![]() ![]() I think this, combined with the vast amount of quantifiable metrics that we have access to in the streaming era, can tempt one to look to the left and right and wonder why their outcomes look so different. Though it certainly takes persistence, skill, and work in order to achieve success in this industry, two people who have worked equally hard can experience very different outcomes due to uncontrollable variables and “right place right time” type of opportunities. ![]() I think the greatest struggle within the music business is 2 parts of one larger thing – comparison. What do you find to be your greatest struggle when it comes to the music business? I, of course, have goals within that – places I’d like to tour, release strategies I’d like to see through – but ultimately if I can regularly get to that place where I’m making music for the love of it, I’m succeeding. ![]() I think that cleared the pressures away and allowed me to create from a place of inspiration, which is what connected with people and ironically turned music into my full-time job. At that point, I defined success by having a job & routine that allowed me the energy to come home and make music from my heart for whoever wants to listen, even if that’s just me. It wasn’t until I made peace with working to support the music, rather than trying to make the music support me, that I started to reconnect with the inspiration that got me started in the first place. When I was working a day job I used to define it as the ability to make music as my full-time job, but once I was offered that opportunity I couldn’t bring myself to take it because music itself – that is, making music for reasons other than artistic expression – felt like just another day job. The funny thing is I had to sort of go backward with this question in order to get an effective definition. There were no real expectations in that season – for all I knew I was just making music for myself – but it ended up in the ears of some folks at Spotify who were incredibly generous in supporting it via their playlists, and the audience just snowballed from there. That desire led me to quit everything I was doing, build a home studio out of my apartment and start making what would eventually be the first Canyon City releases. We made some music that I’m really proud of, but as things progressed I really longed to go back to the roots of why I started writing in the first place, to make music first and foremost from a place of self-expression and personal connection. There were a few really course-altering things that happened throughout that decade in Nashville – one is when I started doing work as a session musician for a couple of producers in town, and since I was always coming in with my own songs they offered to help me make a few records under project names that pre-dated Canyon City, but were a crucial education in production and how to release music with DIY tools. After that, I took work wherever I could in Nashville as a studio guitarist and songwriter. I grew up in Fargo, ND, and moved to Nashville as soon as I finished high school to attend Belmont University (which lasted for 2 semesters before dropping out). Where are you from and how did you get started in music? Any defining moments along the path to present day? Releasing music as Canyon City instead of ‘Paul’ is a little less scary for me.” “Music can be hyper personal, and I want to be detailed yet intentionally open-ended for the listener to bring their own life to it. Then, I look at the touring to go to, strategically,” he says. “Streaming has been the engine of success for this project. “A few guitars, a couple lines / A broken heart, white lies / The white light opened my eyes,” he sings, each syllable carrying with it tremendous, heart-wrenching punches.Ĭounter-intuitive to how many working musicians operate, Johnson has been keeping a keen eye on his streaming numbers to target his solo tours. New single ‘OK’ is not any different in fact, the teary orchestral-driven ballad is Johnson at his most gutting, most intense and perhaps at his all-time finest. His songwriting, fusing the work of Noah Gundersen and Tallest Man on Earth with a pinch of Tom Petty and Neil Young, is rich in emotional detail. It’s quite easy to see exactly why Johnson is a streaming giant. His new single, ‘OK’, was premiered by Paste Magazine in late October and has already amassed over 150,000 streams. His cover of Coldplay’s ‘Fix You’ stands at 27 million. In total, Johnson now has over 1.5 million monthly listeners, and other songs like ‘Alone with You’ and ‘Lost Sparks’ (the latter from 2019’s Bluebird record) have amassed 15 and 10 million streams, respectively. Off the heels of Canyon City’s first record, 2016’s Midnight Waves, essential cut ‘Firework’ was added to Spotify’s Fresh Finds: Six Strings playlist and has since culled more than seven million streams. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |