Miss JackRabbit

Artwork Copyright © Tyler Spangler

i didn't crawl out of the sewer and start making the stuff you know me for, it took me years to make work that felt truly like mine

i started writing as the Narcissist Cookbook in 2016 (roughly), and by that point i'd already made about 15-20 EPs & albums over twelve years under different names and with different sounds. some of it was good, some of it was bad enough to have me waking up in cold sweats thinking about it. some albums and EPs no-one heard but me. most of it was me awkwardly trying to find my voice by imitating counting crows, dashboard confessional, jimmy eat world, bright eyes, the hives, etc.

the truth is that you'll spend a long time imitating your heroes - it's the unique and interesting ways you screw that up that will eventually become the foundation of Your Voice™

general hints:

take big swings

be overly ambitious

be masturbatory and self-indulgent

be excited about making mistakes

draw inspiration from artists outside your medium - I'd rather see a painting trying to be a poem than a painting done by an artist who only liked paintings

burn it all down every now and then

learning to finish Things might be the most important skill you can pick up - finishing a Bad Thing is the only way you'll ever learn how to finish the Good Things when they come along

drugs don't make you creative, they just shut down the anti-Art - the part of you telling you you suck while you're making something. you can shut that part of you down sober, it just takes work

dig for the ideas that scare you - "i couldn't get away with that" and "i could never say that" are like the beep of a metal detector