Feeding the Machine
Yesterday I was in my studio with my PRS El Padre and my daughter’s PRS SE Custom 24, playing the same four bars over and over. Not because I was writing something. Because I was filming a comparison video.
In my head I kept asking: Is El Padre too harsh? Is the overdrive too much? Are the tone and volume the same on both guitars? Is El Padre in humbucker mode or single coil mode? Will someone in the comments tell me the low E is a few cents flat? Should I do another take? It was maddening.
Somewhere around the ninth take, it hit me. I haven’t written a new song in a long time.
How the Cycle Starts
It starts with something good. I make music. I write it, record it, produce it, and put it out into the world. This year that meant 11 Days, the first Down on Jane record in over twenty years.
But music doesn’t find people on its own. So you build the channels. YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook. You learn that a Hiwatt story does well on TikTok and a clean shot of an SG does well on Instagram. Then you learn that a one-minute “What’s in the case?” clip can outperform anything you spent a week on. You start posting five days a week because that’s what it takes to be seen.
And it works. People show up. They comment, they share, they come to the blog. For the first time in a long time, there’s momentum.
That’s the part nobody warns you about. Momentum is hungry.
The Other Job
Here’s what my week actually looks like. I work a full time job that has me on the road. I have a family. And in the cracks between those, I’m writing scripts, filming, editing video, answering comments, tweaking the website, checking analytics, and planning the next post.
Don’t get me wrong. I enjoy a lot of it. Making content is fun. Talking gear with people who care about a 1979 SG as much as I do is fun.
But I didn’t pick up a guitar thirty years ago to become a content creator. I picked it up to make songs. And lately, the guitar only comes off the stand when the camera is rolling.
The Voice in the Comment Section
The part I don’t talk about much is what it does to my head.
Before I hit publish, the questions start. Is this good enough? Is the guitar perfectly in tune and intonated? How about the tone? Will the guitar sound too thin through a phone speaker? Am I about to get mowed down by someone with a username and no face?
A few harsh comments have stuck with me longer than I’d like to admit. You can get a hundred kind ones and still lie awake replaying the one that stung. If you’ve heard “This Is Why I Can’t Sleep at Night,” you already know I’m no stranger to that stranger in the room. Anxiety has a way of showing up wherever you give it space, and the comment section gives it a lot of space.
The strange thing is, none of that fear lives in the songwriting. When I’m writing, nobody is watching. There’s no take nine. It’s just me, a guitar, and whatever is trying to come out. That’s the place I’ve been missing.
Losing the Thread
This blog was built on one idea: most of us don’t stop being creative, we just get busy. Careers, kids, responsibilities. The creative part of our lives gets pushed to the weekends, then to “someday.”
I’ve written about that from the outside for a while now. I didn’t expect to find myself back inside it, and certainly not because of the very thing I built to share my music.
That’s the vicious cycle. You make music, so you build a platform to share it. The platform needs feeding, so you make content. The content takes your time and your head space, so the music stops. And without the music, the content becomes the whole thing. You’re comparing a Tele to a Strat for an audience while the songs that made you want an audience in the first place sit untouched.
The Crossroads
So here’s where I am. After years of shouting into the void, people are finally listening. Walking away from that feels foolish. But keeping this pace, on top of everything else, means the music keeps losing. And if the music loses, what exactly am I promoting?
Here’s the part I didn’t see coming: the pace wasn’t only hurting the music. It was hurting the content too.
I don’t have it all figured out. But I know the balance is off, and I know it needs to be restored. A few things I’m going to try:
- Music first, content second. Some sessions in the studio are going to be just for writing. No camera, no tripod, no ring light.
- Keep the gear nerd, lose the perfectionist. I love comparing a Strat to an SG. That’s not going away. But not every video needs nine takes and a perfectly dialed amp. A slightly hot overdrive or a note that isn’t flawless is what a real guitar sounds like in a real room. If the comparison is fun, it should feel fun to make.
- Less is okay. Less might even be better. Five days a week sounds like momentum, but it turns every video into a deadline. When I’m rushing to hit the schedule, I’m not making my best work, I’m just making the next thing. Three videos I’m proud of will do more than five I barely had time to check. The algorithm will survive. So will I.
- Remember who I’m writing for. Not the one commenter looking for a fight. The person in their forties or fifties who picked up an old guitar last night because something I wrote made them want to.
If you’re someone trying to keep a creative life alive while the rest of life piles on, maybe you’ve felt this too. The tools we use to share our work can quietly become the work. It’s worth stepping back every so often and asking the simple question: when was the last time I made something just because I wanted to?
For me, the answer has been too long.