Well so much for quitting my singer/songwriter career. I’m still writing songs and I’m singing them. The thing is I don’t know if you can call singing to yourself much of a career. But i really do like my own songs and they are really the best way to show who I am deep down inside. They are like my children. I feel this connection with them. They sing to me as I sing them. They are my best friends. My closest family. They are me in every sense of the word. I really don’t care if someone else likes them or not. It’s nice if they do…My dream is to make a living from my songs (and not playing other peoples) is still something I’m trying to do. I will never quit trying as long as I live. But I do have to pay the bills somehow…so I might just have to get a boring job for now. I’ve been listening to some old songs of mine and playing them and re-recording them with my laptop. I also made myspace more available now for people to add me or whatever else they want to do with all that stuff.
I have been avoiding success like the plague. Yet I am lost without the attention of people’s approval of who I am and what I really do and what I am good at. It’s strange. I want it and I don’t. I’ve always been uncomfortable hanging out with too many musicians. I don’t really know many. A few are good friends. I’ve always also thought being a successful musician in Finland is like being king of the losers which has been quite unappealing for me. There is a lot of young cats here with some good chops (ability wise) but it is quite soulless. Nobody is writing good songs that come from somewhere deep. All in all, the music here just doesn’t move me. The radio stuff is unlistenable. I think there is a huge gap in Finland to be filled by a real band with a real story and with real songs and real musicianship. Actually, that goes for the rest of the world also. That’s where Awe come in.
That’s why I left Helsinki. I’m back because I discovered it’s not really that different anywhere else when you’re a nobody like me. It’s an easy (although a bit boring) city to live in. I figured it can be a good place to be a springboard for other places and that’s what we are doing with my new band Awe. Before, I was just travelling and living without any kind of plan. Just playing my songs and seeing what happens…it was fun but I think a little objectiveness and goal oriented mindset is needed if you want to enter the big league. Next week is recording and then we’ll see how good they are (the songs). They sound great in our heads. We’re only doing a few songs for now. They are old songs but reworked. When we have conquered Helsinki we will go to Los Angeles. Simple plan.
So had another strange night out yesterday. I can’t really remember coming home…went to some boring nightclub called “Apollo”. I hate nightclubs although it’s a good place to meet lots of people so I’ll have to find a way to enjoy them. Drank too much and now i’m really paying the price. I’m trying to do my list of 12 steps to feeling better…it’s helping a bit. I realized how lost I have been in the last few weeks ever since I said that i’m back. I think the next challenge is to try to keep eating healthily, doing yoga, meditating (which I haven’t been doing) but also having some drinks with friends but nothing crazy. I really don’t know what the right way to live is anymore. I have lost my obsession with time and knowledge because that is really a bottomless pit. I am not ready (at least yet) to compromise my social life for my health. I need to be around people and meet people. It just feels right. I need to make myself available to people because that is also good for promoting the music. When the music machine is rolling on it’s own, then I can start my own club. Next month i hope to find some more balance to my life. It’s uplifting to know that I can always try to be better and also that it is all up to me. We each create our own worlds and realities.
I don’t really care what happens anymore in anything except with my band project with Peter. That is the only thing that matters for me. One day it would be nice to settle down somewhere and start a family but I wouldn’t want to do that until I can dedicate myself fully to it. I think I may have found the girl to do it with but it’s too difficult right now and would just not be fair for either of us. I am not sure yet if me being lost and messed up serves the big picture (as in me being an artist) or should I be really focused and super healthy (which kills the artist). It’s a decision that I know I should make but can’t seem to do. If everyone was healthy and fit and we didn’t live in this screwed up system all over the world, I somehow think that art would be completely unnecessary and wouldn’t survive. Art is the soothing comfort for the emptiness we all have and which comes with the human condition of living and suffering. But it’s also a drug and a way to make life a bit better and less boring. All of that is just mind games. All this language and words and sentences are really nothing at all.
It’s selfish to be depressed. But it’s even more selfish to hide behind some delusion that everything is okay in this world.
Just came back from sitting in the park listening to sigur ros and looking at swans and the pink sunset. Now i’m going to take a hot shower, do some light stretching, eat some food, play a little piano..and watch Jerry Maguire. And shut off my phone.
Good evening.