S] How are you today?
Doing great Dom, thank you, and I hope you are doing well too!
S] How do you define success as a person?
I think success can be defined as how you feel about yourself. If you feel successful, then you are successful. If you don’t feel successful, then you are not. It’s purely in the mind and how you perceive yourself. There is nothing outside yourself that can persuade you whether you are successful or not. It’s internal.
S] What about as an artist?
That is a subjective question! However, in my opinion, I think that there are degrees of success that you can apply to yourself. For me, I know that I have reached people and made a difference in their lives with my music, because they have told me so.
Now the question becomes how many people can you reach with your music so that they can become inspired by it, or soothed by it, or calmed by it? This is really the issue with independent artists like us today. Even though you might have incredible music that makes a difference to people, you can only reach a certain amount of people with your limited time and resources.
It’s much easier to reach more people if you are on a major label or have support from somewhere. Getting that support is the trick, isn’t it? With all the music that is out there today, it’s harder than ever to get heard unfortunately. So being grateful for the people that you have reached is important. Gratitude is important!
S] How have your goals with the project, and the mission statement, changed over time?
It’s interesting that you are asking a question about a mission statement. How many musical artists actually have a mission statement? I think extremely few.
For Chris [Andrew Liang] and I as X: THC, our mission has always been to inspire people. When we launched our first album, X: The Human Condition, it was about helping people realize that “you are not alone” in feeling like an outsider. The album and the accompanying short film was a “message in a bottle” to be sent out to all those people in the world who felt like they didn’t fit in. We wanted to create a community of people coming together to prove that you are not alone. From the beginning, it was challenging. Everyone we went to in the music industry said it would be impossible to achieve, so I ended up funding it out of my own pocket.
During production however, I became seriously ill and almost lost my vision permanently while facing possible bankruptcy. Yes it got that bad. It wasn’t until years later that I was able to fully recover, but thankfully, I did fully recover my health, my business, and finally, 12 years in the making, released the project to rave reviews worldwide.
The adversity I faced however was something that I wanted to make use of. I wanted to share my story that no matter what you face in life, you can overcome it. This led me to create the website, RiseUpEight.org, based on the proverb, “Fall down seven times, stand up eight”. However, I wanted to not just stand up but RISE, because when we face adversity, we must rise to the challenge. Not just stand up. LOL.
The website features stories from people all over the world who have overcome adversity. What is amazing about my story is that RiseUpEight.org has now become this worldwide community sharing their stories to inspire others to never give up. This was our original mission where we wanted to create a community, yet it came about in a very ironic and painful way. But I will take it. Everyone who has shared their story on our website agrees that they would not be the person they are today if they didn’t face adversity and overcome it. This is why I always say “Don’t think of adversity as your enemy, think of it as your ally”. I say this because it strengthens you to become the person that you are meant to be.
For more info, and the album visit:
https://x-thc.com/fall-down-seven-times-rise-up-eight-album/
S] What is motivating you now, outside of music – think specific people, places and people?
I think what is motivating us is to constantly strive to reach more people with our message of overcoming adversity/overcoming challenges in life, especially since it is so top of mind for everyone today. With the challenges we are facing today, this message has never been more timely.
S] What is the overriding message on the new record, ‘Fall Down Seven Times, Rise Up Eight’?
It’s all about the challenges we are facing in life and overcoming them.
S] ‘Make Believe’ is a real favourite, can you talk me through the inspirations for that one?
Thank you Dom, I really like that one as well. The lyrics are a cautionary tale about what might happen if we continue on our current road. The middle-class is almost disappeared in the US, and I would assume in the UK as well. Correct me if I’m wrong. But the rich are certainly getting richer and everyone else is suffering to the point that in the future, there may only be the rich and the poor. This is what the song is about.
The lyric, “with our hands pressed against the glass wall” is this vision I had in my mind where the rich are all encased in a glass bubble and everyone else’s outside of it looking in. That’s kind of a metaphor for what is going on today, except maybe our hands are pressed against our phones or TVs, watching the rich have what we don’t have, and likely never will. Is America really a free country? You might argue that it’s a free country for the rich. The rest of us have to slave away on a daily basis to make a living.
So for me the song is really about the divide between the rich and everyone else and how it is getting worse. This is something that we need to overcome, together.
S] What would be your message for any of your supporters who have been there from the beginning, right up until this point?
I am always extremely thankful for those that have supported us, whether that be through the years or for only one day, because as an artist, you have to realize that people have so many choices right now. So whatever support you can get is a blessing. I thank all of our fans from the bottom of my heart and really truly appreciate them, because it means everything to me. And I know Chris feels the same!
S] Thanks for your time!
Thank you Dom!
