My Future As A Musician

The past few months have been interesting to say the least. A lot has changed in my world, especially with my music career. Some of these changes have been positive, some have been harder, but as cliche as it sounds, I truly believe that everything happens for a reason.

So, what's changed and where am I going? It's a question I've been contemplating a lot. As some of you may know, I've recently started playing guitar for a few other projects outside of Shakeout, which are The Jukebox Romantics and Reach NYC. Both bands have been a lot of fun to play with and have given me an opportunity to not only play some different styles of music with some awesome individuals, but I'm also getting the opportunity to get out and play some of the biggest live shows I have played to date. In the next few weeks alone, I am going to be playing multiple festivals including Rockville in Daytona Beach, FL with Metallica, Slipknot, Disturbed, etc. I'm also going to be returning to one of the best punk rock festivals in the country, Fest, alongside bands like Frank Turner, Gorilla Biscuits, The Wonder Years, Eve 6 and a bunch more. Other than that, I'm gearing up for Shakeout's first ever NYC co-headlining show this upcoming weekend at Gold Sounds in Brooklyn, as well as a show at the end of the month with Reach NYC at Bowery Ballroom. This is all very exciting and I truly couldn't be more grateful, but it still doesn't totally answer the question of where this is all going.

As some of you may have realized, I've been the one solely promoting Shakeout for the past few months or so and I have gotten a ton of people asking me about this. Without getting too into it, Shakeout, for now, is just me. With that being said, I want to use it as a place to document my life as a musician. I want to write songs with this project that I can share with the world; I want to get out and tour and play shows with the help of friends backing me up; I want to share my experiences, both positive and negative, in hopes to help anyone in their own personal journeys with music and other creative endeavors; but most importantly i just want to be me and focus on what I have to offer the world.

As a lot of you already know, Hurricane Ida came through and destroyed my studio space about 8 weeks ago, which was definitely a big set back. Thanks to the kindness and generosity of so many friends, family, and fans, I am at the tail end of getting my space back up and running. It has been a long few weeks, a lot of work and money, but I'm pretty much back up and running 100% and better than ever. I plan on giving back to everyone who helped out in some way or another because it truly means the absolute world to me. I just recently took the leap to work for myself full-time as a musician, so thank you for helping me stay afloat.

So, what's next? I have so much planned for Shakeout and the future of this project. First thing being, more music of course. I just released two new songs this past Friday alongside my best buds in Maintenance on our new split EP "Seven Hills Split" (yes, that's a Yonkers reference). If you haven't had a chance to check those songs out, would love for you to hear them. I also have three new songs already in the process of being recorded that I had the pleasure of working with some awesome friends and musicians on. I know it's cliche to say that your new music is your best music, but both the two new songs that have been released and these three new unreleased tunes are definitely my best songs to date.

Other than releasing new music, I want to share my journey in a way that can help others out. I am going to be doing live streams every week on Twitch, working on songwriting mainly for now. My hope is to not only gain some inspiration from whoever tunes in, but also to share my process as much as possible to help anyone out in their own songwriting endeavors. I'll be working on songs (including the new unreleased ones) live; demoing, recording, and more. If that's something you're interested in checking out, I will have more info on this ASAP, but you can follow my Twitch account here if you don't already.

On top of the weekly Twitch streams, I am very excited to announce that I will be making weekly YouTube videos for the Punk Rock 101 podcast video series. Through these videos, I am going to share things that I have learned over the years about being in a band, touring, recording, and so much more. I am also planning on having guests on the show to share their experiences as well. This video series will be weekly and will be designed around questions that I have gotten asked from a lot of people who follow my content. So, if you have anything you want me to answer, PLEASE never hesitate to shoot me a message. I take all of your feedback into consideration for my content. If you're interested in following along with this podcast video series and haven't already, subscribe to the YouTube channel here. First episode will be out on Wednesday, October 27th.

Shakeout is not just a band to me, it's a big part of who I am. It's my journey, my experiences, my music, and so much more. I have even more planned on top of all of this that I will save for a later date. But, for now, I just want to say thank you. Thank you to everyone who supports me as a musician. Thank you for reading this. I am excited for the future, cheers.

- A.J.

Shakeout

Pedalboard Punk Tee

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