A Quote by Tift Merritt

You can always boil down the life of a musician to touring, playing, and writing. — © Tift Merritt
You can always boil down the life of a musician to touring, playing, and writing.
When you're a touring musician, you're always turning over new rocks and there's always a certain level of tension in your life.
I’ve been making electronic music for twenty some odd years but, because I grew up playing in punk rock bands, when I started touring, I thought in order to be a viable touring musician I had to do it with a band. I would DJ or tour with a full rock band.
After graduating college in 2010, I got to work - writing and co-writing all the time, playing and touring in bands, playing for other people's bands, working in coffee shops all over town.
I'm always writing. And, I mean, I always counsel people when they call me a musician: I really do not have the skills of a musician. I really don't think like a musician, though I love music and I perform and sing.
When you're a touring musician, you're always turning over new rocks, and there's always a certain level of tension in your life. The music business, and the travel that comes with it, is stressful, challenging, redundant, exhausting, exciting, and often very depressing.
So if you can make it through, you know you've got something good, you can handle anything. We've been blessed to grow but at the same time, the hard part is having to wear every single hat. It's exhausting, but it's entirely worth it because on the flip side, the best part about being a touring musician is being a touring musician.
The best part of touring is playing the shows. I mean, that is the point of touring, at least for me. I have been blessed in that I've always gotten to play with other good musicians.
Most people define themselves by what they do - 'I'm a musician.' Then one day it occurred to me that I'm only a musician when I'm playing music - or writing music, or talking about music. I don't do that 24 hours a day. I'm also a father, a son, a husband, a citizen - I mean, when I go to vote, I'm not thinking of myself as 'a musician.'
When you're a touring musician, you're always turning over new rocks and there's always a certain level of tension in your life. The music business, and the travel that comes with it, is stressful, challenging, redundant, exhausting, exciting, and often very depressing. After all of these years, I'm still trying to cope with aspects of it.
I always liked playing music and I always wanted to be good at playing guitar. I always saw myself as an old man living in the mountains playing a guitar, but I didn't really turn that into a desire to be a professional musician or a singer or a rock star or anything like that.
I think every touring musician sacrifices aspects of their life to do it.
My thing with New York was that it felt so insular. When I went to L.A., everybody I knew was a cool, amazing musician. In New York, they'd be hunkered down trying to form a band. But in L.A., guys in bands were also playing with other artists, touring with other artists, and collaborating with other artists.
So many people have told me that it's quite different playing out in the States, and obviously, as a musician, touring in the States is kind of the Holy Grail.
Jonathan Kreisberg is a great musician whose playing and writing always tell a story. His formidable technique and intellect never get in the way, but only serve the agenda of the heart.
I didn't really think I would be a musician. I always thought I'd be a writer. I wanted to be a writer in college, but I thought I could be a better musician. I loved the process of writing music and lyrics more than I loved the process of sitting at my computer and writing. Because of that, I thought I would be a better musician than a writer.
I've mostly been focusing on writing, and I've really enjoyed not playing music. It will always be part of my life, but I don't feel the immediate need to be playing for people.
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