Go For Broke
I wanted to be extremely transparent with all of our friends, family and most of all our fans. I don’t typically do this, because my form of expressing myself has always come from music, since I’m not the greatest at communicating in other ways.
I wanted to explain what Glasslands means to me and why I wrote ‘Go For Broke’. It’s no surprise to a lot of you that music has been my life for much longer than Glasslands has been around. I started playing in my first band at 15 and immediately knew it was the only thing that I wanted to do with my life. Growing up with conservative parents, this was a hard pill for them to swallow, and I felt pressured to go to college to get a “real job”.
My first band was on the verge of breaking while I was in high school. We had conversations in the works with Sony Records and I thought that my dreams were all coming true. This was our shot and my way to prove to everyone that this was a real career choice. Long story short, the conversation with Sony never happened. My parents then moved me to Colorado and put me in college for a semester, my band in Indiana disbanded because of this and I went on to flunk out of school. As soon as the semester ended I dropped out of college and moved back home to Indiana. Music was my only option.
I immediately began trying to figure out ways to make this dream work and after auditioning for a couple of bands, joined one signed to Tooth and Nail records in January of 2011. I was on a trial period as a touring member for 6 months and then if things went well “we would talk” about making me a member. I thought that this was it. We were an extremely small band, often playing to crowds of less than 10 people but I was happy to be playing music again. I stayed in this band for many years and worked my butt off because I wanted it to succeed. I had NO other options. We made little money. I lived off of loaves of bread and peanut butter while on the road, unless we got a host family to house us or the venue supplied pizza. It was pretty miserable at times but I was willing to do whatever it took because I wanted it to succeed so badly. Towards the end, a lot of internal chaos within the band took place and after it became clear I would not be recognized as a member, I started writing what would become Glasslands music as an outlet. I was too terrified to leave the band I was with because I didn’t know if I could start over and do anything substantial. I had never written music on my own, never really written lyrics. I had definitely never fronted a band. I held my breath, and released my first two singles under Glasslands in late 2013. They were well received, I started making money off of their sales and they went to radio. The very miniscule success of my first two songs I had ever written, along with motivation from my loved ones, gave me the courage to leave the band I was with in 2015 and pursue this dream. Music was my only option.
I was 26 years old, married and jobless. I’d worked full time in music since I was 18. I had no other job experience. I was terrified. I immediately started contacting everyone I knew and eventually picked up small jobs as a bassist, driver, backline tech, lighting tech, literally whatever job I could find in music to make enough money to help pay our bills.
I wrote and recorded Pariah in between jobs for about a year. I had no band. No label. No manager. Just my wife and I trying to figure this out. We would spend hours researching marketing in the music industry, how to write press releases, how advertising works, etc. My wife even actively pursued jobs just for the information that she could learn and then apply to Glasslands. We have very much clawed our way from the ground up for this band. We had no other choice. Eventually I went on to release the album in late 2016, met Brandon and Jordan and long story short here we are.
I’m now 28. Pariah has had more notoriety than I ever dreamed of and we’ve talked with 6 different labels. However, I’m still scared to death. Most of the theme around Pariah is about everything that I’ve just shared with you. My lack of confidence in my own music, my fear of never being the man I seek to be in my career or my marriage, my fear of failure when this is all I have wanted and worked for throughout my life. Go For Broke specifically summarizes all of these fears and I quite literally am speaking to myself when I sing “Go. For. Broke.”
I still don’t know what lies ahead for us. I still don’t know if this will ever take off like we want it to or if we’ll be able to make enough money to pay our bills. All I know is that Music Is My Only Option.
Thank you if you have ever listened to us, shared our music, come to a show, grabbed merch, etc. Hopefully now you have a little better of an idea just how much those things mean to me. To all of us.
-Josh