Had a fit earlier. I had my Rodney Dangerfield “get no respect” moment when my bassist/best friend told me yet another person doesn’t dig my guitar work. It’s his family member, so I knew there was some bias in there due to prior drama, but it really bugged me. I write most of the songs, I practice daily, I’m not terrible by any means, but this person feels I’m the bands “weak link.”

Learning to take criticism is the first rule of being a musician. If you’re a guitarist or a singer, you really need to learn how. It’s not that someone simply thinks I suck, or I can’t shred like Vai, or any of that. It’s that it was meant as something for me not to hear, as though I shouldn’t know that I’m not meant for someone’s musical taste buds. Upon hearing this, I went home, listened to our demos, and thought “what the fuck is she talking about?” I dig the shit out of what I do, even if others don’t. I guess I just wanted a reason as to why I’m supposedly not good. When someone has no reason, it’s baffling to me.

What I do love about hearing stuff like this is it makes me work even harder. For every person who rips my writing, I will write another song. For every person who doesn’t come to my show, I will book another one. I will keep going, because I don’t want to give others that satisfaction. I keep playing the guitar because no matter how much someone does or does not like certain songs, I get infinite joy from it, and as long as me and the boys in the band are rocking and feeling rad, I’m happy.