Press

What’s Your Christmas Wish?

Dear Friends,

If you are finding me after reading this morning’s USA Today, first off Welcome! 🙂 I hope you are having a great holiday so far and gearing up for a great Christmas! Less than a week away!

I wanted to say a special thank you to Brian Mansfield who has captured quite eloquently my journey and was the first music critic to find me last year, when I thought no one would ever find my music. I have received a lot of questions about my journey and I hope to highlight some of the answers.

Yes. It was and will always be scary to quit a job.
No. You will not always know how it will go.

Your dream may not be anything like mine – but your dream is just as important and if I can accomplish what I have in this past year and a half… I promise you can too.

1. I am not signed. 
There is no major record label behind me. No publisher. In fact, none of the aforementioned even thought it was worth their business while to sign someone who is so focused on seasonal music.

2. This is my dream.
Accomplishing it is my sole motivator. I must leave a great Christmas song behind. This is my calling.

3. Yes, I really am self funded.
The recording of my last album Everyday Holidays was funded this summer through Kickstarter. The manufacturing, promotion, travel, distribution and touring costs of promoting this record “Fa La La” has come from my life savings. Money that I had previously put towards the down payment for a home. This has taken a tremendous amount of sacrifice to accomplish. I eat a lot of spaghetti. I don’t take vacations. Everything I have, time, money, resource I put into my dream. I do this knowing there are no guarantees.

4. Persistence.
Nothing about having a hit song at radio was magic. It took a lot of elbow grease and learning to accept closed doors, never returned phone calls, demoralizing conversations and unfortunately in some cases I was just quite simply robbed. Despite what happened, I picked myself up again – dusted myself off and shook hands with someone new. I cannot explain why, but the only motivator I had to pick myself up was #2. I have found in the past two years that a lot of the restrictions I identified were more than likely self imposed. I’m constantly learning how to break down the idea of impossible, and where it came from.

5. Faith and Family
It takes a village to raise a child. It takes a village to raise a dream, and in my case it takes a village to raise a song. In order to fuel #4, you must have tons of faith. For me my family is my muse – and the spirit of the holidays and this love of family is what helps fuel me to keep going. It’s important to surround yourself with people who also have faith in you. Your friends and family that support you, even when all the chips are down, will be the ones to pick you up when its dead of summer and you are trying to figure out how to create the best Christmas song. Those are the people that matter most.

🙂 Thanks so much for wanting to learn a little bit about me and please if you haven’t download Everyday Holidays now! 🙂