Nashville ?

[xpulsar]

Hey this question goes out to the anyone who lives in Nashville, or has a lot of experiences in Nashville.

I am being offered a possibly really cool position as house engineer for a
really cool guy,who will go unnamed.

I live in Detroit and have a tendency to lean more on the Liberal side of life. I'm also an atheist.
I know that there tends to be a very Christian community in Nashville, do you see this affecting your daily life in the music world.

I would like to get some opinions of the underground and none commercial (I.E. Pop Country, and Nickle Back type bands) scene of music in Nashville?

I hear that Nashville tends to be real "clicky" ,is this your experiences?

From an outsiders perspective it also seems to have a high "cheese" factor, is this also your experiences?

Is there enough good and experimental music happening that I could find myself working on stuff that is fun,or would I be having to work on more main stream commercial music to make a living?

-Collin

[MoreSpaceEcho]

my entire experience in nashville: i played there twice on tour. so i don't know wtf i'm talking about. but i think all your concerns are good ones. the christians will probably drive you mental, it probably is very cliquey, you will likely have to record lots of mainstream country to make a living.

that said, it could also be a really really great learning experience/career move, as you would get to work on a lot of sessions/meet a lot of scary good musicians/engineers/producers that you wouldn't otherwise. so if this guy is offering you a good deal i would be inclined to take it, despite your reservations, and see how it goes. i think you're almost guaranteed to get something positive out of it.

[LazarusLong]

Don't sweat it. Take the job if you think it's worth it. It is conservative.... for a city. Yes there's a huge Christian music scene there, and as such some of the people you will meet will be very religious. But many of them will also be professionals since music is so heavily commercialized down yonder. It'll be A-OK. Congrats on the job offer!

[Nate Dort]

I'm originally from Michigan, I'm really liberal, and some of the stuff I see in Nashville really makes me want to leave sometimes. My wife and I are contemplating a move right now, actually. Mostly for jobs, but partly because Nashville is driving us nuts. We're planning on having kids soon, and neither of us want them to grow up in this environment. It's progressive compared to the rest of the south (with the exception of Asheville and Austin), but really conservative compared to just about everywhere else. The general feeling around here is one of "christian values" and it's pervasive and many times really in your face. Mostly, though, it's hypocritical.

However, the thing about Nashville is that you rarely meet anybody in the music business who is originally from Nashville. None of my friends were born or raised here. Most of them moved here within the last 5 - 10 years. Most of them are atheist or don't care. Most of them are musicians and engineers. The only people I've ever butted heads with were older locals who were very heavy-handed in their holier-than-thou attitudes, and every one of those times were completely unrelated to the music industry.

If you like recording full-time, this is the place to be. It's a hard city to break into though, so your opportunity is probably the best you can hope for as far as getting your foot in the door somewhere. There will be times where you'll have to record a bunch of commercial-sounding crap. That happens anywhere though.
I don't really work in a whole lot of studios around here as the commercial Nashville studio scene really turned me off to the whole notion of finding a full time studio gig. I'm more involved with the tech side of things, but there are quite a few local bands who are doing well for themselves. They have great followings and are putting out records all the time. They tend to distance themselves from the generic commercial stuff though, and vice versa. There's a lot of competition though. Lots of schools pumping out engineers every year, so everybody has a bedroom studio. The musician pool is very deep and you'll work with some amazing players. You're going to have to create your own opportunities and set yourself apart from the rest of the crowd though.

But yeah, the commercial stuff, especially the country scene, is pretty ridiculous. The "songwriter industry" is really weird and foreign to me. How can you sit down in a little room with an acoustic and a piano from 10am to 2 pm and churn out a song? Who schedules time to write music? Who prides themselves is writing a formulaic song about breaking up? I've never understood it. Every third waiter around here is a "songwriter." To a lot of people around here, music is just a way to make money and they care nothing about the artistic aspect of it. It's always referred to as an "industry." That's why it's refreshing to go out and see some local college band play on the weekend in some dingy bar and really see them enjoy themselves. And there's plenty of that around here.