Ep. 4 Beyond the Bluster | Andrew Kerr

Andrew Kerr counts getting hit by a truck to be one of the best things that ever happened to him. In this conversation, the singer-songwriter shares how that fateful day pointed him down a path toward not only transforming his life, but freeing his voice.

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Andrew Kerr 0:01

You know, there's sort of a bluster I had for much of my life, a feeling of being, you know, an invincibility I think a lot of people feel, but there was a bubble that was kind of burst that this feeling like if this if I'm the kind of person who can step into traffic and almost kill myself, what else? What else is there? What else is wrong with me? You know what else is broken?

Davin Youngs 0:26

That's Andrew Kerr and this is The Sound of You.

Hey my friends. Welcome back. It's me, Davin Youngs. And this is The Sound of You. And I'm happy that you are here joining me for this conversation that I had with someone who I think you're going to find to be incredibly fascinating. His name is Andrew Kerr, and he is amongst many other things a gifted and talented singer songwriter who has been down a somewhat winding road with his voice and singing, and music and quite honestly, his life. You know, I was thinking that I will never forget the first time I met Andrew because I actually heard him singing at the top of his lungs walking down the hallway to the space that we were going to meet in before I even saw him. And I learned quickly that this is how Andrew sort of approaches his life. It's how he enters a scene so to speak. But what you'll hear in this conversation is that Andrew candidly shares that, that energy and fervor and bluster as he refers to it has at times led him down complicated paths. In fact, it led him into the path of an oncoming truck, which you're going to hear all about. What's so great about this conversation is that Andrew is so successful in understanding the integration of these life events with the journey that he went on with music and his voice and he speaks so clearly and with so much wisdom, about how changing his voice and following the path of deconstructing and reconstructing his voice as an instrument was a key component in changing his whole life. So sit back, listen, enjoy, and just soak in these incredibly wise words from my friend and former client, Andrew Kerr.

Andrew Kerr 2:57

Okay, so it was about 10 years ago, I was crossing the street in Evanston and I was hit by a city truck. I was thrown 21 feet in the air, I sustained three skull fractures and a broken arm and, and I was rushed to Evanston hospital and spent about two weeks in the hospital there recovering, I had emergency brain surgery that first night because I had hemorrhaging in my brain, so I had an emergency craniotomy, carved a huge c shaped scar open to the side of my head.

One of the things coming out of it, that I remember so vividly is in the weeks that followed, you know, I was coming out of a heavy drug, you know, drugs they'd given me everything was very hazy. I was aware enough to know that I didn't know if I was brain injured. I know what it's like you hear about people who seem completely normal, except that they, you know, except that they're violent once in a while, or they're just have never been the same and something's shifted, and I genuinely had no idea if I was a different person, if I had had some kind of, you know, injuries that would have permanently changed who I was, and that was a terrifying feeling.

So I went through, you know, cognitive therapy of different kinds, I mean, different kinds of sort of rehab and therapy, they determined that they didn't think I had any cognitive issues. You know, I still didn't know if something would come up years later in my life, if I'd have some kind of recurring things, migraine headaches and 20 years, whatever it might be. I also didn't remember exactly what it happened. I was crossing the street. I knew that when I woke up in the hospital.

We ended up in a lawsuit with the city, but we ended up going going to trial and I lost the trial. What I found out from the trial was basically I was just it appears and it sounds like I was distracted crossing the street, I forgot something in my car, I probably spun around at some point, did not see a large truck barreling down the street, you know, I mean, it's countless things where the truck wasn't there a second ago, I have a feeling that came out from around the corner. They were also speeding. But I didn't notice them. I didn't check for them before I turned around. So what I learned from the trial basically was this was mostly my own fault.

What I was left faced with, in the months of follow was this feeling like I had done this to myself, in that I did not know how to forgive myself. Just the thought that I could have done this to myself. And there was no one else to blame. There was no escape, I just felt like, you know, I didn't know what to do.

Davin Youngs 6:08

So what were the implications for this sense of responsibility or culpability? I mean, in your words, you had done this to yourself? What did that mean for your life in that moment?

Andrew Kerr 6:27

You know, there's sort of a bluster I had as a younger for much of my life, a feeling of being, you know, an invincibility. I think a lot of people feel but there was a bubble that was kind of burst that this feeling like if this if I'm the kind of person who can step into traffic and almost killed myself, what else? What else is there? What else is wrong with me? You know, what else is broken?

Davin Youngs 7:02

I say this not to make light of what you're saying. But it sounds like the sort of existential moment that only getting hit by a truck could bring. But I also love this description you offer of yourself as a blustery, young person. And I wonder if you could tell us more about yourself, particularly as it relates to growing up and music and singing?

Andrew Kerr 7:32

I mean, I grew up in New York City. I didn't feel like I sort of had found found my place in high school where I fit in. And somewhere along the way, I found theater and people applauding for me onstage. And and you know, and people coming up to me afterwards saying how talented I was in it, it suddenly was like, Oh, my God, I have like a thing. I have value, you know, I have something that gives me value. So that's kind of where it started. And then I went off to college, I studied some theater, I started doing stand up comedy, because I wanted people to clap for me. I wanted to be on stage, I wanted to be loved more than anything else. I think I just wanted to feel validated. So that brought me on stage, performing. Somewhere along the line, I think, around in my early 20s, and maybe around 20, late teens, early 20s, you know, I had been playing music as well. I had been performing and I found that I felt so vulnerable performing that I didn't think I could stomach the rejection that came with being an actor and being in theater. So I sort of thought music, what I loved about music was that no matter what happened at the gig, you know, at the performance, I still had the song, I still had the actual music and that felt like there was something sustaining and solid that I could fall back on. And I was really into songwriting was into James Taylor and singer songwriters and Indigo Girls and sort of a lot of folky stuff. And I started playing open mics, and they might be terrible gigs, but I still could go home and you know, have something that fed me that wasn't just dependent on like, when I did stand up, it felt like if they laughed, I was in heaven. If they didn't laugh, I was devastated. And I was like, I can't, I can't do this. It's too much. So that's kind of what got me into music and performing and touring throughout my 20s as a singer, songwriter.

Davin Youngs 9:30

Yeah, you know, it's funny what you're saying because I'm aware that we all have these different perceived levels of risk when it comes to performing and sharing and I certainly can connect with the idea that stand up comedy as risky and vulnerable, but theater to me is a safer space in that, you know, you have a prescribed outcome versus sharing your own songs. It just seems like there's so much at stake in that. And yet you found that to be a safer space to occupy.

Andrew Kerr 10:13

Yeah, it's interesting point. I think the thing I always liked about songwriting was that, you know, I think back on songwriting for me, I often didn't even, you know, for example, I wouldn't know what I was writing about the song and the song would be moving along. And then suddenly, you know, I'd write a chorus that just came to me, and I'd start sobbing, and I go, you know, that's what the song's about, I, I think I didn't have great access to what, why, what I was really feeling a lot of my own feelings and a lot of what I was experiencing, and my, you know, I tend to be clever, you know, funny, cute, and then there'd be something in a song that would come up and go, Oh, my God, this isn't even about that. This is about this, you know, devastating, like loneliness of mine. Something like that. So I think it It turned out to be very therapeutic for me that I didn't have hadn't had any therapy of any kind. It was a means of sort of getting in touch with something that felt very, sort of genuine and real.

Davin Youngs 11:31

That's so interesting in maybe that there was a safetyalmost in working that out through that medium.

Andrew Kerr 11:39

Yeah, that makes sense. Like, it's kind of like you're alone in your room, doing your thing, writing your song, and then you kind of get your brain around it, and then can go out share it. And it's not like I was, you know, I was pretty good at expressing myself. But now when I look back, I was, you know, 10% of the way there. I didn't really know what was going on, sort of inside my head. So that's kind of that was the appeal to me, for it was songwriting, and performing. It was never about singing, per se, when I was younger it was about being on stage. And then I found songwriting, I loved it. And I never really had any real training for singing at that point. And I wasn't a great singer, you know, I kind of fought my way through whatever came instinctively. So that's kind of the groundwork for my vocal style when I, you know, when I met you in earlier in my life to

Davin Youngs 12:30

Well, let's, let's unpack that a bit more. How would you describe your relationship to your voice at that time? And, and maybe specifically, how did that influence how you were writing songs?

Andrew Kerr 12:44

So, you know, I think one thing that I recognize, looking back, I could never really hear myself. I never really, you know, heard myself truly, in a sort of critical way. And I think underneath it, there's this, you know, my pitch was not good. I mean, more than anything, my pitch was not good. My tone was not particularly, you know, not particularly powerful or moving. So I found that if I wrote clever songs, that allowed me to kind of hold the audience. So it kind of moved me in that direction. But I think in this sort of powerful way that I look back on, I couldn't hear myself because I was too afraid to hear myself. Because if I if I truly heard all my, you know, weaknesses, I'd be too devastated to keep going. And there was something about sort of, I had this when I was younger, what carried me on was delusional optimism, you know, this sort of just push forward. Don't hear anything that says otherwise, and just go and it got me reasonably, you know, it got me some success, just kind of plunging ahead, but, but truly underneath it a fear to see all of my flaws and my weaknesses, and in this sort of be vulnerable to that, because I was so afraid that that that would, I mean, I didn't know this right. But looking back, I know, I was too afraid that there would be too much I'd be overwhelmed and I would stop trying, I would give up.

Davin Youngs 14:18

Okay, there's so much to dig in to hear. This is very rich, because you're speaking to an experience, and I think a lot of people who identify as singer songwriters have where they find themselves writing based on an idea or a story around what their voice can or can't do. So, you know, sometimes people will write songs that are fairly limited in scope because they don't really understand the capacity that their voice has, or they'll write beyond their sort of embodied experience of making the sound and there comes some point in time where inevitably they'll desire to reconcile the two. And you know, there are certainly stories of people over time who were sort of never landed in the realm of being a great singer, but the songs were so rich and wonderful that they carried the voice. But I think there's this universal desire amongst anyone who sings, to be able to connect, and authentically express the words of the song, in a way with their voice that feels aligned. Yeah. But from your perspective, based on your experience, what were the repercussions for not being able to, quote unquote, hear yourself at that time?

Andrew Kerr 15:47

I still look back, I'm like, well, those are some smart lyrics, that is a good phrase, that's really like some impressive writing. Lyrically, but, but I never I could not become the singer that I heard that I imagined that I envisioned that I wanted to be, I could not get better at singing, it was very limited, where I could go, because I had never developed any techniques. So I was, you know, straining and always flat, and not breathing, right. And just, I mean, a million things I was doing wrong, but never, you know, almost just closing my eyes and covering my ears when I sang and powering through with just more energy. And that didn't make it better. So and also then losing nuance as a result of that, like, you know, just not not developing if you can't, if you can't accept weaknesses, if you can't see your flaws, you can't get better at anything. You know, I mean, yeah, in a fundamental way.

Davin Youngs 16:56

Well, and, and correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't that powering through that you refer to show up in your voicein the form of a pathology, at some point?

Andrew Kerr 17:10

It did. So I think about 10 years before I met you, somewhere in my late 20s, I developed vocal nodes on my vocal cords. I went on complete total voice rest for like, six weeks or something like that, which maybe you can do in your 20s more than you can in your life. I ended up getting surgery by a kind of a renowned surgeon in New York and fixed it. And then I went back to what I was doing before, you know, taking kind of as a fluke, as a, whatever it might be, you know, not knowing what it was it eventually so I continued doing what I was doing, and I was I was doing okay, and I had some, you know, good moments and and had some great gigs and had, you know, a little bit of a fan base here and there and so on. And it was going okay, but at some point, and this is somewhere. I mean, this sort of ties into you know, I continue to sing and do what I was doing and and then I had can we tie this into the time after the accident?

Davin Youngs 18:14

Yeah, let's go there. Because, quite honestly, I'm curious what you see as the through line from this first surgery that you had to that fateful day crossing the street in Evanston?

Andrew Kerr 18:29

I mean, what's sort of profound about my accident is that it I still genuinely believe it was the the greatest thing that's ever happened in my life. It changed my life and it sounds corny, but it took being hit by a goddamn truck, to, to change me.

To wake me up to truly have to sort of see myself you know, in a more honest way. What had happened, I mean, after I had my accident is I had this feeling like I couldn't forgive myself and I went into therapy for the first time in my life. And, you know, it led me down this path of sort of asking, you know, questions about, look, if, if I'm the kind of person that can walk out in front of a truck and almost kill myself, what else what else is wrong with me? And once I started to sort of, you know, unpack some things I realized that I started to learn that I could be flawed and still be worthy of love and at the core of it all at this feeling of like, am I worthy of parental love? Am I you know, at some childhood is childhood things that this feeling of like needing validation and, and I found that in a fundamental way, like it was okay to be imperfect or flawed and to see my own flaws. So, I continued performing and I went back to music. after my accident, I recovered You know,

Davin Youngs 20:00

I'm wondering what that was like to make music again, after your accident?

Andrew Kerr 20:08

So initially, I think I was kind of getting to a phase in my life now where I had young kids and a really active crazy life at home and I'd stopped touring. I sort of mourned the loss of this music career that I had dreamed of and, and wanted, but I had started to at the same time, I found music more and more personal and therapeutic for me, in a way it had never been before. I had at my shop, I had set up a piano, and I used to go there, four o'clock in the morning, on the weekends, you know, all these times around my three kids at home and my busy schedule, just to sing and write songs, and I'd sob in front of my piano. And, you know, it was just all for me. And it had never been all for me it was to be on stage it was to be loved, and you know, clapped for, and I really didn't care about that anymore, music is starting to become something that that was really a personal journey for me in a way to never been before. And so I had been, you know, I had been sort of getting a little better at singing, but I had really specific limitations that I couldn't kind of break through. And somewhere along the line here, I started having vocal trouble again. I started not being able to hit notes. I remember going on a tour, and I couldn't sing anything above a certain thing and below a certain thing and I found there's these like spots that I had to jump through and skip through and work around, and so on. And so I went to a doctor. And he said, he took a scope of my throat and showed me various, you know, I don't know, nodules and bumps and things that were in there. He said that he thought, with some occupational therapy, or some speech therapy of some kind, it probably would go away and some rest. So he sent me to someone who'd start doing some vocal work with me, and to help me with some breathing techniques, and so on. She said, you should consider going to see a really good voice coach who knows, proper singing technique. And I was at a point nowhere I had been through, you know, a year or two of therapy, I was no longer as afraid to be flawed. And I thought, Oh, you know, this, this can't hurt. I did not know quite what that would lead to and what it would mean. But it seemed like a reasonable step.

Davin Youngs 22:22

Yeah. You know, before we go any further, I just want to stop for a moment and acknowledge Andrew, your ability to connect the dots between what was going on in your life emotionally, psychologically, spiritually, developmentally and your voice story, because this is true for all of us. No one is exempt from this. I'm just aware that when we hear this through a story like yours that has some dramatic twists and turns along the way, that becomes a clarity to our understanding of the connection. And you seem to have such a wonderful awareness of this and it leads me to my next thought, which is around readiness, because it is often that we have to experience a series of events to finally be ready, able to hear or receive that which might facilitate change. And I just hear in your story that this was that moment. So I'm wondering if you could then speak to what it was like to be in that moment, in a place where you were going to finally be learning to, in your words, hear your voice?

Andrew Kerr 23:41

So I didn't know what I was signing up for. Right? I just thought, you know, I'd like to take voice lessons. It's always been something that I never really, you know, I can't sing as well as I wish I could and it won't hurt. And clearly, I clearly I am doing something wrong, because I've hurt myself for the second time. So why don't I take some voice lessons? So when I came to you, I was still, you know, I guess the thing that was sort of most profound was that you very quickly, you know, kind of told me that I was doing a lot wrong in my technique, and that in order to change the way I was singing, we had to there were certain changes, and I don't remember the exact way it came about but, but this feeling like, fairly quickly, when I started following exactly what you told me to do, I could not sing my own songs anymore. I lost my entire vocal range that I had before because I was straining you know, from my chest to hit these notes that should have been in my mix. So I could not do them anymore because I stopped straining and without the straining, I couldn't sing. So, suddenly, all the things that gave me comfort and these songs that meant so much to me and and made me feel like, you know, safe in this little world I lost. And I remember so explicitly being with you and saying, Davin, you better bring me back because I am terrified. You're asking me to give up like the thing that is most precious to me and the risk of having to sort of trust you that you could get me back to a place where I could sing again, was so freakin terrifying.

Davin Youngs 25:49

Well, there's this deconstruction, you know? I mean, yeah, I have, I have such respect for someone like you who is able to look at that risk and in the face and actually pursue it because it there's a deconstruction process that has to happen for most people. And the thing that is so terrifying about it is that which provided you a sense of security in the past needs to be stripped away and quickly, you realize that that security was false. So, this becomes existential as well, where you're like, it's, you know, it's like that day after getting hit by a truck where you're like, I don't know where I am, if this is not the case. So I appreciate that and then also, like, we were talking about, you know, with regards to their your songs, and they represent this piece of your personal identity. So that is more complicated than someone who is, you know, singing on in a show or something of someone else's stuff. It's like, No, I can't sing my own music. Yeah, I acknowledge, and I'm aware of the fear that would come with that.

So what was it about you in that moment that allowed you to push on?

Andrew Kerr 27:17

I mean, it was a good six months with you where I felt like I could not, I just could not reach the notes on my own songs. And it was a, it was a mess. But I felt like I I was ready to take the journey. It felt like I had learned from therapy at this point that it's okay for me to be vulnerable, it's okay for me to give things up. And then you have to, I have to give this up. If I want to have, you know, if I want something else, if I want to be better, I've got to be willing to be vulnerable. I've learned more since then how profound that lesson kind of is in that truly, like, at this point, it was part of my journey to feeling like, if I can't be vulnerable, if I can't risk, I don't, I don't want to do it. And I don't mean that I want to risk in everything I do. But it is the way to grow it is the way to become bigger, it's the way to experience life fully for me, it is by taking that risk and being vulnerable and being real and being open and being okay, being a mess and being okay, doing a lousy job and just, you know, knowing that underneath it all, I am still going to be worthy of love, even if I can't, you know, even if I fail and fall on my face.

Once we started, I mean, it felt as intense as my other therapy have been more so even because I was this was the thing that was my identity, it was the most important thing to me, and I really felt like I was handing this to you and saying, I'm trusting you, I am not good at trusting people, and I'm trusting you to carry me through this. Because I didn't know what it how it was gonna get there. You know, the journey as a as a teacher, you've seen it right. But it felt like also after, you know, 20 years of singing, I was completely stripping down and deconstructing this thing that I did, and having to learn a completely different way of doing it having no idea except that you telling me so that I would come out the other end. So the level of trust that that it required for me was something also I had not been very good at counting on other people and trusting other people. So it was a profound experience for me to trust in you to take me out the other end of this.

Davin Youngs 29:27

Well, I think that the thing is, you're right, I have seen this process through but there's a risk on my end too, you know, and and there's a vulnerability for any coach or teacher there's a vulnerability to have, because I don't know that I'm going to get you through this, you know, and it would be deceiving of me to say that I did because there are so many...

Andrew Kerr 29:53

You don't know that I'm going to be able to make all the right you know, take all the right risks, right. You know, I might shut down a lot of things.

Davin Youngs 30:00

Or not be able to be that open? Or will I be able to do it with an efficiency that would allow you to stick it out, you know, like that sort of traces the growth? Yeah, you know, and and there, there are different amounts of time that people can like, hang with something, right. So there are clients that will work on this stuff for years and years and their clients, they're like six months, and I'm out.

I mean, it's one of the most common things we see. But as you're telling me this, I feel increasingly aware of the many elements at stake in a partnership or in a relationship like this. Because while what was at stake for me was certainly very different than what was at stake for you, there is still this element of when I work with someone like you and I see that we've opened a certain door, there's an awareness that there's no, no turning back, and that we have to head down this together and be fully committed to seeing the process through. And, you know, speaking of process, I wonder if you might then share with us what it was like, as things started to shift and change for you.

Andrew Kerr 31:18

I mean, in the big picture, you know, I think after several months of committing to it, and really kind of stripping it down, I regained my own songs, because because they had, they weren't particularly vocally challenging. So I started being able to sing my own songs, which gave me enough validation to know that this worked, you know, that it's working, and that I'm working towards better technique, and then my range start getting better, I started feeling less tired at the end of singing, I could just see, you know, continuing kind of results, which I still, when I sing now I still find myself like I can, I can hear myself in a way that I never could before. So I can hear even now, if I get tired, I can hear what I'm doing, I can find it, I can kind of pick through it. Because you know, when you work with someone who enough being critical of it, I become good at being self critical, and a lot of areas of my life now. So when I do things, and this is part of that journey of learning how to sort of break down I'm good at learning now. So I know the steps that it takes to get better at something right. And this is one of those cases where I can continue to grow because I continue to see here myself see what I'm doing wrong, pick it apart, you know, know, kind of where to look when something goes wrong.

Davin Youngs 32:35

Yeah, and the just the willingness to, to see a problem and address it without judgment versus critique, you know, I always like to offer that we need to be able to hear ourselves critically and not judgementally. And there's a there's a real specific difference between the two. Because if I start from a place of judgment, you know, it's it's like the original sin, it's like, there's a failure at the heart of the matter. But when I can hear my sound, or notice my body or notice a feeling or sensation in my body critic with a critical mind, I can go like, I can just be curious and say, could I do that differently? Is there a possibility of doing this differently? Which of course, there always is.

Andrew Kerr 33:17

That's so good, that's powerful. That's that's the whole thing, right? To be able to be self critical. Without Yeah, without being judgmental and saying, you're not, you're somehow not worthy, or you're, you know, you're a bad person, you know, like, No, you have it, there's a thing you're doing and you want to be better at it. So what can I do sort of looking at a little more objectively, you know, sort of stepping back a little a little more detached and work on the thing that you're doing?

Davin Youngs 33:40

Yeah. So then what about writing songs? How did this new point of view this new ability to hear the new sounds you're making with your voice? How did this show up in what it was that you were writing and composing?

Andrew Kerr 33:58

The one thing I think clearly, my melodies got better, I think I became a much better melody writer, I could write more interesting melodies. I also I can write for the things that I like to hear, I was no longer writing I started doing more writing, starting with the music, not just about about the lyrics, not just writing a bunch of clever lyrics and then finding some way to make a music, it started becoming more and more musical based, you know, singing based, and I got better at not obsessing so much about just I stopped being trying to be so clever, I stopped writing, you know, I mean, it and I can move people now with a with a, you know, with a vocal thing that I couldn't do before, which is a big change. So I don't have to work as hard I stopped it stop having to be, you know, fighting to get someone's approval and, you know, instead just kind of sitting in it, you know, just kind of being there and doing the thing.

Davin Youngs 34:53

Yeah, it's like, it's amazing how effort is not as satisfying as we I think it is, you know, that's true that when you can actually sit back and rest and enjoy that there is a satisfaction that is just totally different. And you get to be participant and observer at the same time. And I actually think I saw this in you at what I would call a culminating event in the form of an album release at this venue in Evanston called space. Could you tell me what you recall about that performance. And that night,

Andrew Kerr 35:35

I decided I wanted to make another album, which I hadn't done a number of years, I wanted to make the album I always wanted to make, I want to make kind of a full on sort of soul album with a horn section and with backup singers, and so on. And I spent maybe a year making this record with just these incredible musicians playing on it. And then it sort of culminated in this show at space in Evanston, where we had about 200 people come, I had a 12 piece band on the stage, I had a four piece horn section, I had my three backup singers, and Mae Cohen, who's this amazing arranger and singer, she, you know, she's saying she's saying with Aretha Franklin, and she arranged all the vocals. So the person who arranged all the harmonies, the sort of old school soul harmonies, and then the horn players, you know, who play with the OJS, like, we did the arrangements, they came with, like all the original people who made the record with me. And I did specifically because you told me to, I did not play an instrument for the first time I've ever done. So onstage. So I just sang, I just, it was just my thing. They played my songs, and I saying, You were like, you got to just get out in front. Just let them do their thing, and do your thing. And kind of as the night went on, I think I got more and more comfortable. And it just, you know, I've played shows since then. But it will, I was very aware, like, you know, I mean, it also a band like that, you know, cost a couple thousand dollars just for the band. So I knew that I wasn't gonna be doing a tour like that anytime soon, with a band like that. And it was a it was a high point of my musical life, like it was the show, you know, in front of in front of the band that, you know, was everything I wanted, I dreamed of kind of as the backing band, doing these songs. For my record, it was just kind of a magical night.

Davin Youngs 37:35

Yeah, yeah, it was, it was incredible to witness and such a pleasure to see, like I said, as a combination of all of your hard work and to have so many people present to witness this extraordinary time. And I think about you know, if we look back at our lives, we can see these moments where certainly negative circumstances can change the trajectory of our path. But there are certainly those overwhelmingly positive moments as well.

I hope that that was one of those for you.

I'm curious what words you would offer, your younger blustery self? The Andrew who sort of blindly powered through everything?

Andrew Kerr 38:48

I mean, I would say more than anything. Don't be afraid of being of being flawed, you are worthy. You're worthy, and you're lovable, and you're deserving. And you're not as fragile as you think you are, you know, because it felt everything felt. So it's funny, because I didn't come across as fragile. But underneath it clearly. You know, I was terrified that if I if I showed my weakness that I would break. And I interestingly, I can see back I mean, I think I would have been better at connecting with audiences. Have I been better at being more vulnerable when I was younger?

Davin Youngs 39:28

Well, look, hindsight is 2020. And I believe the saying goes that youth is lost on the young. But the beauty of being able to look back and reflect is that it offers the potential for wisdom and how we move forward. So yes, I wonder what this all means for how you move forward in the world and as a singer, and as a human being.

Andrew Kerr 39:55

What I think is exciting is that what I learned In therapy and in my work with you is that I can learn anything. And I know that I can get good at anything. And if I really want to do it, I know, I know now, how to learn to do things. And so this is a, this is a sort of a new chapter that's happening for me right now, which is kind of fun and exciting is that, you know, I can't go tour at the moment because I've got too much going on in my life, my family and so on. A customer mind a little while back, asked me if I wanted to audition for commercial. And, and I did, and I didn't get it, but it went really well. And so with her guidance, I took some lessons. And I have an agent in Chicago and I audition for things right now it's on zoom, but a couple times a week, and, you know, it's still early on in the state in this process, but I am getting so much joy out of the process of learning, you know, and this process of sort of working with a coach, I now know how to do this, because of my work with you, because of my way of stripping things down is that it's the same, it's the same process. So you know, I can do I can run an audition, and then she can give me feedback, I can see which give me feedback kind of going now. I'm just nitpicking, you're still really great. You know what I'm like, just lay it on me, tell me everything I'm doing wrong. Because I can take it, I know that I can do this, I know that I can get good at this. I know that I have the underlying sort of solidness now that it's okay for me to not be good at this, because I'm gonna be good at this. And that's the thing that I think is exciting to me about sort of my life going forward is that I'm okay with not being good at things now. You know, it just means you got things to learn. So keep working at it. That's the lesson I feel like for anyone in the arts is like, you got to find a way to know that you're worthy, and that you can be really good at this. And to also recognize if you're not right now, you know, or if there's something you need to be better at. It's okay, it doesn't mean you can't get there. It doesn't mean all is lost, and everything's broken, it means you got work to do. So let's go. Like, that's my lesson to myself.

Davin Youngs 42:12

And if you want to fast track to learning this, your voice is an incredible way to do that.

Andrew Kerr 42:18

It really is because it's such an expression of yourself. Oh my god,

Davin Youngs 42:21

I always say it's the most efficient path to learn some of these hard lessons.

Andrew Kerr 42:25

No, it was a life changing time for me and my work with you was one of the most powerful, profound moving experiences of my life. And I honestly, like, I will always have such a deep gratitude and love for you for everything you helped me through and everything you gave me. You know, I mean, I cannot believe how fortunate I was to have been introduced to you at that time, my life because it was I could not express to people around me how life changing it was.

Davin Youngs 42:49

Well, and let me reiterate that we were co conspirators on this journey. And your impact on me has been quite profound as well. So I don't take any of it for granted. So with that said, Andrew, I just want to thank you for your willingness and vulnerability and courage in sharing your story around not only your voice but your life. So thank you so much for this.

Andrew Kerr 43:22

Thanks, I'm really grateful you thought of me because it's been really fun.