Considering Career Paths ft Laura Clapp

Summary:

00:00  Intro and She Podcasts meeting

01:50 Laura discusses her background, Berkeley, Nashville, TC Helicon, Howard Jones

05:20 Laura says she was approached by TC Helicon to demo their products

05:42 Laura singing with TC Helicon Vocal Harmonizer

08:07 Stevie asks Laura about how it felt to be a musician and pursuing a professional career

10:14 Being a woman in the industry and the misogyny

11:07 Laura talks about a songwriting course by Ryan Tedder

12:07 Barriers women perceive to getting more technically proficient in music

16:00 Budgeting for self-develoment

20:00 Laura’s songwriting takeaways from Ryan Tedder

21:25 Advice for a career in music

22:00 Home recording advice

25:00 Laura Clapp’s song Rise Up

Stevie: [00:00:00] Laura Clapp welcome to This Next Song's About, thank you so much for joining me.

Laura: Thank you for having me.

Stevie: we met maybe, oh gosh, two weeks ago. I guess at She Podcasts live in Arizona I loved that. That was so fun.

Laura: it was amazing. It was perfect weather. Perfect people. Tons of knowledge. I had a blast.

Stevie: And there's such a community feel I've been to a couple of conferences more on the corporate professional side, but I've never been to anything like that, super specific for women and nonbinary folk. That was just so uplifting.

Laura: Oh, yeah. and I loved the buttons you could get to have your pronouns, or you could write whatever you wanted. And then the badge lanyards that were green, yellow, or red to be like, hug me, maybe hug me, get the hell away from me. Like it was just, it was really great.

Stevie: Your level of comfort with humans and I'm like, I prefer that just, in general, versus in COVID times, cause I'm British. I shake hands. Don't hug me.

Laura: I know I'm that awkward person who never knows what to go in for, is it the high five, then I end up [00:01:00] like

Stevie: yep.

Laura: Maybe that's because I'm British. Like my heritage is a hundred percent pretty much. So that explains

Stevie: You identify as British

Laura: I do. I can say that. Yeah. that's. why light bulb moment. All right, cool.

Stevie: So that's where we met. And you were manning Shure manufacturer booth, and showing off all kinds of Shure gear and so you work for Shure. You are a musician and you are a Graduate of Berkeley college of music. So tell me a little bit about your career as both an artist and a gearhead you are now paid to be a gearhead, which is pretty awesome

Laura: I am. Yeah. So I went to Berkeley. started off in Chicago, actually at DePaul university for freshman year. So before that I started writing songs when I was about 11 and just really enjoyed writing songs that people related to, making that connection with friends. Cause when you're in middle school and high school, you you feel like an alien.

And writing anything that people could identify [00:02:00] with was really something cool for me. So realized I wanted to do that tried studying opera for the first year, , thinking, oh, I'll get gigs and get this like really solid technical base and yeah, I didn't get any gigs. I was too busy with college and life transferred to Berkeley, moved to Nashville after I graduated, , and did a lot down there.

I was a demo singer, which is somewhat specific to Nashville, but it's in other industries too, or other music cities, but, there's a lot of writers who can't sing. yeah. So I would go into the studio and sing their songs and then they'd use those to pitch to artists. So that was my bread and butter for a long time, I worked in music publishing.

I worked as a song plugger for a minute and I also produced demos for other people. So they would come to me with their lyrics and I turned them into songs. I still do that actually. So if anybody's dying to collaborate or have a song set to music, I can do that.

Stevie: Check the show notes.

Laura: Yeah. So, , did that, [00:03:00] and in, I think, 2006, 2005, I was approached by this company called TC Helicon to demonstrate a piece of gear called the voice live. And it was this box with foot switches all over it. And basically you plug a microphone into it and you could generate four voices of harmony from one voice. The second I plugged into this thing. I was like, oh my God, I love this. Because if anybody has a chance to play with a harmonizer as a singer, you've got to do it. It's a game changer. It will inspire you. So I was asked to do this thing called the Nam show, which is usually in Anaheim in January. We're working back towards that. , And I had to demonstrate for 20 minutes. On the hour, every hour for four days, that was an experience. but I loved it. I was like, this is the coolest thing ever. It was a big trade show, like a hundred thousand people come to this trade show. I was able to play my own music, sell my CDs while demonstrating gear.

Stevie: And I'm sorry for anyone who isn't familiar with NAMM,[00:04:00] , it's stands for the national association of music merchants. Cause I looked that up. I knew what it was, but I didn't know what it stood for

Laura: Yes. People come up with all kinds of funny names for. it.

Stevie: So it's a big trade show music gear.

Laura: yes, for music gear. for all the new products that are coming out, usually launch at NAMM. so yeah, so I did that show and then TC actually hired me full time to be a product specialist or product demonstrator didn't even know was a thing. and loved it. And so I got to travel all over the world and demonstrate this gear. So I'd go into music stores, I'd go to trade shows, I'd go wherever and set it up and plug it in and, you know, stand in the middle of the show floor and or the store and sing

Stevie: And what was that like? You kind of glossed over like your Nashville experience and for what you were saying that you did, like, it's really fucking hard to go to Nashville and do that stuff. And you're just like, yeah. You know, I did this and I worked in publishing and yada and I'm just like, no, no, no, no, no. It takes people like years to do that.

Laura: It [00:05:00] does. It does.

Stevie: So, congrats for doing that. But what was it like as a musician going into this industry and you're doing your music in parallel to this track of your career as well. And how did that feel doing the two in parallel together?

Laura: it felt really weird at first it felt like I was betraying my artist self a lot of times. well, actually I should say it felt really natural at first because I was able again, to sell CDs and, perform, I was a hired artist. And so then when I got hired by the company and got promoted up and, started working in marketing and all that, I was kind of like, oh, where's my musician self, but I did some touring when I was a solo artist. So in Nashville, I used to load up my Saturn and with all my gear and travel and do like Midwest tours or west coast tours. And it was really, really hard and didn't pay very well. And then I was a background singer for a minute with Howard Jones and that was amazing. And that paid really well.

Stevie: Yeah. I saw some videos that looked amazing.

[00:06:00] Like a lot of fun.

Laura: Yeah, that paid really well, and was, you know, the ability to travel to Australia and Japan and England and all of these amazing places and be paid for it. So that was really cool, but I also realized traveling, doing all of this was going to be a lot of time away from the rest of my life.

So it led to this balance of okay, career, 401k, you know, great pay great companies. And it just naturally progressed. I don't think I ever made Like a switch flip decision kind of thing, but yeah, but Nashville was a trip. It was seven years of my life and they call it a five-year town and that's very accurate.

You have to be there for a while before anyone will trust you to sing for them or do anything. And you have to be mortified and get up on stage and do writing rounds with three people. And. It's. Yeah. it's a lot. It's a lot, but it was great. I miss it still

Stevie: Now [00:07:00] you live in, I think it's Connecticut.

Laura: I live in Connecticut, , which is where I'm from.

Stevie: So anyway, big gear head. what is it like being a woman in that industry? And I'm sure you get this question a lot, but it is something to address and from one non-cis het male to another, , I'm, certainly advertised things on . Facebook gear, whatever it is.

And it's like, oh, and there's just another straight white guy who's like playing guitar and like, . oh my God, you couldn't just find someone else. Anyone else?

Laura: Anyone else... I know., interesting especially when I would go on tour with the gear, I'd go over to England or I'd go over seas. And people would be like, Oh, do you need a hand with that? Or do you need a hand plugging that in? And I'm like, no, I got it. Like, I'm the expert. So, it was, it was bit of a challenge faced a little bit of that.

 But then as soon as I opened my mouth and showed people that I knew what I was doing, they were like, oh, snap. so that was really empowering, honestly, because. Had always loved music had always loved to create, but never felt like I could go to the [00:08:00] next surface level of understanding how I can make my music sound even better.

And that that's something that you can just continue to expand on. No matter how old you are, wherever you are in your career. Like I just, I took a songwriting course last April. For my birthday. I asked for it, it was this program called Monthly, which I got a Facebook ad for Ryan Tedder from One Republic

Stevie: Oh, yeah, that gets advertised to me. Yeah.

Laura: Exactly. And I was like, okay, I know it's not going to be Ryan here telling me how to write songs, but it really was, it was just prerecorded. And you do it with 20 other people from around the world and they're all doing it with you. And it taught me how to use my daw even though he was in pro tools and I was in logic. It didn't matter. It all translated. He taught me how to use plugins that I'd never thought to explore. And I was like, this is cool. And you can always learn. I just, get frustrated like at She Podcasts, when, women were coming up to me and saying, oh, I don't know what mic, I use. I just let my editor or my producer pick it.

Stevie: I was in front of you , or standing next to somebody who said that to you. [00:09:00] And I was like,

Laura: yes.

Stevie: okay. I felt that too. And I also edit. Yes, I definitely feel that. But do you think that there's like a barrier that women have specifically towards gear or getting technical?

Laura: I think they are more afraid of it or more open to saying they're intimidated by it because we just aren't encouraged to figure shit out. we're not it's more of. You don't know how to do this, find somebody else to do it, as opposed to there are a gazillion YouTube videos, Google that and figure it out. You know? So that's kind of a personal crusade, especially after leaving she podcasts. I was like, well, we got to change this. So I think it's more, I don't want to make a generalization, but I would say from my experience, yes.

Stevie: Yeah, no, absolutely. But going back to the gear and how you started to learn them, was that something that you were learning in college?

Laura: I did a bit, , cause when I went to Berkeley, I studied something called professional [00:10:00] music, which is, it's a major that you design for yourself. So basically every semester I decided that I would focus on a different area of the business so that I wasn't focusing only on. So one semester I focused on music, production or music, production and engineering. So I learned more about studio gear, and I did a lot of programming and recording in the lab. So I learned more about DAWs and, you know, getting into the geared that way, but I never really learned about effects or anything like that. Cause I played acoustic guitar, acoustic piano, or keyboard, and I sang But there are so many effects as a vocalist that you can get into.

That if you take the power, like, even if you're just doing bar gigs or, which is all I do now, not bar gigs, but wineries specifically,

Stevie: that's fun. That's fun. Who doesn't

enjoy a good winery

Laura: It's It's great!

Stevie: And pay well pay.

Laura: Exactly. they pay.

pretty well. You get some wine, you get some food. I set up my little small PA I bring a small vocal effects processor. I've got some reverb [00:11:00] And some compression and it just makes the voice come up over the mix and sound great. And there's no barrier to entry there except cost that one does cost a little bit, but I don't know, two, 300 bucks.

Stevie: And when you're getting . Paid that amount to do a gig, then. Pays for itself,

Laura: Sometimes.

Stevie: indeed. I find it really interesting that. as someone with your background, Berkeley college of music, Nashville, songwriting, like you were like, yeah, I want , that monthly class with Ryan Tedder. I want to learn. And I love that you don't have so much ego and you could, at this point in your career, you could have that amount of ego to go. Yeah, I don't need that. You're like, no, I want to learn. There's always something.

Laura: yeah. He taught me so much or that class, again, it wasn't Ryan, like in my studio with me.

me and Ryan. were super tight. I no! The goal of the class was to create three fully produced songs that you could release at the end. And while they weren't ready to release, there were three songs that I'm actually developing now, and [00:12:00] one of them is actually fully mixed and took a complete turn, but I never produced anything like that in my life because. When you get into your daw you can hit record. Right. And that could be it. And you can like throw some compression and reverb on there and then hope for the best. But now I know how to add a mastering plugin to just get everything up. I know how to add. The effect to my voice, that I've always been going for and just get it out in front of the mix. And I was like, this is so easy, but I just needed something structured to where I could focus for five seconds to learn. Oh, that's what all those plugins do.

Total game changer. Loved it.

Stevie: And having somebody who has that experience that you trust to go, okay, here's the five plugins that you need. go get them. And they're w they're usually like even like the expensive plugins, right? 50 bucks I'm , by the way, there's usually sales at the holidays. You know, it can be a complete, you know, you can go down like a Google rabbit hole if you're looking for, and one of the top five plugins and I need to master my, my own music, you know, and that can be another [00:13:00] barrier. information overload. Who do you trust? finding that, that,

Right. source? That's good for you.

Laura: Right. And, and just to be clear, like, I have never been one who spends a ton of money in really, but on stuff like this. And so for me to say, oh, it's only 50 bucks. I know 50 bucks is a lot of money and it adds up. But at this point in life, I was like, around. Like, this is. I have all these ideas in my head. They're not sounding right when I get them into my DAW I missing? And taking that class was like a light bulb moment. So it's not for everybody, ,

Stevie: It's worth thinking about. how much you invest in yourself. have a friend and he admits very openly that he spends about $10,000 a year,

Laura: lot!

Stevie: Which a lot of money, , in terms of investing, whether it's a class on this or whether it's a piece of gear and he keeps track. All of the stuff that he is making an investment in, in terms of himself, his development, his songwriting, all of that. And I've spoken to a few people outside of that. that number is quite similar across fields, which I find very interesting.

Laura: Wowza. I don't spend like [00:14:00]

Stevie: No neither do I.

Laura: Good on him. That's amazing. I mean, I have two kids, so, the extra income is not free-flowing, but, I've been very spoiled in many ways too being a woman in the industry and I'm sure of my colleagues will be like, well, that's shitty, but I've gotten a lot of gear and it's because I was demonstrating in front of people. That it was given to me. So I've been very lucky in that regard. I also, because I work in the industry, I get discounts on manufacturer's gear because we just all share the wealth. So, you get a good deal on something that you've been lusting after. Like, I finally, after 10 years bought my Taylor 814 that I had been lusting after, because I was like, why am I waiting? I get a really good deal on this. And it's an insanely expensive guitar, but. It's how I make my second living, , and I should be playing the instrument that I've always wanted to play. So it's having these inner conversations now, like I'm 42. I was just like, fuck it. [00:15:00] Like, I need to spend money. I need to invest in myself into my career to have the right tools, because you don't want to keep playing around and banging your head against the wall with the wrong stuff. So if you have the money to spend 10 grand a year, wow. That's rad

Stevie: Some people can, sometimes you live at home, your parents,, sometimes people do it. but it's a lot of money.

Laura: It is, it's a lot

Stevie: but I will say, For seeing him over the last five or so years, he has been able to make that work. And he's now at a point where he's like making six figures.

Laura: Wow. Good for him.

Stevie: yeah. His, business acumen is brilliant. I'm so impressed with him and how he has built this from the ground up. , it is really impressive, but I find that mindset to be really quite interesting of okay, this is part of my strategy. I'm going to invest this amount every year. And let's see if I reap benefits and part of that is a self belief, but it's it is a strategy and a strategy is where you believe something's going to work, you can adjust it over time, but you do have to trust it over a long period.

Laura: Well, and the phrase. You have to spend [00:16:00] money to make money is not inaccurate at all. I mean, it is very true. And it's frustrating to hear, because I think we live in a society where everybody wants everything right now and they want it to be free. And you can't , it has to be the long steady climb as opposed to straight to the top. So kudos to him because it sounds like he wasn't throwing money at it and seeing if it would stick, he had a strategy and a plan, and that's something else to look into too, when you learn how to strategize and, and there's a strategy called OST objective strategy tactics. and it helps you go at a problem or go at, a, goal in a very methodical way that even as a crazy creative, like I am, I can still feel like I'm approaching it and. Exploring all the creative sides of it, but keeping very focused so that I Always come back to the OST and say, am I tracking towards this? And so I use that for my team at work. I use it for my projects at work

Stevie: Always having that in mind. And that, that also works for song writing. It's often called the north [00:17:00] star. When you're writing a song, it's like, what is the north star?

Laura: I have heard of that, yes.

Stevie: Sorry. That was quite a fun tangent. I really enjoyed that. , I had a follow up question for like five minutes ago that I wanted to ask about the Ryan Tedder class. And it was what is your top takeaway from that what is something perhaps unexpected that you learned that you are now going to apply to your own work?

Laura: the way that he writes and approaches a song is he'll start with the beat. he'll come in. If he's doing a co-write, especially , what do you want to write about today? Do you want it to be uptempo mid and what kind of vibe? And so approaching from a vibe as opposed to like a certain key. I mean, I never write that way, but starting with that, and then laying down some sort of beat, which you can do. Of course, in many DAWs by just throwing in a drum track, getting the tempo and staying with the temp. and then just creating like an eight bar loop and he would improvise over it, and, and just nonsense sing over it. And that's how he was getting these incredible melodies. And you would watch him do it. And it's so freeing to watch that because normally I would sit down with my guitar, [00:18:00] my piano, play some sort of progression and then start adding melody to it, which I still do. But now I can play a few chords. Get some structure and then just noodle over it for an hour or two. And , all this stuff comes out of it and you have like 90 tracks of nonsense singing, but it naturally guides song and in new ways. And that's, I think the key takeaway for me.

Stevie: Interesting. I love that. All right. And people who are considering exploring different career paths within music and thinking about your career as an example, what advice would you have for people considering such a career?

Advice for starting a creative career

Laura: Don't pigeonhole yourself. If you think that you want to do one thing, be prepared to do several, to make ends meet, don't be a diva and just be open-minded and open to some other avenues that you might not even realize are there there's so many ways to lend your voice and your expertise these days, especially with all of these platforms that we have. So [00:19:00] you can be able to be flexible and explore and satisfy that creative side of you while also still taking care of feeding yourself

Stevie: Yeah.

Laura: and taking care of those important things. Cause it's, it's, really hard when you first go out there.

Stevie: Alright, do you have top three tips for recording at home as someone with, your background and experience and possibly working for Shure.

Top Recording Tips

Laura: And, possibly working for it. Yes. So make sure that if you are not in the treated environment, which I am not that you use something like a dynamic microphone, as opposed to a condenser. Condensers are much more sensitive. They pick up all the details and nuances, which is super fantastic if you're recording in a controlled environment, i.e. a studio that's acoustically treated. So use a dynamic mic, and do your research on your DAW. So that's your digital audio workstation and find one that you are comfortable with. If you're comfortable in Garageband, go with Garageband, but you'll get to a certain point where you'll hit a limit like I did and then you [00:20:00] jump over to logic, but I've used Cubase. I've used pro tools I've used, I don't even know how many, there was one that was free. Logic has been the one that is my favorite. So find one that feels comfortable. Okay. So that's two and then three would be, get everything set up. As much as you can to remove as many barriers as you can, so that when inspiration strikes you can just hit record. And that's something that I've been trying to do for my entire life and career. And I'm finally, at that point, keep my DAW open all the time. I keep my interface on all the time, which is probably horrible for it. But whenever it's been around for five years, I use an Apollo twin and. That way you don't have to think, oh, I've got to open up a session. you can just go boom and hit record and not lose the the idea or, bring your phone and always have that with you. If you're on the road.

Stevie: Perfect. Oh, and of course with the MV 88, which we love

Laura: yes,

Stevie: I'm going to, love it as soon as I'm able to try it out this . Week.

Laura: [00:21:00] yes, you are. You're going to fall in love. It's great.

Stevie: All right. Laura Clapp, thank you so much for your time. This has been such an interesting conversation. I always love chatting with people who are songwriters who have taken different paths. And, this has been really interesting. And from the perspective of being a gearhead and a woman, and, from Nashville to this, to that, there's just been so many twists, twists and turns. It's been like a true crime podcast, but, um, not

Laura: go. There we go. but, without death

Stevie: without death!

Laura: Yup.

Stevie: Laura Clapp. Thank you so much.