So i'm pretty busy at the moment, but only with good stuff so I don't mind one little bit. I just got back from the gym where I'm pretty sure my twice-weekly jaunts are having little to no effect on my overall fitness or physique. This is probably due to my awful diet and unwillingness to stop eating pizza and chips...I guess you win some and you lose some.

So last post I made, I put up a Frank Turner video for a song which looks at the motivations and integrity of people in the music industry. As someone who is stumbling over the starting blocks of a career, this is always something that crosses my mind. In a time when the music industry itself is in a state of massive flux and sustained success has become harder to achieve than ever before - what motivates people to attempt to build a life from music they have made? Is it the quest for fame, the chance of massive wealth, the chance to impress massive numbers of the opposite sex? You gotta ask yourself why you're doing it at some point.

So what do I answer when i do ask myself? I suppose the stock answer is "I'm doing it for the music..man", which is of course, only ever partly true. My passion for music is absolute and I love the songs that me and two other smelly boys make in our little garage, but when you're dragging a ton of equipment through the snow at 2.30am as we load out of the van, the music is the furthest thing from my mind.

The reason I do this is because I'm yet to find a part of it that I don't like - from the business side of things, the hundreds of emails, spreadsheets, website admin, money (or lack thereof), and organisation stuff..right through to the live shows, the adrenaline, the long drives, writing new songs and the hours spent just hanging out. Don't get me wrong there are parts I'd rather not have to bother with (see the bit above about loading gear in the snow), but even they are nothing compared to the alternative which is a life left wondering if I could have filled my days with a more passion-filled career.

I do this because the few highs make up for the, day-to-day plateau of waiting for the next good show to come along - because there is always something new to learn and it's something that I actually care about, beyond my almost total indifference to the rest of life.

Even though I ask myself why I do it, I am proud and happy to say that my answer has never come up short, and I have never doubted whether I make music for the "right" reasons - and as long as you can answer to yourself, nothing else matters.

Back to work,

Max.