The Real Story of How I Became a Professional, Full-time Musician & Producer - Part 2

In the last email, I told the story of how I got my start in music, and we went wayyyy back to the crib!   If you missed it, you can check that out here. 

Picking up where we left off…

I remember the turning point in my own journey - the point when I decided to dive headfirst into producing.

I was living in San Diego at the time, and I went to a “pitch to publisher” event where a Nashville publisher was listening to people’s songs and giving feedback.

I sat there with my heart beating out of my chest as she listened to my very rough worktape.

All I wanted to hear were the words “I want to give you a publishing deal”, but instead I heard..

"Kris, you're a great songwriter, but you need more than a worktape to represent your songs. If you could only produce your own songs, you'd be unstoppable!"

And that was all it took to light a fire under my ass. 🔥

I went home and immediately immersed myself in learning music production -monk mode, baby!!.

As a singer-songwriter, my tech saviness was about as sharp as a butter knife, so learning how to produce was extremely difficult for me, but I powered through. I was ALL IN!

At this point, I knew I was ready to commit to my songwriting career, so I moved to Nashville in 2015 to pursue my dream of becoming a hit songwriter. 

I had already been making connections through some online communities, and had even taken a two week trip there to get a feel for the scene and make some friends..

When I arrived, I immediately started doing writer's rounds, bar gigs (to make some cash), and co-writing with different writers and artists.

That was one of the things I loved about Nashville.  

People treat songwriting like a business there. A typical schedule for a songwriter might look something like this:

8am-9am publisher meeting

10am-1pm writing session

1pm-12pm lunch

2pm-5pm writing session

6pm writer’s round 

I even had days where I wrote 3 songs a day! 🤯

I was quickly becoming the “go-to” track girl not only in my co-writing sessions, but also for many songwriters who couldn’t produce their own demos.

So while learning how to produce was really solving my own problem at first (not being able to afford to pay for demos), it added value to me as a co-writer, and it started to become this little “side hustle” where I could make some extra cash! 

Next thing I knew, I’m getting hired as a producer to do everything from demos to vocals, to jingles, kids songs, custom songs, and even music for Film/TV. 

While this was nice, I still had my eye on the prize of getting that hit song, and/or that publishing deal.

But then something amazing happened.

One day, a hit songwriter was at my home studio.

He sat on the couch watching as I updated my whiteboard, adding another project to my already full list of commissioned songs I had in the pipeline.

All of a sudden, he turned to me and said, “These are all PAID jobs?!” “How do I do what YOU do?!”

I was like, “wait a second…you just wrote a #1 song! I want to know how to do what YOU’RE doing!!” 

We looked at each other - both of us perplexed - and then chuckled.

He then went on to explain how his publishing deal worked, and how he wasn’t actually making that much money from the smash single after everything was split up between the writers and publishers, and paying back the advance. 

And that’s when it hit me.  

This “side hustle” of mine was actually more of a FRONT hustle, and just because I hadn’t landed a “hit song”, didn’t mean I hadn’t made it.  

I also realized that while there thousands of talented songwriters in Nashville, I was the only one I knew who  was getting paid for writing songs without having to pay back an advance.

Once I realized that, I really decided to go ALL in, and not just focus on building my chops as a music producer, but also, as a business.

And that’s how I became a full time producer from my home studio. 

I’m going to be spilling ALL of the tea on HOW I did that in my upcoming training, “Rise of the Boss Producer”, which is a FREE 3-day bootcamp for the modern day musician who wants to learn how to produce and get PAID! 

You can reserve your seat by clicking the button below, and the fun begins July 6th at 12pm PT and goes till July 8th! (Don’t worry, there will be replays! 😉) 

Wishing you success and creativity✨