Running an independent band is challenging. As well as the fun part – writing, recording, rehearsing, gigging – there are the million and one tasks that need to be done in order to keep the band moving forwards. Booking gigs (and making nice with bookers). Being your own PR company, writing press releases, updating Facebook/TwitterMySpace/website. Making posters. Ordering CDs. Making tshirts. Keeping the books. Without the great Music Industry machine behind you, you must do these things yourselves. And – more importantly than the minutiae – you have to believe it’s worth it.

For me, that means connecting, on a daily basis, to the reasons I quit a fulltime job with great benefits to do this. I spend a lot of time temping in offices to pay the bills, and I probably cut my income by over 50%. So I have to believe it’s worth it, and I have to know that I will make a success of my music and acting career. Hard to do in such a skeptical world. Luckily, I have a strong Buddhist practice that always encourages self-belief, happiness and gratitude so each morning I spend some time chanting for what I really want from my life, and believing that I can achieve it. Hank is similarly spiritual – although not Buddhist – and he too believes strongly in visualizing your success. It’s become a crucial way for both of us to stay motivated, focused and united in our vision for this band.

So when we decided to do this crazy parks tour over the summer (playing every weekend in a park in New York City), we once again set ourselves up to have more work than we could handle: getting parks permits, sound permits, investing in battery-powered amps and working out how to fit all our equipment into one laundry cart and take it on the subway (we’re pretty awesome at knowing where all the elevators are now) are just a few examples. It was a slog to play all those gigs this summer, barely making enough to cover our costs (let alone pay the other band members), but we did it. Each performance was a new experience: the (almost always) friendly Park Rangers, the random crazy guy dancing and shouting along with us, the many people who stopped and listened and liked us and even took our CD. It was a journey that, for me, emphasized the absolute joy of performing for others and inspiring them to think differently about the world around them. It is a thrill like no other, and there is no more visceral way to experience it than to play in a band.

However, it was hard to keep it all together and running smoothly between just two of us, and to see a genuine benefit from all that work was truly a gift. At our second Washington Square Park gig, a guy came up and asked for our business card. This has happened before. We don’t immediately believe them when they say they’re going to help us. This guy, however, was for real. Within a week, we were contacted by BoB Quarterly and asked to open their show at the Highline Ballroom in October. When Hank emailed me about this, I had to stifle my squeal of ‘WHAT?!’ as I was (predictably) sat in an office at a temp job. This is a venue that I have dreamed of playing ever since it opened, and here it was. To see all our sweat and tears and weekends not spent with friends or family pay off in such a spectacular way brought it home to me once again: we do it because we believe it’s worth it. And it is.