Music and Songwriting: Where Do We Go From Here?
I was getting ready to move back to Los Angeles, Burbank or Culver City was particular what I was aiming for. In August 2012, I went out there for a visit with my family to look at apartments, conduct some job interviews and to drop off some more applications. On the drive back to Dallas, we had a car accident which caused the car to roll 4 times. My younger sister didn’t have her seat belt on, so she flew out of the window. Did death flash before my eyes, uh yeah, but surprisingly, I was at peace and felt I had lived an eventful like thus far, so I wasn’t scared…said my last little prayer and lo and behold, I looked up and the car stopped rolling. My sister ended up with broken clavicles and had to have eye surgery from a small bone that chipped. I’ve already written a blog about this titled “The Accident” (http://www.cnichole.com/the-accident) so I won’t go into detail. I can say that I felt that maybe it was my time to stop making plans, and just let everything happen as it comes…go with the flow. I decided to stay in Dallas and help my parents out with my sister. In October, I got a call from a casting company telling me that I had been picked from a casting database to be a Faith Cheerleader in this movie titled “One Heart”. I honestly forgot that I had signed up with that database some 5/6 years ago. I could use the money so I decided to take them up on the offer. I got to meet some new people and realized that I’d rather be behind the camera working in production. I could see more longevity in that, versus being in front of the camera. I also remember loving my time on set during the first Transformers, and also thinking that this could be a way to network in the production side of things, so I can start pitching my songs to Music Supervisors and whatnot. After production wrapped for One Heart, I needed to find something to do next. At this point, I still hadn’t worked for a company, and I was thinking, could I actually be an independent contractor and just freelance? I ended up getting a job in November as a Production Assistant and Producer’s Assistant for a movie titled “Final Recourse”. I moved to the country for a little bit and had a blast. Meet some more great people and learned a shit load! The producer’s daughter came into town and I had a conversation with her. She had got an artist signed to Interscope so I wanted her opinion on my music that I had demoed with Crown Jones. She said it was cool, but it isn’t what radio wants and it’s too many spaces between my lines so I should fill up my songs with more lyrics or effects. I then asked her how long had she really been listening to music. She replies about 5/4 years which would put her at 2007/2008 when real music actually started going downhill, in my opinion. I informed her that I’m too influenced from the 90’s, where it was ok to just say what you had to say without all the extraness. She said that she understood, but if you’re not writing what artists now want, then basically you’re wasting your time. Boy was she right! I had to sit back and reflect that night. Did I want to write for what radio wants now and follow the wave of today’s music? Or did I want to stay me, and hopefully find artists that agree with me, whom of which also had the power without their labels stopping them from doing so? I went with the 2nd choice, I hardly ever listen to the radio anyway because of the crap that’s on it. I talked to Crown Jones about it and he was with me. In December, he produced some more tracks, I demoed them, and we were happy with the sound. Right after a December meet-up, a friend of mines called me and told me he was producing a well-known female artist’s album and was looking for new sounds and lyrics. I told Crown exactly what he wanted; I demoed the tracks, sent them off on Christmas day. I was feeling good about everything, seeing that the sound that my friend wanted was totally doable and along the lines of my writing style, and it did help that the artist and I were around the same age, I grew up listening to her music and felt I could create lyrics that would relate to her. Feeling super inspired, I started something else, for myself. I would take instrumentals from my favorite songs, and write new lyrics and create new melodies. I would release a new one Every Fifth Sunday. The reason for Every Fifth Sunday was because it was a doable time frame, and I remembered that the children choir used to sing at church on every fifth Sunday…so why not? The last two weeks in 2012 included me recording enough Every Fifth Sunday songs to last me until the end of 2014.