Creators as Regular People

Getting In On The Ground Level

Meeting super fan Ray Haynes at a Plush show in Portland!

As you all may have noticed, music is and has started becoming a bigger and more significant part of our lives lately, primarily because Little Bean’s interest has begun to escalate. I mentioned to a friend today that her interest was beginning to slip out of my hands, by which I mean it’s becoming hers. That’s a good thing, though I’d prefer to walk with her than follow, but either way will turn out fine.

As she learns piano and maybe violin, and we go to more and more shows and she begins to write about the bands she meets, I had an epiphany about her burgeoning interest that I’d like to tell you about.

One of her favorite bands, the teen band out of Canada, Freeze the Fall, just released a new music video and song and I asked her if she had any questions for the members, Quinn, Aria or Jonah. Myself and their manager, Ginny, keep in touch and have worked together as the line of contact between Little Bean and the band.

And she said she did have a question - she wanted to know if any of the three of them had ever been stung by a wasp and how that felt? And my first thought was, that's a strange question to ask a band. (Background - just a couple days ago, she was stung by a wasp so it was fresh in her mind.) But then I realized that with this band, and with many other young bands who we’ve had a chance to meet and interact with, Little Bean just sees them as normal kids or young adults, just like her. Not musicians, friends. She'd ask her neighborhood friends the same questions. And because they are just a little older than her and they've treated her with such respect, she looks up to them and feels more casual around them.

I imagine this is a sort of pressure for teenagers - not just the stress of school and music and playing, but now being role models. At least I know she sees them like that.

I don't know where I'm going with this, other than to say I think maybe this is a proper and beneficial way to move forward. Maybe that’s a good way to move toward any art, if you can. There might come a day when the musicians she loves are so big and famous that even I can’t set up a meet and greet for her, but for now seeing creators as, well, just regular people, it pretty cool.

In the car the other day, Little Bean asked me how far it was to Canada. I told her about an hour and a half. She brightened up. “So we can go see Freeze the Fall.”

I explained that Canada was as wide as our country and the band was still only playing way on the other side from us, near a city called Vancouver. She thought about this for a moment. “Ok,” she said, “it’s long, but we can go.”

Maybe we will, baby, maybe we will.