Each person’s experience with their own art is very personal. Mine has swung from careless to way too heavy. It’s the hardest thing because you visit all the corners of yourself and there’s no hiding. Basically art is a mirror. And if you don’t like what u see, oh shit. I have learnt to be a little less heavy with it all.
It started with struggle. I wasn’t exactly unhappy but I was in a pretty tumultuous emotional state until the age of 18. Sorta angry, anxious, overexcited kinda thing. Divorce, crappy school, the usual painful child things happened. But I wasn’t that aware of myself really. We weren’t back then. Generation X’rs were just action reaction, just do and don’t think. We were the last of the ‘kids should be seen and not heard’ generation so we didn’t analyse our feelings much. Our parents left us alone so we just experimented and stumbled on through. Well, that’s the way it was for me.
Anyhow. Music was my friend. I was a pretty lonely teenager looking back and I leaned heavily on music. I was obsessed with this band or song and listened pretty much non stop. At 14 it was The Cure. By 15 I was all about the Metal. The old school stuff and hair bands. Back then when I could actually sleep, I’d have no trouble drifting off to Motley Crue blaring. Music is grand for that, isn’t it? Company. Earlier it was Elvis and 50’s popular songs on a mixed tape my Dad made for me.
There were guitars laying about the house, I never played them. Dad’s a musician and he would get us involved when we saw him (he lived interstate) but the flame hadn’t been properly lit yet. It wasn’t until age 15, when I was grounded for smoking cigarettes, completely bored that I thought what the hell, may as well teach myself guitar.
My brother had just started learning and had a book so I got hold of it and before I knew it I had bar chords down and I spent the next year learning Metallica songs on a classical guitar.
Encouraged by my boyfriend, I got my first electric guitar in year 11. It is not a very cool story but I HATED the sounds it produced and basically quit playing. Not like Luke, who got his first electric and DISCOVERED DISTORTION and has been fanging it ever since! I guess years down the track it is true that acoustic guitar is my soul mate (for writing anyway). I do also love turning up & rocking out power chords.
One regret: I never sat down like my bro with the guitar vids and learn to shred. Hours and hours of it. Now, I aint got the chops. Boo. And the older brain DOES NOT learn like the younger brain, no matter what anyone says. I reckon you can always tell when a guitarist plays a solo whether they put in that teenage shredding time or not.
So, a few years dragged on with no guitar in my life. And I didn’t miss it to be honest. I was too busy being 18. Then, at 20, plagued again by loneliness, I decided to take up classical guitar lessons. Pretty much for something to do. I had a very flippant attitude to playing music. It was something for when there was nothing else to do and I didn’t take it at all seriously. Although, I did practice as I have a diligent personality. I had pretty much moved into indie rock. It was the post grunge era, so REM, and Brit pop mania. Stone Roses, yes!
And….I discovered I had crippling performance anxiety, oh joy! I never knew at school because we never did any kind of public speaking so the anxiety was there lying dormant. I had already known about my social anxiety, though I didn’t know what it was at the time. As I said I was not analyzing myself AT ALL. Only in hindsight can I see that my drinking alcohol was a cover. I could be the life of the party when off my face but I was quite scared underneath it all. I have always had a very anxious brain. Still do!
I had to play in this guitar ensemble and my hands would shake so much I played like shit. Classical guitar is all about the fine motor control of both hands so I was screwed! I never considered getting help for it. It was the 90’s, man. Suffer on through.
I eventually quit lessons because at 23 bored and LONELY AGAIN, decided that a band would be a cooler way to meet friends. I originally thought I would play bass for some reason, but ended up hooking up with an old boyfriend and we formed my first band, Avon. I played rhythm guitar and was to sing as well, being the only one who could hold a tune. I wasn’t a very good singer. I had no training or experience. I was quiet, breathy and didn’t have any strength or much tone.
But I found I could write ok melodies and started enjoying the creative process of stringing melodies and words to music. That bit has always been easy. Well not easy, but natural. And fun. It’s the bit I still like the most today.
It’s embarrassing looking back. I didn’t know what I was doing and was a bit in fantasy land. It’s ok though, it was my starting point. I got on stage and battled the anxiety and was a bit brave. The band had potential and Phil was a creative genius, but without doing the real work, it was never going to go anywhere and it didn’t.
That was my 20’s. Also got a degree in that time which is amazing really. I was a borderline alcoholic in that binge drinking aussie kinda way.
30 is when I started writing words AND MUSIC. I wrote one song I still like to play now as it was about a breakup.
Enter Luke. I was playing with some guys from AVON. We were recording some tunes at Luke’s studio. I actually got kicked out of that band. Ouch. It hurt ridiculously but Luke helped me. We started working together. We started fighting together.
Yep, we fought from day 1. He was very thorough, methodical and knew a lot of stuff about playing and writing songs. And recording was his profession. I was naïve, scatty, wilful and rebelled against being told what to do. I think back to the time squandered arguing about songwriting and the battle of the wills but guess it was ‘school fees’ for me. Regrets.
The Trails was sort of born and I started to take music more seriously. I started to give it the respect it deserved. Unlike some fair-weather girlfriend who only dropped around when she was bored and lonely, I decided to commit myself more to the craft. I didn’t realize what that commitment meant. I have put myself through the ringer with music and songwriting. It has been my therapy and my nemesis and my best friend and the most fun thing ever and the thing that has made me cry the most.
So, I started late, relatively speaking. I feel like I’ve been on the back foot from the start. It has never been easy. I find all of it hard. The singing, the guitar playing, the songwriting, the performing, having a good headspace to work in. I’ve been the best at being my own worst enemy. I can be terribly negative and defeatest. I’ve had so much bloody fear it’s ridiculous and frustrating. Just relax a bit FFS! It’s only music. Well, yes that’s the point, it FEELS like life and death to me sometimes. I’ve read so many artist self help books! I still struggle with performance anxiety. I still battle with feeling ‘good enough’, ‘a bit of a fake’. ‘Am I really an artist?’ All that.
Why do it then? Dunno. Art is a compulsion and the idea of creating something bigger than yourself. There is no choice. It’s a fucking privilege I know that. It does make me incredibly happy overall.
The Trails was the next stage in my musical development but it never really took sail. So, now I just gotta do MY thing, with all the imperfect singing and sloppy guitar, and weirdness and anxiety. Everything has led me to here.
Just gotta get it going… yeh
Mabel Fyne 
Nice one
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