We were lucky to catch up with Corey Adams recently and have shared our conversation below.
Corey, 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 feel I have learned to keep my creativity alive by continually working to allow myself to be sensitive. Our culture is so fast paced and riddled with little anxieties, it is very easy to shut off, focus on one’s self, and simply try to survive the day. I’ve found that as I continue to be sensitive to the world around me, I am able to absorb various stories of ache, trial, success, love, despair. You end up carrying all the weight, which can bury you – but the secret for me is to create space and time to be alone. So I often stay up late, sit outside, build a fire, and just open myself up to the silence like humans have been doing to millions of years, and just wrestle with it all. I never win, but sometimes am able to write about the limp I incurred from the match.
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?
My name is Corey Adams, and I’m a husband, father, musician and youth outreach worker – I’m 37 years old. My entire life has been defined by playing music in bands, writing songs, travelling, and trying to help young people find their way in life.
I’ve been playing in a band with my closest friends for 13 years now, called Moonsville Collective. We’re an Americana string band (fiddle, mandolin, banjo, dobro etc) from the greater LA area that plays a mix of folk, blues and alt country. We’ve played hundreds and hundreds of shows over the 13 years we’ve been together, and we continue to pride ourselves on being a real band, of real people, playing honest music.
Moonsville has had it’s moments of providing glimpses into becoming a full time vocation, but with wives and kids duplicating each year in the band, most of us have opted to maintain some more traditional work paths. For me, that’s a world of Youth Outreach work, where I run a robust program in Orange County for students to grow into happy, healthy young adults. There is often a bit of battle within, where the artist wants to outdo the professional, and find a way to provide the romantic, unorthodox life for my family that being a full time artist can provide – but I do my best to settle in the tension, and just try to do both passions to my best ability and let fate draw me forward. That being said, Moonsville will be releasing our first batch of new material in 5 years, with singles to start flowing in January and full album release in April. We feel very good about this record, and look forward to what comes from it all.
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?
Embracing my sensitive side was huge shift in understanding myself, gifts and passions. As a teenager, it became clear I was one of few of my peers to be so sensitive, be it music, movies, stories, connecting with people of different walks of life – all these things really moved me, and began to come out in creative ways.
I have a bit of a large personality as well, and I grew up around a mostly blue collar family. In my younger years, I was always looking to make people laugh, entertain them, be silly, loud or obnoxious if it seemed the right context, or charming in another context. Again, once I began to embrace this quality in myself, I was able to interject that into my songs and onstage as a performer. My outgoing and fun personality is also core to my ability to work with large groups of students in my professional life.
I also have a love for history, context and music. I love thinking about how things were, and why. Taking that knowledge and turning it into something new. The first songs I ever wrote were little tales about the history of California, or of war, or slavery, or the great depression. I took these things I was really moved by, and turned them into songs. It was very helpful to lean into these large events that have historically moved many people, as I began my own journey in learning how to create my own stories in a way that are as compelling as these large events we all relate to.
Much of my journey was aided by surrounding myself with mentors who could see my skillset and help me develop my true sense of identity – which is why I’ve become a musician and youth worker now. There were lots of people in my life who affirmed my qualities above, which in turn helped me boost confidence and therefor confidence in expressing all I had going on inside. The sooner one can get in touch with their core values, or true callings, the sooner the universe will answer back with opportunity.
As we end our chat, is there a book you can leave people with that’s been meaningful to you and your development?
I was most moved by Steinbeck’s novellas – Of Mice and Men, The Pearl, or Hemingway’s Old Man and the Sea. I was just shattered by there ability to express such large concepts and emotions in such short phrases. Not only that, but these stories have a way of reflecting the true beauty found in the tension of things, the beauty of struggle. To pursue love, dreams, or even just sustenance, the human condition can be so achingly beautiful. I’d love to write one song in my life that is able to speak as largely as these stories do.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.moonsvillecollective.com
- Instagram: @moonsville
- Facebook: facebook.com/moonsvillecollective
- Twitter: @moonsvilleco
- SoundCloud: https://open.spotify.com/artist/1vZFuzraAcyw7ktcxu9DAs
Image Credits
Sagia Silva, Scott Witt, Arionna Adams
