Americk Lewis and Nick Sosin On Building a Music Festival

On today's episode of Creative Space, we have the pleasure of chatting with dear friends of mine, Americk Lewis and Nick Sosin, who have extraordinary creative journeys. Their production company, Am Media Group, has directed and produced videos for The United Nations, Atlantic Records, Warner Music Group, Samsung and American Airlines. They’re also  talented artists and in addition to recording and performing, they are the co-founders of the All My Friends Are Stars Music Festival in Gothenburg, Sweden.

There are a lot of good nuggets in this interview, one of my favorites being a lesson from the late Chadwick Boseman that took Americk 10 years to learn. We also discuss what can happen when you do work you're not passionate about in addition to the joys and challenges of building a music festival overseas.

For more information on the All My Friends Are Stars Music Festival, visit:  https://bit.ly/3TrpEgo.

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To become a patron of the Creative Space Podcast, visit: https://bit.ly/3ECD2Kr.

SHOW NOTES:

0:00—Intro 

1:12—How did we meet?

3:12—Our many collabs

4:17—What did you want to be as a kid?

4:30—Million dollar scribbles at the Guggenheim

6:14—Jumping onstage at three years old

6:45—The master plan to be an actor

7:44 —Who inspired you?

8:21—Teachers made all the difference

9:06—Growing up in a musical household

10:29—Being turned off by the creative life at first

11:41—Pursuing a degree in engineering

13:22—How Americk got his start in the entertainment industry 

16:24—A lesson from Chadwick Boseman

19:49—How do you define creativity?

22:34—How mental health labels can affect our output

24:21—Creativity as an outlet to cope with sadness

25:22—Each of us is one of God’s ideas

26:59—How did you die? You died going to Target. 

30:42—What can happen when you don’t love what you do 

32:18—How Nick met Americk

33:16—Why start a festival in Sweden?

34:38—Every business card in NYC says CEO

35:47—What to expect from the festival 

39:09—The greatest challenges building a music festival

41:54—The greatest joys doing the music festival

44:39—Impacting one person is everything

45:26—What’s next?

Transcript

Jennifer Logue: 0:10

Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of creative space, a Podcast where we explore, learn and grow and creativity together. I'm your host Jennifer Logue. And today we have the pleasure of chatting with Americk Lewis and Nick Sosin. Dear friends of mine with an extraordinary creative journey, their production company and Media Group has directed and produce videos for the United Nations at Atlantic Records, Warner Music Group, Samsung, and American Airlines. They're also talented artists. And in addition to recording and performing, they are the co founders of the All my friends are stars Music Festival in Gothenburg, Sweden, and they're just incredible human beings all around. Welcome to Creative Space, guys. How's it going? Thank you for having us, my honor to be part of this episode willfully. Um, so first, I got to ask, how do we meet initially? Do you guys remember? So I remember I won't forget that day. It was a Wu Tang, like, after party like art gallery exhibition. And the Lower East Side where both of us ended up living. I don't know if you I don't know if you're living in the lower Eastside at the time, but I definitely wasn't. And I remember you were like dancing.

Americk Lewis: 1:37

Around, you had a hat on. And you were like dancing. And it's like this gallery environment with all these like cool, trendy precum and hip hop people and just people in New York City in general. I think I walked up to you, Jennifer, and was like, Oh, I like your style. And you're like, Oh, thank you so much. And then we just started talking. And it was just like a cool conversation. I don't think we exchanged information. But then we were in the same circles. So I think we knew mutual friends. And then you ended up with your band, doing a concert at the studio. That's now like penthouse studios. You did a show with your band at that venue. And then I think we reconnected again there. And then I think from there, we exchanged information. And we're just staying in touch, keeping each other posted about events and things we could check out and stuff, but we clicked need it. Yeah, no, I totally felt that. And then we started collaborating on projects together. And I've always loved collaborating with you to like, it's just

Jennifer Logue: 2:49

it's such a magical experience. And it's always so much fun. And seriously, like hanging out with you too, in New York City, are some of my best memories. So back in the best in the city days.

Americk Lewis: 3:05

Most of its been captured on camera.

Jennifer Logue: 3:10

That's pretty special, actually. So now and I have to say before we start getting deeper into what you guys are working on now. Your remix of incognito, the starving artists remix, guys, it is my favorite. Like of all my tracks. Like that's the one when people are like, oh, what song should I listen to? I'm like that one. That's the one I it's cuz you brought such a cool energy to it. And it was so and I love how I didn't ask you guys just did it. And it was just the most magical thing.

Americk Lewis: 3:47

Nice. So yeah, maybe we need a new a new one coming up. Yeah, a lot of fun. Absolutely. And I love that song. I love all your music. So I look forward to creating more.

Jennifer Logue: 4:01

Thank you. Well, same, um, you know, and then I left New York City, and you went to Sweden to start this awesome festival. But we'll get into that later in the interview. So how about we start with your early life? Um, so Nick, and Emmerich like, what did you want to be when you were kids? Like what did you want to be when you grew up? Do you remember?

Americk Lewis: 4:27

So I always knew I wanted to be an artist growing up as a kid and as a child that went to the Guggenheim Museum and I saw this artwork by the artist named sai Tom the it looked like scribbled to me. And I remember I saw the museum and asked the woman that was at the museum. I said, Excuse me. I think she was a curator. I was like, Excuse me. So how much do these paintings cost? So she actually left an axe the higher ups the infant nation when she told me numbers, like hundreds of 1000s of dollars, I couldn't believe that someone could get paid to do scribble, you know, now I see it as fine art, of course, but at the time, I saw it as scribble. And I felt like I could draw better than that as a kid. So once I saw that, I was like, I want to be an artist. I could get paid to do this. And I wanted to figure out how I could get paid to be artists. And that's always been my mission ever since then.

Jennifer Logue: 5:32

Wow, how old were you back then?

Americk Lewis: 5:35

I was eight years old. Wow. I didn't know. Yeah, that's, that's fine. I did everything from there. I just said, I just need to believe in myself. And I need to just create this stuff. Because in the Guggenheim Museum, there's artwork on the wall that costs hundreds of 1000s of dollars that looks like scribble some of them that someone could achieve that I could achieve in that motivation ever since.

Jennifer Logue: 6:03

That's such a mature mindset for someone so young. So thanks for sharing that. And how about you, Nick, when did you first get into art? What did you want to be when you grew up?

Nick Sosin: 6:14

Yeah, I wanted to be an actor. And I wanted to sing on stage. And so my parents were doing music, they were doing shows. And I when I was like, three, I think I rushed on stage while my dad was performing and just like, stood in front of the stage. And just like said, Here I am. And everybody was like, Well, come on stage now as somebody else's show. So yeah, I thought a lot of myself I didn't early. But yeah, I kept I kept that spirit, I was still still wanting to do acting as I kept growing up, and, you know, had this master plan to how to be an actor. And so I wanted to make a bunch of money and work like corporate world so that at age 30, I could quit and then have all this money. And then, you know, have this wonderful acting career where I didn't have to wait tables. But yeah, that that plan didn't work out. So I started realizing how much I really needed to honor the the joy of creating, and doing art and making music or doing photography. Instead of wearing a suit every day and, and pretending

Jennifer Logue: 7:29

there's definitely a challenge like living that corporate life and then being with being an artist at night. There's a bit of conflict, tension. So back in a day, who inspired you,

Americk Lewis: 7:44

I would say, I think growing up, I was really inspired by like Michael Jackson growing up as a kid. He was really cool, because I loved I loved how you worked with different races and different age groups. I love the collectiveness of everything that he did, and different sounds he was playing around with. And the music videos were always like, creative and interactive. So that was one of my biggest inspirations growing up as a kid, I would say,

Jennifer Logue: 8:18

Cool. How about you, Nick?

Nick Sosin: 8:20

Yeah, a lot of a lot of my inspiration came from my parents making music. So I love the fact that they would write songs all the time. And I also was really inspired by some of my teachers and school. And people that really, like, saw something in me when I felt like I didn't, I didn't get recognized by like friends of mine. We were I was very different from so many kids in school. And so when a teacher would say, you know, you got something, you know, special, I felt like, oh, wow, I am inspired to keep working on you know, that thing that they pointed out to me.

Jennifer Logue: 9:03

And your parents were musicians to talk about that a little bit. That's cool. To grow up in a

Nick Sosin: 9:08

house. Yeah, I got a chance to go to gigs with them. And my dad from when I was really little, he was saying, Okay, I need this cord. And I need that cord. And so I learned all the like, technical stuff. And I learned that if you don't check the list before you leave, like you're gonna leave something that you need, and then be at the gig and can't do the gig because you don't have things so it's important to like, you know, pack well and stuff like that. But I never really learned how to like keep the cords and meat but I remember to bring the cords. So yeah, it was just a lot of stuff that being part of the inside of it. From an early age I was able to see like, how to get a gig or like, you know what, what problems people keep talking about all the money that people try to do Get from gigs and like, what's frustrating to artists? Know what they complain about?

Jennifer Logue: 10:08

Sort of an early age, you were getting insight into all of that, which is definitely coming in, you know, coming handy now.

Americk Lewis: 10:17

Yeah, but I will note that it may be hard for them to remember this. But he, it kind of turned him off from being creative type I think you mentioned. So yeah, we should say, yeah, that mentioned a little bit about,

Nick Sosin: 10:30

yeah, so like, because of the frustration of them talking about money a lot and saying, like, oh, you know, when this, this gig didn't come through, you know, I had made up my mind, oh, I need to get a bunch of money. And so that's where that decision for me, it was like, Oh, I'm gonna go into the corporate world, because there's life of being artists trying to gig all the time, is not sustainable. Like, it'd be much better if I just had a ton of money from working, you know, my plan was till age 30. And then I could quit and I could just do whatever I wanted with my time to create art, or do auditions or you know, just be be working on being a Broadway actor or something. And so it really turned me off from seeing all the behind the scenes struggles, of what it was like to be so talented, but not be able to find gigs all the time, that I was just, I just can, I made up my mind, I was like, I'm convinced that I can do engineering, I can like fix computers, I can do all this technical stuff, I can make a lot of money with this. And so that's what I got myself, involved in and went to school to train to do that, and lost that whole creative side of myself. And like all of the art, and the joy of the performing and stuff how to completely shut that out.

Jennifer Logue: 11:51

Wow. So when did you come back to it?

Nick Sosin: 11:54

When am when me recognize that I could play some piano? And hula, you can play piano and I was like, Ah, I can't. He's like, No, you can play piano. And this was like a thing that three years I had, I had fought with my mom. And she, she had told me that she thinks that I shouldn't really do piano. And then I would ignore, like, the times where she would invite me to do music lessons, but it was really fine. Like, a lot of the recognition that that an outsider had, you know, Eric and I were partners, working in business, but like that not someone that my parents, not someone that was my parents, someone that could just say, look, I think you could have something if you work on it. That kind of like statement from outside perspective, especially someone that was in industry that I respected. To say like, you know, you can't play you know, that's interesting, if you work on it, maybe that gave me the hope and inspiration to like, sit down and actually, like, keep working on it over the years now.

Jennifer Logue: 13:05

I love that Emmerich is the ultimate encourager. I mean, when I've had my low points, like, I talked to him, and I feel inspired again, so like, pick up and keep going. And how did you get your start in the entertainment industry?

Americk Lewis: 13:23

Yes, that's a good question. Yeah. I was at my senior year of high school. And I was struggling in school. I just wasn't really great at academics. So I was going to night school, and a kid named Josiah Allen. Shout out to him. He came into school and he was like, He's came in with a nice leather jacket. And he was like, Yeah, I've been a Java music video. And he, he was like, talking about it. Everybody was like, Ah, shut up. You're lying. We don't believe you. It was like unheard of for someone other Jamaica, Queens to be in a music video. So no one in school in the class that we were in believed him. And so I remember he did something that was shocking to me. He just, he kind of got mad. He was like, I don't got nothing to prove to you guys. And he didn't argue I said, Wait a minute. He's not arguing. I think he actually, I think he actually told the truth. So then I tapped him on his shoulder and said, Yo, I believe you man. I was like, I don't know what to believe. I believe he's like, Dude down, gotten approved. And then he just started telling me stories about being on set. And I was like, it just sounds like the best thing on the planet. I was like, you know, it was pretty girls did it was food there. You got to pay to do that. Like I couldn't believe it. I was like, there was all these rappers and famous people. They're like, I just I just sound like paradise to me. So then, I was very clever. I was like, I'll give you $20 I was out of my wallet right now, if you can give me the information that led you to be able to do that video, and he just looked at the money stock to set just a second. He couldn't believe that, that I was offered him money. And often value for his words and his knowledge versus everyone else was just like laughing at him, tell him shut up. So he was like, you don't even need to pay me. And he gave me a phone number to call. And I called my first modeling talent agency. It was a total scam, like all my money, but it led me into the room of being in one person that led me to another person to another person. And then eventually, I got on my first TV set, which was law and order a TV show. Being on set, I just used to talk to people all the time. I was just talking to everybody. It didn't matter at all. I knew that if you were there, that means you do your especially when you got to exclusive information. And I need to know you. So I just used to speak to everyone on set. And then from there just started getting introduced to different jobs I can do and different people I can meet and then it just grew from there. So it was a different arrows. It was before Google and all of that.

Jennifer Logue: 16:23

I remember is that when you met Chadwick Boseman.

Americk Lewis: 16:26

So I met Chadwick Boseman. I met him real early in my career. Yeah, I will say it was one of my first sets. You know, I was doing it for a while. And I was just like an extra on on some of these TV shows like Law and Order. But this was like, I did a role where I had to do some auditions and stuff for and it was considered like a featured extra. So I was part of this gang member group. That Chadwick Chadwick Boseman. And Dorian was I think Dorian music was the leaders of this, this gang and I was part of that gang. And so we worked on set for like, five days together every day, I was part of a gang. So you know, I want my about childhood that I never forget. And I actually carry this with me a lot is that I remember I was blown away by like, his talent. And I remember I, it was his first TV show, basically, I don't think he's done anything else before that. So in my head, I was like, do when is just going to come out? That was like a season premiere or something. So it was like a big deal that episode. And he's always been come out, like six months from now something and I said, Do you gonna be like a big star? Like, what do you? What are you going to do now? Like, are you going to do movies? Are you going to get an agent? And all that you think, nope, I'm not doing any of that. Like, what are you going to do it in? So I'm going straight to LA. And I'm going to take four years of training school. And I was like, what? I thought he was stupid. Sounds like dude, either you are messing up right now. Right now, the, you know, the kettle is on a fire and it's burning. And you're gonna just leave that and go to school, I thought it was the worst idea on planet. And guess what, we went to school and disappear for the alarm. Like, I haven't heard a scene from the other guy that was in the movie with us. I mean, the other guy that was in the TV show with, he was doing movies with it. So he had his own TV series, he started to like, really blow up, and I will see his face everywhere. And so I was convinced, for four years, or even longer, I was like, that was not the move to do. 10 years later, 10 years after he just trained, he just took so much training. He just trained his ass off, all of a sudden, I see. And you just saw Jackie Robinson 42. And from there, he skyrocketed into a superstar so that it took 10 years to learn that lesson from an observer, but that showed me the power of working on the craft and being good at the craft. And he told me that from years ago, you said, Dude, I want to be great at this. I want to just talk to my two. So now I understand the strategy. The strategy was like, let me be really great at this. And then I'll worry about the career stuff later. And that's why and that's what he did. And it worked.

Jennifer Logue: 19:25

That is such a valuable lesson Emmerich and when he told me that it stuck with me, and I just had to make sure we can share it with whoever's listening to this podcast, because that's what a legend.

Americk Lewis: 19:39

Yep, absolutely.

Jennifer Logue: 19:41

So let's talk about creativity in general. How would you guys define creativity?

Americk Lewis: 19:48

So, like I said, creativity is everywhere. Creativity is not like careers easy to confuse the two career and creativity and what I mean By that, it's like I said earlier, I said something around the lines that if you want Instagram, you're creative, because you probably use the creativity to figure out something about someone else, or to investigate someone's Instagram and find out things about their life. So we're creative, everybody's creative. As a child, when you're first born, and you're young, I think they say something like children are like, like 90% creative or something like that. It is a every year as they get older, they start to lose more and more of their creativity. And my theory about that is has something to do with the school system, because the school system, they basically give you like 10% of the curriculum 10% of time to be creative. And the other 90% is, is logistical stuff that caters to the left side of the brain. So because we start to lose our creativity, but we're all natural creators, as a kid, you give any kid a pen and a pad, they always started drawing, they always have great ideas and stuff like that. So that's what creativity is, for me. It's just something that everybody has. And some people choose to use it as a career path. But everybody has creativity.

Jennifer Logue: 21:20

I love that. How about you, Nick? What's creativity for you?

Nick Sosin: 21:23

Yeah, creativity is life. This is us trying to solve problems. It's us wanting to entertain ourselves. I mean, even animals are creative. Like, birds that figure out, you know, how to break open things and eat or squirrels, you know, like dogs, cats are so creative. So like, our ability to be creative, extends, you know, into all of our use of language to communicate our ideas to each other, just coming up with concepts that, like, you know, instead of pointing at things, like we've figured out how to make sounds with our body, so that we can have these elaborate exchanges of ideas, and then use technology use tools, you know, so it's, it's our very, it's our very life force to be creative. It's like, it's like breathing.

Jennifer Logue: 22:22

It's our life force. I love that. Love, love, love. Where do you think creativity comes from?

Americk Lewis: 22:31

For me, create activity came as like an outlet of expressing myself. And I usually started to create more like a Post said, I think a lot of children, they go into creating when they're sad. And I think that's actually something that's missing from our society as a whole. that's causing a lot you see a lot of spikes in depression, and stuff. And I think that's something is missing. Because I remember as a kid, I would get sad, and I didn't know what depression was. Remember, we get sad and like, Oh, I got this bad feeling. What is this? I hate this feeling. And then I remember I say, Oh, what do I do when I feel like this? And so I should draw something. And then I will just start drawing and creating and then I'll hours have passed by and I wasn't sad anymore. But I think after I started finding out like the labels when you start labeling and get information on things, I find out that depression is something I'm like, 100 Press on depressing to sit in it. Depressed Oh, that's, that's what the feeling is, oh, let me just stay in that. But I remember as a kid, anytime I started feeling sad or something, I would just immediately just started creating something and then after like, an hour or two, I wouldn't remember what I was sad about, I would just be like, no world, or you may be out at some pasta popsicle sticks together and build a house and just got my happiness and joy back. So I think I think creativity for me, it came from a space of, of like healing and trying to like the therapeutic kind of thing for me. And so for me, that's like a place that it comes from a lot. Yeah, it's

Jennifer Logue: 24:18

funny. That's how I got started too, with, like, songwriting and everything as a kid. It was like out of that sadness. And we all grew up in a time where we didn't have that label. At least I don't remember people talking about depression or mental health the way we do now. So because that label didn't exist. What a great point Emmerich like. I just went to songwriting as release and I felt better. How about you Nick, what do you think it comes from?

Nick Sosin: 24:50

Creativity to me comes from nothingness. You know, that that space where there's infinite possibilities? And then like, we dip our, our consciousness into it and we take out one idea or like, we hear something from somewhere and it goes into our brain. We don't remember it for 20 years until we're in some bar and we hear somebody say something, and we're like, oh, yeah, I remember that. And so like, it's all floating around somewhere. And and I think each one of us is one of God's ideas that the creator, you know, the universe has, has picked this moment to say, Okay, how about this, or put in you this idea to do this podcast or put in someone is listening to this maybe to get inspired about having an idea of their own. So it all comes from this thing that we share. And the space that we share it in, which sometimes is nothingness, and sometimes is, like, that collective conscious that we share, too.

Jennifer Logue: 26:00

That's beautiful. And yeah, like, I kind of view it that way too. With I had a my vocal coach, rest in peace, wrestle faith. When he was teaching me the the beginnings of songwriting, he would say, there's a song that I wrote, and a song came out on the radio with a similar melody. And I was like, oh, man, he's like, Jen idea and ideas for songs. They're like, drops of rain that come from the sky, and like those, the land and a lot of places. So but more will come.

Americk Lewis: 26:33

That's great. Thank you for sharing.

Jennifer Logue: 26:37

So both of you guys, for the most part, never had regular job. Like a regular corporate nine to five. Do you want to talk about that?

Americk Lewis: 26:47

Yeah, I think we should both break down with what happened series of events. So I'll go first. I, I had a job at two jobs in my life, I worked at Toys R Us. And I was in high school. And then I worked fresh out of high school just for a very little bit at Target. And I used to work the night shift that target. And what happened was one day I was stressing to get there. And I think I was you know, do music. So I was in studios like me earlier. And it was hard to get studio time while I was in the studio, like all day, and that's normally the time that you go to sleep. And then right after that, I was like, Okay, I'm gonna go to work. And I didn't want to quit the job or what I mean quit the job and want to not show up to work. Because I was always so respectful of my other workmates. Because if I don't show up to work, other people got to work hard. So I'm rushing to get the work of bought my mom's car. I'm driving a fall asleep at the wheel. And I just wake up and I'm on the side railing. And the cars on starts is on fire. Yeah, and I wake up and I'm just like, oh my god, like I jumped out the car and I just see the car smoking or fire or they What the f happened and I was like, I fell asleep at the wheel fell asleep at the wheel and I could have died and luckily I wasn't advanced, I was higher up. But if I was like in a small car, I probably would have died. And so the car smashed up on the highway and I had to wait for the cops to come and I'm just seeing the car smoking and staring at it and I was like I just picture myself died like a picture myself that almost like the movie ghosts. You know, I pictured myself lane. Just pictured my body floating in the sky. Looking at my dead body and I was talking to myself you know, it was a traumatizing experience of talking to myself on the on the streets on the on the side of this highway of cars passing but I was like, look at you You're dead now looking Tuesday. How did you die? You die gonna work. You died going to target. This is how you die. Oh, seriously, I was like I just had a breakdown. I'll just like this is how you died and you died going to target a job that you hated. This is this was the end of your story. So you got a second chair said Don't mess this up. And I never stepped foot back into that job ever again because I literally could have died going. And it was the final straw for me was I called them you know? Call my boss. While while I was out there I'm stressed and you know shaken up by this. I said I just got in a car accident. I can't come to work right now. Ah, he hung up. He didn't ask me if I was okay. He I felt okay or anything. He literally got annoyed and hung up the phone. after that. I was like, I'm never doing that again. I don't care if I died doing anything. It better be what I love could happen but it better be in as that's stuck with me. And I've never broken from that since I've never walked back foot into this target to this day to target in

Jennifer Logue: 30:06

Long Island. That target. Okay, other targets.

Americk Lewis: 30:10

Yeah, I've been on target. I still feel like I'm cheating. But that specific target one day I'm gonna go back there but I have never went back foot into AirPlay to the point they had to mail me much less check because I refused to go back in. And from then I just decided to go for my dreams and pursue my creative pursuits. And ever since then 1819 I've been entrepreneur.

Jennifer Logue: 30:36

Love it. And how about you, Nick? Yeah, I

Nick Sosin: 30:39

had a, I had a number of like, part time jobs when I was young. And when I was reflecting on all of them, a lot of them were like commission based stuff. So like, I sold popcorn, I sold like books at my university, and ran like the campus book buying program to buy back the textbooks. And I think the common thing for me is that I always was trying to find like sneaky ways to do stuff in all of these jobs. I work a bartending job at my campus. And I would steal beer. And then like, there was there was always something in all of these jobs that I was doing that I was trying to, like, get away with something. And now I think about it, just like there was no passion and a lot of these things. It was literally just about being doing something to get some money. And so like I was always thinking, Oh, how can I get a little bit more out of this? How could I do because it just wasn't it wasn't filling me up. And then in college actually finally got a gig like doing some photography for the school to do some some of the games. And that was where I really started like, throwing myself in and loving it and training myself on how to use the camera while but that was still a hustle because I didn't know how to use a camera, but I told them I did and then I figured it out on the job.

Jennifer Logue: 32:11

That's awesome. You've since become an amazing photographer. So

Nick Sosin: 32:16

my final hustle, which is how I met Emmerich. So it was like a nine to five, three, week three, three month internship in New York City in the summer of 2010. And I was once again, looking for ways to come up off of it. And so I was on Facebook, browsing around for, you know, stuff that's going on in New York City while I'm there. And I found a Facebook post that said who wants to be a star. That's another story. But that's how I ended up meeting Emmerich. And so, yeah, those were those were some of my jobs early on.

Jennifer Logue: 32:56

Now, here we are, God 12 years later, I guess, over a decade. Okay, so now I left New York City a while back. And shortly after you guys start this festival in Sweden, which is so cool. First of all, I have to ask why Sweden, all the places in the world like what what drew you to Sweden

Americk Lewis: 33:19

just came to Sweden to visit. There's just like a tourist destination that I dreamed of coming to. And I met some friends here. And so I will come back every every summer I will come back. But why Sweden I tell people is because it's the place that wanted to do it. I mean, I was doing events and gatherings together. Very similar in New York City. But it was it was like almost impossible to do was like you need a lot of money. And it was hard to find people that want to do it or be involved. And I think there's this like saying is like there's a lot of chiefs and not enough Indians. You know, over here in Sweden, a lot of Indians not enough juice, I would say so. Here. People are maybe not wasn't so keen on putting themselves out there and maybe I will say but in New York where I grew up everybody it's a CEO. I used to be. I found it very amusing that every time I would take someone's business card in the city, every business cards, the CEO, I was like literally everybody I meet and I'm talking about I could be in the hood of herds. Someone will have a business card is saying CEO president of something. So everyone's a boss and everyone's a boss and no one no one wants to like do anything or Create something and work together. And it's really hard to find those communities and I know they exist, it's just really hard to find them. And there's so many people moving in and out, the turnaround rate is very high. So you know, coming back and forth, I just met groups of people that was excited about that did that we've had, we put the idea together, and it worked well and committed myself to keep doing it. That's where we are today.

Jennifer Logue: 35:31

Awesome. So now, you just had your, your seventh festival, for all my friends are stars. So now we're going into the eighth year, do you want to talk about the festival? When people go, what can they expect?

Americk Lewis: 35:46

So all my friends are stars Music Festival is something where it started off as creating a platform for emerging artists to shine basically, and artists that that I think, are super talented. And you know, I started off as Nick and I cheering these artists and people, I felt like, Wow, your talent is amazing. We just need to find a stage for you. And it's like, you know, same way as I like doing music, Jennifer, and maybe, you know, we'll put together a gig for you. The difference with this is like, Okay, I'll put this gig for you. But then I'll bring some other artists also talented, as well, in the same gig. And now we have a festival. And the only differences is probably different music genre. So off first festival was a small gathering underneath a bridge, we had, like, kind of gospel choir duo, performing. And then we had a rock band form. And we had to do rap and doing hip hop and spoken word. And we just brought people together. And it was something very fresh. For a small city, like the one that I'm in, and from there. From there, that's how I do vault.

Jennifer Logue: 37:17

That's beautiful. And now you're in festivals in four different cities in Sweden.

Americk Lewis: 37:24

Yeah, we also did a pop up event in New York City with urban world, shout out to urban world, they're going to have their film festival, October in October. So check it out. And so we're just expanding now to different areas. And a lot of different cities and countries have very reaching out to us about doing all my friends and stars festival events, from Thailand to Israel, all sorts of places America. But our thing is, we want to do something quality, if this is not about scaling up in that way. Because this happening regardless, but we just want to do something quality. And so for us right now, we just want to focus on the area, that which is which is out here in Sweden, that's the debt is working. And it's happening, we want to just really focus on that and get that really tight, and fine tune and figure out what we like to do what we don't want to do more figure brand out, figure the concept out, do whatever feels good. And then after that, we're we're maybe interested in expanding some more international libo wersi. For the future. All my friends are stars festival is a global festival. And it's happening all around the world. So we definitely expanded to different cities, and we're expanding to more cities by the eighth year this summer, but we want to just kind of keep it as local as possible for now. So we have a good manage of everything we're doing.

Jennifer Logue: 39:06

What are the greatest challenges organizing the festival?

Americk Lewis: 39:09

Yeah, I would say the greatest challenge for me, I always say is trying to make everybody happy. This has been very tough, and it's been experienced that one they're probably going to write a book about but the reason why is because it's the only thing I've done where I have a personal relationship with absolutely everybody involved. So now there's a lot of moving parts here you have a sound person that's also a friend of mine or you have someone decorating the stage that's also a friend of mine. It's not like a business thing you have people that are volunteering their friends of mine are musicians that's playing friends of mine and those count those things can clash. Sometimes like when artists decides to do a longer set go over now shortens another artists time or one time, we were running behind schedule, and I had to tell X artists could they perform, could they not perform one of their songs, shout out to Edo, one of my favorite artists out here, and he had to not perform his full set. And he was kind of sad about it. And it made me very sad. And then I had to carry that for the rest of the events. And also, a lot of people in the audience know who we are. So we will have events and we have 300 people that love us that know us personally, they want to talk to us and say, Hey, hi, I gotta go right now I can't talk. And I can't really talk to people and stuff like that. So it's, we're involved in every aspect of building the festival, including we also performing on the stage as well at the end of the concert. So all of that has been kind of difficult. And the solution is to, to, in a way, be less involved. So have people that are taken over these tasks that we're doing, and be less involved. So even with carried in a project might have some other people kind of curating the talent? And so it's not so personal, because when it's personal, I mean, you know, it's like, how do you choose one artist friend over the other matter? Yeah, they all matter. But there's politics, and there's things that, that just on a practical level have to be in place, and we can't do anything about that. So that's been the most difficult one and to make everybody happy, and that's not a possible thing. So that's the hardest part.

Jennifer Logue: 41:50

What have been the greatest joy is for you guys in doing the festival?

Americk Lewis: 41:55

What would you say?

Nick Sosin: 41:57

Yeah, in the beginning, I didn't think that I was gonna really be doing music as much as I've gotten to do through doing this festival. And that's, that's been such a nice thing that as a as a customer, let's say like, the festival in tries to encourage, you know, emerging artists, and they help people grow. And really like, I am one of the I'm one of the people that I think has grown by doing this festival, I think Emmerich has also grown. And I think a lot of other artists that have involved themselves in this over the years, I've really grown. But it's really nice to be part of this. And to work on this and to feel like this actually works. Like, the more that I involve myself. In it, the more that I understand the game from a business perspective, just to know how to, like, address people when I write emails, or know what is current, like here to hear 60 different artists and just think, okay, there's a lot of this. And so if I was ever write a song, is there any, like, specific thing that I can even add? Or is already being done? So the audience doesn't need that? What did the what does the audience need? And to to really feel like, Does, does this festival that we're creating work for an artist to level themselves up? You know, to, to pay attention to that. I will say for myself, that's one of the greatest joys is that I feel like it it does based on, like, the places that we've been able to play as as musicians. Now from the organizing side, one of the greatest joys is when I hear people and their testimonies tell us like, I've cried today, thank you for this, it moved me to see, you know, these two types of artists on stage playing together, or a little girl dancing or something that people could tell us that that really moved them. And it could just be one person. If the entire day was stressful, it could be that one person at the end that just said, this was really special and it really touched me in my heart. And I feel like Wow, all that stuff. as stressful as it was. One person got the feeling out of it.

Jennifer Logue: 44:36

I feel like for me, if I made an impact on one person, that means the world you know, getting back to that collective consciousness to mean one person has every

Americk Lewis: 44:49

right you you've had an impact over nicking. Not so yeah. And we talked about it all the time. So, there you go. Yeah.

Jennifer Logue: 44:58

Thank you. I wasn't expecting that. Guys

Americk Lewis: 45:03

we're honored to do this podcast and we're more than happy to do because because of that. Oh my

Jennifer Logue: 45:09

gosh, you guys are my favorite. Some of my favorites. I can't play favorites publicly please. City city a, you know, gotta live up to it. So what's next for you guys? I know I mean, the eighth festival full on Yeah,

Americk Lewis: 45:29

so we just finished our festival season actually. So what's next for us is a nap and the rest. Lot of work I mean since July we've been doing events since July up to in the September so we're pretty exhausted. But what's next is just preparing for the eighth annual music festival going to be an eight years now and just getting bigger, growing into different cities. So just planning and making sure that us put together well and also finding time to be creative as well and doing our music what we do creatively as well.

Jennifer Logue: 46:12

Yes, because you guys are exceptionally talented musicians too. So, you know, I can't wait to hear new stuff from you

Americk Lewis: 46:19

saying that. Yeah,

Jennifer Logue: 46:21

hold each other to

Americk Lewis: 46:21

it. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

Nick Sosin: 46:24

That's the piano in the background, huh?

Jennifer Logue: 46:26

It is good. Yeah. So I music room slash Oh, yeah. For more on Emmerich, Nick and all my friends are stars Music Festival, be sure to visit their website. All my friends are stars.com and follow them on social media at all my friends are stars. And thank you so much for tuning in and growing in creativity with us. I'd love to know what you thought of today's episode. What you found most interesting what you found most helpful. You can reach out to me on social media at Jennifer Logue or leave a review for creative space on Apple podcasts so more people can discover it. I appreciate you so much for being here in the beginning stages of this. My name is Jennifer Logue and thanks for listening to this episode of creative space. Until next time,