Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Addison Agen. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Addison, thank you so much for taking the time to share your lessons learned with us and we’re sure your wisdom will help many. So, one question that comes up often and that we’re hoping you can shed some light on is keeping creativity alive over long stretches – how do you keep your creativity alive?
I don’t just wait for creativity to hit me. I seek it out. Although it’s amazing to feel naturally inspired and on fire about something, often times it takes a little bit more work than that to reach our best creative selves. I find that if I spend a small amount of time during my mornings being creative, even in simple ways like…making a new type of breakfast, taking a new route on my walk or journaling for 5 minutes, the process of trying to “access” my creativity throughout my day gets a lot easier. Creativity becomes more of a way of living rather than something you have to turn on. On a more straight forward note, we’re humans, and I think it is nearly impossible for us to not be creative.
Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?
Someone told me almost ten years ago to “do what you can’t not do”. Ever since then I knew singing and songwriting was how I was going to spend a huge amount of my time. Mostly because, well, I just can’t not. My journey has consisted of writing song after song in my bedroom, playing coffee shop gigs during middle and high school for some extra cash, leading worship with my family and friends from ages 5-current, randomly auditioning for this TV show called “The Voice” where my life was changed, making records in Michigan, Indiana, and Tennessee, and traveling and playing shows around the US. In the midst of all of that I was also trying my best to be a decent high school and college student. There are so many wonderful and wild things about my life and music has been one of the main things that has brought them into my life. Although it’s super challenging and frustrating at time, it’s the dream job for sure.
I’m currently working on my next, new, solo record. It’s about finding gratitude in where you’ve been, where you’re going and where you are now and I’m SUPER proud of it. The songwriting process is my favorite part of my job but there’s nothing like bringing the songs I’ve put so much energy into to life. A release date will be announced soon and I couldn’t be more excited to share what my team and I have been working on.
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?
I think kindness speaks volumes. This is not me saying I’ve perfected kindness (I wish) but I do think in the moments I’ve been able to be kind in difficult situations have been the most pivotal moments of my career. The truth is, good people attract good people. I think that would be my advice to others on this artist journey. Just be a person you would want to spend time around. Lift people up. Yes, it matters to be technically skilled in what you do, of course, but if you’ve perfected your skills and haven’t found kindness, what’s it all for? The main reasons I do music is to connect with people and people don’t tend to want to connect with unkind people.
Being un-offendable is also a helpful tool in my area of work. Again, I’m absolutely not perfect at this, but I’d like to believe that most things aren’t about me. If someone doesn’t like my music, it’s probably not personal. I mean, there’s tons of music that I’m not really into but that doesn’t mean I hate the people who are making it. And if I did hate them because of it, well, that’s probably my problem, not theirs.
Lastly, I think determination is super important in the music world. It’s a surprisingly challenging career choice and determination has helped me push past the less-than-ideal moments and remind myself why I do what I do.
Before we go, maybe you can tell us a bit about your parents and what you feel was the most impactful thing they did for you?
The most impactful thing my parents did for me was to encourage my creativity. I was homeschooled so we had the privilege of having more time than the average middle schooler to spend being creative. They always encouraged my siblings and I to try new things and if we failed, well, we’d try again, and again after that, and then once more after we’ve tried more than we can count. We were allowed to fail so much that failing sort of became nonexistent. It had lost its power. This mindset paired with the encouragement we received was such a huge gift.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://Addisonagen.com
- Instagram: [email protected]
- Facebook: Addison Agen
- Youtube: Addison Agen
Image Credits
Ellie Turner
Mitchell Schleper
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