Welcome 🏡

I'm Conner Conner (they) a music artist and writer working on my first album.

My Background

I was a child of Britney Spears and NSYNC. I watched music videos on VH1 before every day of middle school.

As a teenager, I stoked the fires of my eating disorder on Tumblr and taught myself HTML and CSS to code sick layouts for MySpace.

I grew up middle class; you know, when America had one. I was 15 when my mom chose freedom over security and my parents divorced.

After that, Mom and I lived below the poverty line. It was a major wake-up call to the litany of advantages I had been able to take for granted.

Meanwhile, I dreamed of stardom in Los Angeles or New York. My mom even took money from her savings so I could attend a 4-week acting program at New York Film Academy in LA. It was life-changing in the best way.

But I was scared. Scared I was too fat to succeed. Scared I would always struggle to make ends meet. Scared the big city would swallow me whole.

I lived on the inside of myself, so nothing outside could hurt me. But it meant that no one really saw me because I didn't let them. I felt the most myself when I pretended to be a Broadway star in my room late at night.

One night, I found an answer I didn't know I was looking for. From a Facebook ad, I discovered a hippie college in middle-of-nowhere Iowa. "Conscious-based education. Vegetarian meals. One course a month." Yes, please.

By the end of summer 2010, Mom and I visited the small town. I met other potential students who were weirdos like me. I got accepted into the university and away we went...somewhere over our rainbow.

I unfurled. I found myself. I smoked weed for the first time. I fell in love and got my heart thoroughly broken. I performed. I became known as a performer. In a small town of 10,000, I felt famous.

Then I got sick. I was committed to the hospital...a story for another day. I nearly lost my life, and it forced me to let go of hating my body.

I entered an era of self-love and self-dedication. I wrote hundreds of poems and a musical, The End of the World.

Shifting Gears

I spent a lot of time writing and directly dismissing any idea of pursuing music. With a love of marketing and business, I tried my hand at several online ventures to test my skills but struggled to create a product I was passionate about.

But at 30, I started thinking about the rest of my life. I started asking myself what I loved enough to build slowly, learn continuously, and dedicate myself to for decades. Songwriting, singing, and performance started tapping its heel loudly in the corner of my mind. I didn't have any reason not to try left.

Find what you can do the slowest, the longest, and still absolutely love it. Do what scares you." - Christina Koch, Artemis II Crew

In 2022, I started attending Berklee Online part-time, in addition to my 9-5. I spent six semesters learning a tremendous amount. That period of time was fabulous for filling my knowledge reservoir, but it didn't leave any room for application.

When I left, I knew I needed community to push me forward. I joined an online songwriting group with other people working toward releasing their first or twentieth release. I spent the next year immersed in songwriting, creating about 200 songs on the spectrum of just-a-hook to completed demo.

As I wrote, I realized I was finally healing my hospital trauma, finally telling my story in a way that 1) made sense to me 2) captured the complexity 3) shared the feeling across languages, enhanced by lyrics.

An album began to emerge. So here I am, doing this thang!

Thank You for Being

I hope you find something that inspires, delights, or provides room for a cleansing breath. Thank you for continuing to be inside your body. I know it's not always easy, but I thank you for your commitment to being alive.

To the kick-ass creatives full of integrity and love, stay the course darlings. We're just getting started.

With love and badassery,
Conner

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