Episode 17: Ben Phillips - Exploit Your Strengths YOU CAN Make a Living In The Music Industry Podcast

 
This week I'm talking with my friend Ben Phillips who has done pretty much everything there is to do in the music industry.  We are discussing road vs session drumming, relationships, producing, mixing, editing, demos vs. master recordings and how exploiting your strengths can give you an advantage at making a living in the music industry.
Show Notes:
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Talking Points:
*Started playing drums at nine years old.
*Found ways to be around music anyway I could growing up.
*Went to Belmont University and studied studio engineering.
*I changed to session drumming as my focus.
*I would take any gig learning to play in all situations.
*Right out of college I had my first road gig with a signed artist from an audition.
*It was a stepping stone for me getting that experience.
*That led to a gig with a signed country artist because of relationship I had with a friend of mine who worked for the producer Dan Huff told him to put an band together for the tour and he called and asked if I was interested.
*It took 4 or 5 years of being in town and building relationships before I got that opportunity.
*The friendship I had with a bass player in college led to most of my gigs in the early days.
*New drummers wanting to do studio work should work on listening to everybody else, really listening to the vocal and going back and listening to how what you play affects the other parts.
*It’s good to understand production and know that there is going to be more stuff added later.
*You’re there to serve the producer and the artist, not yourself.
*Some people I have drummed for on records are Matthew West, Rush of Fools, Steven Curtis Chapman, Michael W. Smith, Blake Shelton, Chase Rice, Chris Jansen and more.
*When I was tracking drums in sessions I got be around a lot of great studio engineers and I got to ask them questions and learn a lot that way.
*I went through a period where it was hard to find good paying gigs and I quit for about 2 years.
*I moved away from Nashville and when I came back I decided to put a studio in my house, so I started reconnecting with and building relationships with friends from Belmont while meeting new people.
*It was slow for a few months while trying to reconnect and get work.
*I got a call from a college friend who needed me to play drums on session for CCM producer Pete Kipley at a studio on Music Row.
*Pete had a friend producing a song for Rebecca St. James for the Narnia soundtrack and asked if I would play drums on that.
*That led to a lot of work on different projects which set me on the path I’m on now.
*All of these relationships led from one thing to a bunch of things.
*I never know where the next lead or next step is going to come from.
*When it came to getting good drum sounds, I didn’t like how others were doing it so I learned to do it myself.
*I was one of the first people in Nashville to have a home studio before it became the norm.
*I got married so I moved the studio to another house in a different part of town.
*Because of another relationship I met a guitar player named Ilya Toshinskiy and he got me a lot of work doing country demos at my studio.
*Country writers were coming in all the time so I got to do a lot of work tracking and mixing for Shane MacAnally from the show Songland, Old Dominion, Sam Hunt, Kacey Musgraves and more before their careers took off.
*When you’re mixing a song with a writer there, you get more time to sit and talk with them and build relationships with them.
*A “demo” is a demonstration recording to show the label or manager how the song could go.
*Chris Jansen’s radio single “Buy Me Boat” is the demo that I recorded and mixed.
*A country or CCM demo average cost is $800 - 1000 for a full demo per song.
*A major label Country album recordi