Latest / The Scene Projects / Howard Gripp on Musical Evolution, Faith, and Independent Production

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Howard Gripp on Musical Evolution, Faith, and Independent Production · The Scene Projects

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  This program is part of the Scene Projects podcast network.
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  Scene Project features interviews with independent musicians, comedians, and artists
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  from across the Midwest.
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  Become part of our community and support local art wherever you are.
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  Welcome in to another exciting episode of the scene.
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  I am your host Bubba Starts, and with me today is singer and songwriter, Howard Grip.
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  Howard, welcome to the show.
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  Bubba, how are doing?
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  Doing well, man.
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  It's been a busy day.
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  I can't even remember how many interviews I've done and a live review show, and we're just on
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  all the time here, and I couldn't be happier about it.
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  Well, that's good.
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  That's fantastic.
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  Yeah.
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  Well, I'd like to, before we get into all the things that you're doing now, I'm sure you're
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  staying plenty busy in that studio.
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  I'd like to give you a few minutes off the top here to, give us a little bit of your
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  backstory, and we'll pick it up from there.
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  Yeah.
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  Well, I've been a been a musician my whole life.
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  I'm I'm, I'm in my later years of life, I guess.
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  I'm a longtime rock and roll guy.
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  Started playing drums when I was six.
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  I played rock music until probably three years ago.
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  Way back in the nineties, I had a CD and a small record contract and went on the road for
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  a little while.
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  That kinda ran its course, I turned, like, 35 and said, alright.
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  I can't do this anymore.
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  I'm too old to be a rock star.
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  But so I quit playing for, five years, and then I got the itch again.
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  You know, musicians, we just got it in our bones.
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  So I started playing again and started playing clubs again on bars and started doing an
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  acoustic duo thing when I couldn't find a band.
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  And about three years ago, I just kinda felt God telling me to do something different with
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  my music.
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  So I put the secular rock and roll music away and stopped playing the bars, and I've been
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  playing Christian music ever since.
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  So that's a quick one.
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  Yeah.
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  That that's incredible too.
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  I I know I know how it feels.
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  Right?
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  At 39 myself, and, I know that I'm too damn old to be a rock star.
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  And, you know, I don't your body tells you you're just not built for it, and I quit
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  drinking at shows and really partying a long time ago.
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  But even just, you know, performing four hours a night and trying to wake up and to do that
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  five, six nights a week, it's tough to do.
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  It's definitely a young man and and woman's game, but I love that you've made the turn now
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  to making music for god and and making that the whole source of your musical career.
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  Were you a member of the church previously and started to play in a church Ben, or, you know,
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  what what's kind of that story?
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  I'd love to know more.
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  I just, I joined my fur I became a member of, my first church three and a half years ago,
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  and, I joined their worship team three and a half years ago, maybe three years ago.
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  And, that's that was well, so I met my wife, better get this right, seven and a half years
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  ago, and one of the first dates she took me to was church.
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  I'm in church forever.
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  And the first thing I saw was the worship band on stage playing contemporary music.
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  Thought, what is this?
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  I thought we're going to church, and, so that kinda started the wheels turning in my head a
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  little bit.
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  That got me going back to church and helped me find my faith, and, I just I dove in with both
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  feet, and then I felt that calling.
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  God has done amazing things in my life in the last two and a half years.
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  It's been crazy.
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  It's it's everything I tried to do when I was 20, but not having to play four hours a night.
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  That's incredible.
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  And I know, you know, church has changed a lot since you were a young man, and you have a lot
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  more of these churches that are playing contemporary worship music.
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  I, I did a little bit of prison time, and I was actually a member and very blessed to be a
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  member of the full gospel worship band there and and a part of the team.
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  And it gave me something that, you know, first of all, I needed the time to, get right, to get
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  myself right, to, let some addictions go and to want to be better and given the opportunity to
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  join the worship team to be part of a community with the church.
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  And it really it really changed my life being baptized in the prison and by choice, not by,
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  you know, your your parents just doing it because that's what you do.
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  Right?
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  I think that's a different it's a different path.
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  Right?
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  I know a lot of, you know, Catholics, christenings, baptisms happen very early before
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  a before you ever have a chance to have a relationship with God.
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  And not that we're all not children of God from birth, but for me, it was more personal, and I
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  needed I needed that personal relationship.
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  I nobody was gonna tell me to do it, and it sounds like you much in the same that, you
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  know, I'm sure a beautiful woman bringing you there, on a first date Coke coaxes coaxes a man
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  in some way, but I'm very happy that you found your faith and found, music and and a purpose
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  in playing for God.
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  That's that's very cool.
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  You know, I I was like that too.
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  I was bear I was baptized as an infant, and, you know, we didn't I didn't even know who I
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  was at that point.
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  I got rebaptized three years ago, because now I know what it means, and I know what it meant to
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  me.
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  And, you know, and the bible says to be baptized in God.
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  So I did that, and it my whole life has changed, and I am doing I am playing a lot, and
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  I'm not I don't have to play those four hours, you know, five days a row.
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  I would.
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  It would take a toll, but I would do it.
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  But, you know, it's it's a whole different, it's a whole different scene in the Christian
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  industry as opposed to, you know, playing bars and and things like that.
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  Well and everyone is there to worship and praise, and everyone's singing along a lot of
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  times to these songs, and it's such a different feeling.
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  And especially for guys like us that have spent a lot of time.
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  I started playing in bars when I was, like, 13, 14 years old.
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  Right?
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  That was all I ever had, and then you're kinda chasing, you're you're chasing that feeling of
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  performing to a full bar.
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  But someone in a bar is not there necessarily to see you and to share in that moment and to
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  share their pain and their joy with you.
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  It's not the it's not the space.
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  And at church, you get that, and and it changes it for sure.
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  And for me, being in the the prison where all of us were, you know, doing our time and in a
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  place where we were all trying to be better, that it was a very grateful time, not a large,
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  you know, church.
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  There was other groups that were much larger, but I was very grateful for for the group that
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  I had.
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  So, yeah, I I I definitely commend you for finding that and and finding an outlet for your
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  talents.
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  You know?
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  These are god given talents, and and it takes a lot of work.
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  But this desire has been placed inside of you to continue playing music, and it has to come
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  from somewhere.
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  And it's it's it's so different.
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  I mean, you can relate because you played in bars and you played in bands like that.
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  You're right.
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  You go and you play in the bars, and they don't 90% don't even know you're there, and they
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  don't care that you're there.
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  And, you know, now when I go and play to shops or churches or wherever at festivals, whatever,
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  I mean, everybody is there to worship God or praise or or listen, you know, or they are
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  looking for something or her.
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  So they are actually paying attention to what you're doing.
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  You know, the hardest transition for me from secular world to, this music scene was I'm
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  writing songs about my life, and I'm pretty much bearing my soul and telling everybody how
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  bad I was.
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  But I'm doing that in hopes to help someone not have to go through some of the things I went
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  through or, you know, it's just it's so different.
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  They're so emotionally connected songs.
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  So it's very different.
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  I love it.
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  It was tough at first.
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  Well and I've always written songs from that place, not that they're, you know, being shared
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  in in the worship team.
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  The hardest part for me playing in the worship team was playing in six eight time.
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  Especially back to back to back.
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  Well, I just everything I had played up to that point was in 04/04.
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  Right?
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  Maybe the I like I think I wrote one song in three four time, but learning what six eight
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  time even was and how to count it, that was one of my early struggles.
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  And I wasn't playing guitar in the band.
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  I had actually they had a need for a bass player, and I had played bass some, you know,
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  early in my career.
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  Was actually the first stringed instrument that I had picked up.
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  But, you know, they had more of a need for someone to play bass than someone on guitar.
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  There was three guitar players already, and they were very, very good.
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  And, you know, they were, you know, doing more time than me.
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  So I was like, look.
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  I'm not trying to take your job.
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  I'm here for a short time.
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  Right?
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  You know, it was a couple of years, but, you know, some of the people in the prison, you
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  know, they were serving nearly life sentences.
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  Right?
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  And so I wasn't trying to take anyone's to take their joy.
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  Right?
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  I was trying to contribute.
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  I met one of my best friends, still to this day.
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  He was a drummer.
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  He played drums in the band.
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  I played bass.
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  We formed a great relationship, and, you know, I was just talking with him yesterday.
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  And we've been able to take, you know, that relationship, and we got to play out at one of
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  our big, amphitheaters locally in Sioux South Dakota in Sioux Falls here, the Levitt.
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  It was, like, three, four thousand seat, you know, amphitheater and playing nothing but my
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  original music and some of those songs written in that prison.
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  So I I understand what it's like to, you know, to share that darkness, but also to share to
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  share those darker times with the with the consciousness of, like, I'm telling you this
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  story not for you to be bad and to follow my footsteps, but to avoid that path.
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  And, you know, for me, podcasting has become a a lot of that.
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  And and coming on every day and sharing bits of my story have become a way for me to, one,
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  ensure that I don't go down that same path, that I don't forget where I came from, and, you
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  know, like you to implore others to, maybe maybe hit the brakes a little earlier than I
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  ever did.
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  So, I I definitely commend you for that and love the songwriting aspect of what you're
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  doing now.
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  It's very cool.
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  Yeah.
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  Just just being able to do that.
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  I mean, you're right.
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  We're not I'm not writing songs to say, hey.
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  Here's how bad you can be.
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  You know?
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  But there are more songs of hope than saying, hey.
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  Because a lot of people feel that, you know, they're just too bad to be saved or they
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  there's no way that a a god will love me because I'm the I do this and this and this.
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  And, I mean, that's just not true, you know, and that's really what my music folk I still
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  play rock music.
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  It's Christian rock music, and I and I do, like, secular forms of music.
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  I don't I I'm still trying to write a worship song.
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  I haven't done that yet, but, you know, it's it's really to say, hey, you know, I was bad.
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  I was a bad dude, you know, but God saved me, and God changed my life.
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  And he's got me on a path that's that I tried so hard to do on my own when I was young and
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  just failed over and over and over again.
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  And he's got me on that path now.
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  It's it's crazy.
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  And music keeps you there.
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  Right?
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  Instead of being the reason that maybe you you fall off and head down a darker route, it is
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  now the thing that keeps you going back to church because it would be very easy to to
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  stop.
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  Right?
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  I'm sure you're now now wife, wouldn't let you, but, you know, you wouldn't now now you have a
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  reason to be inspired to go to church, Right?
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  Which I think for people that live inspired lives, we sometimes lack in the routine, of
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  things.
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  Like, we we have to be in in that moment and feel that we're I mean, not necessarily that
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  we're, you know, all of the show.
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  Right?
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  We're we're not the reason people are coming there on Sunday, but you're you're part of the
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  reason that maybe keeps them, coming back every week themselves.
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  And I think there's a power to that.
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  Yeah.
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  I agree.
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  I agree a 100%.
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  Yeah.
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  For sure.
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  So outside of the church, you're still playing and and you're playing, you know, coffee shops
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  and festivals and all things like that.
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  Do you stay fairly busy playing, besides on Sundays?
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  I did last summer.
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  We probably played 40 gigs thirty, forty gigs.
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  I probably played thirty, forty gigs this year.
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  I played in little coffee shops for 10 people, and I opened for Danny Gokey for 2,000.
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  So it's you know, everybody says, what was that like?
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  What was it like playing for 2,000 people?
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  Said, was cool.
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  I said, but what was really cool was the people I got to talk to after the show that said, you
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  know, your music really touched me or your testimony hit home or that was me and I'm here
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  now or or I was thinking about taking my life.
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  And just a few weeks ago, had I had somebody talk to me about this.
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  It was unbelievable.
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  But that's and everybody talks about you're playing in front of all these people, but
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  that's not what it's about.
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  You know?
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  It's about those people coming up afterwards saying, hey, you you touched me in a way that I
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  didn't even know, you know, I am good enough.
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  I'm not as bad as I thought I was, and I am savable.
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  So so
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  cool.
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  That human connection and, obviously, a a lot of talk about AI and those things, and it it
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  will never have that.
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  It will never know that.
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  And the to have it be your own music and having someone like, oh my god.
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  I love that song that somebody else wrote, and you performed it so well is one feeling.
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  But having someone connect with your own story.
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  And I think that's, that's probably why I've fallen in love with podcasting.
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  And and regardless of who it goes out to in the world and and how many people are listening
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  after the fact, it's usually my life that has changed during the conversation because I'm
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  able to take something from your story and you from mine.
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  And if there was one life changed by the conversation, then it was successful.
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  So I've been very blessed to never measure our, you know, our impact on the world through our
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  podcast by the numbers because, ultimately, nobody's listening, until they are.
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  And then it seems in this world that once they start listening, it's, you know, tens of
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  thousands at a time and you kinda catch fire, go viral as the kids say, and and it goes from
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  that.
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  And at this point, we have over 400 interviews that we've done, a thousand uploads on YouTube.
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  Like, when we have that moment of discovery to the world and we become the overnight
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  sensation, right, There will be, you know, plenty plenty of people for them to be
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  introduced to through our show and so many different walks of life.
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  But your story is not unique to you either.
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  I hear it a lot on this show, and maybe not everyone is playing in the worship team now and
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  is, you know, church every Sunday.
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  But that music and god, which I think are inextricably connected, right, that they save
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  people every single day, and it has saved so many of us artists, firstly, and so many people
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  that are music lovers and deserving of being saved on the other side of the instrument and
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  of the stage.
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  So, really, really great story, Howard.
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  So writing a little bit, are you releasing any of this music out to the world as well?
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  I've got two EPs out.
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  One just finished coming out in October.
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  I'm going back in the studio.
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  I I record down in Nashville.
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  I'm going back in the studio in January, to work.
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  We're gonna do some preproduction for a week with a guy named Billy Smiley, and then I'll go
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  back in April and cut another EP.
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  Maybe an album.
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  I don't know.
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  I haven't decided yet.
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  I don't know how much money I can raise.
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  Right.
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  Right.
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  And the funding is is always a barrier, and, you know, we kinda brushed over your your past,
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  success, say, if you wanna call it that, a record deal a long time ago.
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  I'd love to know just because, you know, not a lot of our guests have been signed to that
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  thing.
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  What was that experience like, and how do you kind of contrast that with, you know, producing
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  it on your own?
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  Obviously, the the record company maybe, you know, providing in advance to pay for the
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  recording is maybe the biggest thing, but did it change the process of the recording at all?
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  I mean, maybe they had a little more input on the recording than than I didn't have total say
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  over everything, you know, and this way I do.
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  You know, I can and what I have found and when I go into Nashville, I I bring in Nashville
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  musicians, and I have to be in the room with the musicians because that's when things
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  happen.
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  You know?
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  A lot a lot of these a lot of people just, they'll have the natural musicians record their
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  stuff, send it to them.
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  They'll lay some vocals down, send it back.
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  I don't like to do it that way.
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  I like to be in the room with the artist because, man, so much magic has happened on
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  these two EPs just sitting in that room for, you know, eight, ten, twelve hours a day.
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  It's it's it's a whole different process.
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  You know, I've got full input.
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  I can change anything I want.
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  You know, I can say, oh, let's add a bridge here.
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  Let's take the bridge out.
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  Man, you're just killing on guitar.
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  Look when I had a when I had a guitar solo on here.
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  So it I think it's more of the I have more total control over it than when I had a label
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  back.
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  Record labels today aren't anything I mean, the big ones are like Sony and and Warner, but
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  there are 10,000,000 record labels out there.
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  And, you know, some are just distribution groups, some are collective groups that do some
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  collective recording, and, you know, I've got a couple of those too, but record labels are
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  totally different than they used to be.
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  And I I think, I mean, it's pretty much a far off dream to get signed anymore.
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  If you don't have a million followers on your socials and a bunch of streams already, they're
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  they're not even sniffing around.
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  But I think what most people really need are, like, per more producer.
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  Right?
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  Like, more somebody that can help you get achieve that sound that maybe you have in your
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  head that might know some players and and to make those connections.
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  It's not necessarily the record label.
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  The record label kinda had the producers under their wings and under, you know, under their
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  control, and that's what made these great records and what I'm starting to hear from, you
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  know, just being more in the industry now.
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  I've only been doing this for a little under two years.
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  I grew up in rural South Dakota.
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  I live in even more rural South Dakota now than where I grew up.
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  So, obviously, there's not a lot of those people around.
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  Right?
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  There there's just not a lot there.
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  So it's very interesting to see where where things go and and how it all works behind the
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  scenes.
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  And, really, you know, building up maybe a a roster of producers is almost more, a akin to
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  what is needed now, people who really just wanna produce great music and to help artists
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  in that way.
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  And I think that they actually hold more power than they could have in the past, and I don't
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  know if they know that yet.
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  You know, maybe some of them well, and probably most of them are aren't very good salesman of
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  their own services in the first place because of the, you know, generational now, the way
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  things were done.
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  But things are changing, and and maybe it's something that's up to me to kinda bring those
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  pieces together because I know a lot of artists at this point that, some of them got some great
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  songs, and they could all a lot of them could be hits if finessed the right way and maybe,
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  you know, rerecord it with a little more polish, and they could be heard on the big
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  radio stations.
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  But the world's changing right now.
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  I don't know how many of these big radio stations and things survive the next decade.
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  You're right.
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  Yeah.
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  You're right on the money with the producer.
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  You gotta have I think the producer is the most important thing in the whole deal, because you
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  can have bad producers too that can ruin a song.
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  You know, the first two EPs I did with, Nashville Christian songwriter was Brian Urich.
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  Urich was my, producer and phenomenal.
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  He's phenomenal.
• 21:46
  I'm just I'm a little I'm I'm I'm pulling more towards my rock, you know, my rock and my
• 21:53
  bones, and, that's kinda why I'm trying this one with, Billy Smiley just to try something
• 21:57
  different.
• 21:58
  He's a he's an old rock guy, and I think he's gonna pull some great stuff.
• 22:02
  But he's worked with a lot of people, and you gotta find a great producer.
• 22:06
  You just have to.
• 22:07
  I know a lot of people record music in their basement, and they produce themselves or they
• 22:12
  hire a producer for $15 an hour, and you're gonna get what you pay for.
• 22:17
  You know, sometimes you get lucky.
• 22:18
  Sometimes people in their basements are really good too, so you just never know.
• 22:22
  But yeah.
• 22:23
  Yeah.
• 22:23
  They're all a lot better than me, Howard.
• 22:26
  I got all the equipment, but I can't figure out how to hit record and capture anything that
• 22:30
  sounds decent.
• 22:32
  And it's it's partly because I just I'm not going to invest the time in it.
• 22:36
  Right?
• 22:36
  Like, I I'm very conscious of where I spend my time.
• 22:41
  And when I see a learning curve which doesn't when I could just like, no.
• 22:46
  I can just go hire my buddy.
• 22:47
  I can pay my buddy $75 a song.
• 22:49
  He does really good work.
• 22:50
  He gives me a hell of a deal.
• 22:52
  Right?
• 22:53
  And he'll play all the instruments for the same thing, right, where you're like, yeah.
• 22:57
  That's that's way better than me trying to spend four hundred hours to learn how to make
• 23:02
  it sound half as good as what you're doing.
• 23:05
  And, you know, and like you said, you you get what you pay for out there in the world
• 23:09
  regardless of what it is, and a a producer is no different.
• 23:14
  So, Howard, where can everybody find your music?
• 23:17
  At howard grip music everywhere.
• 23:21
  On Spotify, Apple, Amazon, all of them.
• 23:28
  My website's howardgritmusic.com.
• 23:31
  Awesome.
• 23:32
  Well, Howard, thanks for spending a little bit of time with me today.
• 23:36
  Look forward to mean, you never know when I'm gonna be in Nashville anymore.
• 23:39
  I was there for the Josie Music Awards recently and, absolutely fell in love with the city.
• 23:45
  And I never really even made it out of Opryland.
• 23:47
  I did Broadway a couple of times, but I never even made it to Music Row.
• 23:50
  So, I got a lot more, a lot more touring around Nashville to do, and I will be back there in
• 23:56
  2026.
• 23:57
  So you never know when we'll see you out on the road.
• 24:00
  I'll be following you on all the social medias as well, and, congratulations to you.
• 24:05
  I'm glad that you found your faith, and you found your purpose again in music with the
• 24:09
  worship team and creating this new brand of music.
• 24:12
  So thank you for being here, and thanks for being part of the scene.
• 24:16
  Yep.
• 24:16
  Thanks, Bob.
• 24:17
  Appreciate it.