My name is Scott, I'm 23 and live in Perth, Western Australia. I play guitar in Voyager & Statues, and I also write music for a project called Absent Hearts. Music is the love of my life. I also like to talk to like-minded and passionate people.crossroads
I’m in a dilemma. What’s more important, locking in and securing my future, or continuing to pursue what I’ve worked a decade to try and achieve?
Two and a half years I’ll be dedicating to university. Two and a half years. There’s no online option, and completing my prac means I’m nailed by my hands and feet to Perth for certain periods of the year. If I consider where I was in my musical career two and a half years ago from now, I had just started Statues, I wasn’t even in Voyager, and Absent Hearts was just an idea, nameless at the time. If I extend another two and a half years from now without any hindrance, Statues would potentially be working on our second album and Voyager will be working on it’s sixth, with any number of potential tours within that time.
The problem lies in a few things. A fill-in is not an easy option for Voyager, and in fact is entirely not an option for Statues, simply due to finding the right person to play the shows the way we play them. It’s not a matter of having a pretty face strumming a guitar in front of the audience - Statues is about every member’s interaction with the audience; it’s our major selling point. I don’t doubt there’s someone who fits the profile, but it’s no small undertaking for whoever it would be.
The other issue is that of pursuing a sense of identity in the original music world. A goal of mine is to be an instrumentalist who is a household name within certain musical communities. Touring is vital for working towards this goal, and it’s something that I need to continue to maintain and grow for extensive periods of time. I’ve only just started seeing a change in that since joining Voyager and releasing August Earth with Absent Hearts. Wheels, after eight years, are now in motion and only now am I thinking about applying the brakes?
I can’t help but think how amazing it would be to have that security though; the knowing that when I return from a tour, I’ll have all my teaching work at the ready for me. Admittedly, this is already the case, but not in a large enough quantity for it to be financially secure. Maybe I’m thinking about this all wrong, and I should just work harder at being self-reliant; a better freelancer.
