Meet Joey Carbo

 

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

Joey, so good to have you with us today. We’ve always been impressed with folks who have a very clear sense of purpose and so maybe we can jump right in and talk about how you found your purpose?

For me, I think it was always there. I was making up songs in a fully serious way as early as I can remember.

I began procuring instruments in any way I could around age 13 and began to think of ways to get music recorded. I had no idea what to do and where I grew up was extremely rural so that didn’t help. My entire musical education was done with those buy one get a hundred Columbia Records Club memberships. I had at least two dozen in different names because I obviously had a lot of research to do. All I ever did was listen to music, try to learn to play, and write.

Finally, I got a Tascam 4 track and I’d duplicate the master tapes myself with a row of cheap decks I strung together and I’d give them out to friends and sell them at my school and coffee shops or at small gigs I was able to get.

Music is just the only thing I ever really cared about, still is. I spend more or less all of my time writing, engineering, mixing, and performing. During the time I’m not doing those things, I still write inside my head and put it all together later, just like I did as a kid.

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 am a touring musician and I run a small, professional recording studio. I’ve made a dozen solo records and fronted several bands but my main gig for the last six years is my band WOORMS. The band is based in (and mostly from) Baton Rouge and New Orleans, Louisiana.

Studio work is not easy work and the research never ends but when I’m alone, immersed in a piece of my own music, adding instrumentation, chopping things up and seeing what I can pull off, layering textures and all of it with no deadlines and little at stake, I’m blissfully lost and time stands still. Everyone probably has something that makes them feel this way. A successful live performance has the same effect for me.

The reason I love playing music on the road is pretty similar. It can be very hectic and there are huge downsides but if you’re a generally restless person and spare time makes you anxious, have I got the gig for you. I find that it narrows my focus and quiets all the background noise of life. You have a very specific goal that you share, usually with people you like, you know exactly what you’re doing every night while also having no idea what will happen at any given show.

WOORMS makes strange and often times heavy music and you can hear it anywhere, including on vinyl, cassette, and CD. If you happen to enjoy it, it would make us all very happy. It’s really an honor to get to do this work. Please look us up.

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?

This may sound odd or off-putting but hear me out. Stubbornness, selfishness, and a willingness to disregard the “rules” completely. Art doesn’t have rules. Most things don’t.

My method is to put my head forward and just go, be single minded. Sometimes you’ll look around and you’ll be surprised at how much you’ve done but don’t stop. Laurels mean nothing, really, only the work matters to me and my thought process on that is simple: I think one rarely learns from success. I’ve learned everything from my failures, next to nothing from the times I knocked it out of the park. I surround myself with and work with artists I consider to be out of my league or more talented and I push myself to keep up. Works every time, I get a little farther each time.

Let me break down those three qualities.
Stubbornness. If I had any sense I’d have given up years ago. If I’d listened to anyone’s good advice I could’ve been a doctor by now. I’d be anywhere but here -where I wanted to be in the first place.

Selfishness. This is not what I’d ordinarily call a good quality but, in context, it does happen to be an artists’ most useful trait. I am only referring to my time, I am not selfish with my love or kindness. Healthy relationships can be maintained while striving toward goals you’ll only achieve with near constant work. The popular idea is that 10,000 hours is required to master a skill. Shoot for 20,000.

Disregard the rules completely. Obviously, this is a horrid thing for an accountant or a politician to do but I aspire to neither. Setting boundaries, as an artist, simply does not work. Imagine you’ve been handed a windshield and a sideview mirror and asked to make a car. You want to do your very best but you’re going to need a few more items. Are those items beyond your self imposed boundaries?

What would you advise – going all in on your strengths or investing on areas where you aren’t as strong to be more well-rounded?

You see it work both ways but I think you just follow your intention. In the music world I think this choice might be made for you, as music generally tends toward full blown obsession. Still I think examples from that world could be relevant to any type of work.

One person becomes fully entrenched in their instrument and works to become a virtuoso. They aspire to a better seat in the orchestra, let’s say. Another guy was born with perfect pitch and finds it easy to move from instrument to instrument. He works with many acts and travels broadly for work, usually playing someone else’s songs.

In my case, I always felt that I had to express something and contribute to a body of work. I drifted from drawing, painting, writing prose and fiction, and, while I found the most joy in writing songs and making music, the work itself was always the point. Ideas and imagination take precedence and playing, while elemental and fun, is a means to an end.

At 11 or 12 I got this little Casio keyboard that would record a short loop that you played and that just made me feel really special. I think it felt like I was really getting somewhere and even though the loops didn’t last, you just recorded over each one, I was making music. I resolved to find a better way to do it. I tried a few ridiculous ways to record songs like ultra cheap jamboxes and karaoke machines until I got these little Radio Shack tape players. The details are fuzzy but I found a way to string four of them together and into another one that, for like $10 more, had a record button. It sounded horrible. I think I recorded parts separately and tried to time it so I could hit record and then press all the play buttons in series. I did this with every spare minute I had. Every time I’d get money it went straight into more of the little tape decks until the music was an absolutely washed out garbage symphony. I had a few other tricks like wedging guitar picks between keys on my Casio so that a sustained chord rang out and I could play and sing along while recording all three. Stuff like that. It occurs to me that besides that last part very little has changed.

I share that to say that I think the things you really love will, given the opportunity, find a way into your life. At the end of the day, you’re going to serve your heart. I know I’ve served the hell out of mine.

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Image Credits

Mobtown Matthew
Charles Dye

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