Today we’d like to introduce you to Scott Uhl.
Scott, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
I started playing guitar when I was in high school. It’s funny to think back because I really had no desire to play music, it was just by accident. A friend of mine asked me once to “take a guitar with me so I know someone in the class.” It’s amazing how much of my life was determined by one sentence. After the first class, I instantly was hooked. The first song the teacher showed us was “Run-Around” by Blues Traveler (which I hadn’t even heard) and I was obsessed with being able to make those 4 chord changes. I stopped playing video games almost completely and spent all my free time playing guitar. I started a band in high school called “Empathy” and we only played two shows which didn’t go over well at all, haha. I took three years off between high school and college, then finally decided to go to CU for music. When I graduated, it took three years of working a day job and doing music before I finally took the plunge into doing music full time in 2013. There have been many ups and downs, but I’m still able to be a full-time musician after six years.
Has it been a smooth road?
If you are looking for a smooth road or some sort of normal schedule, do not try to do anything with music for your career. 🙂 I personally enjoy that each week is different for the most part, but it’s super chaotic all the time and I don’t think that will ever change.
Struggles as a musician have to deal with: A) yourself, and B) dealing with others.
With yourself, you have to be able to admit what you are good at and what you cannot do. With any sort of creative output, it’s very hard to admit when you aren’t good at something. You definitely have to take a step back and realize your strengths and weaknesses. You can work on your weaknesses, but oftentimes, it’s a long journey to improve, which can be frustrating. And with the things you are good at, a lot of musicians get sort of “bored” doing that over and over again and always want to expand. It’s great for creativity to always be expanding, but that road to improve the things you aren’t good at can take a very long time. As a guitar teacher for almost a decade, I have seen the struggles of people trying to learn music/rhythm/etc. It’s a long process if you aren’t blessed with the natural gift (I certainly did NOT have a natural talent, and it took a very very long time a lot of work to get to where I am now).
When you have to deal with others, being a musician can be extremely complicated. I’m sure all career paths have struggled with dealing with other people, but it’s a little different because music is such a personal thing and when you are creating music, all those personalities can get really defensive. Also, when no one is technically “the boss” and bands have the mentality of “everyone is equal,” it can get complicated. I personally now prefer to have a “boss” in each musical situation I’m in. I might not always agree with the decision, but it moves things forward. I’ve met some of the absolute best people playing music, but I’ve also met some of the laziest and entitled people I’ve ever met in my life. It really helps you appreciate the good ones and I don’t think I would truly appreciate how awesome my current bandmates and people I work with are if I didn’t go through dealing with so many selfish or lazy musicians. Especially with sound guys! Grumpy sound guys are the absolute worst to deal with, so I’m always sure to thank a great sound guy multiple times. 🙂
Please tell us more about what you do, what you are currently focused on and most proud of.
Being a full-time musician, I am a live performer, studio musician, composer, and teacher. My specialty is in live shows. I play around 150 shows a year (oftentimes more than 1 show a day on the weekends especially) and there are multiple groups that I’m a part of. My creative project is called “Spiral Cell” and I’m a full-time member of the band “Ninety Percent 90s.” I also frequently play with “Kory Brunson Band” and do multiple other fill-in gigs if someone needs a guitar player for a specific event. There are about 10 groups I play with at a time, so I’m constantly learning songs and multiple genres. Just yesterday, I was recording jazz/R&B for a project and then came home to learn a bunch of drop-tuned heavy metal songs, haha. It keeps it interesting! With my creative project “Spiral Cell,” I like to go all over the map with the music (although still stay focused on the movie score part of it). When I’m a hired gun, I also like to learn multiple styles. I like to think of myself as someone who is “good” at multiple styles/genres instead of “amazing” at 1-2 styles — that’s just my personal preference and it keeps things interesting for me. As a musician, I’m pretty proud that I can play a theatrical movie score set with Spiral Cell, then the next day play a jazz set, then a country set, and then a rock/metal set. The same goes for studio recording and composition. I can do multiple genres and styles with anything I’m hired to do as a musician. If you are looking for a virtuoso/master in jazz, I would recommend someone else. But if you need someone who is good at jazz, but also need someone who can play rock/metal and funk for a show/recording/composition, I am very comfortable wearing multiple hats. 🙂
Is our city a good place to do what you do?
I personally love Denver. It’s not too big of a city for music like LA, New York, or Nashville. Those are great places for music, but there is a TON of competition. But smaller cities definitely don’t have a whole lot of music going on. So, I feel like Denver is just right.
My two favorite things to do as a musician are 1) play live and 2) composition. If I could change one thing, I wish there were more places that had live music on weekdays. My weekend calendar is always booked at least 3/4 months out, but Monday-Wednesday, it’s rare to find live music. It definitely exists, but I wish more places would do that (like Nashville/NY). That’s why I like to focus on studio work and composition during the weekdays. I even work on my YouTube channel sometimes when I get free time, but that still has yet to earn me any money, haha. As I said, music is a LONG road of building and work until it finally pays off.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.SpiralCell.com/ScottUhlMusic
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/ScottUhl
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/ScottUhlMusic
Image Credit:
Images by: Underexposed
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