Interview with Artist and Songwriter, Tyler Jarvis

What makes an artist? There is more to it than creativity and good luck. A portrait is a representation of a person, with heightened attention to details, expressions, and unique traits, accentuating features creating the subject to be something to admire, study, and – in some strangely personal way – get to know.

Every portrait will vary, so get to know artist and songwriter, Tyler Jarvis. Discover his logical approach to creativity, his dance between discipline and dreams, and his unique connection with music that transcends reason and connects others to their own lives.

What has being a songwriter taught you about life? About work?

I realized I relate to people's stories more than I thought. For instance, if I'm writing a song about something I saw on the sidewalk, or have an idea that I'll make a note about, that idea might not be a hundred percent about me, but as I go along the with it, I start to realize, “Oh, I relate to this more than I realized.”

So, I think what it's taught me about life is that, as people, we are all more alike than we realize. It's not that we should be more alike, I think differences are good, I just think that more often than not, people and the human experience is the same, and there's so much more that we can relate to everyday. I think, I'll just speak for myself, as humans we live in our own selfish bubble, which is not necessarily a bad thing, but we forget how similar we are to everybody else. And when you pay attention to people's stories, it's like, “Oh, I know what that feels like,” or, “I have experienced that.” Anyway, I think the biggest thing it has taught me is we're more alike and our experiences are more similar than not.

Work. I could talk about this all day. It has taught me the value of showing up. I think what's hard about songwriting and just being an artist, you know, you can go to school for music and learn what music is, but there's not a lot of great ways to show you the path because the path isn't as plain as you want it to be. If you want to be a medical doctor, it's pretty straightforward figuring out what you need to do. Being a musician, artist, songwriter, creative, it can be difficult because the path doesn't translate in the same way.

I have learned you have to show up every day. You have to treat this like it's a nine-to-five job. I write four to five days a week each morning, and that is the most important thing I can do everyday. So, I think being a songwriter has shown me that 1. You are a songwriter by writing songs. And 2. that's how you get better at writing songs. And the more you write songs, the better you are at writing songs.

So, what has it taught me about work? I think it's taught me the value of showing up, and I think it's taught me the value of just being as good as I can as a writer, and how that's actually what can make me “better.” It’s not having more inspiration. Inspiration's important, but it's not all this ethereal place that I can reach up and grab stuff from. In reality, it's part that and part perspiration. I remember when I was in third grade just doing math homework. You have to sit there and look at it until you can figure it out. You try different equations, different variables, and eventually you might figure it out. I think songwriting is the same way.

Songs are like the ‘showing your work’ part of math. I love what you said about what being a songwriter has taught you about life. I realized I could relate. What I love about being a nonfiction writer, or nonfiction in general, is that even if a story is so specific to someone's experience, that story might not correlate literally, but people can and will relate to it.

I don't know if this is a real quote, I might be making this up, but someone once said “the most universal things in the world are the ones that are the most specific.” And I don't know, I think I might be making that up, but I think that's true. Like, the things that we relate to the most aren't the most vague, it's the most specific because it lets us create our own world in it.

You touched on this a little bit, so we can see where this goes. How do you feel about inspiration and creativity? Wait until it hits or work until you strike it?

It's both. Sometimes in my life, I feel like [inspiration] is just hitting all the time. I feel like I'm in that place right now. I'm in so many different spaces. I can get inspired by this thing, which inspires something over here, and then over there, but there are other times where it's just nonexistent. And no matter how much you try, you don't experience it.

All I'll say is what I have experienced: If you wait for inspiration, you'll never get anything done. Now, if you're always chasing it down, you might miss it. So, I think what you have to do is pay attention, but don't wait. Because, the longer you wait, the less you'll do, but the more you do outside of inspiration, the less authentic it might be. So do you wait for it to hit? Maybe. Do you chase after it and force it to strike? Maybe. But don't wait. Show up today, but be aware of where inspiration might be whispering.

It's a bad answer, but I think it's both.

It probably should be both, like a push and pull.

Yeah. And how I've experienced it, inspiration can create some of the deepest and most beautiful art, but oftentimes inspiration has come because I decided to show up. I don't think you can force yourself to be inspired, but you can force yourself to be creative. And the more you force yourself to be creative, the more opportunities you have to be inspired. And the more you force yourself to be creative and inspired, the more you're going to do.

So, why do you pursue music? What do you hope it translates to people?

I remember when I was a kid, the first piece of music that really caused me to feel something that I had never felt before was a song called Chariot by Gavin DeGraw. I think it came out in 2003. And my mom used to play that CD on the way to school, and we lived so close to our school that we really only had time to listen to one song. I mean, we lived that close. And I would beg her every morning, “Can we listen to Chariot? Can we listen to Chariot?” And I remember that song just moving me as a seven- or eight-year-old in a way that I didn't have words for... 'cause I was seven or eight. I didn't have any type of vocabulary for what that was. I think now what I realize is there was something I related to in that song, whether it was Gavin, or, I don't know if it was the storytelling - it's a weird story, you don't really even know what's being said in the song - but there's just something either musically or emotionally that resonated with me. So, ever since then, I've always thought, “I want to feel that more.” And now it's gotten to the point where I want to make music that makes other people feel that deep connection to something.

“I want to make music that makes people feel A deep connection to something.”

So I feel like I write songs and I create specific songs to help people see how far they've come, whether from a hard place or a really good place. Like I've lived a life that I really love and thankfully, I mean truthfully, I haven't had a lot of tragedy happen in my life. And honestly, I'm just grateful, but it doesn't mean that I haven't come a long way in my life.

I think I've always wanted to write songs, and I write songs because I want people to be able to see how far they've come in their life and that there's still more in that. Even a simple love song, like I have a song that is releasing soon - 'm not sure if it will release before this issue comes out - called All That I've Been Missing, and it's just a love song.

It is just a typical love ballad, and I think it's one of those songs that makes people remember, you know, like the love that they have for their spouse, and it might even make people remember the time before, or even if there were bad relationships before that, so now, this person is truly all that they had been missing. But then there are other songs I've written, like a song called Broken Records. I really believe we all make choices in life and when we make a choice, we almost always believe that it's the best decision we can make at the time, right then, but then time somehow has a way of showing us that that might not always be the case. You can make a decision now and you might believe it is the best decision you can make at the moment, but then six months from now you might ask yourself, “What was I thinking?” And the truth is you can ask yourself that question, but it's not helpful. What is helpful is to make a decision from that point and be able to look back and say, "Yeah, I was a little bit wrong, but look at all the things I experienced from it and look where I'm at now because of it." Even if it feels “backwards.” Backwards doesn't mean behind. You're always learning through more. I write songs and create music because I want people to see how far they've come in their life and that backwards, forward, sideways, it all matters, it's all important, and it's all valuable.

When do you plan for All The I’ve Been Missing to be released?

It'll be released in late April. April 27.

Okay, you touched on this a little bit with your story about Chariot by Gavin DeGraw, but what was the moment you fell in love with music? And, do you have a different answer for songwriting or singing or different aspects of what makes up music for you?

The Gavin DeGraw moment is when I think I had an emotional connection with music. I still don't think I knew what was going on at that point. I just knew I connected with this thing and I was always naturally decent at singing. I know exactly when I fell in love with playing music. It was January, I was in seventh grade, and my dad had gotten me, my brother, and him a guitar for Christmas and we started taking guitar lessons. I had been singing in choir at this point, but I just did it ‘cause I had to take a music class and singing was fun.

I remember taking my first guitar lesson and it was an hour long in Cincinnati, Ohio at a music store called Sam Ash. I took the lesson and it was at, like, 11:00 AM on a Saturday. We went home and I remember I spent the next four hours learning the song SOS by the Jonas Brothers on guitar. And, I remember coming down out of my room after practicing for four hours straight, like, “Hey, look what I can play.” And it was decent enough to where you actually knew what song it was. So, I think I fell in love with playing music when I was 13, but I fell in love with the idea of songwriting when–

There was a moment when I wrote a song for the very first time and I put a little bit of production to it, so it had drums, keyboard; It was singer-songwriter, but a little bit country. I remember I sent it to a friend of mine and he was like, “You wrote this?” And I was like, “Yeah,” and he goes, “That really connected. I connected with that. That was awesome.”

I remember just thinking that I fell in love with songwriting when I realized that I could create something that people would connect with. And I think I fell in love with the idea that someone could connect with my music, like I connected with Gavin DeGraw when I was in third grade.

What is the best piece of advice you’ve ever received?

I don't know if I can tell you what the best advice I've ever been given is, but I can tell you something that has changed the way I think about my life. I have two thoughts: one is a more ethereal kind of thought, and there’s a really practical thought.

The really practical thought that has changed my life is Steven Pressfield in his book, The War of Art, talks about the idea of showing up every day, and he's talking very specifically about creative, artistic work.

I think showing up is the most important thing we can do; showing up doesn't mean anything other than presence. You can show up to work and just be there, but you're a dead body. I'm talking about: show up, and be present to that thing.

The best thing that we can do as people is show up. So if you're a high school student, just show up and be present to your class. Be present to your classmates. Be present to your teacher. When you're at home, be present to your parents. Be present at home. Show up for your spouse. I think that's half the game that we don't do. We have these devices in our pockets that allow us to be really good at not showing up and being present. That's one of the best pieces of advice I've ever been given. I still mess it up, but I think if I do anything in my life, I want to be known as somebody who was present and showed up all the time.

And then there's a quote that I heard that has challenged me as a person who wants to be creative. There's a book series called The Chronicles of Narnia, written by C.S. Lewis. In the series, he talks about Narnia, which is this mystic place you can only get to by means of magic. These kids go to Narnia and have this grand adventure. When they come back to the real world, they aren't able to go back to Narnia. Lewis goes on to tell that the main character, Diggery, believed this really happened, that it was not a dream, but people didn't believe him.

At the end he is setting up the next book and he says, “And Diggery told the story of Narnia to everybody that would hear it,” and later he essentially says, “At some point in our lives, we become too old for fairy tales, but some day we become old enough to start reading fairy tales again." It's a little bit of a backwards quote, but what he's saying is, as we're young kids growing up, we aren't afraid of stories, we aren’t afraid of believing a story that could be “fake,” because of our naivety. But, I think there's this youthfulness of the way we see the world when we're young, and then at a certain point the world messes us up and ruins us. That naivety goes away and is replaced with reality and skepticism.

But then eventually, at some point in our lives, we become old enough to believe stories again. I would like to believe that I'm old enough to believe stories again, but it's relative to everybody, and I think there's something in that – I want to believe stories again.

How would you describe your music in a few words?

It would be: songs that remind people how far they've come and that their life matters, and songs that will make you feel nostalgic.

I can tell that nostalgia is a big factor in your music.

Yeah. There's something that makes you feel different about, you know, the way they made music back in the eighties. Just something about it.

What do you have planned for the rest of 2023?

On March 9th, I released a song called Broken Records, and that'll be one of six songs that I will release this year.

And then I talked about a song called All That I've Been Missing. Then, there's some other really fun songs that I'm excited about coming out later this year.

So six songs this year all with their own release cycle. And I'm really hopeful to do a Christmas project. So whether it's one song or three songs, I don't know yet.

I take every advantage of Christmas in July,

That makes sense with the nostalgia theme of your music. I feel like we can all relate to Christmas being nostalgic.

“The best thing we can do as people is show up... I want to be known as somebody who was present and showed up.”

If people want to listen to your music, and get to know who you are, how can they do that?

Two ways. I would recommend the best way is to just go to my website: thetylerjarvis.com. There will be a big button that says, “Listen.” If you click that, you'll be able to choose from your streaming platform of choice; Spotify, Apple Music, Pandora, Amazon Music, whatever.

Oh, Pandora. Talk about nostalgic.

I know, right? The other thing I would just say is if you search Tyler Jarvis anywhere, you can find all my music. And you can follow me anywhere on social media @thetylerjarvis.