Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: I'm Sarah, and welcome back to the Midlife Happiness project. And today I have a really interesting guy you're going to want to meet. His name is Kevin. And let me ask you this question. Have you ever thought to yourself, maybe, maybe in my next life? Wouldn't it be great if I was a rock star? Well, Kevin makes us think of one thing.
[00:00:26] Speaker B: Why wait?
[00:00:27] Speaker A: To your next life. Join us for the next episode of the Midlife Happiness project.
[00:00:37] Speaker B: Welcome back to the Midlife Happiness project. I'm Sarah, and I have another great guest today. It's my friend Kevin. Hi, Kevin.
[00:00:47] Speaker C: Hi, Sarah. How are you doing?
[00:00:49] Speaker B: I'm just doing great. And as always, we have some wonderful guests who talk about their thing, that thing that they've introduced into their life in their midlife years that's really made them happy. And with that, what is your thing, Kevin, the thing that you have introduced that's really positively impacted your life?
[00:01:15] Speaker C: Well, Sarah, the thing that I've introduced into my life recently was to join a rock and roll bandaid, and it's been a great experience so far.
I grew up playing guitar.
Started when I was a kid, actually. My dad was actually very musical and played a bunch of different guitar, piano, saxophone, I think he told me accordion, etcetera. And he would get together with me and we'd play guitar together. And then sometimes I'd accompany him, the piano with my guitar. It was all very basic stuff, like folk music and whatnot. And it was a fun experience, but I mainly did music kind of independently for most of my life. Did a lot of guitar playing around the campfire, at parties, stuff like that. I always had a fun time doing it. Always enjoyed doing that, more or less, you know, self taught.
I did this also with, with friends, and, and this is part of the story of how I started doing this, you know, recently. And I did start doing this about two years ago. And I had been kind of doing this campfire, you know, kind of guitar playing with one of my buddies who was married to a, one of my wife's best friends from, from high school days, actually. So, anyways, we go back a long ways, and we've been playing together for quite some time.
He was pretty passionate about starting to do a little bit more and start doing kind of real gigs and start kind of climbing the ladder in terms of capability.
I had never been in a band before, and the band that they were starting to form needed a bass player, so he invited me to come and be the bass player, and I had never even played the bass so.
[00:03:12] Speaker B: Oh, okay.
For somebody like me who's not musical, that just seems like crazy talk. But anyway.
[00:03:24] Speaker C: Well, it is. It is. It's new. They're related. The guitar and the bass are related, actually, the notes. The top.
The notes from the bass guitar are the top four notes on the regular guitar. So there's a relationship, but it is very different, because your purpose in the band is very different.
It's more about rhythm and kind of holding up the whole rhythm section and whatnot. So it was a very different skill set. But he did say that, look, I know you'll put in the time and effort to make this happen. A lot of people won't. So that was sort of the beginning, and it was sort of nice because we were, I think, a group of musicians that were coming together kind of at similar skill levels and kind of building our skills and capabilities. So it really kind of gave me that opportunity. And now here it is about two years later, and I've been playing the bass now, I guess, for two years, and we've done lots of gigs, and it's been a ton of fun so far.
[00:04:21] Speaker B: And so, okay, for starters, your band is a rock band.
[00:04:25] Speaker C: Yeah, we do mainly kind of alternative rock and kind of nineties. We do mainly cover bands or cover songs from bands that most folks would know, like, you know, the.
Well, we do a lot of Tom petty. He's not all from the nineties. He actually covers many decades. So we do a lot of Tom Petty.
We do Weezer. We do wallflowers, oasis.
We do english beat, the cults, a whole collection, even the Ramones and whatever. It's just a nice collection. We try to be kind of upbeat in the music selection.
For us, it's really important to get people out of their seats up and dancing and having a good time. That's really what kind of builds the experience.
[00:05:12] Speaker B: Okay, so what people out there don't know is Kevin is a father of three boys, happily married. He's a tech executive, and so it's not like he's in the industry here. And so this is a complete departure from your day to day life. And it's also worthy of mention you haven't retired and now done this 100%. This is what I think is even more interesting, is that you still work, presumably still like what you do, but this adds real flavor to your life. Okay, so what you're telling us is you've got a friend. He approaches you, he knows you're gonna put the time and the energy into it. You guys are in this band together, that sounds all fine and lovely, but were you terrified to do this if you had never been in a band before?
[00:06:08] Speaker C: Yeah, it wasn't so much that I was terrified to do it. I was kind of looking forward to do it. But when it came to the night when we did our first gig. Right.
[00:06:16] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:06:17] Speaker C: My heart was definitely pumping. I was. I was like, wow, this is big. This is nervous. I'm super nervous. I'm going on here, and I'm like, okay, gotta remember to breathe. Just keep breathing. Right. You know, so it's a new experience. And if it's something you haven't really done before, you're gonna kind of go through these, these types of things and, you know, so you kind of get that feeling. I sort of think back to, like, almost like butterflies when you're younger and playing sports. But the thing about it, just, like, when you're playing sports, you get the first few hits in, you get warmed up and you get going, and a lot of that starts to go away, and you kind of get into the. In the feel of it and the groove, and that sort of goes away.
[00:06:53] Speaker B: And the response from the audience, too, I'm sure.
[00:06:56] Speaker C: Oh, for sure. Which is, by the way, you know, that you talk about all these rock and roll stars that are totally into it, that it's like a. It's like a drug. So you go through this experience, and you start to engage with the audience. The audience gets excited, and they start cheering and dancing and getting up and having a great time. Yeah. And you walk away from that experience, it's like, wow, that was a rush. You're on, like, an adrenaline high, and it feels amazing. It's an amazing experience.
[00:07:22] Speaker B: And what was your first gig, out of curiosity?
[00:07:27] Speaker C: Our drummer was having a birthday party, and he decided to do a sort of festival. Music festival.
He's got a big home with a big backyard. He has a studio that opens up into the backyard. And he called it outside my garage, kind of a play on outside lands music festival. We had, like, five different bands playing, and our band was so new, we didn't even have a name, but we were going to play lass. So he called us the closers, and that name stuck. So we were the closers for a period of time, and we've now iterated on that, so we'll get that into that part of the story as well. But we started out as the closers, and it was really just because we were closing that little music festival. We were playing, like, the last nine or ten songs or something like that. And that's kind of how our name came about.
[00:08:24] Speaker B: Okay, so, okay, this is. I love this whole story, but we always have to address, certainly people listening to this thinking, yeah, I've always wanted to join a band. He's making it sound just simple. I should just rally up the troops, find some friends, and create this band. That's great.
Thing is, I know, and I know, you know, not everything always goes according to plan, and there's always some bumps in the road. What if not a story? Could you share with us anything you've learned, anything that's worthy of mention about maybe embracing something like this, but letting our listeners know it's not always easy.
[00:09:16] Speaker C: Yeah, it's definitely not. And it's sort of funny. There's all sorts of tension, even in the. In a dad band, which I'd call this. Right. And you think about some of these big, famous bands that have ended up, like, breaking up for whatever reason. It's like, what's so difficult about it? Why can't they just get together? Those bands are, like, making millions of dollars, and why would they possibly give that up? We're nowhere near that scale at all. But you still end up with just tension between different members of the band, whether it's creative differences on what songs we should be playing. Orlando, should I sing that song or should you sing that song, or.
Your instrument's too loud. I can't hear my instrument. So there's a lot of things that come up that are not really all that significant, but they just create enough tension to make people think twice and kind of starts to create a little bit of tension in the band that maybe you wouldn't necessarily expect.
[00:10:17] Speaker B: Mm hmm.
So, okay, so if somebody, again, listening to this is inspired by your story, which I'm sure many people would be, what. What advice would you have? Do you have any tips for somebody who wanted to start a band, especially at this time in your life?
[00:10:39] Speaker C: Yeah. So, you know, make sure it's with a group of people that you want to hang out with and want to spend time with. I think that's a big portion of it. One of the reasons why, you know, I do it. And I mentioned my friend who invited me to do this. You know, he's thinking about. He is thinking about retirement. Right. And he's thinking about, well, what I want to be doing, you know, when I'm retired and who do I want to be spending time with and how do I want to be, you know, spending my time for him? And he's told me this. It's. It's about, you know, being around a group of folks that I want to spend time with, and I can, you know, socialize with and have a. Have a good time. So that's. That's number one. Hopefully, it's folks that are. That live nearby. We put in a lot of hours. Right. And yes, I am still working, but because we live relatively close to one another, I can go over to folks house in the afternoon, or they can come to my place, you know, after work and spend an hour or two in the evenings. And we did that for a long time. We put in, you know, two to three, maybe 4 hours in the evening, you know, one or two times a.
[00:11:38] Speaker B: Week, or this is after a full work day.
[00:11:41] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:11:42] Speaker B: So you were committed. This. I think this is definitely worthy of mention. It's not just. Well, we were all playing our instruments, and we met on a Sunday for a beer, put out some songs, and then got a gig. Not that simple.
[00:11:58] Speaker C: Not that simple. It takes a lot of time and effort to get everybody online. I mean, we got to a point where we had, you know, close to 40 songs. Right, for 3 hours in a gig.
It takes a while to get that right.
[00:12:12] Speaker B: A lot.
[00:12:13] Speaker C: Yeah. And to, you know, get the timing and rhythm and to make it sound, you know, you didn't want to embarrass ourselves. Right. So to make it sound good enough, it takes a lot of time and effort to actually get there.
[00:12:28] Speaker B: Yeah. And would you say that part of this, the drive to do something like this, was the challenge?
[00:12:38] Speaker C: Yeah, definitely the challenge for me. You know, obviously the challenge of learning a new instrument. Right.
That's a challenge. It was fun. I would say that for the most part, you know, I mentioned tensions and whatnot. For the most part, it's fun. You go and you get to play music, hopefully music you like, you help select the songs, and you're having a fun time doing that.
So it's a nice thing to be. To be able to do, but it's funny. It's also a good activity. I think as you get older, you might not be able to keep running forever. You might not be able to keep playing tennis or basketball or soccer, but this is something you can do for a long time as you age.
It's a fun social activity that you get to spend time with people, not only your band members, but obviously get to go out and then perform in front of other groups. So it's been a ton of fun from that perspective, for sure.
[00:13:34] Speaker B: And when we talk about happiness, it's a very broad sort of meaning to the word happiness. It means different things to different people, obviously. What would you say about you embracing music and taking that extra step and actually joining a band and doing gigs?
In what ways has this made you happy?
[00:14:01] Speaker C: Yeah, I think just. I think this is part of human nature. I think we are always in search of a goal or achievement.
When you're actually not striving for kind of the next level, life becomes a little less interesting. A little depressing, maybe, right? It's pretty interesting to be able to say, you know, we have a gig coming up in four weeks and we have to learn, you know, x number of new songs and we have to nail these songs because we know we kind of flubbed it up last time. We're not quite where we need to be. So having almost a.
It's a deadline, right? It's a very fixed, clear deadline, and you have to prepare yourself for that. And you go and you go and then execute, and it's something you're working up towards. So it's the anticipation that provides some kind of focus and level of excitement and kind of creates some intensity. And then you go and do the event and you have a great time and it's a great experience and you have a lot of fun. And then, like, cool. When are we doing this next? So it's. It's fun to be able to anticipate those kind of things that are coming up next because we're still working. It's not like we do this full time. It's not like we're trying to make money doing this. We're just trying to do it for the experience. And, you know, one gig a month or every, you know, every other month is about right for us because we got a lot going on in our life, but it's great to just have those things to look forward to.
[00:15:31] Speaker B: And you've got these three boys. What do they think that they've got the coolest dad who's in a rock band.
[00:15:38] Speaker C: I don't know if they've ever, would ever call, but they're very supportive, and I'm very supportive of them, too. They happen to have their own band and they started their own band.
[00:15:49] Speaker B: Oh, okay.
[00:15:51] Speaker C: So they have. They started a collective called Suburb of.
They did a challenge to write an album and perform it within 24 hours. There's a documentary out on the Internet, actually, if you want to take a.
[00:16:05] Speaker B: Look at that sometime on suburb amore.
[00:16:08] Speaker C: Suburb amore. Yes.
[00:16:09] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:16:10] Speaker C: And they have four or five albums that are published on iTunes and Spotify.
So they're very musical, and I don't know if it was me inspiring them or them inspiring me.
[00:16:26] Speaker B: Both.
[00:16:27] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, yeah. We literally had a.
We had, like, a music festival at our house last summer, and we had two bands playing. It was the kids band, and then our band, the kids, went on first, and they did such a great job. The dad band was all nervous, like, oh, my God, how are we going to live up to that?
[00:16:45] Speaker B: They set the bar too high, but.
[00:16:48] Speaker C: It worked out well. Everyone had a great time. It was a ton of fun. Yeah.
[00:16:52] Speaker B: And so you're talking about setting goals for yourself and having these challenges, and that's what makes life exciting. And I completely, completely agree. And also part of that is, you know, trying new things and getting outside your comfort zone. And I think everybody listening or watching this can certainly appreciate that. So, on that note, what's your next goal with this band? Do you guys have a plan that maybe over the next year or two, your goal is to be at a particular club or bar or venue?
[00:17:26] Speaker C: Yeah. Well, you're gonna think this is pretty funny, but my biggest goal right now, so I've been invited back to be the band at my high school reunion.
[00:17:38] Speaker B: That's awesome.
[00:17:39] Speaker C: Isn't that awesome? I'm, like, thinking, that's awesome.
[00:17:43] Speaker B: That's literally the best. That is the best answer to this question. I thought you were going to say, oh, no, there's this bar on the corner or something. No, this is the best.
[00:17:55] Speaker C: This is the best.
[00:17:55] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:17:56] Speaker C: So I'm excited about that. But we've sort of transitioned from one band to another, so now we're in the new band, which is called Third Rail, by the way.
[00:18:04] Speaker B: Third rail. We got to promote that third rail.
[00:18:07] Speaker C: Third rail.
[00:18:08] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:18:09] Speaker C: And we're just trying to figure out the logistics. I went to high school in Tucson, Arizona, so it's a twelve hour drive, right? So do we jump on planes and, like, rent gear there, or do we, like, pile in a car and drive for 12 hours? You know, two words.
[00:18:25] Speaker B: Tour bus.
[00:18:26] Speaker C: Tour bus. Yes.
[00:18:28] Speaker B: You need roadies. You need a tour bus. That's the only logical conclusion I can make.
[00:18:33] Speaker C: I'm with you. I'm with you 100%.
[00:18:36] Speaker B: And so you and your band are gonna go up. This is the plan.
[00:18:40] Speaker C: Yep.
[00:18:41] Speaker B: And provide all the music for the reunion.
[00:18:44] Speaker C: Yeah. So we're gonna be playing on Friday night at some place called the Tucson Racquet Club, and then we're gonna play on Saturday night at the venue at the Tucson Country Club. One of my band members used to tour back in the day.
Oh, really? And he's like, if we're doing this, we have to do other gigs when we're out there. So he wants to go to other venues, like, on the way. There's one place in Tucson, like, in my old neighborhood. It's called the cow pony. It's like a shit kicking bar with, like, sawdust on the floor. He's like, let's go do that one, you know? So who knows? We'll see if we can.
[00:19:19] Speaker B: So this is. This is essentially a tour because if you have a destination but stops along the way, I think that warrants. Yeah, that's a tour. By definition, that's a tour.
[00:19:29] Speaker C: Okay, you've convinced me. I'm going to rent the rv and put a trailer on it and tell ydev do the tour.
[00:19:37] Speaker B: So, okay, you learn bass, you know, guitar. I assume you sing some of these songs. Are you looking to learn more instruments?
[00:19:49] Speaker C: No, I'm not looking to learn more instruments, but I'm looking to get better at singing. So I sing some of the songs. I'm a lead singer and some of the songs and I harmonize on some, all four of us now in the band actually, singh sing. But harmonizing, like, true harmonizing, can be difficult. So we're trying to get to the point where we can do, like, true four part harmonies. So that's. That's the next challenge that we're. That we're working on.
[00:20:14] Speaker B: Okay. Well, for everybody listening, you know, he's going to Tucson, Arizona to be getting serious, getting serious with him and his band. And like I say, really promoting the tour bus. And I so appreciate everything you've shared with us today. I've long been waiting to find somebody for our podcast who in their midlife years has started a band. Because I have to tell you, I hear this all the time at cocktail parties or when you're out. But people say, oh, in my dream, I'd love to start a bandaid and they'll practice their guitar or whatever instrument they have, but either they feel they haven't connected with anybody to form a band or that's a dream. But then when it really gets down to it, they're too scared. Like, the idea of playing in front of people. And then they start thinking to themselves, who's kidding who? I'm not 20 anymore.
Maybe this is something, you know, that's embarrassing or whatever nonsense. But my point being, you know, you've been a great guest. It's been so hard to find somebody, and it really shouldn't be, but it is.
[00:21:35] Speaker C: Yeah. Yeah, I'm certain. Like, when I travel around kind of this music community local to where I'm at, you start to see other folks that are kind of midlife that maybe have a little bit more time. I see other folks doing this, but many people who've done it before. Right.
I think to kind of make that. That leap, it's great to find, you know, the right people, the right group of people. I'm not 100% sure I would have done this without my friend, you know, invited me to do it, but when he did invite me, it was the right environment to, you know, I think, kind of learn together and get better together and just, you know, be it. Be, you know, check and a feedback loop and say, yeah, we're doing it. We're not doing it. We'll just be objective about it. So it was. That part has been a great experience, and I obviously improved my skills. Obviously, I had no skills on the base. I still have very limited coming along, but improving, just getting better all the time. That's fun. And that's actually part of the enjoyment of the whole thing.
[00:22:35] Speaker B: And I think what you're saying is on point that I think a lot of people sort of assume that to make things happen, they have to go out and execute things, but a lot of it is just being open. And when opportunity presents itself, you move on it. You don't talk yourself out of it. I know in my life, a lot of good things that have happened aren't necessary. I'd like to take credit that I went out and found it. It wasn't so much that it found me, but I. You have the courage to say, let's do. If I don't do it now, I probably won't do it, so. And what's the worst that can happen, really?
[00:23:17] Speaker C: Right. You know, part of it's obviously being open, like you said, but also kind of putting it out there, you know?
[00:23:24] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:23:24] Speaker C: To quote the universe, my friend agreed. Who'd ask? They knew who to come to because he'd seen me doing it before and knew I had an interest. But then, yeah. Be willing to say yes when the time. When the time comes. So take a risk. Take a chance.
[00:23:37] Speaker B: Absolutely. Well, thank you so much, Kevin, for being a guest. You've been great, and I just. I'm in awe. I have zero, less than zero musical talent, so this won't be something I'm ever doing, but I have utmost respect for you and count me as a fan.
[00:23:58] Speaker C: Awesome. Thank you, sir. If you ever want us to come over and do a house party for you, we'll volunteer to come to be your private band.
[00:24:05] Speaker B: Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, thank you, Kevin. And again, stick around. We have a little wrap up after this. And for all those out there that might be interested in embracing something like this in your midlife years, we've got some stuff, more stuff to talk about. Thanks for joining.
[00:24:30] Speaker A: Well, Kevin hit upon a lot of themes, kind of recurring themes from our podcast. And one of them is the importance of being proactive and intentional about introducing new things to your life. And I think this is a really interesting point.
It's not enough to just sort of think, gee, I'd really like to get more excited about my life. That's all fine and dandy, but you've got to figure out what it is you want to do and really move forward and be thoughtful about how you're going to make this happen.
The other thing that Kevin talked about, which I think is key, is this idea of putting yourself out there, or in the words of Kevin, putting it out there in the universe. In the case of Kevin, he really loved playing guitar. He was open to maybe learning another instrument. But it wasn't until he really started to get to know this other guy, this friend of his, and they were talking about the band, and he saw that there was an opportunity. He sought that opportunity out, and he made it happen. He wasn't just waiting for the opportunity to find him.
And then lastly, the other point that I think is really worthy of mention with my chat with Kevin is this idea of the importance of challenging yourself. In other words, nothing comes easy. It's one thing to have a dream.
[00:26:15] Speaker B: But you've got to do the work.
[00:26:17] Speaker A: And doing the work often means challenging yourself. And in the case of Kevin, he did two things. He tackled a new instrument. He literally had never played bass before, so he taught himself a new instrument.
[00:26:31] Speaker B: And then on top of that, if.
[00:26:32] Speaker A: That wasn't enough, he then took on the business of playing in front of an audience. And I think for most of us, that's pretty terrifying. And if you're not used to that, again, a really challenging thing to take on.
So on that note, if you are one of the millions of people who have this dream of being a rock and roll star, I think that probably the first step would be really learning and challenging yourself and learning a new instrument. And then second of all, channeling that Keith Richards in you and really just making it happen, even if. Even if your band never leaves the garage.
Thank you so much for joining us again for another episode of the Midlife Happiness Project. And again, I cannot thank our audience enough. And please, please, please remember to subscribe. We want to continue to bring you these great podcasts. We know that you guys are feeling inspired. We love doing what we're doing. And if you subscribe, we can continue to bring you this great program. So again, subscribe, subscribe, subscribe. Thanks again. We'll see you next time on the Midlife Happiness project.
