Today we’d like to introduce you to Beige Radio
Hi Beige Radio, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
My story is very long – I’ve been playing guitar since I was about 10, (so about 25 years) and have been in more bands than I can count – so I’ll try my best to keep it short.
The most recent iteration of my music really starts about two and a half years ago when I moved back to San Diego. I came of age here, moving to north county in 1997 when I was eight, but decided to move to Seattle for college and stayed there until 2022. Even though I can now tell I was ready to leave Seattle, my decision to move back wasn’t by choice. A combination of some chronic health issues, stressful work, dealing with a breakup and just kicking the can of my life down the road led to a severe mental health spiral which forced me to move home and take some time off.
Music had largely left my life by this point. I’d noodle around on my guitar here or there, but the thought of playing shows or writing and recording again seemed pretty far-flung. The two pillars of my identity at this point had really been my relationship with an ex that had lasted 7 years and my job/career, which I was now looking to leave. I felt very real, deep purposelessness. It was the lowest I’d ever been.
I’ve always been a fan of standup comedy, but I really leaned into watching it the lower I got and it helped a ton. I had always wanted to give standup a shot despite my horrible fear of public speaking, and after working up the courage I found myself doing it for about 3-4 months. It gave me crippling anxiety, but I did really enjoy it and it felt nice to be a beginner at something creative again.
I was feeling really dejected after my worst bomb in front an audience – a regular experience for all standup comics, I’ve learned – and decided to pick up my guitar and go to Lestat’s open mic in Normal Heights. It was one of the few open mics I remember going to before leaving San Diego in the late 2000’s. Although I wasn’t very rehearsed and very rusty performing music live, standup gave me a kind of armor for getting too nervous. There’s nothing quite like bombing when it comes to building up a performance shield hahaha.
Standup got me back up on stage and helped me rediscover my love for music, writing, and performing. Here we are two and a half years later and I have a tour under my belt, am regularly playing out of town, have two singles released, with a third on the way, and am on track for finishing my first full length album to release in the coming months.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
It all feels like challenges hahaha. In the kind of DIY scene that I come from there isn’t a ton of money to go around and since moving back to San Diego I’ve really shifted the focus of my life to my art as opposed to how I make money. It means I’m often working on a shoestring budget and HAVE to be creative out of necessity. While some more funding would be great, my creative friends and I have been able to create some really great experiences due to these circumstances.
Whether that’s been producing shows with rudimentary knowledge of sound and using the same PA system I’ve been using since I was fourteen or working with people who are looking to build up their portfolios in sound/video and cross-promoting our works or splitting whatever little income we receive so that everyone gets a piece, etc…it’s all been about working within these relatively small means to keep creative projects going forward. Thankfully, I’ve had some really great and talented friends who have been moved enough by my music/performances that they’ve felt compelled to work with me. I find that doing what I can to get more enmeshed in the music community and offering what little I can back to it to help it grow helps me a lot with the struggles that come along with being an independent artist.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
I’m a solo acoustic singer-songwriter, but I think I’m most known for my style, my volume, and my voice. My Dad has played classical guitar forever so that’s the only kind of guitar that was around the house growing up. Here I was, moving to San Diego in 1997 during blink-182’s heyday and all I wanted to do was learn blink-182/Green Day covers on the thing. I once recently played a Green Day cover at an open mic and someone said it sounded like “flamenco Green Day” so I imagine some of that classical guitar influence crept in over the years hahaha.
Aside from this recent stint playing acoustic I’ve almost always been in bands. That being the case, I’ve usually had to belt over loud indie/emo/punk music at every rehearsal and often get comments that many of my songs sound like they could be accompanied by that kind of band. Combine that with 7 years of vocal training, some choir scholarships, and yeah…I like to belt my music haha.
I guess I also get comments on my technical guitar playing, but I tend to notice that part of my performing less. I’ve often rehearsed everything down to muscle memory and so I focus less on the intricacies and often think of music in terms of its chord progressions. Any extra tidbits are there to keep your attention and probably reflect my own ADHD more than anything hahaha. I’m glad people enjoy it though.
Is there any advice you’d like to share with our readers who might just be starting out?
I think this is a good piece of advice for almost anything, but don’t let perfection hold you back from improving, performing, writing, etc. I can’t tell you how many talented bands or musicians I’ve known that have never played a show or never put anything out.
Even with this project, I currently have some demos online that I don’t love hahaha. I recorded them on my own and I put them out because I needed to have some tracks online to be able to start booking shows and start being taken a little more seriously. I’m recording better versions of them right now and once they’re up I’ll likely take the demos down.
One really big takeaway I took from my short time doing standup is just how much time comics put into rehearsing/performing in front of people. I don’t think I’d ever seen a creative work ethic like that, so I took that same kind of work ethic into music open mics around San Diego. These comics would treat the open mics like rehearsals and used them to fine-tune everything for their booked performances on shows. So yes, definitely rehearse on your own as much as you can, but nothing like performing in front of other people to prepare you to perform in front of other people.
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Gabriel Patterson, Tommy Calderon, Francis Einkauf, Laura Hackney, Liz Costello
