Different People - The Music Video - Sheila Kirsten Hughes Band

About the Music Video for Different People
Within our lifetime, we'll likely come into contact with less than 0.1% of the population. Of that already meager percent, we ’ll befriend even fewer due greatly to the social isolation that plagues modern-day society. In this gripping music video for the original song “Different People,” the Sheila Kirsten Hughes Band has teamed up with JWG Prdocutions (James Geiger and Wesley Greene) to shine the light on society’s forgotten, misunderstood, and unwanted.

The story of how this music video came to be is an unexpected blessing that came along at a time when Sheila and Chris (Sheila Kirsten Hughes Band) were about to quit music. Below is a blog Sheila posted back in March on myspace about how it all happened.

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March 26, 2008

"We quit.

Or at least that was the plan...

But life doesn’t always go according to plan. Sometimes the universe has something else in mind.

Let me explain...

Chris and I have been working really hard at our music career for several years now. We’ve been giving it everything we’ve got. And, well, we’re tired, and it stopped being fun a few years ago. So, if it’s not fun and we’re not enjoying it, why are we doing this?

There are seldom immediate payoffs when it comes to artisitc careers. Sometimes, you can give it every ounce of energy you’ve got, only to move baby steps -- or not at all. Other times, something big happens with little to no effort. It can be unpredictable. For those of you who are musicians, you know exactly what I mean.

We’ve been attending a booking conference for the past 3 years called Performing Arts Exchange (PAE). I have to admit, I have thoroughly enjoyed going to this conference. PAE is so much fun and we have met so many amazing people because of it. (I was given opportunity to go talk to Jesse Cook the first year, a Juno-award winning flamenco guitarist that I LOVE. A presenter from Tennessee who has hosted Jesse Cook several times at his venue was going to take me over there and introduce me. But I didn’t do it because I was too shy. The presenter then told me Jesse Cook is also a bit shy. Who knew?!? But I still didn’t do it. I totally should have!!! Silly me.) Anyways, this past year, we produced an independent showcase at PAE for us and 3 other artists. The showcase ran from 5pm - 1am (that’s 8 hours for those of you who can’t count. It’s also 8 hours for those of you who can count.) Ha, ha. And that was just the performance time. That didn’t include setup and breakdown. That started at about 8:00am and ended at about 3:30am. By the time it was all said and done, it was about a 20-hour day for us. (Thank God we had Lee Tyler Post and his wife Jackie there to help with it all!) It was a lot of fun. . . and it was a lot of work.

When we got back this last year, we were exhausted. We needed a break. The instruments sat in their cases collecting dust. Our equipment didn’t even make it back into the house for nearly a week. A couple weeks went by, then a month, then a couple months. The desire to play just never came back. Then, over the holidays, our golden retriever Bear got sick. When we found out it was a very aggressive form of cancer, our world, which was already turning very slowly, turned upside down. I was already running low on energy, but I did the best I could with what little I had left. I devoted everything in me to Bear’s recovery.
Then Bear left us, and he took what little hope we had left with him. It sucked the gusto right out of us and depression set in. It’s not that I want to put so much emphasis on our dog’s passing here. Bear was my buddy and he was very close to our hearts, so it really hurt to lose him. Still does. Losing Bear, while not the ultimate cause for our lack of motion, was like the straw that broke the camel’s back. I didn’t want to play music anymore. Actually, I really didn’t want to do much of anything anymore. So, I figured we’d fulfill our remaining gig obligations, and that would be that.

We played a couple benefit concerts at Sacred Grounds in January. Those were 2 of our 3 remaining engagements.

Then, along came James...

We met James at our last gig at Sacred Grounds. James loved our music and wanted to buy a CD. In the the spirit of keeping with the whole "benefit" concert idea, I just gave him the CD, which was really fun to do because he was just so enthusiastic.

I had no idea what an amazing story James had to tell of his life. I’d like to introduce you all to James. This is really inspiring...

You can imagine how touching it was when James contacted us a few days later and said, "I can’t get past your AMAZING voice! It haunts me in a good way!" After that, he asked if we’d considered making a video for our song, "Different People." He said that particular song really spoke to him. I was so humbled by that feedback. So, I told him we didn’t have any plans to do a video for "Different People" at this time, but I asked if he’d like to be involved in some way if we considered doing one in the future. That’s when James revealed he was a filmmaker and that he would love the opportunity to make a video for the song.

I was blown away. And in some ways, I was kind of ashamed of myself, too. I mean, here’s this beautiful soul before me who has faced challenges in life that make the challenges I’ve faced in my life seem like a fun time, and I’m the one raising the surrender flag while he trucks on through all the obstacles. He just keeps pushing right through.

If not for James, a video for "Different People" would likely never get made. And if James had never contacted us, we’d likely have quit music altogether. Funny how things work out sometimes, eh? Just when you lose the strength to carry on, a new friend is sent your way to help bring you through.

Most touching of all was when we got together with James for the first time to talk about the video, we got on the subject of what category our music falls under. Chris and I know we don’t really fit in to today’s music landscape, so we don’t really know where it falls. So, James says, "Your music isn’t ’popular’ music, it’s music that matters. It’s music that changes lives." Hearing James say that was very moving. It brought tears to my eyes. That’s what I’ve always wanted our music to be -- music that makes a difference in people’s lives. For James to say it mattered, it really meant something to me. He wasn’t just blowing smoke up our asses.

I don’t know what the future holds for Chris and I. I don’t know where all of this is going. But we want to go back to the time when music used to be fun. We’ve been taking ourselves so seriously these past few years. We’ve treated music like a career -- a "job" -- rather than something we just love to do. We’ve also made our goals way to big and have tried to look too far ahead down the road. So, for anyone out there struggling in a similar way, let our bad example help you out here. It’s much easier to aim for and hit a target that’s 25 feet in front of you than to aim for and hit a target that’s a mile away. And I think when we compare ourselves to the very small percentage of people who are way at the top, everything seems like a failure because nothing we do gets us where they are. The only thing that ever does is small successes compounded over time. Sometimes that success can be as small as just getting out of bed. Sometimes that’s a big accomplishment. When we make the goals smaller and spread them out more -- like, for example, my goal this week is to finish one of the new songs I’m working on. That’s it. Just the song. I’m not thinking about anything else. When I achieve that, then I am a success. And it’s not hard to achieve. It’s absolutely possible. But if my goal is to be tomorrow’s superstar, and every day I fall short of that, then every day I seem like a failure not only to myself, but everyone else who is watching who knows how hight I’m aiming.

There is little about the entertainment industry that Chris and I like, so I can’t say it’s a goal of ours to be part of it. If I had my choice, I’d bypass the entertainment industry altogether. It’s so much more important to me that our music has something to say and that it makes a difference in people’s lives than to ever know fortune and fame -- both of which are superficial and don’t make us happy in the long run. So, as long as what we do matters to people, then I think we might have a chance of continuing.

For now, we have no long term goals. Our only goal is to work with James on this video for "Different People," which should be completed in May. I believe you will all be really impressed by what you see. James is quite talented. What happens after that only time will tell.

Be peace,
-Sheila"