We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Fox Michaels. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Fox below.
Fox, 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?
I think my resilience in both life and my attempts at having a career in the arts comes from a couple things. One, I pretty much can’t do anything else nearly even half as well so like…why would I spend the majority of my life doing anything else? And two, I do completely feel that I will vanish without a trace pretty quickly after I die so there’s a component to it that makes it feel like I need to do something big with my art to have “made it all worth it” or something and feel . And so many industries these days seem to be not as fruitful as they once were even just a few years ago, but surviving in today’s music industry requires a significant amount of and a particular kind of resolve. There’s definitely a sizable chip on my shoulder though about a lot of things in life so that keeps me coming back no matter how bad it’s gotten. So I believe I have a lot to prove still.
Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?
Hi, everybody. I’m Fox Michaels, a San Diego based independent musician, actor, writer, artist. Primarily, I make music. Songwriting is what I love the most. For most of my life, I’ve wanted to become a rockstar. Fox Michaels is my solo project that I didn’t fully get going until the very end of 2023, so I just got through my first full year with the project. My real name is Sam. It’s been a lot of starts and stops the past 7 years. It’s a tough business that’s only gotten tougher. But then you find out you really are out here straight up doing it for the love of the game. It’s nice to know it’s pure in that way I guess.
This project has started to mean a lot to me because it’s my main artistic outlet right now, although I do quite a bit outside of this project. I’m also in a band called Poems that’s great. But Fox Michaels is sort of my less filtered id and the thing I fully get to go crazy with if I want to. I get to make it whatever I want to be pretty much whenever. I grew up loving counter culture/alternative artists that still managed to cross over into the mainstream. I draw a lot of inspiration from stuff like Motown, 60s pop/rock, 70s singer songwriters, 70s-80s punk/funk/disco/new wave/goth, 90s punk rock/pop/r&b, 2000s indie rock/garage rock revival, slacker rock, and more. Will be releasing more music in the next few months! Have been writing new stuff that I’m really excited about.
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?
A thing for me that has impacted my journey is my love of words and language and storytelling. That really developed me into a writer and a lover of the art form. Being in front of a TV and watching a lot of the children’s programming of the late 80s through the 90s and playing video games has had a huge impact on my sense of humor, style, and aesthetics. Also, I’m a bit of a curious person in general when it comes to peoples’ motivations and passions in artistic endeavors and otherwise. That has helped me want to continue to develop and learn from lots of different types of people .
You really have to like the work of it at least a little bit. When I was a bit younger, I was hesitant to sitting down and continuing to develop my weak spots as a musician and artist. I wanted to do certain things and avoid the aspects that I didn’t enjoy so much. You have to realize that even if you are extremely talented, you have to be even better than you thought you needed to be and then some to advance in this industry if you don’t have the connections or the money or the looks or whatever. The learning and the getting better at everything should never stop.
One of our goals is to help like-minded folks with similar goals connect and so before we go we want to ask if you are looking to partner or collab with others – and if so, what would make the ideal collaborator or partner?
I am most definitely always looking for people to collaborate with. I’ve really learned to like working with other people who are talented and nice. It really is my main reward, to get the opportunity to work alongside a bunch of other incredible people working in the industry. And I like collaborating with other artists on things so am always open to that, but also what I’m looking for is to one day work with people who are better at the business side of things. A lot of artists are really whole teams of people. I’m not at that point yet so it’s a lot of me trying to make things happen that I’ve never made happen before. I’ve gotten a lot better about organizing, planning, and understanding certain things that I used to not, but it’s still not my strong suit. I am super open to a lot of things though so I’m mostly on instagram @fox_michaels if you want to reach me about anything.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: fox_michaels
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@foxmichaelsmusic
Image Credits
Main photo: Ty Fox (@tyfoxphoto)
so if you or someone you know deserves recognition please let us know here.
