Kemble Walters (Æges)
SPB: What is your day job/how does it affect your schedule as a musician?
Walters: This is a funny question for me being that I am a working musician. I've been on the full-time musician kick since 2003 and it's definitely a struggle. For one, I am my own boss: I make my own schedule, and I have lots of animals... That actually seems like the better question here, "How do you take care of all your animals as a working musician?" Sorry, I digress.
Now-a-days being a working musician doesn't just mean "guitarist of a band" or "engineer" or "performer," it's far more than that. With technology where it's at and "standard" musician pay where it's at, the working musician is forced to play as many roles as possible.
I am a producer, engineer, performer, songwriter, and social media nerd. When working in the industry, I love to take on jobs that are out of my comfort zone. For example, I was recording/producing an artist this past week. A sprightly young girl with an insanely great voice and we we're laying down pop/country jams, it was so fun! I also engineered and played drums on a new dance/trance record with some buddies, and mixed a great new band--the Black Lantern’s new jams.
When I'm not engineering, mixing, producing or songwriting and don't have an ÆGES show, you can usually find me and my drummer Mike Land at the Viper Room on Wednesday and Saturday nights playing with DIVE doing Nirvana covers along with some other gems (Cheap Trick, Blur, etc). Playing parties/weddings, etc is a great and fun way to pay the bills. DIVE is a total party ‘90s rock band that kills it with the frat kids, then I have PETTY CASH. Petty Cash is a Tom Petty / Johnny Cash cover band comprised of current and former members of H2O, Offspring, Juliette & the Licks, and Filter. This band tends to get some sweet beerfests, weddings, and corporate gigs. Speaking of, our guitarist Cory Clark also does wedding/corporate gig stuff as well for a means of making some extra scrill. He's a killer singer/songwriter and can croon your eyes to a watery death. The boss of the bottom end, Mr. Tony "TBoZ" Baumeister has a pretty killer day job as well. He does syndication for TV. Basically, if I'm correct (he's totally gonna yell at me for this), he converts film to digital so we normal folk can watch it on the reg.
Anyhow, this is getting super long, I like to talk. But to answer your question, work affects me making music merely by funding my dream and allowing me to stay creative. I have the freedom to turn down work if I need to tour without the risk of being fired but, in turn, I get no paid vacations. I love what I do and I do what I love. Music 24/7. If people are looking to get their albums slammin’, hit me, www.kemblewalters.com
