This Is Dave Place

Don’t Run Away

Our band just released our first single of our new CD. It’s called “Don’t Run Away”. You can listen to it here http://HearTh.is/h66SUU and you can buy it off of iTunes. I wrote the lyrics below. I haven’t written songs blatantly about myself in a long time. I felt for the last few years that writing vague songs about different subjects was the way to go. With this CD I dropped that notion and just wrote a bunch of songs for me. They are much more personal. They are slowly starting to become like this blog: I am writing about my thoughts and feelings and inviting you to come along for the ride.

Tell me now
Would you stay somehow
I have made mistakes
But I’ll learn to change

But I can’t stop the world
I can’t control the rain
I’m helpless to your tears
But I need you in my veins

Don’t run away
There’s something in the air that says
You’ll turn, I’ll say
I’ve been waiting all my life

Say I’m wrong
So we’ll move on
I’m a living shame
With myself to blame

So tell I’m in love
I never believed in it
But with you I don’t regret
There’s nothing I regret

I’ve been waiting all my life
To get this right
Is that alright?
For a boy who thinks instead of ever feels
A broken heart’s the only that’s real

So tell me I’m in love
I won’t believe in it
But everything can change
This world is proof of that

I’ve been waiting all my life
To get this right

Long Winter

I haven’t wrote on here in a while. It’s been a long, weird, rough winter/spring for me. Nothing tragic happened in my life, it was more of an internal thing. I want to write on here daily again. However, I just haven’t felt stable or sound in a while. I’ve been struggling with some important beliefs, thoughts, and understandings and I’m looking for answers that make sense to me. I guess that is what you do when you are a young adult.

I don’t want to write on here without feeling safe and sound. I want to help you. I want you to be able to comfortably tell a friend to read this blog without feeling nervous about what the next one will say. I want to make you feel like I am a stability you can count on. So until I feel like I can be that for you, I am going to keep on hermitting it up!

I plan on posting our lyrics for our new CD up here pretty soon though. I also want to post personal explanations and meanings for the lyrics. I feel like that will help you enjoy them more. This album is much more personal than the last so I want to explain where I was coming from when I wrote each song. I am glad that you support me and my band and are willing to listen to what I write, both in song and on here. You are a great human being. Thank you. I mean it, thank You.

Help Support

Since the music industry has gone down the drain, it’s become harder and harder to make a career out of being a musician. Record labels used to put money into promoting bands. They would receive that money back from album sales. Now, every record label is hesitant to invest in promoting bands because not as many people buy music. So, it is still possible for musicians to become successful, however it is harder to get labels to put money into promotion since there is a smaller chance they will see that money back. That is why you see so many bands that are touring the country, but not really getting much promotion elsewhere.

Our band is putting out a new album soon called “Live. Love.” To help fund promoting the CD, we set up a donation program for our fans. We figured, since we gave our last album away for free on Facebook and Purevolume for a year, it wouldn’t hurt to ask for some help in funding the next album. In a way, this is the new “music industry”: Fans don’t buy CD’s from bands now; instead, bands give away the CD online for free and fans give a donation to help support them. The world is a weird place. So, if you’d like to help, go to this link:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/phonecallsfromhome/phone-calls-from-home-live-love-album-release-and

Live Your Dream

When I was in high school, all I wanted to do was play music for my career. It was such a constant need that it would be all I thought about when I was in class. I would pay attention to the teacher and then slowly daydream away about being on stage and touring around the country.

Now at 21 I’m doing it. It’s exciting and perfect.

People say, “I want to live the dream” like it is some vague optimistic thing. What is “the dream”? I have no idea. We are all different, so the real question is what is Your dream?

You have the freedom to dream anything you want. And you have the power to live that dream. Just do what you love and don’t let anything stop you.

Bragging Rights Are Only Good Until You Die

I was contemplating a depressing view point the other day: Maybe this life is based on filling your days and your mind with busy plans to keep you occupied until you die. Why is everyone so busy? Money? Love? Fleeting happiness? Selfish accomplishments? Selfless accomplishments?

I’m a very task-oriented person. I spend a lot of time trying to accomplish short-term and long-term goals. I need to take a step back and make sure I am working for the right reasons. The goal is to live for God and for others, not to accomplish hard tasks. Accomplishments are just bragging rights that are only good until your dead. It’s not about accomplishing. Don’t waste your hopes thinking accomplishments are the key to life. It’s about more.

A Bitter Pill Is Harder To Swallow

I know my headline is a famous saying, but I didn’t understand it until recently. You see, every now and then I have random epiphanies from random events. Very random events. I learned the true meaning of this saying quite literally from one of those random epiphanies. This one had to do with feeding my cat…

I was at my house one morning eating breakfast. Phone Calls From Home had been sub-par on our work ethic, so I was going to have a meeting with my band-mates and ream them out (yes I know… It was mean and wrong and never worked well, but it was back in 2010 when I was young and naive). I was trying to figure out the best way to tell them how bad we were doing (I was much more negative… back then).

After breakfast, I was told I had to feed Trooper, one of our house cats, a pill to make it feel better because it was sick. As I gave it the pill I thought to myself, “Please be a good tasting pill so I don’t have to fight you, pin you down, and shove this pill down your throat. It would be easier for both of us if you just enjoyed the taste of this pill and swallowed it on your own accord.” Sure enough, the pill tasted good and the cat ate it quick. As Trooper was chewing, a light bulb turned on in my brain and I said, “My band is like this cat!” and then my sister looked at me weird because what I just said didn’t make sense.

But it made sense to me.

I’ll put the two scenarios together… The pill is like the news about our band sucking. The cat is my band. And I am me in both scenarios. Ok. So if I give the bad news to the band like I was planning on doing, they would swallow it like a bitter pill: They know it is healthy to hear how our band is doing, but they would be fighting the news because no one wants to hear that they are sucking, ever. So in the same way that the cat doctor thought, “Hey, let’s make this cat pill good tasting so cats will actually enjoy it”, I started thinking, “Hey, let’s make this bad news sound not so bad, and more optimistic so everyone will be down to work hard to bring our band to the next level.” It’s not enough to simply tell something to someone if you want to affect change in them. You have to actually make them want to hear it.

No one wants to swallow a bitter pill, even if it is good for them. In the same way, no one wants to hear the truth sometimes, even if it is good for them. So you treat your friends like you would my cat and treat your words like you would treat that pill: Make the words feel better so the person swallowing them actually wants to swallow them. You don’t have to lie and you don’t have to over-fabricate. Just make the pill taste better.

Thank you Trooper for the great revelation. I still don’t like you though. You gave me scars with your talons.

It’s About What They Hear, Not What You Say

I’ve always been able to understand complex things, but I’d always miss the obvious. I am pretty bad with common sense. So it took me 20 years to find out one of the easiest and most important lessons of my entire life. It’s something that you should take ahold of right away because I guarantee it will help you very, very, very much.

I was taking a class on human communication last year. It taught me a lot about human learning, listening, how we talk, public speaking, cultural differences in language, and a bunch of other fun stuff. But the key lesson I learned in that class, and that year, was that when I am talking to someone, it isn’t about what I am saying, it is about what they hear. I’ll reiterate…

I always talk thinking that everyone is on the same page with me, or knows about what I am talking about. When in fact, everyone has their own agenda, their own brain, their own way of thinking, their own way of learning, and their own ideas about life, the world, themselves. So there is absolutely no way that they are interpreting what I say the way I think they would. Therefore, I have to sympathize with people and be at their level if I ever want them to understand what I am saying.

Think about everyone in your life (parents, teachers, friends, relatives) and think about every time you get mad or frustrated that they don’t understand you or your way of thinking. “Mom! You just don’t get it!” *door slam* . You always think, “They are dumb, they don’t understand, they will never get me.”

Well… the moral of today’s topic is stop blaming them because the blame is on you. Sucks right? It’s up to you and only you to communicate your thoughts in a way that someone else will understand. Think about someone who doesn’t speak English. Are you going to just keep talking to them in English and get frustrated and pissed off that they won’t understand you? I hope not because you would be considered insane, literally (look up Einstein’s definition of insanity). In the same way, don’t speak to people and get upset when they don’t understand your or see eye-to-eye with you. Understand them better first and bring it to their level. Then you will see results.

When you are communicating, the responsibility is on you my friend, not them. Deal.

Doubt Is Healthy

I’ve been living with a lot of doubt over the last few months. It is something I generally keep to myself. I don’t think it is always 100% necessary to share my doubts with everyone so I wouldn’t be surprised if none of my friends even realized.

I did talk about it with someone I trust though. They assured me that I am human, and humans tend to doubt. I think it is part of our general makeup. I also think that doubting shows that you are thinking deeply. If someone was completely dead set on their actions and beliefs for their entire life, I’d almost believe that they are lying to themselves sometimes. Doubt is real and we all feel it at some points.

Doubt can be a good thing and it can be a bad thing. I think it is what we do with our doubt that really makes the difference. I want to use my doubt to assure myself in what is true and what is right in my eyes. I want it to allow myself to ask me questions that scoffers and skeptics would ask, and I want to be able to find answers to those questions that I could stand by.

So doubt when you feel that you need to. But don’t always look to others for answers. Doubt is best taken up with God and with yourself. Look within for the answers, because no one understands you better than you.

Don’t tell anyone that I doubt. If anyone asks, tell them I am too overconfident and too arrogant in my beliefs to ever doubt myself. I like to keep up that persona…

Do Your Best… What More Can You Do?

As a musician I used to get very caught up in writing the perfect songs. I used to get a lot of anxiety from feeling like my songs and my voice and my band wouldn’t be good enough.

I’ve grown since then. I’ve realized that I just need to do my best and let it go from there. What’s the use of worrying if I’m trying my hardest? What more could I do? It gives me a better feeling. No more anxiety or discomfort. If I write it and people love it, great. If I write it and people don’t like it, oh well, maybe they will like the next one. All that matters is that I did what I could. There isn’t any looking back and saying, “Oh man, I wish we did this instead.” We didn’t do that, we did our best and nothing more.

I want to stop talking about me and talk about you. All you can do is try to do your best, don’t feel bad after that. There are times at school, or at home, or at a sports game when you fail or you lose or you make a mistake. But the only time you should be ashamed of that is if you weren’t trying your hardest. Always bring your A game, and you can’t lose. It’s like all those sports movies where at the end they end up losing, but no one cares anymore because they all know how hard they tried for it. Think about those movies and relate them to your life… Ya. Do that.

Do your best because after that, what more can you do?

Surround Yourself With The Right People

I think it is very important to be around people that make you feel happy. The more I make friends around the country and the more I travel with the friends I have, the more I realize how much the people around me matter.

The people around you have a huge influence on your life. Whether you think it’s true or not, you have the ultimate power to choose who you want in your life, other than your family… you are stuck with them :-) . So choose wisely. And if you feel that you need to break away from some of your friends, that is OK. Just do it very nicely, they will eventually get over it.

When I say surround yourself with the “right” people, I don’t always mean the “moral” people, or the “cool” people. I mean people that make you feel right about yourself. I have friends that are promiscuous , friends that are virgins, friends that use drugs heavily, friends that would never touch them, friends that have anxiety issues, friends that cut themselves, friends that go to church, friends that would never step foot in one, friends that are gay, friends that are straight, friends that are fifty, friends that are fifteen, friends that are poor, friends that are rich, friends that feel broken, and friends that feel great. I’d say the only similarity between all of my friends is that they are all my friends.

I try to be with the “right” people. All that means is that I want to be with people that make me feel comfortable, safe, excited, loved, down-to-earth, and all around happy. They make me feel right. They keep me grounded. Find friends that make you feel like a better you, even if it is hard to do. It will pay off.