We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Payton Pruitt a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Payton, looking forward to learning from your journey. You’ve got an amazing story and before we dive into that, let’s start with an important building block. Where do you get your work ethic from?
I think it’s a combination of belief, necessity, and a little bit of people-pleasing.
I believe in the songs I write (some more than others), the shows we play (some more than others), even my eye for design (some days more than others) so much so that I think other people will connect with them and possibly even gain something from them. It’s kind of absurd – the amount of self-confidence and delusion we have to have to believe that what we’re making is contributing to society in a positive way, but it truly does feel like I was put on earth to write these songs, play these shows, and make this art.
At some point in my early 20s, it became necessity. I honestly don’t think I was a very hard worker until then. I think I mostly coasted through life, trying to figure out what I wanted to do with it. I started playing guitar at 12, started writing songs at 16, joined my first couple of bands in my last couple of years of high school. Once those ended, I wasn’t sure where to put the energy I’d put into those songs, those bands, those few lame shows we played. I met Carver Commodore’s guitarist, Phil, right after I graduated high school. Through him, I met a lot of other friends who were in college for music and we began to form bands, play on each other’s projects, and push each other. I realized that it was a possibility to do it for a living, but saw that having a music or entertainment industry degree wasn’t a guaranteed way to do it. At the end of the day, what mattered most is that we were all out there learning how to book shows, write songs, record ourselves, produce, etc. That real world experience showed that hard work was the most valuable asset when it comes to having a career in a fluid industry like the music industry. The combination of streaming, over-saturation, and the simple fact that we are living in the most prolific period of music that has ever occured all contribute to this being a very, very hard way to make a living. There are no guarantees of any kind, almost everything is random, and stability is a far-off dream. When life feels like one big algorithm, you have to work hard to be seen or heard in any capacity. I’m now 30, and I spent a good chunk of my 20s hoping that success would happen overnight, but I now realize that not only the timing of success is different for every artist, but the meaning of success is different for every artist. Even when you look around and it feels like everyone around you is getting handouts, hard work is the only option.
The people-pleaser in me probably comes from being an only child and wanting to keep as many friends around as possible. At some point, I found that I genuinely enjoy solving problems and helping people, and when those are combined, you can please a lot of people. That can be a healthy or an unhealthy thing, depending on where your satisfaction comes from. If you live for the reaction and expect everyone to kiss your hand or reward you every time you help someone else out, you’ll eventually be disappointed. I try to find my satisfaction in knowing that I solved a problem that needed to be solved and/or knowing that I tried my best. Some days it’s easier than others! Music provides me a constant dream to chase after and a billion ever-changing problems to solve. When it comes to recorded music as well as design, you usually reach a point where you’ve exhausted the problem-solving aspect and you have to realize that you’ve tried your best, accept imperfection, and call a song/project finished. If you didn’t do that, you’d never be able to move on to the next thing!
Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?
I am the singer/guitarist/songwriter for a band called Carver Commodore. We are an Indie Rock band based in Alabama. We’ve been a band since 2017, but I personally feel like we became the best version of ourselves in 2021, when our full lineup was realized. Alongside my bandmates Phillip, Noah, Clayton, & David, I get to make music that I believe in and travel the country playing that music to friends – old & new. We’ve released 2 albums and 3 EPs (alongside a bunch of other singles and a live EP), and we are currently working on our 3rd album. I genuinely feel like every new thing is the best thing, and every year is full of growth in so many ways. If that ever stops being the case, we will step back and evaluate things, but I don’t see us stopping any time soon. I don’t know if I could stop writing Carver Commodore songs even if I wanted to. It feels like what I was put here to do. We’re just waiting on everyone to notice! We do almost everything in-house, including Music, Merch, Videos, & Graphics. I am very proud of that. You can follow us on all social media at @carvercommodore, join our discord server, check out our music & music videos wherever you consume those, and check out our website to see when we’ll be playing a show near you!
Speaking of hard work – we all have day jobs! Our end goal and a definition of success for us would be for this to be a full-time job. But right now we’re working towards it being a part-time job (Baby steps). I am a self-employed, self-taught graphic designer in my day-to-day life. I started making show posters in GIMP back in 2013, and I haven’t stopped since. They say “don’t make your hobby into a job,” but here we are. It gives me the opportunity to be my own boss, keeps my schedule flexible, and lets me put my creativity and problem-solving to work. You can follow my design page at @ppdesign.psd or check out my website: paytonpruittdesign.com
Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
1. Be willing to learn new things
2. Be willing to ask for help
3. Be willing to change you mind
My main advice is this: find your people and start early! I wish I could have found all the guys in Carver in high school and that we could have started the band when we were 18! Different plans were in store for us and I’m grateful for our timeline no matter what. That said, put yourself out there, seek out the people you want to work with, and start now!
To close, maybe we can chat about your parents and what they did that was particularly impactful for you?
Being an only child and the youngest grandchild, I was spoiled to a certain degree, but thankfully I wasn’t messed up beyond repair. My parents showed me the value of hard work by both working full-time jobs and coming home to provide for our family and coming home to be attentive to me and my needs while also allowing me to be myself fully. My dad worked full-time in the bearing/belt industry for almost 40 years and loves working on cars. While I did and still do help him do that occasionally, he never pushed that on me or tried to make me into a version of himself. My mom has worked full-time “traditional” jobs since she was a teenager, but she never put any expectations on me to follow in her footsteps or made me feel like a failure when I chose a different path. They’ve supported me in my decisions without being controlling or trying to push their own agendas on me, which has allowed me to (slowly) figure myself out and learn new things.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://carvercommodore.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/carvercommodore
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/carvercommodore/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/carvercommodore
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/carvercommodore
- SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/carvercommodore
Image Credits
Photos by Lindsey Chambley & Sam Street. Designs by me (PP Design)
