Welcome to Send Me On My Way.
I'm your host, Audrey Dean Kelly.
And on this podcast, we're gonna talk about everything
from music to pop culture to reality TV
to pretty much whatever I want.
So let's get into it.
All right, y'all.
On today's episode, I wanna get into the story
of how I moved to New York City from Arkansas back in.
Let's see, what would that have been?
2013.
So just to paint the picture,
I was a 24 year old living in Arkansas at the time,
living in my mom's house that she has since gotten rid of.
But anyways, I was doing music for a living
and I was booking gigs all over Arkansas,
playing a little bit in Nashville.
I played some shows in Los Angeles,
but the majority of my income at that point
was coming from my live shows.
And because I was living at home,
I had saved up a decent little nest egg.
And so we'll get into kind of what happened there.
But yeah, when I left Los Angeles,
my goal was always to end up in New York City.
But I'm someone who,
I think sometimes people look at me
and think that I come from money
because I'm related to celebrities,
but it is so far from the case.
I mean, my father lived in a trailer until the day he died.
So I, you know, in one of my older songs,
Bluesyway Love, I said, I've seen many things.
I've been broke in limousines.
And it's just the perfect picture of my life,
which has been, you know, these amazing experiences,
but being the poorest one there.
So that doesn't really tie back into this episode.
So let's get back on track.
So yeah, I was playing shows in Arkansas.
At that point, I was making a mistake
in that I was oversaturating my market.
Because I was doing it for a living there,
I was booking gigs.
Like I remember when I first did it,
I was booking gigs like every other,
like every three days in the same town.
Now, most musicians will listen to that and be like,
yeah, no shit, Sherlock, you shouldn't do that.
You're not gonna be able to have people
come out every single night.
And yeah, I learned that the hard way.
But alas, your girl was trying and she was going.
But at the time, I had some male musician,
we'll call them the cool kids.
And they were kind of a popular band in Littorock
at the time.
They had had a modicum amount of success.
But at the time, there was definitely this vibe
within the music landscape in Littorock
of like, I was not the cool artist.
I was the artist who was trying way too hard.
And like, guys, this was in the era of like the,
not steampunk, but like,
like you remember the Luminers,
it was like very folky, very like,
you know, big ensemble bands.
And me being a solo girl singing pop music,
you know, there were certain bars
that would not book me like the cool bar in Arkansas.
You guys all know which one I'm talking about.
But the only way they finally let me play there
was when these cool kids kind of decided,
okay, finally she can come sing,
but we're all gonna be on stage and we're gonna curate
and it's gonna be controlled by us.
So I had done a show with them and one of the guys,
and like, I went to high school with these guys.
So he had approached me.
He had come to one of my shows
and there was always this air of like,
oh, you're good, but you need me to help you.
And I wanna focus in on that because that is something
that has been part of the power struggle
in the music industry between the artist
and the producers.
There is this like landscape of you need me to help you
because I have some authority.
But let me tell you, it took me a really long time
to figure out that that's not the case,
that they can make their kind of music
and that's nice and that's good and it's good music too.
But if you're making music that you like
and you're proud of, don't let some other artist
who doesn't even listen to the same music
that you like to listen to tell you what kind of artist
you need to be to be good.
No matter what, as long as you're making art
that is reflective of you, you're good, baby, you're good.
So it took me a really long time to get to that point.
And once I got to that point,
where I've really finally embraced like I'm a pop artist,
I make pop music, I'm not trying to be someone
other than that because that is what I listen to,
that is what I love.
So to finally be in my skin,
it made it so that like once I finally embraced that,
I started pouring out so much more music out of me.
But this story is about how I got to that point
and this story is about how I got to New York City,
so let's backtrack the cool kids at the time.
I had done a collaboration with them
on one of their things.
And so I got into this studio and granted this new studio
in town had just opened that everybody was talking about.
And like, look, making music back then
was different than it is today.
And I'm not gonna discount the difference
of like what quality studio musicians bring to the table
and a quality studio setting.
However, here's what happened.
These guys start courting me and they are telling me
they're gonna help me make an album.
Again, this goes back to the complex
of we're cool, you're not, let us help you be cool.
Let us tell you what your music should sound like
and oh, by the way,
at first it was framed like we're gonna help you
and they brought me in and showed me the studio
and I was like, oh, sweet, this is great.
Then once we start to get into it,
they tell me, oh, so it's gonna be about $10,000.
But we'll, and even that, that's a discount
because we're discounting some of our musician time.
So $10,000 to record an album in Arkansas.
I want you to hear that, $10,000 to record an album
in Arkansas.
There's something we say in my family,
it's called, when we joke, it's like the Steenburgen discount.
Yeah, that's what was happening here
and let me tell you, the Steenburgen discount
is not a discount, it's when people think that you have money
and so they try to take advantage of you.
Let me tell you, I did have money at that point.
I had, and I'm like laughing about how I used to store
my money because so much of my money was in cash.
I used to have like a teapot that I kept all of my tips in.
So here I am.
I have these musicians that are so much cooler than me
trying to convince me to spend $10,000
on a studio album with them.
And these guys, when they come to my shows,
they kind of have this air of like, we're watching you,
like you're auditioning for us.
And I'm like, oh, it's just funny
because like young Audrey, who is not in her confidence
and not in her element, really fell for this crap.
But in the end, I didn't and here's what happened.
So they're telling me $10,000.
And so at that time I'm like, fuck, that's like,
all my money that I've saved up.
And granted, I'm living in my mom's house
that like my mom had gotten remarried
so she was living with my stepdad.
And so this house was like the house that I grew up in.
I was living in for free.
And I wanted to get out of there.
Not, but look, my mom was incredibly generous
for letting me live there, but like,
there's just something like,
when you're still living under your parents' roof,
like there's just an element of control
that I wanted to get away from them.
And I wanted to come to New York.
So here I am with a nest egg of cash.
And these musicians are trying to convince me
that in order to be cool,
I need to pay them all this money
for them to record my album.
And so I say, fuck that.
And instead I take that money
and I sell, you know, most of my belongings.
I pack me and my little pug, Pearl,
rest in peace, in my Prius.
And I up and moved to New York City.
And I will say it wasn't that simple in the sense
that I did have help in that my mom's old sorority sister
let me stay at her place in Connecticut
for the first month while I was getting off my feet.
She helped me with a job.
But I made that choice for myself
to not let these other musicians
who tried to convince me that I needed them
to be honest with you, take advantage of me.
Cause that's what they were trying to do.
And I know that.
I know that now, because let me tell you,
they booked a show in New York years later
when I had a beautiful apartment
and I had hustled and set my life up.
And so they were coming to play a show in New York
and they asked me if they could crash at my apartment
to which I said, sure.
Let me tell you what happened.
So they show up at my apartment.
They have me and my roommates
order food for them, feed them,
drink our drinks, act like they're too cool to be there
because they've got, you know,
their little hipster friends in the city.
Yeah, they basically hung out at my apartment,
let us pay for fucking food for them, complained.
And then we're like, we're gonna go to some party
and not invite you to come out with us.
But like maybe we'll end up back at your place
at the end of the night.
They were jerks to my roommates.
I mean, literally when they left,
my roommates were like, who the fuck did they think they were?
And I still think that today.
So don't be that person.
If someone is kind enough to offer to host you,
don't come into their apartment,
expect for them to feed you and disrespect them
because yeah, that's what happened.
And we definitely felt that.
So that was when I realized, my God,
I made the right decision by not giving $10,000 of my money
to these guys who were trying to take advantage of me.
And instead, betting on myself, betting on my dreams,
moving to New York, and now granted,
it may have been, look, your journey in the music industry
may not be a linear line.
It's gonna look a lot more like the stock market
than my experience, which means like if you back out
and you look at stocks, the S&P, whatever,
in the past 10 years, you're gonna see ups and downs
and ups and flows, and it's gonna be the same thing
for your music career.
You're gonna have times where you have detours,
and I definitely had that in my 20s
when I moved to New York City because here's the reality,
I had to get a full-time job.
I lived with two roommates, so the reality of doing
my vocal scales and having that practice space,
there was a trade-off, there was,
there was, but as I sit here,
looking out at my beautiful tree in my backyard,
in my midtown apartment, that I fully pay for all myself,
that my beautiful children live in with me.
When I look around at the incredible experiences
I've had, the projects that I've been able to work on
through Louis Vuitton, through coming here,
I am so glad, I'm so grateful to that 24-year-old girl
who didn't buy the bullshit that someone else was selling her.
I didn't take the shit, and I could have spent that money
and you know what, I think had I done that,
I would have, I'm not saying the album
wouldn't have sounded good, but it's not the kind of music
I wanna make, I like pop music,
I love the way I make music now,
and that brings me to the second point,
and I'll do an entire another episode about this, but
it's, the industry's changed,
you can make music in a very different way,
especially if you're on the pop route.
You don't have to pay for studio time in a lot of cases,
and let me tell you, you can,
there's so many resources on YouTube,
one of my favorite accounts, Sides, Seeds, S-E-E-I-T-S,
Sabrina Sideman, look her up, she's amazing,
but she gives you tutorials and hacks on logic,
and so I just want young artists in this,
industry to know that first of all,
the landscape has changed,
it's don't let some male producer make you think
that you need them to produce your album, okay?
Like in some cases, if you get to that level,
and I'm not saying never work with a male producer,
you can, but if somebody is trying to get you
to pay $10,000, so that they, like,
I'm sorry, but like in not a major market,
like $10,000 to have a studio album done in Arkansas,
no, like you wouldn't even be charged that
to do that in New York City, and that's the honest truth,
so I am very grateful to that girl.
So anyways, I moved to New York,
and I busk in the subway,
and I get a job at a juice company,
and in episode two, we talked about what happened
with the producer, so we don't need to go back into that,
but in general, this story is just to tell you
that like you just, sometimes you have to trust
your gut instinct, and especially as an artist
in this industry, people will try to take advantage of you,
especially if they think you have money,
and like people always have thought I have money
because of the way I carried myself,
and I mean granted, look, I've been put in the nicest
private schools, the nicest, I mean, got Occidental,
every kid I knew almost had a trust fund,
so of course people associate me with that,
and they think she's wealthy, we can take advantage of her,
and if they only knew, if they only knew, I am not.
So yeah, if anybody's doing that to you,
take the leap, it might work out for you in the end,
and it did for me, so I think that's gonna be
the end of episode three, I think we've talked about enough,
if you guys have questions, I'm gonna open up
some discussions, and yeah, this podcast isn't necessarily
always going to be about my music story,
there are gonna be some other topics,
like I have a whole 80 HD episode
that we're gonna dive into next,
because I guess that is kind of tied into music,
but it's all about how you can yield 80 HD
as a superpower in some cases, if you know
how to work with it, so stay tuned for the next episode,
and as always, thanks for listening guys, love ya.
I'll see you guys next time.
Can we see back, can we wake up?
Even on the golden days of the summer, so
we can take a drive in the moonlight,
sometimes on the summer, summer, summer,
and then I hope to set back on the beach with a friend.
We all took something we didn't have to do,
it was the waves running,
I don't want this feeling to end,
can we soak up the last reason,
then I like the summer that we've been.
Can we see back, can we wake up?
Even on the golden days of the summer, so
we can take a drive in the moonlight,
sometimes on the summer, summer, summer,
and then I hope to see back, can we wake up?
Even on the golden days of the summer, so
we can take a drive in the moonlight,
sometimes on the summer, summer, summer,
and then I hope to set back on the beach with a friend.
Can we see back, can we wake up?
Even on the golden days of the summer,
so we can take a drive in the moonlight,
sometimes on the summer, summer,
summer, summer, summer,
and then I know now, I don't want this feeling to end forever.
Can we see back, can we wake up?
Even on the golden days of the summer, so
can we take a drive in the moonlight,
sometimes on the summer, summer, summer,
and then I hope to see back, can we wake up?