their answers into the body of the text.
When I thought of this small project, I had some questions about sustaining a love for the art, over the years. Steve didn't separate his life from his art: "It's trying to sustain my enthusiasm for life. People who are creating for the right reasons don't think of it in that way, success. It's not necessarily a vow of poverty. But you can't say 'I'm avant garde,' on the one hand, and then expect to be appreciated by everyone. I'm most inspired by people who have a unique take on the world, whether it is a plumber or a poet. You probably don't want your dental hygienist having a unique point of view... then again, why not?"
So, is art in the soul, embedded? "As a female musician, it's so easy to get hung up on the whole 'age thing,'" Marci offers. "I was told at 30, basically, that my career was over, and I've been fighting that idea ever since. This is not the end, it's not the middle, it just is. When you're an artist you just keep going, until you reach a place where you don't want to go anymore." So, those who feel the urge within themselves, who have an artistic voice with which to speak, are compelled to do so, despite success? Chris adds, "I didn't use music as a tool to live; if I want my head to decompress, the guitar is a good method. Still works. If you have a bunch of things in your head, that you can't get out, or don't want to -- because I'm not a big talker, anyway -- music works."
Music is an art form, to many. It can transcend or create a mood, speak volumes without words (although Chris counters with, "Art? That leaves me out. I can play a "B" chord"), engage the attentions of multitudes -- or few. "There are a thousand bands out there who are touring who are indistinguishable from one another," Steven clarifies, when speaking about popular success. "I live in the belly of the beast, Hollywood. I'm not anti-profit, at all, but I think the bigger issue is, is there an integrity to your work?" If the art one creates has no veracity, then is one merely a craftsman, practicing an alternate method of earning money? Without impugning wedding singers or lounge bands, is there an artistic truth to performing other people's creations in order to earn financial remuneration? "I really miss being in that place of innocence, where its only about the music and the creativity," says Marci, speaking on the business aspect of being an artist who engages in regular live performances. "When I toured with Ritchie Blackmore, I was too naive to be scared ... It's a privilege to share music with other people."
Many of us wish to be financially secure, to gaze from a position of wealth and power. None of the artists with whom I spoke, however, named money as a motivating factor in any way. They each deemed success to be of person recognition, of striving for growth. Their benchmark seems only to be competition within themselves.
"When you make choices, during the (financial) down times, I'd rather preserve and protect my spirit," Steve stressed. "Your job as an actor, is to serve the play. You're part of a collaboration. You have to also have a outlet, (which) for me is music. I have to have both. As an actor, I'm a hired gun. I'd rather be a bartender and make money that way than I would to deplete (artistic integrity). I would implode if I didn't have the outlet of HaSkaLA, which is my vision, my words." Marci agrees, "I think I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be. I think it has been a series of adventures and escapes, and challenges and sometimes, scary things, but they all led me to where I am now, which is a very focused and passionate musician, who gets great joy out of sharing my soul and inner thoughts with strangers."
Every artist with whom I spoke seemed to be "born that way" ("As a zygote ... I was moshing in the womb," Steve assures me, "It's in the blood. My Uncle is a drama professor and my Grandma was an actress in the Yiddish Theater"), a product of genetic predisposition that enabled musical creativity. "My mother will tell you I came out singing," Marci states. The love of music is combined with some mysterious, unpredictable propensity that creates one who is driven by a passion to make something unique, as Chris explains, "My first memory of music as a really big deal was a road trip and (The Beatles') 'Strawberry Fields' came on the radio ... I just understood that, that other people think this way. I don't know what you see, but I see it in sounds."
Life isn't necessarily linear, with a beginning, a middle and an end, but the flow of time often causes us to see it as such. "I don't have a plan, I've never had a plan," Chris says, speaking of the path on which he has traveled his life. "I wanted a family, I have one. I don't care where I am in five years, I'd like to be somewhere warmer." As an artist, sometimes choices lead to progress, sometimes to regression. When Chris wanted to learn the guitar, for example, his choice of a teacher left him unfulfilled: "I was told I should learn a John Denver song, which is why I only had one guitar lesson. I'm not looking to play Country Western, or die in a plane crash. I'm not here to sing, I want to finger-pick."
So, seemingly innocuous or random choices can have impact down the road, in life. From a humble beginning can be nurtured a life-long love affair with music, as Marci states, "My entire life is defining moments. Every single day is a revelation. When I was three, my parents bought me an Emenee organ. My parents woke up to me playing 'Silent Night,' by ear." To quote the great acting teacher Stella Adler: "You need to leave your soul as vulnerable as a butterfly to survive as an artist, while having the hide of an elephant to survive this business." Travails and trials are the due course of life, and surviving them, in order to interpret them, is what an artist must do. As Steve explains, "The defining moments are when I had to stand alone. Taking that risk. To actualize our full potential in the short time we're here, we have to be 'all-in' at all times. Whatever the cost. It's worth it."
Not every brilliant mind finds every brilliant ear, in this life. We may go our entire lives without having heard a song that may have changed us forever, if we had heard it, or we may be hyper-saturated by safe and dull, mass-produced noise that appeals the many, and so outweighs the individual peccadilloes of the few.
"I have a very different perspective on the world than I think most people do," Marci assures me, "I like to take something that's significant to them (people), but that the rest of the world may not be aware of, and shine a light on it." And for Marci, as well as Steve and Chris, that light is music.
I will finish with a line that Steve said, in the midst of several other things, but that stuck with me, on a personal level: "It's a blessing and a curse to know what you want to do with your life."
