Living as a Married Musician with Kids
Over the past week or so, I’ve asked a few fellow musicians and friends of mine to answer some questions about what it’s really like to be not only a married musician, but also to be a married musician with children. This is important to me because, while I am married, we don’t have kids yet, and in a way, I want to get a little more prepared for the subject (aka kid) when it comes. I’m really excited to share their stories with you because they were so candid and open about what life is like underneath their rock star exteriors. I’m sharing two people’s stories in particular because of the way theirs contrast and compliment each other - just like music.
Today, I’m happy to introduce Alice Erickson and Josh Larsen to The Married Musician blog!
Here’s a little bit about each of them:
Alice Erickson - Married for 21 ½ years to the one and only Dick Earl Erickson. They’ve been playing music together for over 22 years, except for the past 5 years, in which they’ve been more focused on individual projects, as well as Alice finishing her Masters degree in Educational Leadership. She started performing in college and is now the front woman of the band Soul What!?, soloist of John Houston’s Gospel Choir, Mama of The Naturals, and backing vocalist of Tas Cru and his Band of Tortured Souls. Alice and Dick are the proud parents of 3 musical kids.
Josh Larsen - Married for 11 years and has been playing music for 16 years, not counting all the years he spent as a kid in his family’s travelling church band where he would sing and perform for large audiences. Now, he is currently the front man of his band, Less than Lucid and just earned his Masters degree in school. Josh and his wife Christy are parents to 4 kids, who like to go to schools where Josh works around the holidays and play music with him. People love watching them perform!
Both reside in my hometown of St. George, UT.
Me: Hi guys! Thanks so much for being a part of my blog post today. I want to start off with one of my favorite questions, so here we go: What is the hardest part about being a married musician?
Alice: You started with the hardest question. Haha! The answer has changed as our marriage and music has evolved. In the beginning, over 20 years ago, the hardest part about us both being musicians was differing tastes and styles. We leaned over into the other's zone and even tried some genre hopping to appreciate each other's interests more - listening, playing, and writing. In more recent years, though, as we've grown into our own as performers and been working on separate projects, the hardest part, by far, is being apart. We used to perform together, as a duo and in bands. Today, we jokingly tell folks that we divide and conquer. My husband tours, while I stay closer to home, teaching lessons and performing locally. I'm so happy for him to be doing what he loves for a living, but I would be lying if I said it was an easy situation. Distance can be hard on a relationship, and children, and a business.
Josh: You know, there’s actually a lot that’s hard about it. I know a lot of people whose partners perform with them and this is simply not my experience. From what I’ve observed, for those whose partners perform with them, it seems to work amazingly well. I think that’s every musician’s dream: to have someone to fall in love with and play music with. This is not the case for me. So I think the hardest part is time management. Because as a musician and a really passionate person - not just with music, with everything - it can turn into a marital problem. Whenever I’m somewhere, I’m 100% in the moment. So I end up being late for things. Especially with music, I’ll go late whenever I can so I can savor the moment. That’s the hard part for me. Creating the time that marriage and family needs and keeping up with my passion for music.
Me: Those are some awesome things to bring up, a lot of which I’ve never really thought about. I mean, I’m a married musician, but when I’m rehearsing with my husband or playing a gig, oftentimes, I’m the one who’s like, “Hey, it’s time to go home now.” Nobody likes that guy, but I’m often that guy. And as far as your husband travelling for work - I can only imagine how hard it is to be apart for long periods of time while he’s on tour. I have a hard enough time if we’re apart for a few days!
Me: Next question: how do you find time to be with your spouse between jobs, school, lessons, and family? What do you like to do together? Also, when do you find time to practice??
Alice: We try to find moments at night and on weekends when we're not gigging, but sometimes a week passes in which sleeping next to each other is the only alone time we get. Enjoying a Netflix show, going to listen to live music, and thrift shopping are some things we like to do together. Family activities and supporting our kids in their own pursuits is super important in how we use our time. Practice? I find time between teaching lessons and Dick has some time at home while I'm teaching. Scheduling all the necessities and desires takes intentional planning and compromise. When we practice with bands, we are careful to schedule on different nights of the week so one of us is home. When we were first married with little kids, it was expensive to hire weekly babysitters so we could meet with our band. Moving closer to family helped with that - grandparents rock! No matter what stage of our marriage, we always have made practice time a professional priority.
Josh: My immediate answer with practice is...that I don’t. What I end up doing is that I very selfishly try to work it into what I’m doing. I’ll pick up a guitar to make sure my fingers still work. I keep a guitar in my office and sometimes I take 5 minutes to do exercises, but very rarely. And it probably shows in the way I play. For me, I know I make sacrifices, but what I try to do as a father is Daddy Dates. Every Monday, I take one of my four kids on a date. Even if that’s all I get with them that week, that’s what I do. I set some priorities. As often as I can, I try to have a gig. But I know there are certain times that are just off limits. With my wife, it’s about taking 20 minutes here and there to watch a show together and patch together a relationship. Without the music, it’s hard, but with the music, it’s even harder.
Me: I can totally see how that would be a difficult thing, especially if your spouse is not a musician. But this next question is kind of more directed toward Alice and goes along with what it’s like playing with your spouse: have you had any difficulty in collaborating musically with your husband? What is it like working on musical projects with him?
Alice: We love being on stage together. Always. The only part of collaboration that has been a challenge is writing together. We simply have different approaches to the process. But I love his music and I'm pretty sure he digs mine, too.
Me: That has been a challenge for Edgar and I as well, which is why I was curious what it was like for other married musicians. Have you guys ever written a song together?
Alice: We’ve tried. A few started, never finished, sadly.
Me: So now I’m curious, what’s one of your musical goals for the next year?
Alice: One of my musical goals is to help my husband with one of his musical goals, which is to track a full length album. He’s only done an EP but he’s been on multiple other albums, just like I have, so I want to help him make that happen. As far as me personally, I want to be able to branch out from St. George like my husband has a little more often. I’ve had to stay here because I teach here and it’s easier to have someone at home when he goes, but I would like to figure out a balance so that I can go also. I don’t know if that means doing long weekends with Soul What!? or doing a tour with Tas Cru, but I would like to do more outside of this area. It’s hard to make a living here doing music in St. George. Also, if you’re trying to make a living playing music, I would recommend figuring out where the music is. Find out where your niche is and find out and where that is happening and go there. It helps tremendously.
Me: Great, thank you for the tip. So this next question is directed for both of you: How has being married and having kids changed music for you?
Josh: Wow...I’ve been a dad for 10 years, and I’ve never thought about that, it’s blowing my mind. I guess having kids made it more valuable, more personal. More gritty, raw, and real. As a lover of music, I think being a fan of Metallica as a teenager is so much different than being a fan of Metallica as a 34 year old with 4 kids. Some of the same songs from before I was married and had kids were powerful but now as a father, there is so much more meaning behind them. It depends on the content of the song, but I feel like I have a much deeper understanding of the emotions behind music like sadness, happiness, embarrassment, and guilt. Music is a powerful outlet. It just changes everything.
Alice: It really hasn’t changed music. If anything, it has expanded my musical experiences and taste. I hadn’t really listened to the blues before I met my husband...what a revelation! My kids amaze me with new artists and songs that are sophisticated and thoughtful. Once again, the connection we make through music brings us closer.
Me: This is some great stuff, guys! So if you could change one thing about the music industry, what would it be?
Josh: I have to admit that, first of all, I don’t actually know a damn thing about the music industry. I don’t pretend to, anyway. I’m as a big a rookie as there is. *Laughs* And I’m not being humble, I really feel that way! So maybe I would say accessibility, but music has never been more accessible, so I’m not really sure how that applies. I guess my biggest problem with the music industry is the fact that producing it is not cheap. My challenge is producing new music and how expensive it is.
Alice: Everybody has a different thing they would change about the industry. I’m a coach, singer, writer, session singer, so I’m trying to figure out what about it bugs me. Dick was saying that for him, it’s so much easier now to get your music out there as an independent artist, so there’s a huge overflow - and it can be hard to sift through music that’s less than quality...perhaps there should be some sort of industry standard, but there’s no way to do it - what I enjoy or think is quality is totally different than what the next person might think. When it comes down to it for us, I think that we just wish that we could make a living and raise a family where we want to live as musicians. That’s been hard. It’s been too difficult here in St George to make any money. My husband has had to leave in order to make money and we wish we could do it here.
Me: Do the long nights bother you?
Alice: Long nights? No. Never...well, I shouldn’t say ‘never,’ but I’m kind of a night owl anyway. I’ve been doing these long nights for over 20 years now - I’m just used to it now, I guess. I will say, one of the most gruelling, miserable weeks of my life was a casino week during the school year. I was playing 6 hours a night, 5 nights a week, and then teaching school in the daytime AND it was in Mesquite so I had a commute 30 minutes both ways. That was the only time where I was like “What am I doing?”
Josh: Not at all. I’m a night person. If it were up to me, I would do most things at night. It bothers my wife for sure. But not me. Long nights are probably one of the hardest parts. Sometimes it’s like cheating on your wife. You’ve got to do what your heart leads you to do and there is a consequence. I think I would love the idea of having my partner be there as a fellow performer. I can’t imagine how awesome that would be. Or even just having a partner who’s willing and/or able to be there at shows regularly. And those partners are rare. It’s a hard thing to ask someone to do. It’s like saying, “Put up with everything else I do - oh and sometimes I’m not going to be around ‘cause i have this girlfriend called Rocking and Rolling All Night.” It’s hard, man.
Me: What’s your favorite thing to write about?
Alice: As artists, we have to go into every possible thing to write about - we have to explore every angle of every aspect of life. I naturally gravitate toward cliche stuff like relationships. My husband’s really good at metaphor and I’m not. He will write what you think is about relationships but is actually about something else, whereas I’m really just writing about relationships. For years, all of my music turned out to be country. It just always seemed to turn out that way, but I’m NOT A COUNTRY singer and I don’t want to be. I have thing thing about country being crap, so why would I want to sing my own song if it’s country? It’s not like I hate country, it’s just not what I like to sing. I just don’t understand myself. I woke up in the middle of the night last night and wrote a verse and chorus, and at the end of it, I threw my iPad down and was like, “Crap, this is country!” So I have to take it to people and say “Here’s my idea,” and have them help me hammer it out. But I call myself a soul singer. That’s what I love to sing.
Josh: Relationships. Easy. That’s probably cliche. But it’s true, everything is about a relationship. Even if it’s not about person - it’s about your perception. I think the perspective I write from is with the relationship I have with that emotion, person, or experience. I don’t know if that’s my favorite thing to do, but it feels the most honest and natural.
Me: Have you ever wanted to quit playing music?
Alice: No. The closest I ever came to when I was in my mid 30’s because I felt like my ship had sailed. I was singing rock covers and I felt like I was pretty much done and I was just going to coach and teach for the rest of my life. But then a whole lot of projects fell into my lap and it put the wind back in my sails. My husband was super encouraging and said that I needed to keep going, but maybe just not with what I’m doing now. Those cool projects all came at the same time and it changed my life.
Josh: No, I’ve never wanted to. But I’ve nearly done it. It’s interesting because that’s very closely tied to the topic of the sacrifice it’s been in my marriage. It created this point in my life recently, where I was frantically searching for ways to demonstrate my commitment to marriage, and as a desperate attempt at that, I quit. I posted on FB, I quit my band, I tore up all my contracts. It was hasty. I was trying to save my marriage. But the very next day, I was like, what the hell did I just do? There’s no way I could be happy in any relationship, especially the one with myself, if I don’t play. I know there are people who don’t give two shits about me or the way I play, but I don’t play for them, I play for me. So that’s the only time I’ve thought about quitting. I couldn’t do it, I won’t do it.
Me: This next question, I want to pose to Dick and Alice because so much of their livelihood hinges on music: how do you deal with the seemingly conflicting desires of playing music and keeping food on the table?
Alice: That’s a complex answer for me as a wife, mother, and musician. I think for many years, especially since Dick has been on the road, more and more, I wish I could just do music. The conflict is having a family and being a professional educator, I have a stable salary and medical benefits. I can’t walk away from that because we need to support our family. Dick does everything he can to help support the family and contribute. I think that it has been a conflict because Dick has also been asking himself whether he should just be working and staying home. But I made the decision a long time ago that being an educator and musician at the same time was what I wanted to do. But if I ever had the opportunity to do music full time, I would totally do that. When you’re responsible for children, everything hinges on that. You know, we went on a tour this last summer as a family. I’m coming back the salary at the end of the summer. If we sold our house and completely changed our lifestyle and just did music...I mean, we made certain commitments and we’ve established our family in such a way that it doesn’t feel right for us to leave all that behind.
Alice: And one more thing. Every answer I’ve given you has included my husband as a musician too. I think that’s the whole theme of your blog, every decision I make as a musician affects my role as a wife and mother...and those to me are even more important. *Deep breath* Oh, artists are softies.
