Stephen Kellogg has spent the last two-plus decades trying to silence the surrounding voices.

It’s hard enough to trust your own voice, but when the industry tells you to be more folk or less country or more rock—wait, less rock—it can be hard to shut out the confusion of label demands, industry expectations, fan wishes and the like. It’s taken some time, but Kellogg has finally found a way to change the metrics; the only expectations that matter now are his own.

This conversation felt like the perfect debut episode for The Resistance, given that we’ve likely all felt those same pressures. It’s frustrating to realize just how many days we’ve lived trying to adhere to someone else’s standards or allowed the marketplace to dictate our priorities. Personally, my lowest points are the ones where I couldn’t locate my own magnetic north, when my own sense of direction was overwhelmed by the voices all around me.

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.

VISIT: Stephen Kellogg