Haha, that's happened to me so many goddamned times now. When I still had dreams and silly things like that I used to hear stuff that would make me want to quit completely pretty regularly.
Never was big on MCR - back then I was bigger on SOAD and Nirvana if we're talking mainstream. But I respect what they managed to pull off, musically and otherwise. They ruled! Those dudes were all part of the last good era of really amazing superstar rock behemoths... ...you just don't see these big global acts in rock anymore. I'm just glad I got to witness it. People born too late for that period may never know what a rock god truly is. The business doesn't work that way anymore. Even I didn't realize back then how special and important that was for music.
I've noticed technical skill doesn't matter much anymore. Well it does, but there's no standing out for it. Look at progressive metal these days. Everyone is doing just the craziest, most technical stuff imaginable. And every day some guy records something nobody's ever pulled off right from his buddy's couch. Posts it on youtube and gets 1mil views in a day. And yet it doesn't matter. It's kind of a losing battle for everyone in that it's no longer enough just to be reheeeallly fuckin good. It doesn't get the same attention when everyone around you is insanely good and practicing 8hrs a day. You could have more skill than Guthrie Govan and nobody would care all that much now.
It's not like back when Van Halen put out their first record and everyone was just like "What is THAT?! Holy HELL what IS this shit?!" THAT was like space ships just shot into the sky at a mile a second with fuckin crazy lookin shiny stuff and laser beams spinning around and just mesmerized people. So fast you had to slow the tape down to begin to learn it. Nobody had any heard anything like it.
It's kinda gotten to the point now where if you wanna make it, you need to be good at
everything AND bring something new.
I think whatever it is you're doing, you make it not just because you really want it and you work really hard to be better than everyone else and you just want to be noticed. That's not enough. It's when you know you've got something truly special and different that you make those kinds of moves. People will notice that every time. If you don't have that something, only mediocrity and failure await. You're going to spend a lot of time banging your head against a wall for maybe a little success... until you become bitter and never want to pick up an instrument again.
Nothing wrong with just being local, playing solo gigs, covers and whatnot, ya know? It doesn't make you any less of a musician. Just kind of a matter of what makes it most worth it for you, music as a whole, and everyone else. Do what you love and sometimes people notice you. Other times they don't. Doesn't actually matter. If you like what you're doing then it's as it should be. If you hate it, it's a grind, and you want to quit all of the time, then you've got the wrong attitude and you're making the wrong choices.
Everybody wants to be a superstar these days... ...a top musician, a famous youtuber, a rap mogul, a genius filmmaker, whatever. Like you have to get there if you wanna do those things or you're a failure. I think if that's the only thing that makes those things worth doing for you, then you're probably not doing them for the right reasons. And your art will probably suffer for it, as will your love and passion for it. Maybe if you wasted less time chasing rainbows and just focusing solely on the thing you love doing, you might have actually come up with something worth sharing! To walk alongside genius, you have to be able to admit to yourself that you are not.
Shouldn't have got me started on music, man.
Did it last long? I mean, you're probably much better than me if you switched mindsets easily. As much as I like bands like Opeth and In Flames, it's always been too percussive for me play well. I think I spent too much time alone as a guitarist... which sort of unconsciously makes you fill in the gaps and layer your riffs with textures and melodies (like Johnny Mar or Buckley, as your band was shooting for). Those type of metal guitarists always seem to think more like drummers or had a drummer with them...and don't fill in all of those gaps. If that makes sense?
