Music and All Things that Make Us Human With John Brewster

We can't deny how we're wrapped up in a fast-paced world. With so much on our plates and little time, we often forget that there's beauty in the little things. Reading a good novel, dancing around, or playing our favourite music, are the little things we should look out for because there's much more to life than just paychecks and job rankings. Today's guest will surely move your hearts with his words. Singer/songwriter John Brewster is on the show today to talk to us all about how he's been able to make his passion his lifestyle. Tag along with us, and let's hear more from John. --- Listen to the podcast here: Music and All Things that Make Us Human With John Brewster Welcome to Action's Antidotes, your antidote to the mindset that keeps you settling for less. One thing I've been thinking about quite a bit for at least several years now is what makes all of us human, which is something that I feel is diminished in our modern society. When I talk about this, I talk about things like laughter, things like dancing, things like humor, and things like music -- things that don't necessarily have a specific material value in most corporate settings but provide a lot of value to our lives, a lot of value to our wellbeing. My guest today, John Brewster, is a Boulder resident and a singer/songwriter who has managed to make a lifestyle out of music, which I'm sure a lot of people would love the possibility of doing if they only knew how. --- John, welcome to the program. Thanks so much for having me today, Stephen. I'm really excited to be here. Thank you. Yeah, definitely. You're relatively new to Colorado, right? Yes. I just moved here in August of 2021, and now, we're in March 2022 for the future nerds out there that listen to this. I've been here for a few months, just getting grounded into the mountain energy and just been loving it so far. Where do you come from most recently? South Carolina. I was in Charleston last. That's where I got my start in music as far as original music goes. You do exclusively original music? I do my own original music. It's my priority. To right now sustain my living, I play cover songs as well -- private events, weddings, knickknack things here and there, bar gigs, whatever has gotten me to this point. I've been open to those opportunities, which has helped to sustain and keep furthering my original music as well. That's really neat. You said, you got your start in South Carolina, and then, you moved here to Colorado. If I recall correctly, you live on the outskirts of Boulder. What did you have to do to transfer that start, whatever you had going for you, word of mouth in South Carolina, and bring it to a new place? Yeah. I started planting seeds pretty early. I played music all growing up in South Carolina. I had a pretty good network of connections and was doing it full-time. To give a little miniature backstory, I was in a band for several years in South Carolina. We played all the cover gigs and had a lot of good momentum, singing harmonies and stuff. We ended up touring all over the place in the East Coast, doing our own music. After that chapter came to a close, I decided to do my own music. About a year ago, I visited Colorado. For the first time, before I released my first album, I was feeling this calling to go somewhere new, to get some fresh perspective. It was almost literally a coin toss between going to Austin or Denver. I was looking at Airbnbs. I was just going to drive -- just leave South Carolina, just go for an experience with myself, and see if I want to move somewhere new. It ended up being Denver. I found a spot to hang out for a couple of weeks. I just immediately knew I had to come back to Colorado. Fast forward a few months later, my partner, Sarah, and I officially moved out here. That's when we started planting seeds of asking around -- who do you know who is in the scene doing this? Started looking at open mic nights. That's been a huge resource, just meeting people in real-time and also lead-generating websites that I feel like even my friends to this day, that are other musicians, might not be totally taking advantage of. That's 80% of my income. There's multiple websites you can sign up and have a profile for as a musician and generate leads just like any other business would. There's all kinds of things that come through for that. Even before I got out here, I was planting those seeds with setting up my Colorado profile, so people could reach out to me for stuff. That's another wonderful thing that the internet has provided for us. Rather than having to physically be here, you can already start generating leads for a place based on this lead-generation website. I think a lot of people aren't even aware that those exist. I think a lot of people are aware of a lot of lead-generation business networking groups. What I'm wondering is, do these more standard lead-generation groups work for musicians because a lot of them tend to be a little bit more about business, or do you need the music-specific ones? The ones that I've worked with, there's been a few -- three or four main ones. They're geared towards entertainment things. One of them specifically for weddings -- there's one called WeddingWire. There's another one called GigSalad, which has a whole host of things. You could get just crazy stuff like impersonators, comedians, and skits, all kinds of stuff, and then also singer/songwriter. There's categories for different types of things that could complement an event or some kind of gathering. Yeah. Usually, it's a type of fee you would pay, or a small percentage would go back to the website for connecting the two artists. Other than that, just the word of mouth of getting that opportunity to have a gig versus not having a gig, and keep the ball rolling, meeting more people. That's huge. At the risk of sounding like a businessy, office interview type of thing, I want to say take me through your average day. I guess the average day is probably a poor determinant here. On an average month, how many gigs do you perform, and how much time do you spend writing your own original music? Great question. I'd say, on average, I play between 10-17 gigs a month at most. It's been a little slower since getting out here to Colorado. Right now, I'm really grateful to get 10 gigs a month. That's aside from free stuff, paid stuff. Playing open mic nights and networking -- that's not necessarily paid. Yeah, my day-to-day starts off with my morning routine, which is something I'm very, very, very big about. In recent months, it's been a little bit slower. To be completely honest, my motivation around my dream has been in resting mode. I love your podcast, and was so excited to come on here with the idea of action, action being an antidote. That's a big one for me. I love the phrase "Action unlocks." I just released my debut album about three months ago. This is my first time post a big creative project that I took on myself. Last year, my day-to-day was crazy, on fire motivation, working on this album, because I produced it and mixed it, and wrote and did the whole thing on my own right here on this laptop. I went on fire for months and months. Now, after it's out there into the world, I'm shifting gears to networking and playing the shows and getting my foot in the door in Colorado. My day-to-day feels a little bit more slower from a 12-month perspective. I see a momentum starting to pick up now that I've been in Colorado for a few months now. I'm already booking stuff in September months from now, which is awesome -- that's fantastic. I think that will just continue to build. How much do I write original music? Honestly, I'm always thinking about my music. It's crazy how obsessive I am. Yesterday, I felt as though I needed a break. I'm not sure if you're like this. For anyone out there that might listen, I just go, go, go, because I love what I'm doing. I built my own website and did all the networking. I wear all the hats for what I'm doing, and I love that. I forget to take breaks or literally a half day or full day where I'm just not working on my dream, just check out completely. Yesterday was one of those days for me where I sensed it, about four or five days ago, that I was writing, starting to work on my next album maybe, not sure, preparing for some other things. I'm doing a tour in South Carolina next month. I just felt like it was hard to show up. Usually, I can push through that, but when it happens day after day, that's when I know I just need to take a break. It's not because I'm on the wrong path. It's like, "Bro, you just need to take some time away from this to let it marinate." Yesterday was a day for that for me. I woke up and had a great workout. Around this time yesterday, at 9:30 AM, I was like, "You know what? I'm going to stay off my phone for the most part today. Not going to touch the guitar, " I did but, "I'm going to watch movies, ice cream in bed." I just did nothing yesterday. Now, I woke up this morning wanting to clean the house and do all the crazy stuff. That's interesting. I think it's a natural part of the cycle in anyone taking on endeavors. If they're really passionate about that, you're going to have some really busy high motivation time, and then you're going to have a time where you need a little bit of rest. One of the things I'm wondering -- if you can walk us through this for my audience -- is, what do you see is the difference between someone experiencing burnout, in which case they need to pretty much stop doing what they're doing or find a way to transition to something else, versus if someone's just experiencing what you experienced yesterday? It's like, "Okay. This is still my passion. I love it,...