Meet Ted Wulfers

We were lucky to catch up with Ted Wulfers recently and have shared our conversation below.

Ted, we’re thrilled to have you on our platform and we think there is so much folks can learn from you and your story. Something that matters deeply to us is living a life and leading a career filled with purpose and so let’s start by chatting about how you found your purpose.
Thanks a lot for reaching out and doing this. You’ve caught me in the middle of a busy flourish of non stop recording sessions at my studio. I’m also working on a film and writing a book. It’s non stop creativity all the time and I wouldn’t have it any other way. I’m back fresh from a rather life changing Autumn adventure in Europe that involved playing outdoor festivals, visiting some of my favorite happy places, writing dozens of new songs, falconry, ancient royal archives, castles, more castles, recording sessions at the famous Windmill Lane studios in Dublin, visiting the exact place my Great Great Grandfather was born, discovering that the archaeological museum in Dublin has an exhibit on my 34th Great Grandfather, meeting newly found family members in Germany and being presented with a book by town elders consisting of 800 years of town history which included hundreds of years of my family history. It’s a lot to take in and I’m still riding high from the thrill of it all.

So….How did I find my purpose you ask? Well, I have to say that it certainly found me and came as naturally as breathing, sleeping or eating. At a very young age of around 2 or 3 years old, I started playing all the TV themes and commercial jingles by ear on the piano. My parents took notice and were very supportive and got me into piano lessons and by age 5, I was performing recitals around the Chicago land area. This was a long time before youtube or social media and if that had been around when I was a kid, I’m sure some of my performances as a wee lad would be floating about the digital ether.

I continued with lessons until 5th/6th grade when my piano teacher died and I stopped practicing piano and performing recitals to focus on playing baseball. A year later in 7th grade, upon hearing the news that my Godfather had died, I immediately went to the piano and wrote a song to express the emotions I was feeling. Writing that song was the most natural expression for me and I wrote another…and another. I consider this moment in my life when I stopped practicing music and started… PLAYING music. Writing and making it. It was then I found a purpose that has led me to today…. a thousand songs and several decades later where a handful of those songs I’ve made and written have connected with listeners around the world to be a part of their lives and certainly the sound track of it.

It has very much been a calling…my purpose… to write, create, perform and record music. First with my own and then later in life to help others create in the form of producing, engineering, recording and performing other musical artist’s music and helping their musical dreams find fruition. I don’t go a single day without writing a song, a poem, a script idea or recording melodies, ideas and beats, or wander off making pictures on a photo shoot. It’s the ultimate blessing and curse and my brain is on 24/7 so much that most days it’s hard to turn that purpose…off. And I don’t mind it so I leave it on.

A life in the arts is not easy. It’s a lot of fun but the amount of work, time, sweat and effort is immense and so worth it for those moments of joy and connection. The older I get and the more truly artistic people I know, encounter and surround myself with, I feel that an artistic lifestyle is something a person is born with and it seems to be engrained into their D.N.A. It’s a calling that is powerfully natural and not something you can learn but that you grow into and accept or embrace and hone. You’re constantly learning but it’s almost as if you’re discovering mysteries you already knew existed innately that you challenge yourself on a quest to uncover to continue to blossom into a more powerful being of creativity. It’s about finding that energy, creating that energy and harnessing that energy. It’s a bit abstract to many but those artist friends and I who really get it can talk about this sort of thing for hours. That is when we’re not off in our own worlds creating our own universes for people to visit and explore.

So to answer your question. Making art and finding art in everything is a purpose I’ve been hyper aware of all my life since early childhood and as much as I’ve made the decision to find that wave and ride the ups and downs of it, my purpose very much found me and I’ve been lucky and grateful to have found it at all.

Plus, how cool is it that in art, if you hit the wrong button, magic happens in the form of happy accidents. Whereas, if you’re doing accounting, flying a plane, driving a car, typing an email, monitoring a missile silo, cooking food, giving a massage or operating a forklift and you hit the wrong button, it’s a complete disaster. Just today in the studio I stumbled across the most amazing sound for a section of a new song and I’d never have found that sound if I didn’t hit the wrong button. Yay for happy accidents and yay for how wonderful art truly is for them.

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 musician, recording artist, singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist of dozens of instruments, producer, composer and recording engineer who has been performing, singing, writing, composing, touring, producing and recording music since the 1990s. I’ve released 12 albums of my original material with several upcoming releases in the works, numerous EPs and singles and a long list of tour dates throughout the United States and Europe.

I’ve have had songs that have been hits on radio, featured in films and TV shows, one that went into the Baseball Hall of Fame, music videos that have gone viral and I’ve composed, performed and scored the soundtracks for several award winning films and video games.

Outside the music of my own career, I have produced and recorded dozens of albums, singles and successful TV/Film placements for numerous recording artists in several genres of music around the globe.

Along with music, photography is another artistic outlet of mine that has received praise and recognition in the form of my photographic work that has been published

For me, making music and photographs are so commonly and similarly linked in that both involve capturing a moment and freezing it in time for the audience to enjoy over and over again for as long as they want to live in that moment with you for eternity.

I am also a filmmaker and I’ve been directing a documentary film the last few years about Gibson acoustic guitars that is currently in production.

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?
1. Mastery of Craft and Work Ethic. You need to put the time into finding your talents! Discover them, Embrace them, Harness them and put in the hours of work, blood, sweat and tears that it takes to master your craft. Natural abilities help but you need to put the work into using those abilities and turning them into a craft. You have to want and work for it. There is no easy path in anything despite how many game shows or pipe dreams claim there is. Put in the hours and the work and you will see results and will earn your successes.

2. Knowledge. Learn everything and anything about everything and anything there is to know about your career, passions and life. I think as a society the quest for knowledge is sadly a dying art. Those who know the most about history and geography are always the smartest in the room because they know where they are, where they’re going and where they came from. As you know, history and geography are two topics that most people declare to know the least about and that is an unfortunate woe of any society. Especially ours where all the tools and learning opportunities are literally at our finger tips at the touch of a button. That said, learn EVERYTHING about your craft, passion and lifestyle. The most minute detail of knowledge and experience will come in handy and enhance your abilities and life in the most impactful and surprising of ways. Earn that luck by learning. Knowledge is power is an age old quote for a reason. ‘Tis the truest of truths.

3. Embrace the Dream. Every pursuit begins with a dream or idea and there is such a beauty in dreaming up that dream and following through to see it become reality. Faith and Confidence in Yourself is key and sometimes the celebration of or the duel with the lack of it give a creative soul the extra push necessary in order to follow through. You’d be amazed the things you can do and accomplish with a bit of faith in yourself and sometimes when all seems lost that little leap of confidence in one’s abilities or lack thereof to overcome can allow you to achieve heights originally unimaginable. My Dad would always tell me the quote about “someone’s reach should exceed their grasp” and he couldn’t have been more spot on in that in order to get better, to grow and to find confidence in yourself, you have to keep reaching, keep dreaming and keep searching for the new, the great and the best you can. That is where you find the true magic and mastery.

Is there a particular challenge you are currently facing?
We as creators are facing the challenges of surfing the waters of streaming and looking out for the AI tidal wave approaching all of our industries. It’s a fascinating time to be an artist but for as many tools as we all have for reaching our audiences, it seems that it can sometimes be harder than ever to introduce your art to new people.

One of the biggest challenges music makers and creatives have at this point in history is dealing with a society and industry that does not value music and the ownership of art and music as it once did not so very long ago.
I’m stuck in the middle of a couple of different generations and ways of doing business in this industry that makes many ways of working and thinking a definite challenge as I’ve been to the mountain a few times and I’ve tasted the fruits that no longer seem to be around or available as much anymore.

There was a time early in my career where on tour if you were at a gas station and someone saw you were a band, they’d ask if you had any CDs or albums for sale and if you did, they would immediately buy it from you without hearing a note because if they encountered a band with an album there was a level of respect and admiration that superseded the necessity to even sample the product first. This happened dozens of times to me on the road in my travels and tours. “You’re in a band?? I have to buy you’re CD!” Now I ask…when’s the last time that’s happened to any musician these days in the last gaggle of years?

I’ve also been lucky enough to have had a few of my songs get some major market radio play on Top 40 stations in huge US terrestrial radio markets where the music was heard by hundreds of thousands if not millions of people per spin. On top of that, as the artist/songwriter/owner/publisher, I would get $7.00 per spin as writer/Artist and $7.00 per spin as publisher which meant every time the song got played on these radio stations, I’d make $14.00! $14.00 per spin and reaching hundreds of thousands if not millions of people during those four minutes of glory.

And now, I’m supposed to get excited about a song of mine streaming on one of the streaming sites for only one person where I’m paid $0.00043 or whatever abysmal financial number it is these streaming companies pay out now as they continue to ripoff artists and destroy any and all income streams we singer/songwriter/artists have depended on these last 70 years.

To make $14.00 on Spotify, I would have to have 4,662 spins by 4,662 individual listeners and I’d maybe…make $14.00 from that. Whereas at the show or the gas station encounter, I’d make the $14.00 in one album sale or on major market terrestrial radio, I’d make $14.00 on one spin reaching a million people to make that $14.00. You can do the math for yourself and see why artists and bands aren’t all that excited about how much these streaming companies are ripping us off.

That’s a challenge. When people bought music, they valued it more. It became special and something to cherish, enjoy, protect and admire. When it’s just streaming along like leaves on a river or clouds in a sky, you may take the time to enjoy it for four minutes but without investing any more financial or philosophical ownership, the music becomes wallpaper and nothing more. All the more while these streaming companies keep ripping off the artists and making billions and music listeners going right along with it while the music creators suffer.

Because I’ve been to the mountain being old enough to have enjoyed real radio play and album sales, yet young enough to be amongst a modern generation of music creators, it’s a juxtaposition that is a bummer after tasting the not so forbidden fruit and now having it taken away from me.

But, we move on and just try to be as authentic as humanly possible and connect with each fan as honestly and as powerfully as possible.

I bring up these challenges simply as food for thought for people who may not be aware of such challenges modern artists are facing these days.

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