Here’s something that I need to constantly remind myself of: When someone hires you for a gig they’re interested in you sounding like you, not like someone else. I personally struggle with this constantly for a number of reasons. In the studio when someone contacts me about collaborating on songwriting my instant thought is this: Well, they couldn’t possibly be interested in my music because he/she is a pop singer, so they must want me to produce a track that sounds like something they’re used to hearing. I’ll ask questions like, “What kind of song do you want to do?” and “Is there a particular genre/singer/style/track that you want us to emulate?” I don’t know why, but the idea of someone being interested in my thought process and my style is never the first thought; I just always assume there’s something else that they want from me.

Maybe it’s the classically-trained musician in me who wants to conduct the performance exactly as it is on paper, adhering to the composer’s intentions and honoring his art. Maybe it’s the years of playing cover tunes, always playing someone else’s song, groove, structure and melody. I’m not sure why I’m wired this way but I quite often forget that people want to hire me for being me.

It almost seems pretty self-explanatory, but I forget it all the time. I was contracted for a gig not too long ago and kept asking the question, “Why did he hire me for this?” I say that because the person who hired me is a bass player himself and also has a slew of other bass players he normally uses to cut records and play with live – why did he choose to go with me this time? Did he want me to sound like his normal go-to guys, or cop licks that he would normally do? Did he want me to focus more on my stage presence and keep the performance simple, or vice versa? I kept mowing all these thoughts around in my head and, upon asking him, the answer was simple: he liked the way I sounded.

I cut a record recently with an artist who wanted to do a very “Old-Skool” recording, a la the Beatles. I kept asking if he wanted me to rock the “Paul McCartney” tone or play some kind of McCartney-esque line to compliment the melody (as Paul was so accustomed to crafting in all of his songwriting). The client’s answer was always, “Nah man. Sound like you.” When he said “Old-Skool” I figured, again ignoring the obvious, that he wanted me to emulate someone else’s sound, when in reality all he wanted to achieve was our particular ensemble with the techniques and technologies of yesterday.

So maybe you don’t struggle with this problem the way that I do, or maybe you don’t even realize that you do, but it’s something I wrestle with quite often. Maybe it’s because I want to satisfy everyone that I work with, or perhaps it’s just my lack of confidence poking out, but you can pretty much bank on the person hiring you to be interested in your sound and your interpretation. Now, there might be moments where they ask you to step out of your comfort zone, and they may do this by referencing another artist or player or song, but don’t let that take you too far away from yourself. If they really wanted Pino or Victor or East, they’d hire them. But they didn’t. They have you to work with, so be sure to give them what they’re paying for.

Just my two cents 🙂