Episode 44 | Jessica Burdeaux
Are you ready for blast off? The second edition of Chicks with Sticks is a stellar episode. It follows a recent podcast with Earl Talbot, who is Jessica Burdeaux’s instructor. It becomes quite clear after watching Jessica’s videos that Earl can produce some amazing musicians through his teachings. I don’t want to discount the fact that Jessica has poured her heart into her craft, because it all boils down to personal diligence to succeed with most things in life but when you combine hard work and a resource like Earl Talbot, Jessica is the product.
The players that I have on the show this month are all very unique to one another. They all have their own unique voices and background with music and Jessica is no exception. She came onto the Instagram scene by learning about the hashtag #VF15 and decided to make a video based on the paradiddle and created a groove using this common rudiment. Much to her surprise, Vic Firth had shared this on their page and it created a lot of buzz and it really acted as a sign that she should develop her social media platforms and use them to forge new opportunities for herself, which she has certainly done.
Recently she became an official Destroy a Drum artist and earlier this year she was featured in Drum! Magazine, which is really quite impressive and as she describes, “a surreal experience.” We talk a fair bit about how incredible it is that we can make world wide connections with people throughout the industry by creating content from the comfort of our homes and that while it is a saturated platform, if you are consistent and create quality content, anything is possible.
In each episode of the DrumGAB podcast, I focus my interviews along a theme. The theme to this episode is that content creators need to stick with it. We use the time frame of six months specifically in a particular part of the interview. The example was the following……if you post daily content for six months, it can seem like a long time and it can feel especially long if nothing major is happening and your growth is happening at a snail’s pace and that it is within this time frame people start to feel like nothing will ever come of their efforts. It is hard to describe how a person’s attitude should be in order to MAYBE get a breakthrough that will help their name become recognized, especially when it can take a long time for some people and not so long for others. One thing that people DO respect, however, is persistence. Just don’t quit. You have to allow a space in your mind that believes that anything could happen at any time and that people WILL notice you over time.
The truth is tough sometimes to come to terms with. The music industry is famously unpredictable for better or for worse and sustaining a career is even more challenging than getting it started in the first place sometimes. If you truly believe in yourself and you really love what you are doing, just try to enjoy the process and the journey. Don’t get hung up on the fact that some accounts are massive and get tons of exposure and yours doesn’t. Remember and tell yourself that those massive accounts didn’t just happen overnight. Many of those people went through the same trials in their first months and years and likely have spent several years developing their exposure and influence.
I hope that listeners take this away from this episode. Jessica has over 50,000 followers on Instagram BUT that was realized through her amazing content, her persistence and her belief that anything could happen if she applied herself. It is a valuable message and it is something I believe many people need to hear and internalize. All in all this was a terrific episode that covers a lot of ground and delivers a strong, positive and useful message to listeners.
Jessica Burdeaux’s Social Media
Instagram | Facebook | YouTube
DrumGAB Social Media