How our resilience and response to adversity changes as we age
This is an excerpt of my interview with trumpeter and entrepreneur Steve Baker. Steve founded the Bull City Syndicate, which does a lot of weddings, festivals and corporate events in the Raleigh/Durham area.
Steve was hit hard by the Covid lockdowns and opened up how they affected his business, to the point he was one cancellation away from filing bankruptcy.
To listen to the entire interview, and subscribe to the podcast, go to https://jamesnewcombontrumpet.com/stevebaker
His story, as well as many other trumpeter’s stories are on my mobile app. Click here to access the app.
James Newcomb: I want to go on a slightly different track and I don’t want to come across as flippant or to take anything away from what you’ve said and you’ve taken you take it personally. And I get it.
But we were talking a little bit before we hit record about resilience. And we mentioned Beth Peroutka, who was on the trumpet podcast a while back, and she’s a great trumpet player. And she just had a horrible injury and she couldn’t play anymore. And she just had this attitude. I’m going to fight back.
Another fellow that I interviewed was Floris Onstwedder, who, in spite of the lockdowns, he just had an attitude of I’m going to do what I can. And he did something. It wasn’t ideal. But he did something and I’m just being careful with how I say this because these two individuals were fairly young when this happened.
Beth was probably in her, maybe late twenties. Floris is, I 25, 26, and you’re a bit older. I want to be careful how I say this. It may have taken you a bit longer to adjust or to accept the reality of what had happened.
Steve Baker: It’s a fair thing. And we can jump back to those who are actually interested in a little bit about music and a little bit about trumpet right now, because I’ve had to slay this trumpet dragon more than once in my lifetime. As I was really very fortunate as a young trumpet player at 19 years old to be touring full-time and traveling all over the world, playing. I went to school on a trumpet performance scholarship, and then a year and a half into it. I was on the road playing full time and then I had some, no other way to say it. I had to have some mouth work. It wasn’t because of a, of an injury or a nerve damage or anything like that, like Beth’s situation.
But I did have to have some really extensive work done on my mouth for reasons that are very long and very complicated. I won’t even get into it. So I lost my ability to play for in my mid twenties for three-four years. And during that time, as you’re talking about resiliency, I didn’t get out of music. I actually got into the business of music. At that time, I started promoting shows. I did over a thousand shows as a concert promoter over the next 10, 15 years as a result of that three years off from trumpet that got me into the business side of music, I eventually started managing artists.
I ended up managing a major label. Artists ended up managing artists that Grammy nominated and I did tour management. I did shows. No, everything from church basements to 15,000 seat arenas as a promoter, in addition to being an artist manager. So I took advantage of that time to stay in the business and learned another aspect of the business as apart from being trumpet.
After I was able to get the horn back on my face. Good God, man. It was so miserable. It took forever to slay that dragon again, and I never really found my way back that first time. And so my music business requirements and time eventually took over. So by the time I was, by the time I was 30 years old, I put the horns in the closet.
I put them away for nine years. They were in the closet gathering dust. And then when I was 39 years old, I started dreaming about playing again. I was happy they weren’t nightmares, but they were like, I would wake up with a, I would wake up with a cold in a cold sweat. There were guilt dreams. And in my dreams, man, I never played I was incredible.
I was, I really liked the way I played him, my dreams. It was, I played in my dreams the way I always wished I could play. You know what I mean? And I started having these guilt dreams. So one day I went and I got the horns out of the closet and I thought, okay, let’s take him to the shop, get him cleaned up.
So I took them in and and got them cleaned and got everything adjusted and playing. I brought them home with all this intent to start practicing again. And for months they just sat on my trumpet stand next to music, stand with some music on the stand that I wouldn’t even look at.
And I couldn’t, I just couldn’t find the motivation just wasn’t there. And the primary reason why, and this is for those that don’t understand the physicality of being a brass player. Is that all of the signals that my brain would send the body was incapable of responding to it? You know what I mean? Because of the muscle atrophy all of the things involved with being a trumpet player, it, the, you just it’s not like getting on a bike, it’s just not.
James Newcomb: So the thought of getting back and like getting to the level that you were once that discouraged you from picking it up?
Steve Baker: Absolutely. That’s a great way of looking at it. The reality and realization that I probably would never be in play at the level that I had previously played as a young man would never be there again was frustrating in and of itself. And then you add to it when you pick it up and put it to your face and go, oh my God, you know how much work this is going to take. And now at 39, I’ve got two kids and I’ve got a mortgage and got a wife. I’m on the treadmill of life. I don’t have five to eight hours a day to play like I did was when I was in school. That’s all I did. So that time allotment doesn’t even work anymore.
Long story short again, one day, I don’t know what happened, but it was like something, there was a flip, the switch in my brain, and I found the motivation and I started personally practicing about two hours. I found the time, the motivation and I’m 39 years old. And I’m now I’m putting in two hours a day again, and I’m not getting anywhere really fast.
So I found a guy in Texas, some of your listeners probably know him, Clinton McGlaughlin, Pops McGlaughlin have you heard of him? He’s in the Dallas area. And he was advertising himself on the internet as a comeback player guru helping come back players come back from disease, injury, that sort of thing.
Cause he himself has been through tremendous disease issues that prevented him for long stretches of time being able to play at all. And he learned how to come back every time. So I thought, okay, what the heck? So I jumped on an airplane. I booked an appointment with him.
It’s most expensive series of lessons I’ve ever took because I had to pay for airplane, rental car and hotel, and then I still had to pay the guy. So I started Dallas from Raleigh, North Carolina for lessons for this guy. And then the very first lesson, he asked me what my goals were.
And I actually said these words, I don’t think that I’ll ever be the player that I once was. And he said, why do you think that? And then I told him, I said, because I don’t have that five to eight hours a day to practice like I did when I was 15, 16, 17 years old.
And he said that’s just because you didn’t know what you were doing. And I, and now unlike a 19 year old, I’m mature enough at this point to go. Okay. Okay. Okay. I’m all ears. All right. All my previous positions and preconceptions about being a trumpet player, I sat them aside and I said, okay.
And he said to me, I’m going to have you back where you were in six months. If you do what I tell you to do. And he said with a fraction amount of the amount of time on the trumpet, what you’re spending before. I’m a blank slate. I said, okay, I took notes copiously from him.
And I am not kidding you. When I tell you that I got my first paid Trumpet gig exactly six months after my first lesson from him. And it was a road gig. We’re not talking about it Sunday morning church thing, playing come to Jesus on whole notes. I got a road gigs six months later and I was blown away by that.
And then COVID comes around and man, you’re right. This is 20 something years after that particular event that I just described. And my motivation is just lost. I went through a period over, during the COVID lockdowns of exactly five months without putting the horn to my face. Just couldn’t find it. Now it’s a little bit dangerous because I know how to slay the dragon a little quicker now. So I can be a little bit flippant about it sometimes, and that’s not good either.
James Newcomb: And it wasn’t for lack of time.
Steve Baker: Obviously not for lack of time.
James Newcomb: It’s a psychological thing. You just do it. Wow.
Steve Baker: And interestingly, the thing that got the horn back on my face was I did in fact, have an Easter gig. It was an Easter gig that I almost gave away. In fact, I gave away, I had a session, I got a studio session gig because I hadn’t had my horn on my face for weeks at this point, I actually gave it away.
And I made up a story about being not being available. And so I made a recommendation for somebody else and I gave that gig away cause I knew I couldn’t do it. And then when the Easter gig rolled around, a couple of weeks out, I started doing long tones and started working it out.
Fortunately it was not a difficult gig, so I got through it, but it was really tough for a long time to find that motivation….
To listen to the entire interview, and subscribe to the podcast, go to https://jamesnewcombontrumpet.com/stevebaker