Sounding Softly with Age of the Bear

A conversation with musician Anthony Cubbage on dropping out of college, dealing with anxiety, and the need to experience daylight.

In This Edition

✸ Interview with Anthony Cubbage
✸ Kaleidescape

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I met Anthony Cubbage (Age of the Bear) only recently, but I was immediately taken with his openness and kindness. It also became quickly apparent to me that he is a musician and producer to be reckoned with. We had a beautiful, vulnerable conversation that touched on several important topics, including the impact that anxiety can have on a musical career.

Keep your eyes peeled for a special, extra edition of this newsletter later this month featuring a conversation with Troy, NY Democratic mayoral candidate Nina Nichols. We talked about the importance of the creative economy, how we can better support artists, gentrification, and her musical background.

In Conversation with Anthony Cubbage

Dropping out of college

You dropped out of college after three semesters in 2016. Could you tell us a little about your journey leading up that decision, and after?

When I went to college, I started singing in an a cappella ensemble, and I was lucky to have friends who were seniors in that group. One of the things I learned through them was about the kind of financial responsibilities they had coming up. I also had a friend who I remember asked me what I wanted to do specifically. I was in the sound recording technology department because I thought that was the only way I was going to make money — by recording other people. I didn’t think I'd ever get a record deal, but I realize now that's an antiquated way of looking at the music industry. We're taught a lot of things in music school that are years behind. So having this perspective from my friend and what he was anticipating in the future was really helpful. And I think that's what ultimately led me to decide to drop out.

A career in music is built from the experience of doing it, and it's going to look really different for every single person. It sounds like you haven't looked back after you left?

I wouldn’t say I regret anything, but there were definitely times I wondered if I should just ditch music altogether. I had a necessary pandemic job at FedEx for two years. I'd reached a point where the amount of energy to try to figure out how to make music work was stressing me out more than just doing a regular job. It felt like everything was backwards. But I think the important thing about that experience was that it taught me about work/life separation. I had never really had that. When I left college to travel around the country, my place of work was also where I slept, which was in my car.

While I enjoyed the idea of leaving work at work – not having to take the emails, recording projects, etc with you everywhere you go – I couldn’t let go of writing and recording music. And trying to do both things at the same time — music and FedEx — wasn't working. I was falling asleep driving back from my route in Saratoga. And I think the decision to go back to music full time was mostly out of safety reasons. I was either going to hurt somebody or hurt myself, and I couldn’t live like that. But I also couldn't give up music. I liked the music/work separation and I liked having financial security, so I decided I needed to be more serious with how I treat music-making as a business. I have an apartment to pay for, I have a fiancé, and I want to have a family in the future. And if I'm working twice as many hours doing music to make half as much as what I was making from FedEx, then there's something wrong.

Time Management

So nowadays, you do so much. You work with Song City, you have a ton of your own projects, you produce records, you do photography… How do you manage all of that? Have you ever burned out?

I'm still figuring it out.

I think it's a lifelong process. We're constantly figuring out how to tweak things.

I learned pretty quickly that we have to make sacrifices in order to spend more time doing things we enjoy. And I'm still not great at that. But it’s also important to remember we don't have to do just one thing. Sometimes I need a break and I need to use a different part of my brain.

So how and when do you rest?

Oh God, I've been trying so hard to get on a regular sleep schedule. I’ve been reading Atomic Habits by James Clear. In order to set yourself up with good habits, you need to have a routine. I have almost no habits except for brushing my teeth.

Well, there's your starting habit!

I would definitely benefit from creating some kind of consistency and habitual process, just like any other job.

You are obviously very productive though and do a lot of different things. Do you feel like that has happened in spite of not having a regular sleep/habit schedule?

I think a lot of what’s gotten me to where I am now is that I act on spurts of inspiration and energy. One thing I'm trying to work on right now is controlling that intense urge to finish projects immediately when I start them. I think this is something that was born out of the period of time when I first started doing music full time. I thought if I didn’t finish everything I set out to do, I wouldn’t make this into a career. It was a very much a life or death kind of thing. So yeah, I can get a lot done, but it's not healthy. I want to experience more daylight, to be frank.

It’s always a struggle between the need to make our art, make money, and maintain our health.

Back in 2019, I was at my most healthy, but I was the least financially stable. I had to move back in with my parents, and I was upset about it. It felt like I was taking a step back. But it allowed me to prioritize my health. It gave me the space to spend more time recording music. And that's what led to my first album, Rivers, which I wouldn't have had if it weren't for that year.

There are seasons.

Yeah, there are seasons, for sure.

Well, I think it's really important to recognize that even when you're planning things out meticulously, things are going to change that are out of your control. A life and a career are never linear.

Anxiety

You've mentioned to me in the past that you deal with social anxiety. What does that look like for you, and how has it impacted your life and music career?

I think I have a degree of social anxiety, but I'd say it's mostly general anxiety underneath. I had my first panic attack in the middle of an audition for a solo in my a cappella group, around people I loved and cared about. And there was no reason for me to feel like that because I had sung in front of them before. I thought I was dying. I went to the bathroom and my friend found me and he helped me understand what was happening.

After that first time, I'd either call that friend or I'd use the techniques that he taught me to get myself out of it. Through practice and awareness, it’s gotten a lot better. If I hadn't had that friend who found me at the right time, I could have totally spiraled. 

Music gigs were my way of practicing being out in the world and being social. I couldn't hide from my anxiety if I wanted to make a living as a musician. And after gigs stopped for two years [during COVID], getting back out and doing anything social at all was difficult… but it's just like practicing anything else. It took me about two months of consistently going out to things like Song City and feeling the rewards of how good it was to share an experience with other people again to realize, oh, it's worth it.

Do you feel like there are decisions that you've made about your career that you've made specifically with this part of you in mind? Has it impacted your career in any way?

I'd say the decision to focus on doing more recording and production work stems from my anxiety. If you want to perform your original music and you want to grow that to a high potential, you have to be traveling. But I can’t do that for more than a week or two. I love my fiancé and my cat too much! And part of it is just my personality. In the world that we live in, success is often defined by social interaction. If you're not the kind of person that’s comfortable with that, there's nothing wrong with you. There are different paths to success that don’t require being an extrovert 24/7. There are decisions that you can make to build a life and career where your tendencies are not hindrances, but superpowers.

Unstable

Does any of what we're talking about relate to your recent single “Unstable”?

I think if the world kept in mind that we don't know what people are going through all the time, it would be a better place. I have a really weird allergy that affects my nervous system that caused me to have suicidal thoughts when I was a kid. I didn't know what was going on and my parents didn't know what was going on. It wasn’t until I started taking things out of my diet that that changed.

But it took me a while to realize I didn't do anything to warrant that self-hatred. I'm lucky that I had the chance to figure out what was affecting me before it became a part of my adult life. It took some time to understand that who I was at that time, wasn’t me. Everyone needs to give themselves a break, and everyone needs to give everyone else a break. 

When I was writing that song [“Unstable”], I was almost writing to my younger self. But I also really wanted to write for people who I know are going through that feeling in their adult life more consistently. The kind of anxiety that I went through in college was a lot different than what I had as a kid. When I was a kid it felt like a chemical imbalance, whereas as I was growing into adulthood it felt like I was just not managing my thoughts well. The song “Unstable” is more about that chemical imbalance. It’s about knowing that you shouldn't feel the way you feel, but you do anyway, and you feel like you don't have control over it. That’s exactly how I felt as a kid.

Do you feel like the song is an offering for people who are going through their own periods of imbalance?

For the majority of songs, I write them from my own experience because it's a therapeutic process. I think a byproduct of that is that other people will find something in that song that they connect to.

One last question, what is your favorite ice cream?

The thing I've been getting into now is cookie dough, but with adding peanut butter and fudge.

What about in the middle of the winter? Do you still eat ice cream?

I'll eat ice cream anytime.

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Addendum

Learn more about Anthony, listen, buy his music, and keep up with him at the links below.

Website
Bandcamp
Follow on Instagram
Follow on Spotify
Youtube

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Kaleidescape

One last plug for Kaleidescape on Oct. 14 at Troy Savings Bank Music Hall — you can get tickets here. This will be a special one, folks. I hope you’ll join us if you’re in the area.

Times Union article: Performers to honor acoustics of Troy Music Hall in variety show

After settling on a roster, Vastek explains, “We purposefully left the directive open-ended so that the artists could write something that was true to their own language and practice.” As preparation, each of the commissioned artists was given time alone in the hall to play with the acoustics, explore the space and find inspiration.