Meet Mark Jeffries (aka Dilisio)

Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Mark Jeffries (aka Dilisio). We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Mark, so great to have you with us and we want to jump right into a really important question. In recent years, it’s become so clear that we’re living through a time where so many folks are lacking self-confidence and self-esteem. So, we’d love to hear about your journey and how you developed your self-confidence and self-esteem.

As a kid I always lacked confidence. In just about everything I did. Sports, music, girls, you name it. I had a very hard time being myself and trusting my abilities to achieve what I wanted to achieve. I remember before little league baseball games being SO nervous throughout the day leading up to the game, that I would just wish and hope for the game to get canceled for some reason. What was I so anxious about? I’m not quite sure…striking out? Making an error? Letting people down because my poor play? I so desperately wanted to make people happy that I worried myself sick about disappointing them one way or another, and I think that’s where my lack of confidence came from.

But anytime I realized that I can let go of that fear of disappointing people, that I can freely be myself while trusting that people will still like and respect me even if I screw up, did my confidence in things begin to form. Especially with music. Growing up I performed in churches a lot, and while I always got extremely nervous leading up to performances (see above), I always performed well in the clutch. Once I strummed my guitar and my voice kicked in did I “let go”, and as a singer/songwriter that still holds true to this day. Every gig that I’ve played, from acoustic open-mics in my early singer/songwriter days to louder rock ‘n roll stages today, I find my confidence building a little bit more each time, which contributes directly to my self-esteem as a creative type. Confidence and self-esteem seem to feed into each other; when I feel more confident after a performance or a positive review of an original song, it gives me the self-esteem to keep writing and performing, and vice versa.

So for a person reading this that also struggles with confidently putting themselves out into the world, I would challenge you to question what your end goal is with your creative struggle. Is it to make other people happy, or yourself? And if you can consistently remind yourself of the latter, that you only spend thousands of hours working on your craft simply because it makes YOU yourself happy, then you can begin to slowly and steadily live out your purpose.

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’m a singer/songwriter based in Pittsburgh, and musically I go by DiLisio! I’ve been putting my music out in the world for the past 5 years, and few things give me more joy in life than writing my own songs. It’s a “healthy addiction” as I describe to friends (if that’s possible! Haha.) My music is primarily focused in the rock/indie genre, although I’ve been known to dabble in the folk/acoustic realm as well from time to time.

I’ve stayed quite busy with my musical output in those 5 years. I have 3 full-length albums, 3 EPs, and a handful of singles and collaborations with fellow Pittsburgh artists under my belt. Perhaps the project I’m most proud of up to this point is my 3rd and most recent record, called “Slither”, that I realized in 2023. Featuring 10 songs and heavily inspired by late-70s disco infused with my own brand of garage indie-rock, it was a joyous, transformative experience to make, and I received a great amount of acclaim from gracious friends and random listeners alike. Currently I’m working on my 4th record, and I’m quite confident this is my best work yet. Stay tuned for a new DiLisio album in 2025!

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?

My work-ethic comes before anything else with my music. Yes, the talent has been there since I was young, but I’ve had to diligently expand on my talent, and ask for a lot of help from fellow musicians, to make my songs better than average. The process of writing songs has gone from taking me a few days to finish a song to now a few months, because I really want to be sure that every aspect of the song (from the lyrics, to the guitar parts, to the chord changes) is perfect in my head before I go into the studio.

Secondly, I have a lot of focus. I rarely give up on song ideas, and I’m always thinking about them. Even if I don’t have a guitar in my hands I’m toying them around in my head. I go for walks, I work out, I hum them in my head while I fold laundry. I like to think songwriting helps to concentrate the weird, distractive parts of my brain and vent them into something productive that makes me happy and fulfilled. Furthermore, my focus has contributed to developing better time-management and project-management skills. I wrote, produced, financed, and released all of my records entirely on my own by following a budget, staying on schedule, and most importantly, not quitting.

And third, I’ve developed a great ability to simply listen. To others, to myself, to what the book I’m reading is speaking to me, to new songs that I immediately like while sitting in a coffee shop, to some of the most insightful, beautiful phrases that naturally come out of my wife’s mouth. Some of my most creative ideas come to me when I’m not holding a guitar in my hands, and I think it’s because of my listening ability that I’ve been able to stay as prolific in my musical output as I have.

So my advice to aspiring singer/songwriters? Keep writing. And LISTEN. Clutter your Notes app with the most random observations you can. Record that melody that pops in your head on your Voice Memos app when you wake up from a dream, even if it freaks out your partner every time. Get outside, exercise, do chores while turning your ideas over and over and over again in your head until you’ve cracked the code on your next song. It could take days, weeks, months, but with persistence and consistency your songwriting will continue to get better and better. And who knows, you might even become a happier, more fulfilled person in the process :-).

Before we go, maybe you can tell us a bit about your parents and what you feel was the most impactful thing they did for you?

They encouraged me. Constantly. Whether I was feeling up or down, it never mattered. They were my number one fans, and still are. And the good fortune I feel for having loving, supportive parents my whole life is not lost on me. One big area of encouragement was how they exposed me to a lot of different career paths as a kid, yet they never forced me to join the military, or become a lawyer, or a nurse (like they were). Instead they fanned the flame of my strengths, mainly in communication, curiosity, and music. And now that I look back, it’s no wonder that I’ve followed the career path that I have, as a public school teacher by day and rock ‘n roll musician by night.

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Image Credits

Anthony Zabiegalski, Pat Bruener, Evan Lawrence, Jordan Schofield

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