((PKG)) MAKING A LIVING: BRENT MORGAN
((TRT: 07:27))
((Topic Banner: Making a Living: Brent Morgan))
((Reporter/Producer/Editor: Ailin Li))
((Camera: Phil Woodall))
((Map: Huntsville, Alabama))
((Main character: 1 male))
((MUSIC/Singing))
♪ All because I care too much.
((Brent Morgan, Musician))
The stereotypical dream for a musician is you move to Nashville. You walk into a label. You sit in the lobby. You sing your amazing song. They're like, “We want to sign you.” And they pull you up, kind of like Taylor Swift did, where
((Courtesy: AP))
they would go to every single label every week with her dad.
((Brent Morgan, Musician))
It's just not true. Moving to Nashville just triples your cost of living and you play in the bars downtown for tips only.
I used to play the bar scene. I used to play gigs all the time.
((MUSIC/Singing))
♪ Afraid my paper skin has started wearing thin.
♪ It isn't fair I care too much.
((Brent Morgan, Musician))
And then I realized I could play in my shorts at home on a live stream and make, you know, five times as much money and have way more fun interacting with way more people.
((Courtesy: NBCUniversal))
You have to build a fan base online and they will push you to success with your music.
((Brent Morgan, Musician))
Hey, my name is Brent Morgan. I’m 33 years old and I write and produce music for a living. And this is my ordinary life.
So, this is my studio. I have two different portions as you can see. Right here is where I do my live streaming every single day. As you can see, I’ve got my SM7 mic rigged up. I’ve got my Sony camera. I’m here most of my time every single day. I sit in this chair probably like four to five hours a day at least. And then if you come over here, this is where I do all of my writing and recording.
((Brent Morgan, Musician))
I got an interest in music when I was in 11th grade. My whole life before that was focused on sports. I had scholarships lined up for baseball. But I also joined a band with my friends. I started realizing that I could sing and I could play by ear.
So, I started teaching myself piano and guitar and just performing for some friends here and there. And then I got really interested and I went to college for music and started giving lessons.
((Brent Morgan, Musician))
I started realizing my life was surrounded by music. So, I really wanted to pursue it. I even remember when I was about to propose to my wife, I had to go talk to her parents and say, I'm going to do music for a living. And it was terrifying.
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Luckily, I had just won $100,000 from Petco [pet store], the week before I asked that question. So, it kind of gave me some leverage.
((Courtesy: Petco))
((MUSIC/Singing))
♪ Waking up in the morning to my two best friends
♪ A little nudge to get me out of the bed
((Brent Morgan, Musician))
I entered this contest and wrote a jingle for them about rescue animals and I won $100,000. It was $50,000 for me and $50,000 for the shelter that I rescued my dog from. That's when I started realizing like this is how you monetize it. I got to where I was writing probably four to five jingles a week.
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((MUSIC/Singing))
♪ Got a place to be but you ain't got time and a beat down cab ain't a suitable ride
♪ Need to step it on up, gotta put your foot down for the best ride in town
((Brent Morgan, Musician))
The tricky part is to fit an extremely catchy melody and all of the talking points that the company wants you to talk about in 15 to 30 seconds.
((NATS: Brent Morgan))
A window into everything America.
American stories.
American life.
Plus One. Plus One.
Alright. I got it.
((MUSIC/NATS))
♪ A window into everything America.
American stories.
American life.
That’s Plus One.
((Brent Morgan, Musician))
So, when I was in the thick of writing all these jingles, I was getting very, very weird requests for jingles; companies that want a jingle for their funeral home or want a jingle for their porta potties [portable toilet] that were going to be used at festivals. I had one for, it was a horse rehabilitation clinic. And I was like there is no way I could write you a jingle. And why do you need to advertise this in a jingle form? It was great money. I was very excited.
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There was a lot of news publications about it.
((Courtesy: Smart Stop))
But eventually, I started realizing I was losing the ability to write longer songs which is my passion.
((Brent Morgan, Musician))
And so I just stopped. I completely stopped writing jingles for almost two years. And I started trying to focus writing songs again. And luckily, they started taking off for me and for other artists that I was writing for.
((MUSIC/Singing))
((Courtesy: Brent Morgan))
♪ She's a heartbreak away from a horrible place.
((Brent Morgan, Musician))
There's so many different ways to make money and to make a living using music, mine being: YouTube streams, Spotify, Apple music streams and all of the different streaming, you know, sites. I also livestream my music to my fans on a daily basis on an app called YouNow. You can make $10,000 to $15,000 a month if you stick to it and you stream daily.
((Brent Morgan, Musician))
I've actually incorporated my jingle writing into my live streaming. So, say, Dave tipped me something that's worth $100 dollars, a gift. That's a huge gift. I might write a jingle about Dave, on the spot.
((MUSIC/Singing))
♪ Well, I'd like to say, "Thank you to Christine."
♪ Dropping that love on the brentobean
((Brent Morgan, Musician))
That just causes everybody else to want their own jingle, so they also support me.
Some people just support me because they’re really enjoying seeing behind the scenes of the songs that I'm making. I got the opportunity to go to China. I got to perform on this stage.
((Courtesy: Tencent))
I've never seen a bigger stage in my life. I want to go back to Beijing or any part of China as soon as I can.
((Brent Morgan, Musician))
It really opened my eyes that the world is so different the further you go. The Voice [TV talent program] approached me on Instagram after seeing some of my successes on there.
((Courtesy: NBCUniversal))
((MUSIC/Singing))
♪ Can't keep my hands to myself
♪ No. Think I'll dust'em off, put'em back up on the shelf
((Brent Morgan, Musician))
Being there for an entire month to work on a minute and a half of one song that you're going to sing on TV was so overwhelming.
((Brent Morgan, Musician))
If anything, it just made me a better musician because that’s all I thought about
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for an entire 30 days was that one song and how to make it better.
((Brent Morgan, Musician))
About a week into my stay at The Voice, I started noticing my voice was not recovering at all. It was very weird. It was swelling. My throat was swelling up.
((Courtesy: Orange Beard Films))
When I got back home, I started going to doctors and nobody could figure out. They would look in my throat and not see anything. My voice goes away every day at five o'clock. I can't sing. I had to cancel all gigs that I was doing. I couldn't go back to The Voice. It was two years of me going from doctor to doctor. It scared me. I didn't know if I was going to have a future and doing what I love. I ended up finding out it was a thing called Muscle Tension Dysphonia, which, to make it short, is basically where your brain stops telling your vocal cords to relax. So, if I get hit in my shoulder, my vocal cords close up because it's messed up. I've been doing treatment now and doing allergy shots and different things and my voice is improving literally weekly.
((Courtesy: Orange Beard Films))
((Brent Morgan, Musician))
So, I live in Madison, Alabama. My whole family lives here. My mom, my dad, my sisters. We are all within five minutes of each other.
I met my wife in high school. She was on the high school soccer team. She was like the star. I joined the soccer team which I’d never played soccer because I wanted to meet her. And it worked. I ended up getting to know her. We started dating. And now, we’ve been married ever since.
((Brent Morgan, Musician))
So, living in Alabama kind of frees up space for me financially. The house we live in now, it has five bedrooms and five bathrooms. To get something like that anywhere else in the world, like LA [Los Angeles] or New York, would be astronomically expensive. But it’s affordable here in Alabama and it gave me room to have a nice backyard for my dogs, to have room for a studio. And I own. So, I’m not renting. I actually can, you know, pay this off and it’s mine.
((MUSIC/NATS))
((Brent Morgan, Musician))
Starting this road to recovery, it changed my perspective completely and now I'm even more grateful for music and I do it even more than I was before I had the issue.
((Brent Morgan, Musician))
You might end up seeing me on the show again because they're wanting to do this Road to Redemption
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and I'm just waiting till I feel confident enough to go back.