Meet Cook McKoy

Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Cook McKoy. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Cook, thanks so much for taking the time to share your insights and lessons with us today. We’re particularly interested in hearing about how you became such a resilient person. Where do you get your resilience from?

Well, I’ll start off by saying that I firmly believe that resilience is a learned behavior, not completely innate. At a young age, I was faced with numerous challenges. I was bounced around from household to household until about the age of 10 where I settled in with my father. He was an alcoholic coal miner who was also addicted to pain pills, probably by no fault of his own due to his profession and the lack of understanding at the time how addictive opioids were. It was the typical West Virginia coal country story that most men are born into due to generational habits and nepotistic hiring practices. In other words, “you did what your daddy did”. I am in no way knocking the profession. Coal miners are of the most hard working people on the planet, and generally, they do so to provide a decent life for their families. But it’s hard work, and that hard work sometimes changes a man when he looks into the crystal ball of his future and sees coal dust, back pain and black lung. This has a tendency to bleed into the here and now and cause a not so happy home life at times due to the persuasions of escape, which more often that not involve large amounts of alcohol and other forms of medication. That being said, my resilience training began early, teaching me to depend only on myself because others always fall short. I had my shortcomings along the way and didn’t always walk the straight path, but also learned invaluable life lessons, the entire time counting down the days until my 18th birthday where I could then be in complete control of my life and my destiny. So when I turned 18, that day, my birthday, I left for Parris Island SC for Marine Corps boot camp. Over the next 5 years of my life, what I hadn’t learned on my own about resilience was taught to me in spades.

Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?

Well, my name is Cook McKoy and first and foremost I am a husband and father. I work a 9 to 5 job and moonlight as a solo acoustic performer as well as front man for the band Dinnerbell Road. I have been performing music professionally for about 8 years now. I was always interested in music at a young age, but was never given the tools to pursue it as much as I had liked. So music was always something that was on the backburner for a long time until a good friend of mine pushed me in the direction to finally take it serious. From there, I self taught myself the guitar, dove headfirst into songwriting, and eventually put together a band. Dinnerbell Road just released our second LP last summer called “Rust on the Rocks” and I am extremely proud of that album. Over the last few years we have really dialed in the type of music that we want to create and I’m really excited about what we’ve been able to accomplish, and what we have planned for the future. We blend country, rock and roll, and a little blues together into something we call “Rust Belt Music”. And it’s not just about the sound, it’s also about the message and the storytelling. Each song that we create is rooted in some truth that people can relate to, and I think that’s what makes it unique. If anyone out there is tired of hearing the same old stuff on mainstream radio, I highly recommend checking out our music on all the streaming platforms.

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?

I think the most important quality for anyone, and not just music, but life in general, is to not be afraid to fail. You have to take chances and you have to learn to be ok with the outcomes. This goes back to the first topic of resilience. You have to have thick skin in a lot of instances. No one sets out in the music industry to make millions of dollars or to be famous. There are only a select few who are lucky enough to follow that path. The majority of us, although no less talented than the big names, mire in obscurity with the occasional short lived peak. But the important thing is to keep working, keep honing your craft and control what you can. Normally, good things happen when you do that. So for me, taking the risk is the most important. Putting yourself and your stories out there for others. Secondly, I think work ethic is extremely important. Things purposely don’t come easy. You have to put in the work. In most cases the hardest workers rise to the top and are given the opportunities. That’s not always the case, but work ethic is one of those qualities that you can control. No one else is going to do the work for you. You have to put in the time. And lastly I would say a very important quality is being able to build relationships. I feel like this is true in all aspects of life, but definitely for musicians. When you’re involved in a network of people who provide a service, you should want to get to know as many people as you can and create a relationship, no matter how big or how small. I’m a firm believer that you get back what you give. If you support others, they’ll have a tendency to support you. If you’re kind, people will treat you that way. It takes the same amount of effort to be kind as it does to be unkind. And of course there are caveats to all of this. There are a lot of people out there for whatever reason who may not deserve or want your support or kindness, and that’s ok. Just keep moving down the road.

How can folks who want to work with you connect?

I’m always looking for folks to partner or collaborate with. Whether that be people who create, or people who are in need of creators. I’m always trying to bring attention and opportunity to Dinnerbell Road through whatever means are available. In today’s environment, it’s a very tough thing to do. There are so many people out there creating music and most times it’s hard to break through because there are so many gatekeepers. And record labels don’t even want to look at you nowadays unless you have hundreds of thousands of followers on social media, and millions of streams on the music platforms. As a consumer, there’s so much out there that it’s hard to find the diamonds in the rough anymore. So it’s really a double edged sword. The opportunity is greater than ever for anyone creating music, but that also means that there’s so much out there, that a lot of it gets overlooked. You just have to keep working hard and putting good music out there and hope that eventually the right person hears you and understands what you’re doing. That is my hope for Dinnerbell Road. That someone will read this article, or hear us on a streaming platform and become a fan, support our music, tell others about us, and come to a show. I feel like nowadays, this is the the most important path. But if anyone out there is interested in collaborating, or booking us for a show, or anything in between, we can be reached at www.dinnerbellroadband.com or message us on Facebook or Instagram (@dinnerbellroad), or send an email to [email protected].

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Image Credits

Lindsay Brown
Bill Damiano

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