Almost any performer will tell you that getting on stage requires a lot of confidence. Unfortunately, I'm probably the least confident musician I know. I don't feel like I underestimate (or overestimate) my abilities but every time we do any kind of a show, whether it's for a huge crowd or a practically empty room, I feel like everyone is going to have a horrible time. After particularly good shows I think I get even more down on myself because the feeling I get from a warm reception makes me feel guilty. I always think that no one, no matter how great or nice or talented, deserves to feel as good as I do when a crowd really likes us. Basically, I always either feel like I did a poor job or I feel guilty for doing a good job. Then I contemplate quitting. Then I start calling around, desperately trying to book more gigs than I have time for.
As we play more and more, I've been working on the self esteem thing. I know I'm probably never going to have the swagger that a lot of guys have on stage. I can fake it here and there for a song or two in each set, but I can't imagine ever really becoming that guy. I think it helps us sometimes because I know that people at a lot of venues don't like to book the singer that thinks he's God's gift to everyone. Then again, my friends make fun of me when, in response to thunderous applause, I tend to look at my feet and say very quietly, "Thank you for coming to my show." (Their subsequent impressions of this tend to involve a lisp or Eeyore-like voice.) I'm friendly with crowds, but no one can ever accuse me of being smooth. It's strange, because some of my most popular covers are just modern crooner-style ballads.
Then I develop and constantly redevelop my identity crisis, because all of the songs I tend to write are either really pretty and sad or really rough and spiteful. All the covers seem to fall somewhere in between, so at least I bridge the gap. But I think sometimes it's strange trying to reconcile the songs I write with the person I am. While my closest friends know me as this squeaky-clean guy, I worry that my songwriting belies that maybe I've been around the block one too many times, if only emotionally. It reminds me of a line from the Wallflowers' "Sleepwalker" that says, "They think I'm a whore. I'm an educated virgin."
I don't know why my songwriting leans toward the rough and unpolished, but I'm learning that it's really okay. I know that it's a product of all my experiences and I'm okay with it as long as I'm telling the truth. So I'm probably never going to be that guy who plays all the songs that the girls want to hear. Even if I'm not singing songs that directly tell stories, I want to tell the stories of who I am with my music, both original and covers, warts and all. The older I get, the more beauty I find in that style.
I wanted to share a couple of videos tonight of performances of songs that I think are great because of (and not in spite of) their portrayals of flawed people and flawed situations that really turn out okay. The first one is a stripped-down performance of "Ain't So Lonely" by the band Lucero. I started playing percussion and singing backup vocals on this song for Walker Waggonner, and eventually I started adding my own version into shows every once in a while. To me there's something very existential, and therefore very rock and roll, about this song:
The other video is from the Hold Steady. It's a live version of "The Weekenders", a song that, when I hear it, makes me think of any number of events in my life, one in particular being a botched weekend in Saratoga Springs in my early twenties that ended with me just laying around in a hotel room listening to Springsteen. It's hard to explain, but the song reminds me that sometimes I can look back with fondness on the things that never even happened at all, but only threatened to happen. I think that's something everyone can relate to. Well, that and how, "in the end, only the girls know the whole truth."
Rock and roll may be about swagger but, even if we've tried to make it that way, it'll never truly be about smooth edges. I don't know if my music will ever take that turn, but for right now I'm happy with the roughness, the open-endedness, and the questions. If I had that much of a plan for it I wouldn't be making music - I'd just be manufacturing it. Despite the frustrations, I appreciate that unknown. Like the song says, "It's not always a positive thing to see a few seconds into the future."
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