Now boarding the emotional rollercoaster

The week at Girls Just Wanna festival in Mexico

(L-R, Cy Winstanley, Brandy Clark, Jordan Perlson, Brandi Carlile, me)

I just spent the week at Girls Just Wanna, Brandi Carlile’s festival at the Hard Rock Riviera Maya, performing with Brandy Clark.

It was an incredible festival to be part of; a true celebration of love, inclusivity, and music.

It was also a bit of an emotional rollercoaster for me, something that is pretty common for us musicians. Wonderful experiences can trigger self-worth meltdowns just as easily as shitty experiences can intensify your resolve to succeed.

Surviving (and even thriving) in the midst of this emotional rollercoaster is a big part of what I think determines a persons ability to find success and happiness as a musician.

So here’s the highlights - and lowlights - of my most recent ride!

We arrived in Mexico on Monday and, as the first night of the festival kicked off, we were happy audience members watching Brandi Carlile and her band crush with the intensity and musical prowess they’re famed for.

On Tuesday around lunchtime we headed to our first set, on the Heaven beach stage which was as gorgeous as the name would suggest! Load in was easy and the crew at the beach stage efficient and friendly. We’d been warned that Brandi Carlile was likely to join us on stage for this set, and when we arrived for our quick sound check her team was getting her microphone and monitor set up.

Brandi has been one of my musical idols for years and the prospect of sharing the stage with her was so fucking cool I had to force myself to focus on the task at hand - which was trying to get through sound check.

Communication on stage between the crew was strained and my line of sight to the monitor engineer obscured by a speaker stack. This kind of sound check is known as “throw and go” because you literally just throw all the gear on stage, do your best to get it so you can at least hear everyone else, and then start the show. Cy, Jordan (drums) and I did our best to get everything situated and then Brandy was walking on stage - ready to start the set.

I know it sounded great out front and one of the central tenets of being a pro is not letting people when things aren’t going well on stage, but phew.. sound was a challenge on this one.

Big outdoor stages are fun for the crowd (and us!) but the wind makes the sound do strange things and the sun makes it almost impossible to see your pedal lights. There was at least one song where I wasn’t certain my lowest string was even tuned to the right note because the glare made it so hard to see the tuner screen.

We sweated, smiled, and still managed to play a great set, performing old songs and a handful of the new ones from an album Brandy has been recently working on with Brandi Carlile in the producer chair.

We’re having fun jamming in the sun and then, amongst all the sound, wind, and heat challenges, one of the coolest moments of the last few years happened… Brandi Carlile walked on stage to join us.

She has one of those voices that reaches deep into my heart and makes me want to laugh and cry and sing forever and quit music all at once. I love her story, what she stands for, and the incredible music she makes. Getting to stand on stage and play even one song with her was a truly amazing experience that I will never forget.

A few minutes later she was gone, and a few songs after that so were we, sitting backstage sipping an aperol spritz in the after glow (literally!) of an exhilarating and hot summer festival set.

On Wednesday Jake and I parked ourselves in a cabana at the artist beach and had a lovely day off with a rotating cast of friends visiting us for swims, drinks, and hangs. One of the coolest things about the music industry is how often you can be in another country and bump into great friends and colleagues.

As the sun set, we cleaned off the salt and sand and headed to the artist viewing area by the main stage to watch Sara Bareilles.

Sara is arguably Jake’s favourite artist (he says second favourite after me, but I know he’s just being diplomatic!) and I have grown to deeply love her voice, writing, and humility when discussing life, love, and mental health.

I was honestly disappointed when I saw the stage set with just a piano. The last time I saw her perform with a full band I was so blown away that it seemed like a solo performance could only be a let down. I was completely wrong.

Sara held that main stage crowd in the palm of her hand from the first note and the crowd of industry and musicians on the balcony with us was equally as besotted.

She brought out a number of incredible guests but the truly soul-wrenching moment for me was when Brandi joined her to duet She Used To Be Mine from Waitress.

Here’s the part of this story where things start to go awry, and in a way that I’m not very proud of.

When faced with a beautiful moment of impeccable music making by two incredible women, I want to feel joy and gratitude. But honestly, I felt nothing but envy. Hearing the control they each have over their voices, the skill in their delivery, and watching the way they each command the stage makes me feel like a novice.

In moments of witnessing the true mastery of another musician, I often feel worthless.

Worthlessness turns into “I’m too old to succeed”, which turns into “maybe there’s no point chasing this dream”, which turns into “I’m just not talented enough”.

But then - sometimes after minutes, hours, or even days - that turns into a burning sensation in the core of my very being. A burning for how much I love music and how much I want to be the person standing on stage, sharing that love with others.

My personal rollercoaster as a musician this week was standing on stage with one of my idols one moment, feeling utterly worthless the next, and then consumed by the desire to keep chasing that dream the next.

For you it might be feeling excited to play your first gig, then questioning if you should quit music altogether, and then finding your sense of purpose and desire again.

A lot of people would look at my career and think that I’m happy and content at all times, but I’m not. And the more I’ve got the chance to know personally some of the people that I look up to, the more I realise none of us are.

Our rollercoasters might look different, but we’re all on one.

Being in a creative industry is being able to ride the climbs without worrying about the falls, and plummet without believing you’ll never rise again.

It’s getting back on the ride over and over because the highs are worth the lows and because you know we’re all buckled in on some version of this crazy ride, together.

Sorry for any typos or errors in this week’s post. I’m writing this on my phone sitting on a beach chair in Cancun. It’s a hard life, but someone’s gotta do it ;)