I always say creativity over the mediocre. For artists, this idea is more than just a suggestion—it’s a necessity. With hundreds of thousands of artists vying for the same press, same fans, same licensing deals, getting noticed isn’t what it used to be. That’s why when you have the opportunity to get a little creative, you have to take it. And more than that, you have to learn to recognize the opportunity even when it isn’t spelled out for you.
I’m a member of the music industry meet up (I like to call it a movement) called Balanced Breakfast. We’re a group of passionate artists and industry professionals who meet regularly to talk shop. Just a few weeks ago we got on the topic of music videos, when one of the members of San Francisco psychedelic rock band Battlehooch piped up with mention of their Desolation Series.
One look and it’s pretty easy to see how creative these guys got with their approach. I mean, they’re playing their instruments in the water! It has a total southern, swampy, bayou feel to it from the band’s attire to their setting. It’s a brilliant use of their surroundings and best of all? It didn’t cost them a dime.
So how did this come to be? During their tour in the south a few years back, the band had some downtime and instead of sitting around and wasting the opportunity, they decided to make their own luck. With the help of director Gabriel Armstrong, the idea for this series was born.
How many people probably walk by that same body of water every day, never even thinking of the uses it could have? But Battlehooch did. Because they’ve taught themselves to be creative, open minded, and think outside the box, every now and again these opportunities seem to present themselves almost serendipitously.
What opportunities might you gain, if only you opened yourself up to them? To the idea that everything might not look exactly like you planned, might not be as polished as you once thought—but that the real gems lie in the opportunities you stumble upon. In the slightly rugged, so crazy-it-just-might-work situations? What could you achieve if you opened yourself up to the unknown?