Support in the System

Today my dad turns 50. I know this seems irrelevant to my music, but I can assure you it's not.

Having supportive parents in the music industry is crucial, especially as a young artist. After all, who's the one to drive you where you need to go before you have a license? Who you go to with your ideas? Who's the one to sign the papers that you can't since you're a minor, or accompany you to a show. My dad is my biggest supporter by far, and I'm forever thankful for that. If I'm at a show, you can bet he's there too.

Everybody who knows my dad, knows he's a "sports guy." Both my parents are. My mom is a track athlete, and my dad is a World Champion Triathlete. Naturally, their kids are going to be sports stars, right? Wrong. Ever since I was young, it's been clear that athletics wasn't the path I was going to take. I was that kid sitting in the soccer field picking dandelions, but my dad was always there anyway. And when I wrote my first song, who was the one I went to? My dad. Even though I picked arts over music, my dad has always given me 100% of the support I need to succeed, no matter the thing I chose to do.

The thing is, when people hear that a parent is involved in a child's career, they might think that the parent is "living bicariously through their kid" or that the parent thinks everything their kid does is pure gold. That's not the case with my dad. He supports me endlessly, but will give me his honest opinion. He deals with me through my ups and downs. Thats just who he is. He is supportive, ambitious, and the best father figure I could ever have. I hope to be half as good a parent as he is one day, and support my kids the way he supports me.

So, the main purpose of this blog post was to give a thank you to not just my dad, but the other supportive parents in the industry. I know there are days that we don't show it, but your support is one of the best things a young artist can experience.