To be one’s true self is the goal in life. This blog series would not exist if it weren’t for a reunion with an old friend who had all the makings of a modern-day Mozart. But at a pivotal fork in the road, he chose the path behind a desk, instead of one behind a keyboard, which would’ve honored his gift - like Mozart did. Now, 20 years later, he’s unrecognizable, this friend who once had music radiating from every cell, especially when singing in random bursts of happiness. The years have taken their toll - not just in the added 20 pounds that don’t belong, but in the heaviness that comes when living someone else’s life, and not one’s true purpose. The life you came here to live.
As a writer, this inspired me to highlight the special souls who chose to follow their true path. The tougher path, but one that honors and expresses the powerful gift of music they’ve been given. To live the Mozart life. May some of their words help or inspire you to find your true calling in life.
The story of Quiles & Cloud is an inspiring example to fans as they follow their path, which is one they see as “a lifelong journey of exploring connection” and “examining the threads that tie us together.” When Maria Quiles and Rory Cloud met in 2011, they describe themselves as being “adrift.” He left music lessons and gigs in Southern California to find a new music community and was living out of his Corolla and off food stamps, busking in Sausalito and getting $50 for gigs, when he heard Maria at an open mic. They started playing together daily, recorded their first album after five months and began touring and living the traveling life. In 2013 they added the upright bass with Oscar Westesson, which pushed them to write more dissonant arrangements. Their third album “Shake Me Now” was released March 17, produced by Grammy-winning banjo player Alison Brown. Though their music is Americana, it has blues, bluegrass, folk, rock, soul and classical elements. The album offers original music as well as a traditional blues track “Deep Ellum Blues,” a folk tune “Worried Man Blues,” and Bob Dylan’s “You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere.”
Maria shares about being “in the zone” as an artist, songs that take on a life when the group plays together, journaling, writing her first song at 11, life’s various catalysts and the serendipity of getting on a record label.
How do you find inspiration for the music? Is there somewhere deep within where the inspiration comes from? It’s said that’s when we’re most connected to our true selves. For example, some of the best songs were written in minutes. What’s your take in that, do you feel that in those inspirational moments you’re most connected to your true self? Have any songs come to you in that way, with such ease?
Inspiration for music comes to us in various ways. Sometimes it’s spontaneous and sometimes it’s a slower process of unfolding and exploration. Much of the material that has formed our albums so far has been born from our travels together as a duo, and more recently as a trio. Travel in pursuit of music, adventure and connection. The interconnection of personal growth that we experience relating to each other and people we meet all over the country has definitely been a huge influence on our music.
I find that l generally feel a creative urge every day, and usually it’s just a matter of me opening the journal or picking up the guitar to get that inner wheelhouse turning. It’s rare, but there have been times a song has come quickly and with astonishing ease. It’s always satisfying and makes me wonder what’s at play. There’s a feeling of being in “the zone” or in a flow state that I think every artist loves to feel. I relish these moments, but I also love and nurture the songs that take longer, that require time and struggle and more personal growth or experience to complete. We keep files of unfinished works from the past and return to them from time to time to see if any are ready to be worked on again. Song crafting is a creative process that goes hand in hand with personal growth for us. There is a way that I process what’s going on in my life through the medium of songwriting, using music to express the ups and downs of the journey. I find that when that type of processing is more urgently needed, the song comes through with more speed and force than at other times.
The act of playing music is certainly deeply linked with who we are on a personal level. I’ve always felt that creativity and vocal expression are pursuits I resonate with at my core. It’s been a desire and a challenge to create and share in public venues. I’ve had to work on self regard and confidence in order to do so, and I still contend with self limiting voices on a regular basis. I’m learning to choose less limiting thoughts about myself, however, and I feel more and more relief and renewed energy as a result. It’s a process and requires a lot of mindfulness. Working with Rory and Oscar has been a big part of that journey as well. The songs take on a new life and energy when we come together. The dynamic of creating in a group environment is extremely gratifying, and can also be triggering at times. It’s a very intimate space to be in, and it only works when we really allow our true selves to come out and grow in the process.
Do you have a daily musical process?
I go through periods where I’m writing and playing everyday, and other times when I need a break to process life in other ways. I journal a lot and meditate daily. I like to go running. I do a lot of freewriting, sometimes in the form of storytelling, sometimes as poetry. I’ll go through phases of picking up my violin regularly, practicing from fiddle books or old pieces of classical music from my early years on the instrument. I like to do vocal exercises and work on expanding my range and control. I listen to a lot of music as well.
We each have our own regular practices, and we generally practice at least twice weekly as a group. When we’re on the road we play almost every night which is a different kind of practice and feels really good. It both loosens us up, and tightens our sound a great deal. There’s a flexibility of mind and body that occurs with regular attention to any craft and I think we all really enjoy being in that space. There is a sort of group consciousness that I feel we tap into when we play together a lot that helps us move as one. That level of connection is really essential to what we do.
When did you know you had this gift of music and how did it manifest for you? How did you start to do the human discipline it takes to channel your gift, hone it and bring it forth?
I think we all knew at a young age. We have varying stories but there is a theme, that we all connected with music as a way to be in the moment, process grief and joy, and return to ourselves. I knew right away that I wanted to use my voice to sing. If you asked my 4-year old self what I wanted to do when I grew up, I would have said, “Be a singer.” I used to sing myself to sleep at night when I was a child, and I always used it to sooth myself.
I also began writing at a very young age. When I was eight years old, my grandfather taught me what a poem was. I remember being in Venice Beach. He and I were watching the sunset on the ocean and he told me about poetry. Then he suggested I try it on. He gave me a pen and a piece of paper and prompted me to describe the sunset from my inner perception, and I was hooked. I started writing every day.
When I discovered that I could pair my two loves - singing and poetry - together, I was even more excited. I wrote my first song when I was 11 and have kept regular journals of poetry ever since. The “discipline” came quite naturally to me. I didn’t have lessons, but I never really had to force myself to practice writing or singing, it was a pleasure and a desire. There is so much variety of experience, texture, beauty and pain in the world, and I feel like it’s quite natural for me to turn to the form of songwriting as a way of understanding and expressing my connection with it all.
There are divine moments of serendipity, where a catalyst opens the door that leads to the path we’re meant to be on, the one where we live out the fullest expression of our true selves. What was that moment for you and how did it happen?
That’s a big question. I feel that I’ve had lots of those moments which have led me to where I am right now. I could name hundreds of catalysts, big and small, throughout my life that have thrusted me forward on this path.
This band has had many moments of serendipity, which have really encouraged us along this path. From the way we first came together through chance encounters in the Bay Area music scene, and the way we all felt bonded and inspired by one another, to all the random opportunities and connections we’ve made along the way, simply by keeping ourselves active and growing.
Meeting Alison Brown and connecting with Compass Records was very much like that. Rory and I were out on the road, doing our thing and booking shows when someone we were emailing with about a co-bill in Cambridge, Mass. pointed us to the duo competition at the FreshGrass festival in North Adams. In order to submit, we needed a couple new live performance videos we didn’t have, and we were in the middle of touring through the south. Then we stumbled across a video crew online based in Savannah, GA who were willing to work with us for free. Fast forward a couple months and we were on stage at FreshGrass competing along with four other incredibly sweet and talented duos. Winning that contest got us a free day in the studio with Alison, so the following summer we went out to Nashville as a trio and spent that day, plus a few extra recording the bulk of the tracks that would end up being this new album, “Shake Me Now”. Turned out that we all really enjoyed working together, us and the Compass folks, so here we are almost two years later releasing this record and moving forward as a team.
We had years of stories like that leading up where we are now, but that series of synchronicities definitely feels worth noting for us.
What inspired this blog series was seeing an old friend who has a special gift of music, but didn’t choose that path, who, 20 years later, isn’t living the life he thought he would live. People who make music and get to travel the world doing so are a rare example of a life where one is able to honor and channel their gift of music. What are your thoughts? And do you feel you’re consciously living the life you thought you would be living?
I think Oscar, Rory and I are all consciously living the life of traveling musicians right now, and I feel that it is a choice. It wasn’t always that way for me. I was confused in my early twenties. I lived in San Francisco working a couple jobs, going to community college, trying to do everything but what I knew I really wanted, because I wasn’t sure I could believe in it. All the while, I was writing and composing songs on a regular basis and one day I just woke up and it was clear that I was standing in my own way. I left my jobs, my apartment and went for it, that’s when I met Rory, who had had the same epiphany in his life and was living out of his car pursuing music. Then a year later we met Oscar. Things just kind of snowballed from there. I think the path of a musician’s life isn’t as clearly laid out or obvious as, say, a path in medicine or law or certain other careers. A lot of creative people get the message that art is not something to take seriously as a full-time life choice. They end up doing it on the side or pushing it to the back of their minds and some lose touch with it. My attitude about it before we started was, “I’m going to be working anyway, I might as well be doing something that inspires me every day”, and when I made that choice my days became more joyous and I have definitely experienced more synchronicity as a result.
I’ve said in that blog post about living the Mozart life, that it may be a tougher road to choose, but you’re fully living your true selves. Do you resonate to that? You did not choose the 9 to 5 path.
I do resonate with that. I think the perception of “tougher” is where my shift in perspective is. I found it much more difficult living a life where having a stable stream of money in order to keep an apartment and a comfortable bed meant taking jobs that were ultimately unfulfilling and took up all of my time. It was painful to me, filling my days with work that didn’t align with where my heart was. Eventually it became painful enough for me to make a change. Now that I’ve opened myself to living in service to my heart, I’m experiencing a lot more freedom and comfort of soul, and we’re working on the stability part (winks). It is hard to be on the road sometimes, don’t get me wrong. We’ve recently moved into a phase where we are embracing the desire to put our roots down a little more, but still travel and carry on with the music. The desires always change and shift and I think the key is not shooting yourself in the foot before you’ve begun. The first step for me is always approving of my desire and going for it with the idea in mind that there is a way to make it work.
But to embark on this path you chose, was that difficult? Because you didn’t know you would get here.
I still don’t know about getting there! It is a constant choice. We face that choice every day over and over again. At first, yes it was a difficult choice to live according to my desire and my dream. I think there has been a lot of shame around that in our world, but once I started living this way and feeling things open up, the coin flipped and I’ve found it more and more uncomfortable to live any other way. I think the idea that you need to “get there” is actually one of the things that stands in people’s way. The idea of success and what that means. To me it’s a success to wake up every day and choose to say yes to myself, whatever that may mean. Just the simple joy and pleasure of practicing what I am called to practice. Taking that walk my body craves, eating the food that will make me feel good, writing, laughing with the people I love. I think too often we get caught up in what the end result will be and that can be paralyzing. I like the idea of embracing a constant flow of creative being as opposed to running on the hamster wheel in the hopes of getting to some kind of plateau where we can finally be happy. It’s the choice to be happy now, to explore my urges, that is where it’s at for me.
How did you know that this is your life path, your calling?
I didn’t, I still don’t. On bad days, I wake up and question myself because I forget to be in approval of who I am. I don’t “know this is my life path” exactly, I just give myself permission to live in a state of passion and attraction to what I love. A lot of the time that is music. Sometimes it’s writing, sometimes it’s meditation, sometimes it’s getting away from all of that and researching something completely different. Just saying “Yes” to what moves me. That’s my mantra.
How does one know when you’re on the correct path?
I’m not sure I subscribe to the idea of a correct path. Worrying about that has definitely gotten in my way before. What works for me is learning how to hear what I am craving, what I am interested in, what really moves me, and having enough self love to follow the urge to pursue it, and I notice the world around me respond when I do. The challenge, I think, is in hearing the voice that knows what you want because we tend to be in the habit of listening to the voices that are talking about what we should be feeling and wanting and doing. I feel passionate about this topic because it’s something I’ve struggled with a lot. Trying to fit myself into boxes of right and wrong and ending up missing the bus because of it. For me, the indicator of the correct path or the right choice is the one that holds the most interest, turn on, excitement. The question is, can I accept that and follow the call?
Life does give us catalysts, a release valve, which often is our lowest point in life, that allows us to push up to the next, hopefully better chapter. Like a desert, wilderness period in life, that helps raise our consciousness and stay true to yourself and your own path. What was that low point for you that helped you push yourself further, evolve and do better, and what did you do when you had that epiphany?
I don’t think you necessarily need a very low point to have an epiphany but I know that it is often where we find ourselves willing to finally seek relief. The lowest point for me was months before I met Rory. Because of my lack of self confidence I had ended up in a situation where I was quite cut off from my joy, allowing a negative relationship to control me, and experiencing a complete loss of power, loss of voice and loss of direction. It was a scary time. I was depressed and hit an emotional rock bottom, for sure. One day I just snapped and left the relationship and the environment I was in. I started writing again and put my full focus on music, my way. As soon as I did, things started changing.
It’s been a tough time for music, losing many of its legends. What are your thoughts on time, how it seems to go by faster each year. Perhaps it’s made you reflect on what you want to achieve in the time we’re given here? Do you think about time much and what you want to achieve in the time we have?
I try not to put pressure on myself in that sense. It’s always sad to lose people we care about and when it’s someone who’s had an impact on a lot of lives through their art it can feel like the end of an era in a way, but I really believe we’re here to learn and that every moment and experience is an opportunity for growth. For me, creating art is less about what I can accomplish or leave behind and more about whether or not I’m moving forward in that way.
Unlike any time in history, we’re in a overwhelming digital era. There is so much detritus, noise and schadenfreude. What’s your view on that, and how do you find quiet in this era? What do you do to connect with your Higher Self, your true self? Do you have a day you unplug for example? How do you ground yourself, focus on your own life path and purpose?
Yeah, we are expanding in the digital age in good ways and at the same time our phones, etc. can also rob us of our moment, of our relationships with the people we are with now, if we let them. It’s a challenge to be aware of that on the road, especially as we are trying to promote our shows and interact with fans on social media. In the band we all have our separate ways of dealing with grounding as we travel, and in our lives in general. Playing and rehearsing regularly definitely help ground us as a group. Working on new material is important as well, because it’s creative and exciting. We can sometimes get a bit stale playing the same tunes all the time, so we try to remember to be creative even when we’re traveling, which can also be challenging. For me, personally, I’ve turned to meditation as a form of grounding and connecting with myself…and exercise, we’ve all been working on that. I used to drink and smoke, finding release in substance use, but there came a point where it just wasn’t working for me. I got into meditation and I’ve been using it on the road to connect with myself when I get thrown off center. I use it before shows, and any time I need a boost. It usually always works and brings more energy into my days where as using alcohol, etc. was just draining and not sustainable.
As a group we try and carve out time to check in in a vulnerable and candid way about what’s really going on, resentments, frustrations, you name it, just getting it all out in the open. As you can imagine, being stuck in a car on the road for months can get edgy at times. Making space for emptying out what frustrates us has helped a lot.
I’m a firm believer in doing mitzvahs, especially in the tougher times of our lives. To give back, be of service in some way, to use our time most wisely, can only help us in the end. What are your thoughts and do you try to do your own mitzvahs to help others, even in the smallest way?
I’m all for it. It brings us a lot of joy to connect with people, that’s one of the reasons we perform and travel, in addition to playing music and writing songs. We’ve received a lot of support over the years and give a lot of ourselves as well. I think there is a feeling that happens when people help each other out, that feeling is just as strong for the giver as the receiver. We are very aware of that cycle and participate in it wholeheartedly.
What advice do you have for people who have the gift of music, but don’t know how to start channeling it, to develop that gift and bring it out?
Keep going! For me it always starts with a decision to say “Yes” to the desire. It took a certain amount of self examination for me to see what was stopping me and I found that it was the self deprecating voices in my head, the voices of others that had told me it was not possible, so on. Once you face that you are standing in your own way, you can make a new choice and start exploring. You won’t be good at it all right away, but all great art starts with an urge. The question is, will you follow it into the unknown? Being able to see past the hurdles and keep going is huge. Keep going.
What do you do to help pick yourself up when you’re feeling down, and help you stay the course? Is there a song you play that inspires you when you’re needing some inspiration or to pick yourself up?
When I’m down I start with letting myself be down. There is a lot of juice and raw material in the downs as well as the ups. Having approval for the downs I experience has helped me get through them faster and be able to use them in my writing. I usually turn to Ryan Adams to help me through a down spell, he’s particularly good at alchemizing the rough rides in life with song. I really admire his willingness to go there in his writing and delivery, to express the muck and mire of his experience and the shining jewels that show through the dirt too. Again, meditation for me is huge. I started realizing how much better it makes me feel, and although it can be hard to motivate when I’m feeling funky I’ve found it usually brings me around pretty quickly. Laughing is good medicine too.
