Meet Andy Hill | Singer, songwriter, musician.

We had the good fortune of connecting with Andy Hill and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Andy, what was your thought process behind starting your own business?
We (Andy Hill and Renee Safier) are singer/songwriters, so starting our own business was essentially an ongoing search to find places to perform music, and be paid for the service. Over the years, we met and performed with lots of other great musicians and wrote and recorded many CDs.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.

Playing music for a living, to me, is the single greatest occupation you can have. Some things about it are obvious. In what other line of work do people applaud when you do your job right? But even preparing for performances – either in the composition of songs, where in the silence of one’s own head or room, you get to witness and participate in the creation of something from nothing; Or in the practicing of a skill, where over many repetitions you slowly achieve mastery over a sequence of notes or the challenge of an instrument. These accomplishments are achieved initially only by you in your private space, and it is just as fulfilling and exciting as the public performance.

If you’re lucky you get to play with other great musicians, and you inspire one another. It is particularly touching to hear that one of our songs has positively impacted someone’s life.

“Music”, someone once said, “is the language of feeling.” As human beings, we are emotional, and require somewhere to safely express the huge psychological range that we feel. Deep emotion in most of our day to day pursuits (working at a desk or operating table, at the cash register, on the phone, on the job site, etc) is inappropriate. Certainly at concerts, but also in many, many other unplanned moments a song can take us to a place of deep feeling. Even if that feeling is sadness, we emerge from it, in some way cleansed or better off. Because we are professional musicians, we get to live in that space a lot.

If I have to try to say what I’m most proud of, I guess it begins and ends with finishing a song. We can only make a CD if we first do that. We can only be hired to play somewhere if enough songs are finished. Without songs, there is no community for us to serve in our special way. There’s nothing to promote and no reason to buy better equipment or improve a musical skill if we don’t have some quality blocks to build upon, and songs are the blocks we build upon.

We write songs about a lot of different subjects, and in many styles. The ones most gratifying aim for our highest aspirations and align with our best selves.

Lessons learned along the way:

In order to make a living as an artist, you either have to learn, accumulate and hone business skills, most of which share no common ground with your artistic pursuits – or you need to partner with someone who has those skills and who believes in you.

Renee and I have had much instruction on the business side from Patrick Summar, a life and business coach, who taught us to identify the musical pursuits that we found most rewarding, and gave us tools to manifest more of those things in our musical life.

Randy Bowers is an accomplished businessman who loves our work, and has partnered with us on many projects.

I wouldn’t say “success” came “easy”. Nor has it been impossibly hard. I would say that Renee and I share similar values regarding the definition of success, the kind of people we want to work with and for, and the kind of music we want to make.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?

Renee Safier, my business and music partner is at the top of this long list. She is not only a gifted singer/songwriter herself, but is responsible for all of our presence on social media, much of our booking, and almost all of our community outreach.

We have been fortunate to work with other great musicians and writers. Our core band includes Kirk Makin on electric guitar and mandolin, John Hoke on drums and vocals, and Dave Batti on bass, accordion, trumpet and vocals. Also at the top of that list would be our friend and producer Marty Rifkin, an extraordinary pedal steel player, who has toured the world with Bruce Springsteen, and appeared on albums by Elton John, Tom Petty, Jewel, Beck and many others. In addition to the pedal steel Marty plays dobro, guitar, bass and many other instruments.

We also owe a debt of gratitude to Dave Tokaji, Karen Nash, Bob Malone and Larry and Terry Tutor who are all excellent writers, whose songs appear on our recordings.

Most of our 37 year career has been comprised of playing live in concert halls, bars, restaurants, coffee shops, at various events, weddings, birthday parties, anniversaries and other celebrations. We cannot do any of that without an energetic and generous audience who hire us, buy our products, and who attend our events.

At the top of that list are Randy Bowers, Sandi Behar and Patrick Summar, all individuals who have given to us so generously their time, expertise and often money.

Website: www.andyandrenee.com

Instagram: @reneesafier

Facebook: ps://www.facebook.com/andyandrenee

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@reneesafier

Image Credits
Jackie Sackheim, Bob Stevens, Mika Larsen, David Lassen