Pause/Play

Social media has completely changed how musicians share their work and connect with fans — but not everyone is here for the endless scroll. Some artists are over it and have even ditched it altogether.

In this episode, we dive into the love-hate relationship musicians have with social media. Hear from Chinasa Broxton, Carlos Dashawn Daniels Moore of Tribe Mafia, Walker Lukens, Sara L. Houser, and Robert Ellis as they dish on how they do — or don’t — use these platforms to build their careers and stay true to their art.

The full transcript of this episode of Pause/Play is available on the KUT & KUTX Studio website. The transcript is also available as subtitles or captions on some podcast apps.

Elizabeth McQueen: I’m Elizabeth McQueen

Miles Bloxson: And I’m Miles Bloxson, and this is Paul’s play the podcast about live music, why it matters and what comes next.

Elizabeth McQueen: In the last episode, we talked about all the things that musicians have to do to stay afloat in this town, but

Miles Bloxson: we didn’t talk about how people promote all the things that they do to keep that money coming in. And one of the main tools, musicians. Use is social media. Some

Elizabeth McQueen: people love it and some people hate it.

So we talked to a few musicians to see if social media is still a must have in the world of music,

Miles Bloxson: and some of their answers, well, they might surprise you. Let’s kick things off with two music. Who don’t just post, they study the game. The hiphop

Elizabeth McQueen: duo, who you might have heard in our last episode, really make social media look easy.

They’ve put in the time, done the homework, and figured out how to make it work for them. Tribe [00:01:00] Mafia.

Chinasa Broxton: Jana Broxton, I’m an artist, uh, sound engineer, temporary videographer, while our creative director is not in town. I’m the other half

Carlos DeShawn Daniels Moore: of Tri Mafia, Carlos Deshaun Daniels Moore. And I’m a artist too.

Miles Bloxson: Tribe Mafia has over 107,000 followers on Instagram.

I’ve even gone to Chinasa for help on getting my own Instagram engagement up for my personal page. So when I asked them how they felt about social media and whether it was still an effective tool, I was surprised by their answer. Yeah,

Chinasa Broxton: it just, it just keeps on changing. So at this point, nobody knows what they doing.

I can’t, I used to have all the, all the ideas I used to write. He used to send me all these reels. He still do. Like of ideas that we could try out, like let’s try this, let’s try this, try this. And that’s at the, we’re at the point where we just trying things we don’t even know. We just throwing things to see what stick.

I don’t know. It is, it’s

Carlos DeShawn Daniels Moore: ever changing.

Chinasa Broxton: Everything’s different now.

Miles Bloxson: One thing that they have learned is that you have to put a lot of time in a social media if you want good results. Of [00:02:00] course,

Chinasa Broxton: I was telling Carlos, I was like, I was like, we gotta post probably three times a day, five times if you want to be.

Own it. I was like, ’cause if you only post it one time a day, it’s your Instagram automatically doesn’t wanna show it to none of your followers. We have 107,000 followers. I don’t even know if it’s that, if our stuff is being shown to 10% of it. Yeah. Or 5% of it because we’re not posting enough. So I was telling Carlos, I was like, we gotta post at least five times a day.

He was like, I’m not doing that. That’s spammy. I was like, yeah, I don’t, I don’t wanna do that either. But if. If our stuff is only being shown to like 10 folks or a hundred folks and we have a hundred thousand followers, that means we’re not doing our job.

Elizabeth McQueen: Even though they do post a lot, they feel like it doesn’t always necessarily work.

So they’ve been using the old fashioned approach.

Carlos DeShawn Daniels Moore: You gotta interact with them almost

Chinasa Broxton: every damn day. Yeah. That’s why we’re always like in somebody’s damns under, or the inbox. You gotta, you gotta be a bug. You gotta actually get into somebody’s inbox and say, Hey, could you like my profile? Or could you like my comment?

I’ve gotten one

Miles Bloxson: of those messages [00:03:00] before I know. And I just like, double tap, get off. We apologize this, but, but that’s good though. ’cause it makes me feel like, as another user, like, well, good and bad. Good meaning like as another don’t user that doesn’t really use it as much. I’m like, dang, they’re always on it.

Yeah. And then the other part of me is like, that’s great that they’re always on it because like that’s what y’all supposed to do for your stuff.

Chinasa Broxton: Yeah. It just sucks. Yeah. I, I like it, but at the same time it’s just like, dang, I don’t want to bug this person. Like, what if I got another one I gotta send out to them?

And we do. It was just like. It’s like, dang, I don’t wanna send them another one. But then after that I’m just like, oh, well I’m gonna send it again. I don’t care if they ignore it, they ignore it. And if they don’t, cool, you know, some people are really going to support you and do it.

Elizabeth McQueen: And they’ve realized everyone is not going to participate.

Chinasa Broxton: You know, they don’t have to do that. They don’t have to comment, they don’t have to do anything. And if they do, do it perfect and if they don’t, like, don’t feel bad about it because like. Maybe they’re too busy. And I used to, like, I used to take, I used to take things like the wrong way, but I used to be like, dang, I [00:04:00] probably bugged them too much.

Like, you know, it’s, I don’t wanna, especially if it was like, if it was like another artist. Yeah. Like, you don’t wanna make them feel bad about not doing enough either. And I used to be like, okay, hey, we got new placement. Could you, could you go check this out? And I don’t want another artist to feel like, oh man, I ain’t doing enough.

I ain’t finna go comment on that person’s stuff. For what? So they can give more placements and get more attention. And I, I see that. ’cause I play those scenarios in my head and I’m like, oh yeah, I don’t wanna do that. Maybe we don’t send these out to artists anymore. And we just find out the people that we can send it to.

But now I’m just at the points where it’s just like, you know, I send it to whoever I send it to, and if they want to interact with it, perfect. And if they don’t,

Miles Bloxson: that’s okay. And they continue to use social media every day because that’s how they get more opportunities.

Chinasa Broxton: Yeah. To, because that’s, that’s literally how we find like more people to interact with placements.

And that’s how we, you know, just keep building and growing. You never know who you’re gonna run or talk to.

Elizabeth McQueen: They’ve interacted with people that love what they’re doing musically and visually, and that leads to more collaborations and business [00:05:00] opportunities.

Chinasa Broxton: But he was like, I liked what you guys are doing, like the music you guys are making.

I want to help you guys do a show that I’m gonna be putting together. Would you guys like to come on? I was like, oh yeah, that’s it. I just gotta post more. And I was like, well, yeah,

Miles Bloxson: but it’s not that easy.

Chinasa Broxton: I was looking up other videos and they was like, they were saying like, if you don’t post enough content on your videos, yeah, you’re gonna get shadow banned apparently.

And if you get shadow banned on Instagram, it’s just basically saying you’re in timeout. They’re not gonna show you all of your content to all of your followers. And I think that’s just, that sucks. That’s messed up. But it’s just like, and then if you wanna show your stuff to your content, to your, to your followers, you gotta pay money for ads.

So it’s just like now you gotta pay money just to get your content shown to the people

Miles Bloxson: that already follow you.

Chinasa Broxton: Yeah. To the people that already follow you. Exactly.

Miles Bloxson: That’s crazy.

Carlos DeShawn Daniels Moore: See, even they know that it is, it’s gonna be a money pin no matter what. Even if you don’t do music, Sage is just doing your podcasting thing.

You still gotta pay for advertisement and all that stuff.

Elizabeth McQueen: Wait miles,

Miles Bloxson: what is that really a thing? Yeah. I totally have experienced this before. I post on my [00:06:00] stories often, but not always on my feed. And it’s interesting what happens when I take a break from either one. It takes a while for my numbers to ramp back up.

It only happens through consistency. For example, I might post a story and have about 300 views in 24 hours, and then I’ll wait and not post a story for like a week or so and only get like 70 views, and I have about 5,000 followers. So I’m always like, what happened to my engagement? Why has it dropped so much?

But there are things that you can do about this.

Chinasa Broxton: They’re saying you have to do contents in fives every single day. The last one could be a video or a photo, but it has to be like in fives. And then the last one that you do has to be narrating. Yeah, like a narrating video. Like you’re, it’s like behind the scenes, but you’re doing like, you’re doing that in like in five pieces every single day, which is crazy.

Carlos DeShawn Daniels Moore: Like five different pieces of contents of the same thing. But you

Chinasa Broxton: gotta have one photos and you gotta have one. Content piece that’s just photos. And I think that’s crazy. But that’s, that shows it to your actual following though. [00:07:00] And then where did you get

Miles Bloxson: this information from? You just,

Chinasa Broxton: I just see it off of Instagram.

Yeah. I started following a lot of, it’s like a bunch of like content creators that like gives you like these like advice. I was like, oh, and I tried it when I post photos. We did get a lot more attention engaging. And then when I post, when you post res, those go to your people, the people that’s not following you.

So re’s reach are like, it’s like outreach and in photos it’s like the people that’s already following you, but it might not show you all your stuff if you’re not posting constantly. And then once you stop posting, it resets, you have to start it all over again.

Elizabeth McQueen: And they agree it’s not the best,

Chinasa Broxton: it’s, it sucks, but it’s just like it is what we have to do now until.

I don’t know, to one of us go viral.

Miles Bloxson: Chasa admits he doesn’t use social media as much as he used to in the past, unless it’s for business. And Carlos, he uses it a lot, but not for the reason that you might think

Carlos DeShawn Daniels Moore: I follow a lot of things. Just informational base. He be like, where do we find, I like, dude, I had to funnel a lot of just um, follow a lot of just regular people.

And just literally follow content information pages just so it could show [00:08:00] up on my thing. I’m like, I come across anything now that I, that would like deal with it musical wise. So you’re content wise, you’re not

Miles Bloxson: even using it really personally, Carlos, you’re using it to gain more knowledge about how to work on this platform and then just life general knowledge for as being a musician?

Yeah. The things

Carlos DeShawn Daniels Moore: I would share would be personal or anything tied to music. Or just music based on our other page, but like what I use it for is a whole different thing. He would show me, like,

Chinasa Broxton: if we do like a new song, we gotta show us listening to our songs instead of just performing it. ’cause a lot of people want to hear your songs the way that you’re hearing it, which is just like, you know, raw and un unfiltered.

Miles Bloxson: They’ve also invested in a pretty nice camera to make sure that they get the best content possible.

Carlos DeShawn Daniels Moore: The reason was, was just convenience and yeah, consistency and, yeah. It’s just how much content we gotta make now.

Chinasa Broxton: Exactly. Because if you gotta push out five, you know, pieces a day, which we’re gonna start doing now.

We just, I just started, I’m still building that camera rig out right now, but, um. I don’t know. We just wanna be able to push out as much content as possible and [00:09:00] doing that, that helps you get more connections.

Elizabeth McQueen: Chasa and Carlos are putting so much time and resources into this marketing machine that doesn’t always necessarily work in their favor.

So I have to know Miles. How do they feel about social media these days? Well,

Miles Bloxson: I asked them, how does it make y’all feel when y’all use social media?

Carlos DeShawn Daniels Moore: I don’t know. It’s mixed base now. It used to be fun back then. It used to be fun back then. But

Chinasa Broxton: it’s like, that feels like a job. It does feel like a job. It feels like work, and it feels like a job that doesn’t pay.

’cause we’re paying because we’re paying. It hurts. I don’t like it.

Tribe Mafia: Stop.[00:10:00]

Elizabeth McQueen: So Chinasa and Carlos use social media. But they don’t necessarily like it, which I feel like is a pretty common experience. And you know, some people have set boundaries for themselves when it comes to social media, like Walker.

Walker Lukens: My name is Walker Lukins. I’m a musician and I have podcasts as well.

Elizabeth McQueen: Like a lot of other musicians.

Walker uses social media for promoting his music, but for him, things changed Post pandemic.

Walker Lukens: I put out a record in 2023, and I just realized, I was like, I don’t have the appetite for this. Like what’s required. I’m like, I don’t really wanna do it.

Miles Bloxson: Many of the artists we talked to said they felt like they had to use social media to promote themselves.

Walker Lukens: So there was like that, there’s just that kind of fatigue. And then, and then I was, I toured so much in my band and in someone else’s band, and I just had this, the, the impulse to you’re, you’re supposed to share every day what you’re doing. I was like, I don’t, [00:11:00] I don’t want to tell you what I’m doing.

Elizabeth McQueen: I mean, social media just stopped being fun.

Walker Lukens: So we are getting sucked into it and they’re taking bits of our humanity, like our human experience and like turning it into addictive behavior. So it really criticized for any way where I’m like, I don’t, I don’t get joy from social media the way that I once did.

Elizabeth McQueen: He spends between an hour or two on social media a week, sometimes more if it’s work related.

To combat

Miles Bloxson: his use. Walker has created boundaries with social media.

Walker Lukens: I turn off location services. I, I don’t get as much like stuff based on where I am. Uh, it’s not fed to me. I don’t ever look at it when I get up. Like I, I have to spend the first two hours of the day or if I, I mean I have, so, okay. So I don’t look at it when I get up and I don’t look at it before bed.

So there’s an hour bumper.

Miles Bloxson: Walker also found another solution,

Walker Lukens: but part of it is I use this app called [00:12:00] One Sec, which all it does is mess with the notification settings on your phone so that if I want to open any social media and sometimes I put my email in there, I have to go th I have to like. Turn my phone three times or take it like it Gate keeps your social media from you.

Elizabeth McQueen: He started using the app two years ago.

Walker Lukens: I’ve saved, according to this, in March, 2023, I was trying to open it 367 times a week.

Miles Bloxson: Now he’s tried to open Instagram about a hundred times a week. Walker also no longer uses Twitter, and he only has used Facebook seven times Last week, according to the app, he saved 1.7 months of his life since he’s downloaded it.

Elizabeth McQueen: And you know, miles after the interview I downloaded one sec. And honestly, I love it. It just. Interrupts that thing that we all do where we get bored for like one second and we open Instagram and in [00:13:00] interrupting that, you get a chance to like say, no, actually I don’t wanna do this. And it totally works.

Like I checked my screen time on my iPhone and I used Instagram 28 minutes last week.

Miles Bloxson: Really? Yes. I’m impressed. Elizabeth McQueen. Me too,

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Miles Bloxson: thing that inspired Walker to slow down his social media usage was reading Stolen Focus by Johann Hari

Walker Lukens: in that stolen focus book, he, he articulates it really well, right? He just calls it Deep Focus. So like all the most meaningful things in life require deep focus, whether that’s.

Conversing with someone or in my own life, like really working on a song with somebody or myself, you’re just deeply in it. Like those, that is where meaning comes from in life. You’re get [00:14:00] satisfaction from something like a feed, which is just really quick content. Having it broken down that way. It’s like everything I love, everything we all love is the antithesis of this.

Yes. Sometimes I’m so tired that this feels good, but like this feels good. Like eating a Star Wars feels good. It’s like you, it feels good for a second. Like it’s your whole life. It’s awful. So I don’t know, I thought that was really powerful and I think when you are so red pilled on social media and sharing your life on it.

Your everything becomes type two fun. Like you don’t enjoy anything in the moment. You just enjoy sharing it and watching it back.

Miles Bloxson: Like other artists we spoke with, Walker doesn’t think he can leave social media entirely.

Walker Lukens: It’s hard to imagine leaving it all behind completely. Like, I love seeing my nieces and nephews, you know, like, that’s great.

That’s unimpeachably like a good experience, you know? But uh, yeah. Other times it’s like, is this really worth it? I don’t know. [00:15:00] Yeah.

Elizabeth McQueen: Austin musician, Sarah Hauser, who we also talked to in our last episode, wants to limit her use of social media, but she still uses it to promote things.

S.L Houser: Right now I’m really limiting my screen time right now, so I put my hour time limit. I will say I hit the remind me in five minutes button a couple times, so I’m really trying not to be on it for for more than an hour or two.

I’m right now also in a unique position where I’m not actively promoting anything. She feels like social media has had an impact on her, but I definitely [00:16:00] see the way that social media can really. Eat at my productivity and my desire to write, which is a huge reason right now why I am like actively kind of disengaging from it.

Elizabeth McQueen: And she told us some of the ways she thinks social media impacts musicians.

S.L Houser: Comparison is the thief of joy. It’s like you can open your Instagram app and see. I can see within five minutes artists that are doing things that I wish I was doing. And a lot of that is like, you know, inner work. I have to, you know, and, but not everybody has access to resources to help with boundaries like that.

You know, it’s taken me a long time to get comfortable and like not feel that sense of like, oh, I’m not doing enough. And not just on their mental health, but also on their music. The focus has become, uh, more on content and less on art. I think there’s limited attention span. I think very, people are very focused on singles.

People are very focused on the 15 seconds of a song. People are very focused on [00:17:00] getting the viral moment trends, writing to a trend. I find all of that stuff very off-put. I find. The like needing to put the same 15 seconds clip of a song on TikTok or Instagram four times a day in order to get the algorithm to do what it’s like.

Like I’m not gonna go listen to that song.

Elizabeth McQueen: Sarah is working on her own journey to get in touch with the art, not the content.

S.L Houser: I think also, you know, I was mentioning, I’m kind of reading or in the middle of the artist’s way, and one of the chapters talks about output and input. And there’s also a really great Saul Williams quote about how your diet isn’t just your food and like what you ingest and like mindful consumption, right?

So like what you consume is going to affect what kind of art you put out into the world. And I think right now I am really, really protective. Of my input because I care and [00:18:00] I’m deeply invested in my output, and I know that if I am doom scrolling for four hours, that’s not gonna give me. The stimulus. I need to write the way that I wanna write.

I need to be reading, I need to be touching grass, I need to be swimming. I need to be clearing my head. And, and also like, I really need to feel emotionally safe. And social media is like not always a safe space. You don’t have a filter. I don’t have control what I’m seeing when I’m scrolling. I’m just kind of like inundating my brain.

So, um, so yeah, it, it definitely, I think of it as an input output. She’s really noticed a change from when she was younger. I, I would not be the musician and the writer I am today had I had social media when I was 15. I mean, when I was, I started writing music when I was 14. I didn’t have cable internet until I was like.

We were like, my dad [00:19:00] didn’t get cable until I, like, absolutely needed it for school or something like that. So like, I was not on the internet very often, but, um, but yeah, I mean, I was, yeah, I was, I had limited distractions and so I came home from school and I wanted to play piano for four hours. Like my parents would kick me off the piano to, you know, so they could watch the news or whatever.

Um. If anything was a distraction from the schoolwork I needed to get done, you know, so it’s a different time. I mean, I’m obviously like learning and working as like a 38-year-old versus when you’re like 15 and you don’t have to hold a job and you have a place to live, and all that kinda stuff is very

Elizabeth McQueen: different.

And she’s noticed how social media is impacting younger musicians.

S.L Houser: I see it with my students at a CC all the time too, where it’s like. Uh, this, it’s a real, a real, um, paralyzing fear, and it’s keeping them from writing, like, keeping them from doing the thing that like [00:20:00] they’re chasing. However, Sarah does see some benefits of social media.

Millennials were quick to embrace the positives of the internet. I mean, I think we were the first ones to really learn social networking and how to use it, uh, to meet people, stay connected. I’ve moved to four different states over the course of my life. It’s great. To be able to see what my friends back home in Florida and South Carolina and Boston and stuff like, what were are doing and you know, like, I think that that’s really great.

It’s also great, um, in that it lets you tap into a global community that you otherwise wouldn’t have access to without heavily touring. And even with that, you know, it’s like, um. You know, I, I think that kind of couples with streaming obviously, but I think the perk is, is that it, it gives you a chance to put art out without having to physically travel, you know, anywhere.

So I, I would say like [00:21:00] the interpersonal, like kind of social social connectivity. And then global community access to information. Obviously we’ve seen the, there’s a downside to that too. I feel like at this point, I, I have worked really hard to like, make a lot of boundaries with myself with it. Um, but, uh, for the most part, when I, you know, when I, it feels good to be liked.

I mean, it’s, I think that’s. You know, all us artists are somewhat broken people deep down, and we wanna be loved and seen, uh, and for the work we’re doing and all that kinda stuff. And so, yeah, getting, getting likes, getting shares and all that stuff, uh, feels really good. Um, on the other side of it, it can, uh, feel like, you know, you’re screaming into the void sometimes because there’s a lot of people doing the same thing out there for now.

She won’t step away, but she reminds herself. It is a tool that works for me. I don’t work [00:22:00] for it. How

I.

Elizabeth McQueen: Some musicians have decided to leave social media altogether, like Robert.

Robert Ellis: Uh, I’m Robert Ellis and I’m a musician. Among other things,

Miles Bloxson: we got right into it. We wanted to know why did he decide to leave the virtual world.

Robert Ellis: The short answer to your question is what made me wanna leave social media like it is purely.

A personal decision, you know, like my experience as a user was really kind of the driving factor in, in my decision to just completely pull the plug. [00:23:00] And then the main reason that I, that I just finally quit and you know, just decided to completely get off was just ’cause I don’t like the way I feel when I’m using it.

Miles Bloxson: Robert didn’t just leave, he wrote a goodbye post and when he did that, he deleted his entire social media history.

Robert Ellis: I just, I wanted some accountability and, you know, with, with a, a post like the one I made, uh, I think it would look quite silly for me to say, jump back on tomorrow and start making like, Hey, here I am guys.

Um, making posts again. So I personally just, I stopped really believing all of the things that people say about social media in regards to, um. You know, how I could benefit a musician. Um, and I, I guess just making that post, it was like, this is gonna force me to actually be done with this and, and not have the option to go back, uh, [00:24:00] without looking quite silly.

So,

Miles Bloxson: so the post was kind of like you’re accountability partner in a way?

Robert Ellis: Yeah. I mean, I don’t know that if I had just decided to like. Take a break from it and say, delete it off my phone or whatever. I, I just don’t know that it would have the same sort of cleansing feeling that it did by, I mean, literally, I, I signed out, I.

Changed my password to one of those strong passwords that is like a bunch of random characters, and then I deleted that password. So I don’t actually know how to get back into the account if I had wanted to.

Miles Bloxson: So I’m curious for you, did you ever set a timer on your phone or anything like that before you decided to completely leave?

Robert Ellis: For an addicted person, that timer is like child’s play. It’s like, oh, you, you’ve used your, your 10 minutes today. All you have to do is hit like, ignore, and then like the desire to open the app and [00:25:00] look at it, I found to be, I. Just, just so compelling, and this is, as someone who like consciously would, would say like, I don’t like this.

I don’t, I don’t like the way it makes me feel. I don’t like being on it. You know? And, and still I would find myself full, fully knowing that it’s not something that I wanted in my life, but just compulsively opening it. And like, I don’t, I, there’s definitely a component of this that is like, um. Has to do with meditation and trying to generally be more present in my life without getting too woo woo.

I’m, I’m really into, uh, in the last couple years, especially like meditating, uh, at least twice a day and just, you know, trying to be more aware of what my mind is like at a given time. And I, I mean. I really found in the morning. I wake up pretty early and I have [00:26:00] coffee and do like a morning meditation, and I just noticed a real difference when I would sit.

If the first thing I did when I opened my eyes was check my phone, whether it be email or Instagram, or even just text messages. If I sort of like opened the gates to that, to that stream and then got up and had coffee and sat down to try to meditate, I just, I feel like my mind was in a noticeably different place and just feels much more scattered.

When you’re, when you’re closely watching the state of your mind, I feel like the effect of the phone is extremely pronounced,

Miles Bloxson: right? Because you’re being the observer of your mind. You know? Yeah. And you can actually see the thoughts that are coming through. And then on top of that, when you open up an app or when you open up Instagram, for example, now you’re subjected directly to whatever you’re viewing at the moment.

Like you didn’t even get a chance to think when you woke up, you quickly got on the app and [00:27:00] now whatever’s on the app is what you’re thinking about.

Robert Ellis: Yeah. I mean, I, uh. I don’t know why, but like in a day is half asleep. That is often my first instinct is to like, look at my phone. You know, like how, how fucked up is that?

It’s the availability. It’s like knowing that it’s there and you could be. Doing it, you know, you could be engaging with it. Like it’s, it’s just an extra layer of like, um, I mean really like desire or aversion, like the two things that you, that you really think about a lot. Uh, if you have like a Buddhist practice, it’s like desire and aversion.

And these, these phones are like little desire and aversion machines.

Elizabeth McQueen: It sounds like leaving social media is part of like a bigger kind of project for you of becoming more present and, you know, becoming more connected with your life and, and what you do. Social media just like kind of takes away from presence.

But you also talked [00:28:00] about a little bit and you, and you kind of referenced in your post that the way that you felt when you were actually on Instagram was not great. And I just wondered if you could tell people a little bit about like. Not to take you back to a dark place, but like what? Oh no. What would happen?

What would happen? Like what kind of feelings would arise when you did engage in Instagram?

Robert Ellis: I mean, it should boilerplate stuff. I’m, I’m sure it’s the same stuff everyone deals with. Like if I saw a post, uh, from, and I’m sorry to throw you under the bus, Ollie, but if I saw a post from Shaky Graves about some awesome show that he was playing, I would just instantly feel terrible sitting at my house, not doing anything.

You know, like I, I would imagine that it’s the same for every musician. Like it’s just this comparison machine. Um, and not only is it like a way that you can compare yourself and your career to other people, but it’s, it’s not, uh, it’s [00:29:00] not real. Like you, when you open it and you look at what other people are doing, you’re comparing your life to their projected version of where they are and where their career is.

Like everyone looks. Very happy and successful in photos. You know, I just, I randomly just thought of, uh, uh, shaky graves as being a post that I would look at. But I do remember seeing him, you know, post something at some show in Colorado, um, and I can’t remember what it was, but it looked, it looked awesome.

Um, and I love his music and I love him. And I think I was playing in fucking, you know, Boise, Idaho that night or something. And. Probably had 80 people at my show and was just like, you know, that’s an example of, of where I feel like my mind would go, you know, people just posting their, their accolades or their, everyone’s at some music festival that I’m not [00:30:00] at, you know, or everyone’s, everyone’s, um, you know, at some award show that I’m not at.

Um, and like, I don’t think that, uh. I just don’t know that it’s healthy for me to be seeing what everyone else is up to all the time. And, and not just from like a personal perspective, but like on a, on a musical tip. Um, I just don’t know that. Having that much input at all times is good for me as a creator.

Elizabeth McQueen: Robert went through a major life shift a few years back. He quit drinking, started therapy, got on an antidepressant and leaned heavily into meditation to work through his depression.

Robert Ellis: I found myself just feeling totally, I wasn’t finding much joy in, in really anything that I was doing, and on paper, all the things that I was doing.

They were really good things like, you know, if I had told someone [00:31:00] like, what are you up to? And I listed off all the things I was working on. Like it’s all good stuff and stuff that I should be fortunate, you know, to get to do. But none of it was exciting. It was all just like, I, I was, I think, depressed and, you know, the, the real sign to me that it was like.

Too much, um, was that I just, I wasn’t even enjoying playing shows anymore.

Miles Bloxson: At the time. He was playing music, running a bar and a studio, and raising three kids. But despite it all, he felt disconnected and overwhelmed through meditation and a commitment to being present. He found a path back to himself.

Robert Ellis: One of the things that was very helpful to me was the waking up app. It’s like the Sam Harris started a med meditation app that, um, it’s just really well done and it’s, it’s rooted in like Tibetan Buddhism, but it’s also, you know, it’s Sam Harris. So it’s, it’s got a secular bent to it and I think that one [00:32:00] could really benefit from it having no religious dogma attached.

Elizabeth McQueen: So you, you packed up your Instagram, you. Deleted everything. You have one post, you walked away. Um, how have

Robert Ellis: things changed for you? Well, the beauty of this is I have no way of knowing how things have changed because I’m not on Instagram. But see it, I have, I mean, really, like I have no idea. I have no idea if this is like quote unquote bad for my career or good for my career.

Like I’m doing the same things I was doing before I’m touring. I’m working on albums. Uh, you know, I, I play with a bunch of different people and, and have my hand at a bunch of different things, and. So far, like when I play my own shows, I haven’t really noticed a difference in the people that turn up to the shows.

I have an email list. I send an email out, like maybe once a month that just [00:33:00] says like, Hey, this is what I’m up to over the next few months. If you wanna come to a show, mark your calendar. Like, I haven’t noticed a, a difference in the perceived quality of my career, but I also think that’s like, that’s part of the illusion.

That social media gives you in general is this, this sense of of control and this sense of like understanding the narrative of your own life through the eyes of others.

Miles Bloxson: When I asked him how he promotes his shows, he mentioned that having the email list of 30,000 people definitely helps, but there’s another element most people overlook.

Robert Ellis: Back in my day, we used to have a thing called promoters, and in each town the promoter would. Would promote the show, it’s actually in the job title. Um, they would be responsible for letting the community in a given city know that an [00:34:00] artist was playing and getting those people out to the concert. And, you know, like.

Social media has definitely changed how that works. But it still is the case that in a town, take Austin for instance, there, there is a thriving community of people who like music. Like that’s what they do. They see shows. If they get a sitter and go out for a night, they’re gonna go see a concert. Those are the same people that go by water new to get elbows.

Um, and, you know, they’re, they’re the same people who listen to KUT and like I do find that these, these sort of, I guess, terrestrial or analog. Real places, they still have an outsized effect. Like if KUT were to promote my show in Austin, I feel like more people would come than if I ran a million Instagram ads.

Um, maybe that’s wrong, but like if I do an in-store at Waterloo, I feel like more people know about my show [00:35:00] at the Mohawk than if I had, you know, made a hundred posts. So like, and every town has that. And I, I will say I’ve gotten some. Some pushback from promoters recently where they’re like, Hey, the show’s coming up in a week.

I just, I’ve noticed that Robert hasn’t posted anything and this, this happened before I got off social media. And what’s great is now I can just post them to the, you know, I can refer them to the sign and just be like, go look at my Instagram. I don’t post anything.

Miles Bloxson: We asked Robert how leaving social media has affected his bottom line.

Robert Ellis: I mean, like I said, I’m very fortunate and I’m in a different kind of place in my life and career than many people. But like, um, I still do, you know, a number of solo shows. Um, and I, I play guitar and bass with a number of groups. Um, so I’ve been out in the St. Vincent all last month and I’m doing some more stuff over the summer and some random [00:36:00] sort of normal, normal things happening.

In the studio and, and with my solo shows and like, and yeah, I haven’t, I haven’t noticed a difference at all. And the mer, the merch thing, like, hard to say. I’ve never been great at social media. I mean, especially over COVID. There were times where I like maybe put up a t-shirt and. People just, you know, bought all hundred of ’em or whatever I made, and it was really helpful.

It helped me pay my mortgage for that month. And lessons I could say the same about, like, I’ve, I always would make a big post around Christmas, like, hey, if anyone wants to do private lessons, and, you know, I could pretty reliably get like 20, 30 people to get private lessons from me. And that, that was like a huge, huge financial help.

But, you know, I’m not, I don’t do it that often. I never have. And. I was never doing huge numbers, but like this last tour I did, I brought, I [00:37:00] think I was out for a week and I had 50 t-shirts made, and they were all gone when I got home. So I, I don’t know, it doesn’t seem like it’s really affecting me that much,

Elizabeth McQueen: but he knows not everyone is able to do what he’s done.

Robert Ellis: I’m in a slightly different place in my life and career than I know many people are. Like, I’m 36, I’ve got, I don’t know, seven some records out, and a bunch of side projects. And like I’ve been touring heavily for like 15 years. And I do think that as it pertains to social media, that allowed me to have, you know, I, I have people that will come to my shows in most markets.

I, I feel like I have, I have fans, you know, people that will support me and listen to my music, and I just didn’t feel like social media was a, a crucial part of that for me. Now, I, I think [00:38:00] where I, starting out in music right now, that it might be a totally different calculation. I, I know a lot of people use it as a tool to get fans and to create opportunities, but I, I’m, you know, I’m also not convinced.

Uh, of that, either that that’s the best way to do that, either.

Miles Bloxson: Have you found more joy?

Robert Ellis: Oh my God. Yeah, I’m on a tear right now, guys. I’m like, uh, I’m definitely that. I, I mean, it’s, knock on wood, I hesitate to say, but like 30, I’m 36, 35, and 36. Have by a long shot. Been my best, the best years of my life. I’m just like, I, I don’t know.

It’s just, um, it’s really fun. Like all of the things that I’ve chosen to do with my life turns out are really cool and fun things. And once I learned to just appreciate them, you know, moment to moment, I feel [00:39:00] like, you know, I, I just have a really beautiful, rich life. Music and, and people that I care about.

Uh, but yeah, I, yes, I’ve, I’ve been very much enjoying myself.

Miles Bloxson: We wanna thank Tribe Mafia, Walker Lucin, Sarah Houser, and Robert Ellis for talking to us about social media, because we know it’s complicated. It

Elizabeth McQueen: certainly is. In the next episode of Pause Play, we’ll be talking about streaming. Most musicians put their music on streaming services, but not many of them are getting much money from it.

Are there other better ways to get music out in the world? What could the future of. Dreaming look like.

Miles Bloxson: Pauses play is a production of KUT and KUTX studios. It’s hosted and produced by me, Elizabeth McQueen and me Miles Bloon, engineering and editing help

Elizabeth McQueen: from Jake Perlman [00:40:00] and Renee Chavez.

Miles Bloxson: Abby Bri Fogle and Tou Thomas helped with production.

Stephanie Federico is our digital editor. Michael Manasi is our multimedia editor. Our theme song was created by the talented Jerron Marshall Cosplay is a listener supported production of KUT and KTF. Studios in Austin, Texas, you can support our work by becoming a sustaining member@supportthispodcast.org

Laurie Gallardo: Support for Pause Play comes from Metropolis Apartments featuring a variety of floor plans, from efficiency to five bedrooms, as well as a community that embraces art, music, and creativity. more@metropolisapartmentsaustin.com.

This transcript was transcribed by AI, and lightly edited by a human. Accuracy may vary. This text may be revised in the future.