There's a force at work that keeps you from being you. We feel it, too. It's the reason we avoid making the call, the reason we put off the diet. It's why we've done nothing about that entrepreneurial idea, that creative endeavor, that new relationship. In his book The War of Art, Steven Pressfield defines this universal force as Resistance. Welcome to The Resistance, a new podcast featuring honest interviews with creative persons about this force and the forms it takes.
It was immediately clear that Fantastic Negrito would close our first season of The Resistance once we began our conversation. Here was a man speaking—nay, preaching—from a lifetime of hard-fought battles with resistance. Record label woes. A car accident and ensuing coma. The inability to use his hand—to literally make music. Relearning it all after his supposed prime had passed him by.
It's taken some time for Glen Phillips (Toad the Wet Sprocket) to realize the ebb and flow of popularity and the shifting sands of the music industry have nothing to do with his value as a person or his worth as a cultural voice. These days, he's "over" the idea of a career, he says. It's simply about obedience to the creative impulses that he feels.
Artist and entrepreneur Drew Holcomb makes music of his own while building brands to celebrate the music of so many others. Given his many pursuits, Drew faces resistance on a number of fronts. In this episode, he explains the posture needed to consistently create and how he's learned to protect the initial impulse that sparked his creative pursuits in the first place.
This week, we have a special bonus episode that deviates from our typical interview format. Last week, Tokyo Police Club frontman Dave Monks sat down to discuss The Resistance, and in our conversation, he disclosed a list he keeps in his writing journal that lists rules he's picked up along the way as an artist. Aptly titled Rules For Artists, Monks graciously agreed to share those lessons learned with us in this special one-off episode.
As the front man for one of Toronto's biggest bands, Tokyo Police Club, Dave Monks has well over a decade of experience of writing, recording, and releasing music to the world, not to mention his own solo work. Why does he still wrestle with permission to follow his own interests? Our latest episode is relatable and raw in so many ways.
Our conversation with indie pop artist Sarah Jaffe speaks directly to the shadow side of comparison and how destructive it can be if we let it rule our mindset. As an artist, Sarah says social media can be her worst enemy, a distracting or even dangerous noise that steals her passion and fervor for what she loves most.
It's been six years since we've heard from Denison Witmer. In that time, he's settled into normal life of work and play, friends and family. He's nurtured the relationships that mattered most without ever knowing if his passion and talent for music would ever come back around again. Maybe he would shy away from such comparisons, but the sacrifice feels a bit Abrahamic.
When was the last time you felt like an imposter—at your craft, at your vocation, at parenting? What if the moment you felt those feelings most intensely—perhaps on a stage in the middle of a crowded room of fans—you decided to confront it in the boldest way possible?
Film composer Theodore Shapiro has scored over 70 films, from The Wolf of Wall Street to The Devil Wears Prada, Marley and Me to Ghostbusters. Unfortunately, none of his success has stopped the Resistance.
On this episode of The Resistance, Lynn Renee Maxcy will frustrate those of you who want to hear that all the self-doubt subsides after you've "made it." Fortunately, she's also ready and willing to share plenty of heartening advice about what it means to cultivate creative community and how to persist in the face of it all.
This episode with Stephen Kellogg not only features honest insights from one of the best (and most underrated) singer-songwriters in music today. His vulnerable testimony is a much-needed reminder for so many of us that our voice matters more than we think—and it's okay to fight for it.
"Most of us have two lives. The life we live and the unlived life within us. Between the two stands Resistance." -Steven Pressfield, The War of Art
You can listen to The Resistance in many places: right here on our site, on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, and on Spotify.
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