Same Cal, who dis?
Hey Stranger,
It’s been way too long. How are you? Hope life’s treating you well. I can barely remember the last time you would’ve heard from me. I think it was at the end of 2018. Yeah, that’s right. I posted a Christmas Bangers playlist on December 24th. Man, that feels like a LIFETIME ago! I’m still very much the same person but so much has happened since then! Let me fill you in.
Let’s see. Well, I’m a year older now. Hopefully wiser, but maybe not. My hair is a bit shorter, still curly though. Definitely the healthiest and most “centred” I’ve ever been; my family & friends would probably attest to that. I feel that I’ve grown closer with them in the time that has lapsed as well. So, that’s nice. I went to Japan with my brother! Oh my God, Japan was AMAZING. You HAVE to go! What else… Oh yeah, I finally perfected my disappearing act!
For real though, I haven’t played a single gig, released a single song or posted a single thing on any social media platform as Callan John for over a year.¹ Unless you saw me in person during that time, you would’ve had every reason to think that I’d just given up on the music thing and dropped off the face of the earth!² But this conclusion could not be further from the truth. In fact, although I have been radio silent for the last 402 days, I’ve probably been more productive in that period than any other point in my life; in just about every domain I can think of.³ Which, let me tell you, is quite a relief. I was starting to wonder if I'd ever actually pull my finger out and do the things I knew I had to do. The most important of which, of course, being music: the elusory dragon I’ve been chasing for over a decade.
Now, dear friend, I’m reaching out to you with immense excitement because I think I may finally be getting somewhere. I’ve written so much music since we last spoke and I’m just about ready to share it with you. But there’s still so much you don’t know! So many questions unanswered. For starters, where the fuck did you go? And why? Was it really necessary to smoke bomb and vanish without a trace?⁴ Well, in hindsight, maybe not. But I did and I had my reasons. Thus, before we go any further I feel like you deserve a bit of an explanation. A recap of sorts. You can’t just dive in and binge the new season of your favourite show, you have to re-watch the last couple eps to refresh your memory first. And that’s what we’re gonna do here. So grab your popcorn. Here goes…
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Christmas Eve 2018. I posted the playlist and then decided to go silent on socials for a few days while I spent some quality time at home in Tamworth with the Fam; fully intending to bend the knee to our algorithmic overlords and climb back on the hamster wheel in the New Year. Famous last words.
As I watched the clock tick over into 2019 with a few close friends and a vial of Veuve back in Sydney, I thought I should set aside a few more days away from the 3 P’s (practice, performance and posting) to take stock of the past year and chart a course forward for the next.
For days on end I sat and thought deeply about what I really wanted and whether or not the steps I was taking were moving me closer to getting it. At first glance, it looked as if I was chugging along pretty nicely. But upon closer inspection, I came to a hard and somewhat deflating realisation.
You see, I did A LOT of music-related “stuff" in 2018: I set up all the socials, started posting again, I got press shots and spent months building a snazzy website - which are all necessary pieces of the puzzle, but were they the MOST necessary things on my to-do list at that time? Nope. I started practicing my handful of songs each night after work in the car park under the nursing home that employs me, and began to play open mics in empty local bars to build performance experience. Again, both important, but were they MOST important? Once more, the answer was no. In addition, it seemed highly unlikely that some sparky A&R rep from a major label would spring out of a pot plant and offer me a record deal in either of these locations.
Thanks to past experience,⁵ I already understood that it wasn't the posting, nor the practice, nor the performing, but THE MUSIC which had to come first. I’d noticed that the world apparently didn't care if you have a better set of pipes than Mariah Carey, or faster fingers than Hendrix, if your songs aren’t good enough none of that matters. Even if they are, it’s STILL a shot in the dark! I knew I had to have great music to simply get on the field, and I thought I did. So around March 2018, I asked a mate to help me record some acoustic demos. The plan was then to starting sending my songs 'round to the movers and shakers of Australia’s music industry, I’d get signed and we’d be off to the races! Simples.⁶
It’s all pretty funny to me now, but needless to say that’s not quite how it went down. In fact, nobody seemed even the slightest bit interested. So instead of taking the logical next step i.e. go away, write some better songs and try again, I decided to put the demos out on my own. One song every month until I had no more left and, surely, some sort of door would open during that period of time.
So I sent the songs off to Spotify. The first went out in October, the second in November and the third a few weeks after that. Hopeful as I was, the response was underwhelming to put it mildly. The plan obviously wasn’t working; but as I sat in the warm January sun, peering through my reflective lens at this cold, hard feedback, I was now able to see the scenario with crystal clarity. The problem was twofold:
First, I’d once again put the cart before the horse; a tantalising trap of procrastination into which I’d fallen a thousand times before. Despite already knowing exactly what I had to focus on, I spent too much time in the 80%⁷ doing things that didn’t really matter and not enough time doing the one thing that did: writing music. Second, I’d jumped the gun. Although I still believed in them, I realised that my songs as they existed in their current acoustic form simply weren’t finished enough to actualise the vision I held for my music.
Both pills were pretty hard to swallow. What I thought was a solid 12 months of hard work and progress all of a sudden seemed like a foreseeable, avoidable, waste of time. But not completely, because the solution was now staring me in the face. So I picked up the pendulum and swung it hard in opposite direction; allllll the way back to the drawing board. The new plan? (aka the plan that should have been the plan all along) Flesh out my songs as fully as possible; figure out all the minute details - what the drums would be like, the bassline, the vocal harmonies and everything else as best I could, then find a producer, record it all properly and start putting the songs out into the ether again.
In order to focus on establishing good habits and building some momentum towards this new objective, I decided to extend my leave from the 3 P’s for another month or two. But as I went further down the writing rabbit hole that month turned into 3, then 6. By that stage I had finished all the fully fledged demos and I started to think I should record the songs properly, get some new photos done and zhuzh up my pages before making my glorious, triumphant return.⁸
But then in the depths of my solitude I began to ruminate. “Does “returning” even make sense anymore? You've now been absent for longer than you were present. Who do you think is waiting for you? You're 280 “followers”? Please. You may as well close the book on this project and start again with a new alias... But doing that would mean walking away from all the stuff that, although done at the wrong time, is nonetheless done. To simply throw the pages, the photos, the website on the scrap heap would render 2018 an ACTUAL waste of time, and then you’d have to do it all again! The music would get pushed to the side, you’d be lured into the trap again and THAT, that would be unacceptable. But then again, a clean slate…
This internal debate raged on for months and I made little progress until one day in August a resolution was reached: I would stay on as Callan John. I had to. Not so much in consideration of the sunken material costs, but to honour who I really am - not some plastic, polished pop star who can rebrand in accordance with whatever the zeitgeist dictates from one day to the next,⁹ but the truly imperfect-despite-best-efforts, deep-thinking, coffee-drinking, Aussie singer/songwriter who simply wants to take that which has given him so much joy and share it with as many people as possible. And also to honour my past; for it is the unique composition of events and experiences contained within it that accounts entirely for me being in the privileged position I am in. Shutting up shop and changing my name felt like it would be synonymous with turning my back on everything I have to be grateful for. How could I do such a thing?
I had to move forward while staying true to myself. So, although I regret it now, it made sense to me at the time to pull down the unfinished acoustic songs I posted in 2018 so they could live independently in their final form. But to be reborn the songs had to first be recorded, and to do THAT I needed a producer ASAP.
I’d already begun to browse the song credits of my favourite Australian artists to see who had helped craft the music I loved so much, but now my search intensified. Weeks flew by and my shortlist grew long, but in the end there was only one choice. So I fired my demo’s off to Tim Carr, perhaps best known for his work on Matt Corby’s “Untitled" EP which featured the hit song “Brother”. After a bit of back and forth, we met up and settled on a date in November after I’d returned from Japan (which, again, was amazing).
Shit was getting real. But aboard the train to Kamakura on the last day of my trip, the studio emailed me to say that there was construction work planned nearby on the dates I’d booked to record. We’d have to postpone, and the next available date was the last weekend in Jan 2020. What felt like a setback at first turned out to be a blessing in disguise, because I’ve been able to spend the last 2 months going over my songs with a fine-toothed comb, practicing every detail and building a perfect pallet of references to complement them.
It’s been a long time coming to say the least, but we’re finally approaching the point where the rubber meets the road. In just 1 more sleep, I’ll take my old Cole Clark over to One Flight Up in St Peters and play my little heart out. By the end of Feb it’ll all be done and when I release the first song, I will finally step out of the shadow of “someday” and into the light of reality. No longer will I be able to hide behind “they're just a demos” or “they're not finished yet”. They WILL be finished, and they will either resonate with people or they won’t. This is a thought that simultaneously ignites spine-tingling fear and ecstasy within me, almost unbearably so. It’d be so much safer to never try, but I just have to know; one way or the other.
Above all else, the thing that continues to drive me through all the bullshit and keep hacking away at this dream is the unshakable belief — no — the knowledge that this is a central part of what I have been called to do. I know that sounds like it’s dripping in woo but I assure you, it’s not. I just don’t have a better way of describing it right now.
Anyway, this leads me to the last thing I want to say for now: to anyone who ever reads these words or hears my music, thank you, and sorry. Thank you for giving me another chance to share my music with you and sorry for making you wait so long. We should’ve passed this point years ago and I take full responsibility that we have not. I wouldn't blame you if you just said “whatever” and walked away, but if you stick around I promise it will be worth it.
Stay tuned,
CJ x
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1. Not that I expect you or anyone else to have noticed this. We’re all too caught up in our own lives to really pay attention to anyone else’s. And that’s not a criticism, but an observation. Really quite liberating when you think about it.
2. Relax, I have not become a Flat-Earther.
3. Except for the romance thing. That’s still on the back burner.
4. This is now my go-to “I’m-too-drunk-at-this-party" exit strategy. Very handy for a lightweight like yours truly.
5. I used to DJ / Produce under the name “Kyphosis”.
6. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hl545RF6dXA
7. I’m a HUGE proponent of the “80/20 Principle” which states that 20% of the things you do brings 80% of your results i.e. 80% of the things you do are more or less a waste of time. I’ll most likely rant about this in greater depth in the future.
8. Clearly didn't quite get there, but I’m workin’ on it.
9. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, it’s just not me. At least not right now.