Meet Adam Stern

We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Adam Stern. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Adam below.

Adam, so great to have you with us today. There are so many topics we want to ask you about, but perhaps the one we can start with is burnout. How have you overcome or avoided burnout?

The best way for me to avoid burnout is to not get sucked into bad musical ventures.

Avoid people just doing gigs as an excuse to party.

Avoid people who can’t handle the business end of “music business.”

Avoid people who have a superficial understanding of the music they’re playing.

Avoid people who take a hobbyist approach to music (E.G just lazily reading songs off an iPad using amateur “charts” they downloaded from a guitar site).

Avoid people with delusional career aspirations.

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 provide what I call “musical services” in the Denver area which generally takes the shape of live performances, recording and guitar instruction. My primary instruments are guitar and pedal steel my general idiom is American Roots Music. I have played everywhere from punk bars to Red Rocks over the last year with artists ranging from a Grammy winner to an up-and-coming honky tonker.

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?

Show up on time.

Leave sober.

Don’t try to overshadow the main guy.

Is there a particular challenge you are currently facing?

People that struggle to speak the language of music and only want to regurgitate phrases phonetically.

With what I do there is a “right” way to do things and I’m happy to show someone the golden path.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.adamsternmusic.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/countryjew/

Image Credits

the photo of me sitting down is by Sandra Quinlan