24 hours to go before I board my flight. This time tomorrow night I’ll be sitting in a studio in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada with one of my all-time favorite bands helping me steer the ship. How that came about is a story worth hearing because just as it seemed things couldn’t get any better, they did.
Six years ago, I was a friend’s house watching some tawdry reality show on MTV. The saving grace of the experience for me was partly seeing the climatic meltdown/make up of the show’s main characters, but was mostly hearing a beautiful song during the show’s climax. I went home and discovered that the music I had heard was from an Indie band in Vancouver called Doubting Paris. I bought their music on iTunes that night and from there was 100% on board as a fan of the band. It’s not always an easy thing to win a musician over, I just thought they were making really good pop music, something that was increasingly becoming a novelty.
Over the years, I would send the obscure “I think you’re so great” message through their myspace and would purchase new music as it was released. I never heard anything back in my efforts, but I was always content to be a fan. They quickly became one of my all-time favorite bands and I would always share their music with my circle of friends/musicians, talk about them in interviews, etc.
Tim Lindberg (www.timlindbergmusic.com), the front man for the band, had released a new album in November of last year, right around the time I was doing my kickstarter campaign to raise the funds for my new album. I was impressed with Tim’s producer on his record and I wanted to get in touch with him.
Christmas Eve, the night I found out we had successfully hit our goal and I was going to be able to record my new album, I contacted Tim via his facebook page on a bit of a whim and said something like:
“Hey Tim, been a long time fan of your work. I just successfully raised funds for my new album and would love to talk with your producer. Shoot me a message if you can. -Griffen”
To my delight, Tim responded with the friendliest of messages. It ended up that I wasn’t going to be able to work with the producer I had set out to get in touch with, but what ended up happening exceeded my wildest expectations. My conversations with Tim moved from email to phone and eventually he invited me up to Vancouver to record in their studio with another producer they’ve worked on another album I’ve always love and to do this with the Doubting Paris guys as my studio band!
I can not begin to tell you how this feels because I don’t think it’s even sunk in yet. Something most people don’t know is that this time last year, I was offered another record deal with a new record company that was going to allow me to record my new album in their studio. The deal was not especially favorable for the artist, but it would at least allow me to record my new music. For a musician, releasing new music is imperative to keeping afloat, and the fact that it had been four years at that time since I had released any new music made this probably the most difficult thing I’ve ever had to turn down. I didn’t care about “being signed”, I just wanted to make a really good record. I turned them down in one of the most difficult decisions of my life and I did so with no direction on where to go from there.
A few months later after going on another summer tour and having no money, I had absolutely no clue what to do next. Then the Kickstarter thing happened and 117 people from all over the world became invested in my dream and helped me to raise $10,000. Then one of my all-time favorite bands invited me up to record in their studio with them as MY band.
I’m someone that often times knows just what to say. I’ve been blessed with an ability to communicate and I’ve even earned a bachelor’s degree that is supposed to certify this ability. But on this entire experience, I am simply without words. I’ve poured everything I’ve got into this, something I’m reminded of daily by loved ones around me when my reoccurring question arises, “why should I be so blessed?”. Truly I wonder sometimes, why? I’m still on a shoe string budget- I still have too much to do and too little time to do it doing both the business and art myself and I’m far from having it made. I slept in my car a few nights ago while on tour to save money on lodging and I don’t have healthcare. But I do have 117 people that have said “we want to see you do this” and a band that I’ve been a fan of for years say, “we’d love to have you at our place”. I may not have “made it” just yet, but all of this means something, and I’ll take it, graciously, with a heart filled with nothing but “thank yous” and I’ll do my very best to make you all proud.
I depart in 24 hours and you’ll all be with me. Follow updates here and at www.facebook.com/GriffenAlexanderMusic.
Love.
-Griffen
p.s. For those that are wondering, yes I was supposed to be in Canada by now, but alas, I caught a cold and had to reschedule my flight. I’m feeling about 50% better and I trust I’ll be Back to Good, pun intended, by the time I land.
