So what's next?

After a busy month of being on the road I'm back home but still doing a ton of gigs. Specifically; playing bass in a Queen tribute. I love playing bass and when I'm hired to do so I take pride in doing it however, the guitarist part of me feels a bit odd to not be playing the instrument I'm best at. But being versatile as a musician is key for me and always something I've prided myself on. It also keeps things interesting and challenging.

We have a few east coast YYNOT shows next month but while I have a few moments, I'm trying to sneak in some work on a song that I had started awhile ago. I promised the band that I'd work on a new original song to go along with some of the older YYNOT songs I did for the band but with Adi on vocals and Mike on drums. Since we now have a solid lineup of team players committed to the band, now is the time to have all 4 of us on an original release (something that's never happened in the past).

I've also wrapped up promoting my solo album as I've done about all I can to promote it, create "content" and get folks to listen to it and hopefully support it financially. We did pretty well with CD and Vinyl in the beginning but it's extremely difficult to generate any kind of income with original music these days, especially for me as an unknown artist. I'm proud of the record and I can honestly say it's about as good as I think I could have made it. I doubt I'll ever make another "record". It just takes too much out of me to do essentially alone. That is not to minimize anyone else who contributes to playing or singing on the stuff. But it's difficult to explain to people who hear the finished result to these things and assume it's as it was with their favorite bands or artists who are signed to a record label, have management teams, a producer, engineers, deluxe studios, and a band all together working out ideas, arrangements and cheering each other on to feed the energy and excitement.

For me for the last 10 or 15 years it's basically up to me to write the music, the lyrics, come up with all the arrangements, then go into my cramped home studio for hours and hours every day until each song gets recorded, mixed and slaved over until I feel like every song sounds like a world-class level track with hooks, riffs, lasting melodies and every bit of production I can come up with to satisfy both myself as well as the expectations from fans that have now been established. Don't get me wrong, it's a labor of love for sure, but at some point it becomes overwhelming in terms of time and energy. And these days once you've finished one of these things, the work just begins because then you're constantly working on content to promote it.That alone becomes a full time job. And if less and less people are interested and these days don't even own CD players or turn tables, you basically hoping for streams. Which last time I checked paid something like $0.00018 or something? LOL. It is what it is.

I've also thought about starting a podcast.I know basically nothing about them nor do I listen to many of them but I'd like to try. Just for fun.Talking about a love for all things Rock & Roll and my love for Rock & Roll history. So stay tuned for that!

Ok, that's all for now :)

Billy