Hi Amigos!
Welcome back to another episode of the podcast!
Colm Gavin is a Dublin based Irish singer/songwriter currently signed to BEO Records home to The First Lady of Celtic Music Moya Brennan. Colm's first two solo releases (Your Endless Slumber/A Voice For The Urban Darlings) both reached reached number 1 in the Irish Charts at the time of their release. Singles from his debut album have reached the top ten in notable Indie charts in Norway, Australia, USA, Canada & Japan.
He has made notable inroads in the American market with his music currently being playlisted on over 50 stations across the US & Canada. He is presently co-writing with one of Ireland’s most notable & beloved songwriters Charlie McGettigan {Eurovision winner 1994 with Paul Harrington: Rock n Roll kids}.
Gavin’s most recent release “The 1992 Tapes” EP reached #1 in the Irish Singer/Songwriter Charts, #4 in the Pop Charts, #56 in the Billboard 100 in the United States & #81 in the Italian Pop Charts. Gavin recently gave his inaugural New York City performance in the legendary Birdland Jazz Club on 44th Street.
We talk about all kinds of things such as: getting signed to BEO Records, what keeps his creativity going in a saturated industry, the beauty of the journey, and more!
TAKE AWAYS:
There's nothing that you'll ever do in life that won't be the best version of how you could do it, as long as you're really relaxed.
Get out of the way of what the music wants to do
If you're something all the time, , then you don't need to turn it on and turn it off.
Practice gratitude with everything even with the smallest of things. that makes the bigger things ever nicer
This isn't a dress rehearsal. The right moment doesn't always come
You’re playing the long game, it’s day to day
Pay attention to your process
Work as though there's someone else in exactly your position. Trying to outdo you every single day
You need to gauge for yourself what the lines and markers of success are
Stay true to yourself and try as often as possible to be nice
LINKS:
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:
[00:00:00] Drea: Welcome to the podcast. It's a pleasure to have you
[00:00:03] Colm: here. Thank you so much. Thanks for having me.
[00:00:05] Drea: I was just saying in the intro that your most recent release, the 1992 tapes, your EP reached number one in the Irish Singer songwriter charts number four in the pop charts.
[00:00:18] Drea: Number 56 in the Billboard, a hundred in the United States, and number 81 in the Italian pop charts, . That's right. Can you please. Tell us how this came to be. Were you signed when you did the cp? Did you do this on your own? What was that kind of journey like for you?
[00:00:32] Colm: I, I was signed and it's weird because even hearing you say that, It still doesn't really feel real because as an artist, the kind of music that I play is, would be similar to the people I grew up listening to.
[00:00:44] Colm: So like Harry Nissen, Randy Newman, Dean Freedman, these kind of piano based singer songwriters who weren't necessarily chart efficient huddles.
[00:00:53] Colm: I remember my record producer Tim, saying to me, This is gonna be the bane of your life. Because the next time the question is gonna be, Oh, only number five. Oh, what a pity. And or Gavin falls short of hitting that number one spot by 10 places or whatever.
[00:01:08] Colm: Which again, as I said Dre, that was never something that was on my agenda and, and it still isn't, but it's lovely, especially in other countries when the music. Picked up on and it resonates in some way, especially in non-English speaking countries like Italy. And it did quite well in the indie charts in Japan as well, which is just weird, but, But it's, it's a kick and like all things of note and benefit, I just try to enjoy them rather than pick it apart and think about it too much, you know?
[00:01:37] Drea: How long did it take you to record the EP or do this whole process? Is it something that you kind of. Came up with on your own? Did you have a band? What was that like for
you?
[00:01:49] Colm: So the EP itself is five original songs and they were all written at the piano and then performed solo piano. So I did it with.
[00:01:59] Colm: Alan Thornton and Brian owi, two wonderful producers. And Alan Thornton is the grandson to the Thornton family, who in, in Dublin are renowned piano makers. And so basically I love recording in a gorilla environment. And, and I don't mean the monkey, the gorilla, um, just that ad hoc approach to recording somewhere that you wouldn't usually record and letting half of the.
[00:02:23] Colm: Be half the charm of what the record or the recording is. And so what we did was we set up a makeshift recording studio in the showroom of Thornton's Pianos on the north side of Dublin. We picked an upright piano with gorgeous written Mueller upright piano. Mike did in a couple of different places, and I sat down and the guys were based in one room when I was in another, and I said, I'm gonna play all of these songs in a.
[00:02:46] Colm: I'm gonna leave 25 seconds between each song and then you cut them up at the end and that was how the record was made. So in as long as it takes to listen to the record, that's how long it took to make. Wow.
[00:02:56] Drea: You did this
[00:02:56] Colm: all in one take. Yeah. Well, it was the second take, but all in one go, if you know what I mean.
[00:03:02] Drea: Yeah, that's incredible. I mean, as a musician myself, I can say that that's really hard to do what I like about that is that it's almost like a live show. Except you just cut it up to make it like a nice and clean package. But it's essentially you doing a live show and then being
[00:03:18] Colm: recorded, you actually took the words outta my mouth.
[00:03:21] Colm: And that's always the way I've described it to people was, and that's the advice that I give to musicians who maybe aren't that comfortable in the studio is treat it like it's a gig. Don't get to sometimes, you know, when you hear yourself in your, he. And you think, Oh God, I hate the way I sound today.
[00:03:35] Colm: And that affects the way you go in and do a vocal take, or that affects the way you communicate with your band. You're maybe not in the best mood. You wanna go for 5, 6, 7 takes, and by the time you get to the eighth, your voice is so spent. That you've lost the initial charm of what was there on the first or the second take.
[00:03:52] Colm: So, and now to my detriment too, because a lot of times on a track I'll be really flat while I'm flat most of the time. But I'll be really flat coming up to the end of a middle eight or something. And because the, the vibe on that take was good. I'll just go with that one. So my, my pr ear isn't great when it comes to working towards a single, but I just like the energy of of, of what happens when you work that way. .
[00:04:16] Drea: I agree with that because that's exactly how I recorded my EP as well. After college, we just all went into a basement and just played the songs live and just recorded them.
[00:04:26] Drea: And it was the best way to make that EP because you, you can feel just the energy of not overthinking and really coming from the heart, and so I love that that's how you recorded your EP as well, because I know how special those moments are.
[00:04:42] Colm: It's so true, and a piece of advice that I got when I was very, very young is that there's nothing that you'll ever do in life that won't be the best version of how you could do it, as long as you're really relaxed.
[00:04:53] Colm: So my approach to everything is to try and fall into a situation as comfortably as possible, and then whatever happens is going to be good no matter what it, There's a great book called Effortless Mastery by Kenny Weer that came out in the mid 1990s, and he talks about this idea. Just let your hands fall at the keys, or just get up to the mic and go for it and see what happens.
[00:05:16] Colm: And trying to get outta your own way is the most difficult thing for any musician. But I think the more relaxed, the better. And if you can just get out of the way of what the music wants to do, you're gonna get the best result no matter what
[00:05:28] Drea: Speaking of relax, is there something that you do before recording or before singing or before going.
[00:05:35] Drea: Is there a routine that you do that gets you in that head space to perform and be in your space of a musician?
[00:05:43] Colm: Yeah. Another great piece of advice that I got was from my teacher, Peter Stanton, and he says, If you're something all the time, , then you don't need to turn it on and turn it off.
[00:05:52] Colm: So, for example, when it comes to performance, initially, the, the thought of getting up on a stage to a bustling bar or a busy venue, or if I was a support deck for somebody, it, you know what it's like, it's those 20 minutes before you go on stage. That can be a little bit emotionally crippling, but I think that's because you're going, you're transferring through the door of your normal day to day self to on stage you.
[00:06:17] Colm: Whereas if you are in a constant walking state of not creativity, you don't need to be walking around town with a notepad in your hand or whistling at tune. But it's all about matching a level of vibration. So if you have yourself in a state of readiness at any point, you could be at a party. Hits a few chords in the piano and asks you to sing and you just jump into it.
[00:06:37] Colm: You don't need the coke sing, you don't need the cajoling. And I tried to stay in that mindset as often as possible. So when it comes to time to get on stage, it, it's not so much of a transition.
[00:06:48] Drea: I love that answer cuz it's the same thing for, even I, I read this recently about social media. You know, people should be able to go to your page and know who you are offline as well.
[00:06:58] Drea: And I think that that's the best way to put it. You know, whether you're on stage, backstage, getting ready to perform, you're just in your room, like you said, you're at a party. Knowing that that's just in you, that's who you are, makes the process and that moment so much easier really get into that head space.
[00:07:16] Colm: It does completely. Now there's a lot of performers who maybe their stage act is a little more showy than they would tend to be in in day to day life, but it doesn't have to be a posture. Sometimes it's just a mental state. And like I said earlier, if, if you're as relaxed as you could possibly be, that's where all the really, the really good stuff is.
[00:07:35] Colm: And, and songwriting in particular is a little bit like going fishing. You know, you have to be really quiet to catch the big one. .
[00:07:40] Drea: There are so many, I mean, as we both know, there are so many musicians in the world. There are so many artists in the world that are doing this every single day, day in and day out.
[00:07:50] Drea: No matter what it takes, they pour their heart and soul into their craft. What keeps you going? What is something that you feel, music gives you you that so much that you have to keep doing. .
[00:08:04] Colm: The reward system for me is the life that it affords you. When I was a teenager in school, I would've done anything just to be in a band, and it didn't matter if it was punk, rock, reggae.
[00:08:15] Colm: I just wanted to be in a band, and I remember my. Dear friend Kevin Branigan saying to me, Go and learn a bass. Cuz every band has guitar players. Every, every band needs a good bass player. And so I was in four or five different punk bands and I was dreadful. And, and they, you know, we, we probably didn't make a great ensemble anyway, but when I got down to playing the kind of music, In my early twenties and mid twenties that I, that I adore the music of, um, well, my own music, but that's influenced by rag time and swing and, and jazz in many ways.
[00:08:46] Colm: When I was performing the stuff that's really true to me that I, I really adore, it's like I found myself in it. And so this goes back to what we talked about with performance. Being at the piano and flapping my gums and telling stories and singing songs is the most natural. Communicative state for me.
[00:09:06] Colm: And so the reward is in everything. The reward is in playing a gig to 20 people or just 200 people, or to bring it out a record or a radio station picking up on a record. So I try to be, I try to exercise gratitude as much as possible, even with the smallest of things. And that makes the, the bigger things even nicer, I think,
[00:09:23] Drea: what do you do on the days where you feel there's a block or there's something that doesn't really, resonate with you in that?
[00:09:30] Colm: Sometimes you need that inner dialogue to come out and have a conversation with your 15 year old self or your 16 or 17 year old self that just wanted this more than anything in the world.
[00:09:41] Colm: It's really funny, Andrea, that you say that because about a month ago I had a headline show, an venue in Dublin called The Speakeasy in Artist Croon, and the the gig was sold out and I had a small backstage. In the back of the building, and it was about 20 minutes till Showtime and my support act was going out.
[00:09:59] Colm: And I was having a conversation. Amy Neen wonderful songwriter, she was doing support that night and she was like, How you feeling? I was like, I'm good. I'm good. I was making a cup of coffee or something. I was distracted. And uh, she said, Well, what have you got planned? And I said, Well, I'll probably have to do this and I'll have to do that.
[00:10:15] Colm: And she goes, What do you mean you have to, you need to change that. I get to do this. I get to play the to these people. I get to do a so out gig. I get to perform original songs to people who've paid to come and see me. And that tiny shift in perspective was enough to make me go, okay, we all have day to day stuff that can bog us down a little bit.
[00:10:37] Colm: And you don't always feel like being the creative individual. You don't always. Getting at the A four notebook and start scribbling their own ideas. But gratitude has to intervene at some point and say, Well, look at the life that you've built for yourself because of all those days, they add up, you know yourself, Andrea.
[00:10:54] Colm: Like it, it's, it's an accumulative process. For any great thing to happen. There has to be a longstanding obedience in the same direction and one day, and it's kind of like an outta the blue. You find yourself in exactly the position that the 15 or 16 year old you would've loved to been in at the click of their fingers.
[00:11:12] Colm: But now it's become an accumulative thing, and I just try and remind myself of that as often as possible.
[00:11:18] Drea: I just had this conversation with a friend we were talking about, this woman I follow on Instagram, her name is Amanda Cletes, and she's incredible. She has a fitness business and she's, One of the co-hosts for the Talk, which is a huge program here in the us and she lost her husband, unfortunately, to Covid.
[00:11:38] Drea: And he was an all inclusive artist and performer, and he loved to dance. He loved to sing, he loved to perform. And she said something in an interview or I can't remember if it was her stories, where she said the same thing she said. I don't have to move my.
[00:11:55] Drea: I get to move my body because he can't, you know, like he's not here to do that. And that's what he loved the most. And that's what she thinks of every single day when she wakes up and she's like, I don't wanna do this today. She says, It's not that I don't want to, it's not that I have to, it's that I get to do this.
[00:12:10] Drea: Every single day. And there are a lot of people that don't get to do it. And I loved that shift in her mindset and I've also carried the same sentiment with me throughout everything I've done. And so I love that. That was your answer, cuz that's exactly what I do as well.
[00:12:25] Colm: It's amazing, isn't it? And it's funny that you kind of brought the element of mortality into it too, because in early 2021, my teacher of 15 years, Peter Stanton, who was such an incredible mentor to me, he passed away in his late sixties, quite young by today's standards, he was a wonderful guy and, and someone who was almost a mathematician when it comes to music and had a very clinical approach at the height of my teens, I would've been attending music lessons with him six days a week, five, six days a week.
[00:12:55] Colm: He was, he had a military upbringing, so he was in the Army number one band in co played a huge role in the Artane Boys band in Dublin for many, many years as a, as a conductor there and just somebody who had music pouring through him. And when he passed away, it, he was, he was a light in my life. And, uh, Just an incredible individual and someone who I, I took so much solace from and so much inspiration.
[00:13:17] Colm: And when he died, it hit me in a way that death up until that point, never had because death was just kind of those, one of those things that, well, it's an inevitability. None of us are getting outta this alive. But when he passed, it was like there was a gaping hole or a shadow left in my life. And so for about a year, I.
[00:13:35] Colm: Sort of frantically reapproaching what it was that I thought death and life were, you know, that, that passage and I was rereading like the Tibetan Book of the Dead. I was reading the. The Gospel of Buddha Self realization, Fellowship, books, Swam Tree, really analyzing, like, what is it, you know, are, are we just like a blip on a sonogram that comes and then it's gone?
[00:13:59] Colm: And all of this is meaningless. And the only real answer that I, I can surmise is that you have to juice every ounce of life that is given to you. And try and just focus on the fruits that the Tree of Life yield rather than the day that it's all gonna rot. Because you know, inevitably for all of us, this is just a vehicle and, and you pass through it.
[00:14:21] Colm: But I loved your analogy there and, and the way you, you leaned into mortality because I think it's something that we could all do with kind of a clip around the ear with where. , you realize some days this isn't a dress rehearsal, , you know, waiting for the right moment. The right moment doesn't always come.
[00:14:35] Colm: So that's kind of a mantra that I, I try to use in my day to day life. And, mantras, as you know, they're good. It, it's good to have a reminder or just something written on your wall or on the back of your hand or on your phone that reminds you get it together. This isn't a dress rehearsal. Try to try to cheer up even when you can't, you know?
[00:14:52] Drea: I mean, that's the whole point of this podcast. That's why it's called The Journey of Pursuit, because I truly believe that it's about the journey. It's not about the destination, and it's about realizing that every single day you have a choice. Every single day you have a decision to make. How do you wanna live this life?
[00:15:08] Drea: What is it that you're gonna do today to be the best person that you can be, to get closer to your dreams, to get closer, to be happy, and. You know, do the things that you enjoy so that you are enjoying the journey and not just getting by. And I think that that's something I've realized through the people I've interviewed, that every single person I've interviewed is someone that has gone for their dreams, has gone for the thing that they love to do, no matter who told 'em. They can't. No matter what the industry said about how hard it is or not. And most of the people I've interviewed are musicians because as a musician, most of my friends are creative musicians.
[00:15:42] Drea: And so what I find so interesting is that not one person has had the. Path, the same journey, even though we're all in the same industry, even though we're all doing the same thing, no one has gotten to where they are by doing the same exact thing as another person. And that's why I love highlighting people's stories because it's such a testament to that we are.
[00:16:08] Drea: One decision away from a different life. We are one decision away from a different outcome, and it's up to us to look at that every single day. Who do you wanna be? What do you wanna, what do you wanna grow? What do you wanna accomplish?
[00:16:20] Drea: And how can you get there? And how can you make the journey so worthwhile that even when you get to the destination, you enjoy the journey so much. The destination is something you celebrate, but you're so excited to continue going for the journey.
[00:16:33] Colm: You're so right. And, and there's a Neil Sadaka song called The Hungry Years.
[00:16:37] Colm: I Missed the Hungry Years. And it's funny how prospective shift when you get to whatever gravitational point you are aiming for, and success is a funny thing because it's kind of like holding sand too tightly in your hand and it slips through your fingers sometimes. You thought you were going for, you've already got, and the steep climb ahead isn't ever as steep as you might think it is.
[00:17:00] Colm: And that's an idea that I play around with in my head a lot because I remember being in my early twenties, I was a busker in Dublin, so I played music on the streets, which is character developing, to say the least, because the reward system is instantaneous. If people like what you do, they throw a coin into your bag.
[00:17:18] Colm: If they don't , uh, sometimes it's better left unsaid. The. Ranker that you can be faced with, but it's a discipline in and of itself. And on the days where I just felt like whatever it was I was going for was a lot further away than, than I would've liked it to be.
[00:17:33] Colm: A big band would come to town and I remember meeting Conan obrien one night. It was at Boskin on Grafton Street, and he was like the embodiment of everything. He looks like a successful guy, even if you didn't know who he was. He walked the walk and talked the talk and was just the epitome of grandeur and decency and all of my friends who were with me.
[00:17:54] Colm: One of the things we took away from that was isn't that exactly who you'd want to be like once you get to the destination? And for some people the destination is wealth, success, prosperity, that even after the punishments that life have has, has dished out to you that you can still retain. An ounce of yourself or an ounce of decency in the face of the hardship.
[00:18:16] Colm: And it's not always easy and not a lot of people start out as great people to be in with. So that's a, that's a growth point too. I think ultimately that for me is, uh, is another one of those things that I have to remind me of myself, just to keep a level head and always to act like you're already there or act how you would act.
[00:18:37] Colm: Were circumstances slightly different depending on what the goal is. Cuz as you know yourself, the goal change week to week, depending on what stage in life you're in. What, It's an interesting talking point, isn't it?
[00:18:48] Drea: What was that process like for you as an artist or a musician? How did you come about getting your management and your team together?
[00:18:57] Colm: Records who are the record label that I'm presently signed with and have been since 2015. Their roots run deep in, in Ireland, both from a, a music and a cultural perspective.
[00:19:07] Colm: So, Moya Brennan, who's the lead singer of cl, an incredible Irish group who you may or may not be too familiar with, but. Youngest sister is Enya, who you may be familiar with then Enya has had huge success worldwide. Their record label is be Records. Now. Moya and Tim have a daughter, Ashlyn and a son Paul.
[00:19:28] Colm: Two very dear friends of mine, and we're all musicians and our paths kind of crisscross throughout the Dublin music scene and the wider Irish music scene. And when I was about 20. Ashley said to me out of the blue the other day for no reason. My dad said to me, How's Colin Gavin doing? And she said, I thought that's strange cuz she has HDS of friends like Army truckloads full of friends.
[00:19:51] Colm: And she said he just kind of asked out the blue and wanted to know if you have any concerts coming up or whatever. And I had a show, it was a midweek show coming up in a place called The Workman's Club in Dublin. And he came along to it. He was with a couple of friends. Tim Jarvis is an amazing guy. He was a chief photographer for the NME for many years now.
[00:20:07] Colm: He's married to Moya Brennan, and they run the record label and we had a quick chat. He couldn't stay for my whole set, but he said, I love what you do. Come out to the house sometime. We'd love if you would sign with the record label. And so within maybe a month of that, I signed with your records. And he said, Well, how soon do you think you could put something out?
[00:20:28] Colm: And I said, Well, I kind of have an album ready to go that I think will be good. And he said, Okay, come back in two weeks and let's listen to some of the. Some of the rough takes and Will talks more about it. I didn't have anything Andrea, so I went to a producer friend of mine, Adam Walch, and said, I need to make an album in two weeks.
[00:20:46] Colm: Don't ask me why and can we start tomorrow? And so we did. So we recorded my first album in about two weeks. It was called A Voice for the Urban Darlings, and that was my first release with pr.
[00:20:57] Drea: Wow. Like you said before, it's like Kiss me crazy.
[00:21:00] Colm: It's meant to be crazy. It's crazy. Yeah. Big time.
[00:21:04] Drea: Wow. Something I always ask on the podcast are these two questions.
[00:21:08] Drea: One of them is, what do you think has been your biggest lesson or. Failure and what do you think has been your biggest success or win? Every single person I've had on this podcast rephrases it to, Well, I don't think it's a failure. I think it's a lesson. And that's exactly my point.
[00:21:24] Drea: So I would love for you to tell , our audience what you feel like has been your biggest lesson in your career or your personal life that you would like to share with fem.
[00:21:34] Colm: This is kind of a, a roundabout way of telling one very vague point, but when I was in my teens, my dad gave me a book called Bounces and it sat on my desk for about six months and he would sporadically come into my room and said, Have you read that book yet?
[00:21:49] Colm: And it was a sports, the idea behind it was, it was, it was a book center around sport, particularly tabled tennis. And I, I wasn't really interested in that, so I just kind of gathered those for a few months. And he said, Look, I'm gonna synopsize it for you. He said in the book, This guy is training for the Olympics.
[00:22:06] Colm: And midway through his training, he gets a new coach. And the coach is just doing really basic rudiments, cross table shots, all that kind of stuff. And the guy goes to his coach and says, What are we doing this for? I'm training for the Olympics, Like, where does the complicated stuff start? And the coach says, If you have a grasp on the basics, You never need to worry about the complicated stuff because it'll fill in the blanks for you.
[00:22:30] Colm: And from that day, something shifted in my approach. I was, I was a student of music by that point and a brutal student of music. And I would feel like I knew that I had enough ability to play a certain way, and then when I would go to play, it wouldn't come out and all this kind of stuff. And I realized, It's, you're playing the long game.
[00:22:50] Colm: It's not like 16 week course walk out and you're exactly what you want to be. It's a day to day attention to detail process, and it's a discipline process and that's a, a state of mind that. It's like what we talked about earlier. It's something that you need to apply as a blanket the whole time, and then progress happens really, really quickly.
[00:23:12] Colm: So the, the failure aspect to that was I was 15 or 16 all I wanted to do was be a musician, but it just wasn't clicking with me, and I realized that. It's not that I can't do this, it's My process is all wrong. And so attention to process is something that I, I would always, if someone comes up to me and says, Look, I'm really struggling with this.
[00:23:32] Colm: I'd say, Well, what's your process like? Have you addressed what your, your week to week is? And that usually is where the problem tends to lie. It's very
[00:23:40] Drea: similar to even daily habits, right? What are the habits that you have every single day that really help you get to that mindset or. That feeling, that state where you can go for the things you want.
[00:23:52] Drea: What would you say has been your biggest success or win? So,
[00:23:55] Colm: My, my best achievement I would say is the fact that I grew up to be the person that I wanted to be and beyond anything else and every voice said, Listen, , it's not gonna work out. You come from a, a tough neighborhood in a working class town. The economy at the time was in the pits. Dublin was, was a rough place and, and a very difficult place to be if you wanted to climb, uh, ladder of any description.
[00:24:19] Colm: And I was, I, I, I tried to be as steadfast as possible in my belief. And thankfully that 15 year old, 16 year old dude didn't give up on me, so I try not to give up on him.
[00:24:31] Drea: How nice to be able to look back and, and know that you never gave up on that kid, you know, who's still here and, and proud of where you've gotten so far and so much more to come.
[00:24:42] Drea: Like you said, I love that question because, Success is so fluid, you know, like it's such a bad word, you know, and so is failure, but I always ask it because I think it's a necessary thing to think of in every person's journey. I realize that when I listen to Sarah Blakely, who's the owner of spans, she.
[00:25:04] Drea: Used to come home every single night and her dad would ask her, What did you fail at today? And she never understood why he kept asking her that. And then she realized that she was older, that her dad redefined failure for her. And she was never afraid to be to lose or to fail because she knew that it was a part of the journey.
[00:25:21] Drea: It was a part of her life. It was natural to go through those things. And the same with success. I feel that success is ever something that you just achieve. It's just something that you have like an inner feeling of like you're proud of yourself, you can keep going and you have momentum and motivation to do the thing that you love to do.
[00:25:38] Drea: It's been such a pleasure having you on the podcast. Thank you so much. Are there any last words you would like to say? Any advice you would have for anyone listening that wants to be doing what you're doing or felt inspired by your
[00:25:49] Colm: story?
[00:25:50] Colm: Well, first of all, I just wanna say thank you so much, and Andrea, it's been absolute pleasure and you're an incredible host and someone who has no doubt inspired plenty of people. And I think it's a real testament to a podcast host or a host of any show, of any description where your good reputation.
[00:26:06] Colm: Procedure yourself, because I had heard about you, uh, before we were incommunicado, as we say. So that's a huge testament to you. So fair play to you. Thank you so much.
[00:26:15] Drea: That's so sweet. I really, really appreciate that.
[00:26:17] Colm: Thank you. Pleasure, pleasure. What I would say to anybody who, who wants to get into the, the creative line of work of any description, typically the way people value.
[00:26:27] Colm: Music and art is with the question. If you're so good, how come I haven't heard of you? And that's, you know, how often do we get that in life? And one of the things that I would say is work as though there's someone else in exactly your position. Trying to outdo you every single day. So the value system by society is always going to be, well, if you're not number one in the top billboard 100, then who even are you?
[00:26:52] Colm: But you need to gauge for yourself what the lines and markers of success are. And if that means I wanna play to 20 people who paid $5 to come and see me next month, If that's the goal, and you take it, you tick the box, you did what you said you do. And if you begin with incremental, The small stuff adds up to the big stuff.
[00:27:11] Colm: It stay true to yourself and try as often as possible to be nice because it's a, it's a tough industry and it can give even the most humble of people a big head. So keeping your feet on the ground while you're reaching for the stars is probably a good idea.
[00:27:26] Drea: That's exactly why I even started this podcast.
[00:27:29] Drea: It was because I had been listening to a bunch of shows that were highlighting people that were a little older than us, and I love hearing those stories. I look up to a lot of people, obviously, that are older than us and have done things that are super inspiring and motivating, but I always had.
[00:27:43] Drea: Question, like, what were you doing at my age? There's no way that you just went from like your twenties, which is a messy time to forties, fifties, sixties, seventies, eighties, and you're successful. You know, like you just got to this point where I felt they missed a big chunk of the time of my life I was in.
[00:28:02] Drea: And so I decided to start a show highlighting my peers because I had that same idea. You know, no one's heard of you, so, How are you successful? You know, or like, I haven't heard of you, so are you really that big? And I don't care. It was more so that I wanted to highlight people that are doing something every single day that might not be as known as these people that are highlighted on podcast magazines, et cetera, and highlight them in this way to show people that it doesn't matter.
[00:28:30] Drea: How big you are, quote unquote, or how much you've done, it's all worth it because it's the journey. It's not the destination. It's not this fame thing. It's because you love it. It's because it's a part of you.
[00:28:43] Colm: Thank you. And, and again, you know, huge testament to you because in my eyes I would see you as a successful person. And what you're doing is highlighting the stories of other people and great to talk about the struggle too, which I think is probably the most important thing. And the, the journey of the pursuit.
[00:28:59] Colm: It's a, it's a beautiful thing. And again, thank you so, so much for giving me your time and, and being so candid and. Yeah, for just having a great chat. Really appreciate it.
[00:29:10] Drea: Thank you. Yes, it was a great chat. Please let everyone know where they can find you, where we can support you.
[00:29:15] Colm: So Instagram and Facebook tend to be my two go-tos.
[00:29:19] Colm: So column Gavin on Instagram and column Gavin Music on Facebook, they tend to be the two gravitational points where you can keep up with all the odd and wonderful things that I, I get up to music.