We’ve just done the craziest thing. We borrowed money (a lot of money) and hired one of the top classical-crossover producers in the world with whom to record a full-length studio album. We secretly escaped to a UNESCO world-heritage city called Bruges in Belgium from mid-May to mid-June and recorded the whole thing. When I was younger, I used to watch Suzi Orman’s television show on financial advice and there is one piece of advice she gave almost every episode: “If you don’t have the money, don’t spend the money.” That seems completely logical, but at the same time, I’ve always boldly pursued my dreams when I felt strongly about realizing them. Sometimes my ideas are unconventional—this one is no different, but in the end, they always pay off. We’ve become so practical in our society, shirking off art as a career and cutting budgets for arts education and government-sponsored art programs. We’ve all forgotten one important consequence to doing that: “Without ART there would be no eARTh.” Have you noticed how homogenized we’re becoming as a society? How easy is it to stoke fear and controversy with a tweet, even? Back when art was at its peak, people use to bleed for it, literally. Nowadays parents will discourage their kids from taking piano lessons or painting classes because it’s “not practical” and it “doesn’t lead to anything.” James and I couldn’t possibly feel more different about the situation. Performing Arts, Visual Arts and Liberal Arts make us more well-rounded people and it’s our humble belief that they balance out society. Just close your eyes for one minute and imagine a world without music in it.
To view the campaign and support our project go to our IndieGoGo page at https://igg.me/at/brandenandjames
After our show, people often come up to us and say things such as: “You guys should be playing in big-time theaters around the world” “I’ve never heard a combination like this. It works so well. You guys have so much talent.” The list of compliments goes on and on…. We’ve received such an incredible amount of affirmation about the places people can visualize us playing our music, we’ve decided to just simply try and put ourselves there. James and I are well aware we’ve chosen one of the most difficult industries to make it in. But if we don’t take these risks to bring us closer to realizing our dreams, where would we be? We see so many performers in various types of entertainment: guest entertainers on cruise lines, cabaret artists, indie bands, etc that live in a very complacent world. They’ve allowed their fears and life circumstances to prohibit them from moving along any further.
About a year ago, I had a lightbulb go off in my head while James and I were on a long flight abroad. I was assessing our forthcoming performance opportunities and realized I wanted to give this one last try. A proper try. I drafted a crazy document called “One More Push” and showed it to James. He got on board with me and we pulled together initial funding, a world-class music producer and a plan within a couple of months. Through that experience, we discovered that we actually make good business partners as well. We’ve done the easy work; we made the music. That was a pleasure. Now we have to roll up our sleeves and call on our supporters to help make our dream a reality. This will be the third time I’ve crowdfunded a music project, but the first time I’ve ever even dreamed of doing it at this level. Since putting things in place, many other opportunities have fallen into our lap. We have the interest of high-level management, I signed a book deal and we’re on our way to that next level stuff we’ve been dreaming about. It just goes to show that when you put forth the effort, things can and will come back to you.
To view the campaign and support our project go to our IndieGoGo page at https://igg.me/at/brandenandjames
I must admit, it’s a daunting feeling to approach your friends, family, and fans and ask them for money. I knew when we decided to go ahead with a lump sum transfer from a private lender that we’d have to call on you all to help make this happen for us. Some of my other artist friends would never dream of crowdfunding. They sarcastically refer to it as begging for money. Other artists such as Amanda Palmer, “queen of the internet” crowdfunded an album that set a record for the highest grossing music project of all time. From that success, she wrote a New York Times best-selling book and gave a TED talk. James and I both read that book entitled, “The Art of Asking” and learned from Ms. Palmer that the people that love us and surround us are more willing to help than we realize. She says, “When you ask someone for help, you are letting that person know that you trust them; and when they help you, they are telling you that they trust you as well.” Is the world a crazy place today? Yes. But is there still beauty all around us? YES. So while it might seem frivolous to us to ask for money to make a record instead of helping to feed starving children, we have to realize that levity and peace are an equally important balance in society. Madonna once warbled on one of her hit albums, “Music makes the people come together.” It bonds us and it makes us whole. Music is the language we all can communicate in; and agree on. When I look around at the world we live in today, something that is so painfully obvious is how divided we are. If you are willing to help us share our music, together we can make the world a better place.
To support our project go to our IndieGoGo page at https://igg.me/at/brandenandjames
