Behind The Music: "Habitual Ritual"
Hey fellow steemians and dsounders, Johnny here! I'd like to take a chance to tell a little bit of the story behind the music. This song, "Habitual Ritual" was the first song that we finished when we started working together.
I had actually written the music a couple of years prior to meeting Mia. An ex-friend turned nemesis began working with a prominent and very established band here in Cleveland. He called me up one day and told me that one of the members was looking for someone to compose some music for his girlfriend because her band was failing and he felt like she needed to find a new direction. The idea of programming etc was brought up and my then friend immediately thought of me because I had been programming music with midi for some time (I had even taken some college level courses years back after highschool). It felt very motivating to be told that I was writing for someone that could give me a decent chance at finding an audience, the music for Habitual Ritual is what came out (as well as a couple of our other tracks.) I was invited into the inner circle and got to hang out with these folks in their $500,000 studio. It was very enlightening, seeing their set up as well as getting to see production and editing on some of their music videos. I never did get to work with said girl, although I was told she liked the music. For whatever reasons, it didn't work out (ahem ahem cough *people's egos.... cough ahem). One of their members criticized the early riff ideas of the song (piano and guitar) as "the kind of riff that doesn't develop or go anywhere". (He should probably turn that thought around on his own music but oh well.) Seeing my then friend now enemy get sucked into the drugs and debauchery that came with that exact inner circle, and feeling pretty pissed off about having worked the hardest I ever had on something that I really felt good about, I took my music elsewhere.
Unfortunately, that very first elsewhere ended up being a desperate jump to a stranger in the want ads section of the old MySpace. We gave it a shot but this girl didn't mix well with what I had written. Drama of course ensued and eventually ended with her running from the police for whatever strange reason I will never know.
Then finally, enter Mia. She changed every single thing about my life in every facet... But first and foremost with this song. We hammered it out eventually, finished the rest of the record, and then eventually submitted our work to Pandora radio. If anyone out there has submitted work to Pandora you know how tedious the process is. You are only able to submit one song. It takes them 3 months for a yes and 6 months for a no. Having produced our music in our own basement on Dell; we didn't feel like we had a snowballs chance in hell. Much to our suprise, during a pretty lengthy layoff from my work, we got the email! It was the biggest win we will probably ever get in this industry. Another 3-4 months later we finally went live on Pandora. At the end of the day all I can do is smile about the member of that prominent band who sat there and told me to my face that it wouldn't go anywhere, the riff, the song, me. He can really go fuck himself.
Morale of the story: Listen to yourself, people will tell you things to try to cut you down, and they will have shady reasons to do so. Most of the art and music scene is a big fat pissing match, and it shouldn't be. But if you believe in yourself, work hard, fill your head with as much knowledge as you can, and stay on your path no matter how long it may seem and no matter what other people say, things will pay off.
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