Songstress in prevalent American outfit Wall of Tom, mother and author of a 3-part novel, Tommie Vaugn has been busy, to say the least. With the first edition forthcoming in May 2012, I asked Tommie about the concept of ‘This Rock In My Heart’.
“Well, I’ve had the idea for the book for about ten years now but I haven’t really had time to pen the book. The opportunity actually came along for me to do so during the last few years, so I’ve been working on it since then”. Having been established within the music industry for a number of years, Tommie took influences from the experiences she has gained over the years. “The book is about a lot of my experiences in the music scene, being in Los Angeles and really what its like to be an artist, to struggle and chase your ambitions and dreams”. Having released music as a vocalist in her band Wall of Tom from their inception and with a new album pending for release in May 2012 I was intrigued to find out why Tommie stopped writing records and decided to use her talent in a different way. “Well it kind of coincided with me getting pregnant because I broke the band rule with my guitarist [laughs] on our honeymoon! So with that I had all this time on my hands but still was able to play the Viper Room (West Hollywood music venue) when I was seven months pregnant. Other then that my hands were kind of tied with the music and I got this very odd creative bug with being pregnant and I just had to write this story. So it really came out of me at the same time I birthed this child”.
With time firmly on her side Tommie set to work on the novel, drawing experiences from her life, giving a refreshing insight into the real workings of the music industry from an insider’s point of view – but through the eyes of a fictional character named Frankie. She documents the struggles, strained relationships and drug fuelled studio sessions with a refreshing honesty. “I really tried to use a lot of the fun life experiences, the stage experiences and things like that you can draw from. All I know about writing is that you are suppose to write about what you know, and all I know is performing and making music so it was kind of a natural evolution as a songwriter to write a story that was about my songs”.
A passionate love of fiction is what drove Tommie to pen a novel rather than an autobiographical account of her life, as she explains that you are able to have a little more freedom and imagination writing a novel. “I love the element of fiction. When I read, I read fiction so in a sense I feel like I can have a lot more fun, and if I make it fiction I feel that I cam add a lot more fluff to it. If it’s real and it is an autobiography then everybody kind of already knows what happens, but with fiction I like to able to tweak characters and have a lot of fun with my characters in the novel. A biography is just a different way of writing, it’s a different writing style a defiantly fiction is where my interests lie”.
Knowing the music industry inside out, one of Tommie’s primary aims when writing this novel was to inspire other artists on the verge of giving up and quitting on their dreams to keep going and eventually pursue their goals. I wondered if every music artist, especially Tommie, went through a stage early in her career where she was on the verge of giving up and just what inspired her to keep going a pursue her dream as a musician. “I think that even though an artists life may be a more difficult life I think that it is so much fuller and more colourful. The main inspiration behind the book was to hopefully inspire people to stick with their path and follow their dreams and enjoy their lives. You’ve been given a gift, a special gift that can make you a little bit different – some people may not understand you but the gift of being an artist is a wonderful gift and you should share that with the world. I feel very strongly about that”.
It was this understanding and acceptance that Tommie wanted to share with the world and show the minority of naive people that a fruitful and successful career can be carved as a musician, just as much as any other job in the world. “I’d like to give them the inside look, I think especially with this being the first book it’s more about the character discovering herself and realising the strength that she does have to chase her dreams. All the other characters in the book are also starting out at the same time, expanding on their talents and creating a band. I think that it is defiantly going to show to a lot of people that may not even be artists that may just want to enjoy the journey that these artists are going to be taking”.
With the main character Frankie discovering herself, her talents and her ultimate goal in life in the first edition of the novel it made sense that Tommie aimed the readership toward the younger male and female audiences, who are ultimately experiencing that biggest changes in life and trying to find that all important career path however long or bumpy the road toward their goal may be. “I would say the book is aimed at a younger audience. I definitely think that there are so many girls and boys out there with stars in their eyes, they’re growing up in their towns weather that be a small town or a big town but they have their dreams and aspirations. So, yeah I defiantly think it’s for a younger audience. There’s such a wonderful community out there and I just hope that they enjoy it”.
The debut edition of ‘This Rock In My Heart’ holds some defining moments for Frankie, ones that I’m sure will certainly shape the next two editions of the novel – one poignant moment, for me, is when Frankie first sets foot into the recording studio that will later be her work place and says ‘I knew it was over the first day I walked into that recording studio…he didn’t want me to work there’. I wondered if this was a mindset everyone, artist or not, goes through at least once in there life and how they eventually muster the strength to get over this. “I think you have certain things that define you or curtain moments that change your life and you can almost pin point those moments of when those things happen - you feel a shift and you know you can never go back to the other way that you were. I think that was the moment for Frankie when she walked in and she knew that she belonged where she was. I think on a personal level I was battling a family that didn’t really understand my artistry, they thought that those were ‘hobbies’ and you don’t really go after being a musician, you just play music on your off nights when you’re not working. So I was personally struggling with trying to get the support that I needed from a family that wasn’t an artistic family. So I think that can happen to a lot of people too, but I think parents nowadays are more lenient with there children”.
Being a mother herself - juggling family life, looking after a child whilst out on the road and writing a novel must be draining, so does Tommie intend on being a different type of parent and more open about career choices for her Child? “I mean I grew up in a different family, so moving to Los Angelis was a huge moment for me that changed my life. I mean it was a struggle, for years I would be proud of something and I would say ‘look what I did, this is an album I made!’ and they would be like…oh great, so how’s your job?. I plan on being a different type of parent myself, although my parents are wonderful, now they understand what I’m doing but I have to say it’s taken them about ten years to wrap their head around it”.
Despite her unwavering passion and love of music during her journey Frankie can’t help but dabble in the darker side of the industry. First it becomes harmless fun with her band mates after the studio sessions, but a slippery slope begins to develop and before she realises she is smoking marijuana whilst recording and before gigging. We all know the industry is rife with drugs and alcohol but is the reality really that bad?
“Well it is kind of the reality of being in a rock band. With the second book that will be coming out next year I’m going to show a lot of the down side of to much smoking to much drinking, things that there are a darkness to. Also with a lot of artists they can get in to deep with that side of things. If you smoke too much and drink too much you’re going to have issues. I definitely wanted to portray the realism of it and I didn’t want to sensor any of it because it’s a reality of rock n roll that I’ve dealt with. In the second book those are defiantly some of the things that Frankie is going to struggle with. We’ve already kind of established in this book that she may have a slight addiction to marijuana and in her relationship that is kind of how she dealt with a bad relationship, she just got high all the time so she could get through her normal life. So I think that it just touches on that in the beginning and then mid way through the book she has a little bit of a run in with marijuana again and she was just like ‘Jesus, if everybody jumped of a cliff would I just jump of a cliff with them?’. I think she is still gaining her strength and obviously things are going to come back and haunt her, so basically she’s going to have to find that strength within herself and rise above all of that”.
With a glimpse of what the sequel will hold, with darker days to come for Frankie as she continues to forge her own path to success I wondered if the forthcoming album from Wall of Tom had success written over it. “Well, right now we’re in the final mixing stages. And actually Paul Frost of the UK band the Zico Chain is producing and mixing it for us, he’s doing an awesome awesome job! We love Paul he’s very very cool, and we’ve got about eight songs of the twelve completely done. Now we’re just working on shining up the final few of them with some edits and mixing and things like that. But yeah it’s almost done and we’ve just shot our music video for our first single last week! So that was really wonderful. It couldn’t have gone better and I think we’re going to make a couple of people cry with this one! It’s a song very close to our hearts and I can’t wait to share this video. The videos almost done now so we’re hoping it will be released next week or the week after but very very shortly so we’re excited”.
The progression of an album is an important step if you are to improve as an artist and grow your fan base, a natural progression if you will. So how do the majority of artists keep a distinct sound whilst expanding their audience and branching out to the next level. “I think the way I write and the way my band writes it has been a progression of the way we live. The first album was more of an acoustic/singer songwriter album and then the second album was more rock orientated. We were influenced massively by the things we saw, and I also think it was just an evolution of who we are [as a band]. I think this album that is coming out is going to be a lot of influences. There are also songs on the album that are alternative rock so I think that this album is definitely a blend of all of Wall of Tom’s influences over the years”.
It is clear from this that Tommie Vaugn like Frankie cites and picks up on a lot of influences throughout her career and this ultimately pushes her to make better music and improve as an artist. Alas, when an artist begins their career they want to make music that will be listened to, hopefully for generations to come, receive recognition and acceptance whilst doing so and want to make money whilst doing what they love. “In the beginning of every artists life they want the affirmation that they are good enough to make it. Back when I started it was really a different time for the music industry and I think during the time I have been a musician I have seen so much happen within the music industry, with the labels, the internet, with everything really. Everything changed and now there’s new rules and new things about being an artist. For example social media and everything else that you have to do, you can’t just write the songs anymore you have to be a business person on top of that. Where as ten or fifteen years ago you just wrote the songs and went on tour and you had other people doing all of this for you. Now it is very different, the artists are very hands on. For most artists it is about the money when you are starting out but I like that I have done it my way and I haven’t conformed to what other people have wanted me to do. My music comes from my heart so there is no filter there between me and the music. I think that is the most important part and that is what being an artist is about for me”.
Longevity as an artist earns you the recognition you crave and having now experienced the different changes that a budding musician is faced to go through when they start a daunting career Tommie has achieved it all. You now need to engage fully with your audience, wise up on social media, talk to press, make a visually exciting video and then release a record. “[My advice would be] they need to write from their heart, they need to separate themselves from ‘making it’ because there is always going to be the next big thing or the next pop artist created. There are masterful people out there who write wonderful songs and these pop artists are chosen and created – that is always going to happen but hopefully if you write from your heart the music itself will fulfil you. I think everybody has dreams of making it big but the rules are a little bit different now so I think if you stay as true to who you are as possible that is the best place to start.”
Finding success as an artist is admittedly not the easiest path you could take in life – however by the climax of the first instalment Frankie has found some sort of success, more recognition then fame I would say. This was outlined as one of her biggest ambitions at the start of the book, and with a lot of grit and determination she eventually concurred her ambition. “My aspirations for the future would be to continue making music, keep writing my book, raise my child and not having to have a day job – I would love that! I think that would be a wonderful aspiration and I’m going to continue that path forever. It’s who I am so I don’t really have a choice. I am who I am and I will always write music no matter if I make it or not”.
Drug addictions, achieving personal goals and landing the perfect job at Cherokee Recording Studios, is their anything left for the next edition?
“Well Frankie has just got a taste of success and what it feels like to perform in Los Angelis. So this next book is definitely going to be about her being immersed in the music scene as well as who she meets at the shows. Also her friends are going through the same thing, so you’ll see them supporting each other. Frankie is going to go through a lot of dark moments and a lot more heartbreak in the next book. I also think that Frankie’s best attribute is her heart because she is a hapless romantic, and she seems to fall for very charismatic artists that are probably wrong for her. In this next book she is defiantly going to see a lot of accolades with her music but also she is going to experience a lot of the down sides about the industry. She will experience things that she perhaps didn’t realise were a part of becoming a successful artist”.
Tommie Vaugn’s novel This Rock In My Heart is due for release in May 2012, and can be pre-ordered off Amazon.
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