I found one of Adam’s recordings from 2006 in my car the other week. It made me reflect on all of the ups and downs in Adam’s Nashville journey thus far. Mid-July actually marked eleven years since Adam moved south from Elkhart, Indiana at the age of 19 to pursue his dream.
While listening to this CD, I also realized that for more than half of the duration that I have been blogging (I started in May 2011), Adam has been on hiatus from his music career. Like, he RARELY gets on Facebook or Twitter anymore. He’s practically fallen off the face of the earth!
Many of you who have started following A Dreamer’s Wife in the past several months are probably like, “So, her husband is this dreamer musician guy, but what has he even done?!” Or, if you knew Adam in high school, you’re probably wondering, “Where the heck is Shick?” So, I’ve decided to put together a very rough timeline of Adam’s musical history since being in Tennessee.
Adam Shick’s Nashville Timeline
July 2002
Adam moves to Nashville and shares a house with three other guys. Adam gets a couple of long-term full-time temp gigs to pay rent and the bills. Adam attends Nashville State Tech (now Nashville State Community College) for music technology. He quits after one semester because he doesn’t have enough money to continue with classes.
My attempt at being a “professional” photographer – ha! (2002)
2003
Adam rents a bedroom from a chronic smoker. He stuffs t-shirts under his door to limit inhalation! He lives here for the next couple years.
May 2003
Adam gets a job at Soundcheck rehearsal facility doing cartage (delivering, setting up, and picking up gear for session musicians at recording studios). Long story short, Adam met the owner a couple of years before moving to Nashville, because the father of the owner’s wife took organ lessons from Adam’s dad. Adam decided to follow-up on this contact after a temp job at Dell ended. It just so happened that someone was just fired that day for being drunk on the job! I think this was more than a coincidence!
It is shortly after this time that Adam becomes good friends and songwriting buddies with co-worker, Mark Hull. For the next seven years, they write together regularly.
Due to having a small staff at this time, Adam often works an average of six nights per week for the next couple years. This doesn’t leave much time for getting in the Nashville scene.
June 2005
Adam marries me. 🙂
Later in 2005?
Adam auditions for Nashville Star – makes it past the first two rounds.
He also writes Make Your Way Back.
A song that opens doors with some of the industry professionals named later in this post.
April 2006
Adam is welcomed into the Catholic Church!
2006
Adam records some demos for Dean Sams of Lonestar. Dean introduces Adam to Glen Mitchell, a guitar player and aspiring artist. They hit it off and write a little bit, and Dean draws up contracts for him to produce them as a duo project. Nothing was signed by either party as this was a kind of manufactured arrangement and wasn’t really destined to work out.
Also, a session musician (who will remain nameless) who Adam met through Soundcheck takes an interest in producing Adam. He tries to get Adam and Jason Aldean’s three original band members together for a project. There is some mild interest, but Jason’s career takes off and the rest is history!
Fall 2007
Adam gets a guitar gig with a young, aspiring country singer, Emma Jacob, through a referral by a Soundcheck client.
This gig lasted through 2011. During that time, Adam became production manager and band leader. He got to travel all over the country, do radio tours, and open for acts like Charlie Daniels and Jason Aldean.
Adam, Mark, my cousin Tommy, Mark’s childhood friend Mike, a guitar player, and a keyboard player create DoubleTake, an awesome 80’s cover band! Adam and Mark were both lead singers and guitar players who would each sing a song by whatever 80’s bands or artists they had on their set list. For example, Adam sang Bryan Adam’s Run To You and Mark sang Cuts Like a Knife or Adam would sing Foreigner’s Double Vision and Mark would sing Jukebox Hero.
Here’s their promo video. (Thanks, Adam, for re-uploading it!) The plan was to do corporate parties, but this fizzled out for some reason and instead they pursued an original band so they wouldn’t have to worry about paying a keyboard player at downtown gigs anymore when nobody else was making any money!
2008
Adam quits working full-time at Soundcheck.
Photo by Rick Malkin
Longshot Rocket is formed. It consists of some of the same members of DoubleTake. Adam and Mark alternate lead vocals and guitar. Brent Rowan (produced Joe Nichols, Julie Roberts, and Blake Shelton) becomes interested in Adam and Mark’s songs and their project. He questions the stability and longevity of the band. Thus…
The duo, 2AM, is born. Adam and Mark play acoustic sets around town, but yet again this project dies, too, when Mark chooses not to come out on the road to play some dates on the Nashville To You 2010 summer tour. Brent Rowan becomes busy with other projects and his interest fades when an attorney gets involved and tries to encourage 2AM to negotiate different percentages on publishing and what not. (Adam majorly regrets this, as he really wanted to work with Brent!)
Adam makes the decision to try to pursue a solo career.
May 2009
Oldest daughter, C, is born.
Summers of 2010 and 2011
Adam plays and sings for Emma and also performs as a solo artist on the Nashville To You Campground and NASCAR Tours. On this tour he gets to know THE LiNE (on The Voice in 2012) and Jenn Bostic (April’s Dreamer in the Spotlight).
Here’s a video of Adam singing his original song, Liar, with THE LiNE on the tour.
Spring 2011
Little A is born.
Adam is still a road musician at this time and supplements by working at a relative’s gold-buying store until the tour begins.
Adam gets a wake up call about his motivation as an artist when talking to an acquaintance in the music industry. He asks Adam, “What do you want to do with your music?” Adam responds, “Make money.” He’s pretty embarrassed by the answer, but at the time, we just had our second daughter and he was thinking about supporting his family, but this was a turning point in discovering his true motivation for pursuing music.
Fall 2011
Adam starts rehearsing new material with my cousin, Tommy, and his friend, Ed. They play a couple of shows, but due to lack of time and Adam’s continued struggle with finding his right purpose, he withdraws from trying to “make it” in the music industry.
2012
Adam begins working full-time at Soundcheck again as an engineer for rehearsing acts. He decides to spend more time focusing on his own career, rather than go out on the road with another artist. He also wants to be home as much as possible with our family.
2013
Adam continues to write songs, mostly by himself. (He feels that not a lot of other musicians are on the same page spiritually and priority-wise.) This new material is hopeful, positive, and truthful.
Adam also sings demos and jingles for extra income. His voice is on the radio somewhere in the country singing about eye banks in South Dakota. Yes, eye banks! True Story!
Adam is focusing on raising our young daughters while working a full-time job. He has dreams of playing/speaking at men’s conferences and championing fatherhood. He feels the time is getting close to jump back into music, but he isn’t quite there yet! Adam truly enjoys and loves our family and I’m so thankful to have this man as my husband!
~
Whew! This post took a lot more time than I had anticipated!
Thanks for hanging in with us! I hope you enjoyed this time traveling down memory lane!
While browsing YouTube vids, I ran across this impromptu throwback of Adam doing a cover of Stormy Monday at a hotel room while on the road. I’ll let this close out the post!
Have a good weekend!
Tags: Adam Shick, career, dreams, music, nashville
A Dreamer's Wife 
Anything You Want: Creating an Independent Artist Utopia
5 OctHave you heard of CD Baby? This company sells independent music online and was founded by Derek Sivers in 1998 and, despite his intentions, became a multimillion dollar business. A few months ago, I read his book Anything You Want that detailed what he learned about starting and running a business, etc. His book is not the typical business leadership book – and I loved it! I often find myself coming back to some of the nuggets of wisdom in this short read when making plans and goals for our future, especially in regards to Adam’s music career.
I love that Adam and I can create his own “musician utopia.” There are no “rules” that we have to follow. There is no record label dictating his schedule and how he spends his time. He is not confined to a specific genre and does not have to fit a certain type of mold. Our family can still be a priority and he can write songs about his faith without being confined to the Christian music category box.
Recently, I ran across an old post at Indie Vision Music that asked people what they thought of an article written by artist Gungor on his website, titled “Why the Christian music category shouldn’t exist.” The post brought up some intriguing points and the comments that followed were pretty interesting, as well. I know that categories can be useful, but they can be limiting, as well. Also, it seems odd to me to confine songs about God to a small section of the music industry… Let me know what you think!
A big part of creating our utopia is figuring out how to use Adam’s talents to help others. I love the following quote by Aristotle.
If we focus on how Adam’s music can be used to help others, then I think we will be on the right track. We used to be so consumed with how and when Adam could be a big enough artist to support our family, but now we’re not focused on the money aspect. Money and fame are not motivators for Adam. I, personally, just want Adam to be able to enjoy doing music without putting additional pressure on himself. We are both blessed to have jobs and be able to spend so much time with our daughters. God has provided for us time and again financially and I know that He will continue to do so.
Also, Adam wants to be true to himself and his beliefs and sing about things that matter. He doesn’t like how the music industry panders to a certain demographic. Country music is a perfect example of this. Many (superficial) singles on the radio right now have to do with trucks, dirt roads, and drinking. What happened to the country music of 10 years ago that inspired Adam to move to Nashville? What happened to meaningful songs about love, faith, and family? I like a fun, upbeat song as much as the next person, but seriously, where is the substance? Even Vince Gill, Adam’s musical idol, has commented on this topic.
In addition, while social media has given artists more ways to connect to people than ever before, it also forces one to constantly be promoting and thinking of the next gimmick to get everyone’s attention. From trying to make viral YouTube videos to coming up with a unique merchandise item to sell, it almost seems like there is more effort put into “attention-getters” than the actual music itself.
Of course, doing things on our own is more challenging and time-consuming than if we had a team of professional industry insiders to guide Adam’s musical dreams, but how much would we have to compromise? How would our marriage endure? Would our family suffer? I’m so excited that Adam can release an album (yes, he’s working on a full-length album as opposed to the popular 5-song EP in this radio single-dominated market) full of whatever music he wants. Some songs are upbeat with irresistible melodies. Others are thought-provoking, insightful and inspiring. We are learning how to do new things in order to be creative and professional on our tiny budget. The freedom that we have is definitely worth the extra time.
Welcome to our utopia- where God, family, being real, and figuring out how our dreams can help others rules our ever-expanding little world!
What does your utopia look like?
Tags: Adam Shick, Anything You Want, Aristotle quote, CD Baby, Christian music, country music, Derek Sivers, family, Gungor, independent artist, inspiration, utopia, Vince Gill comment