Todd Pasternack: From Roots to Reinvention
Bryan Lasky
The onetime Ominous Seapods singer/guitarist straddles the line between band member and businessman.
Life was very different for me about 20 years ago. I was playing guitar and singing with the band Ominous Seapods, and we were constantly writing, recording and experimenting with new music—touring hard, trying to connect with our fans across North America. My work routine went like this—play a show, pack up the trailer, get in the van, drive to a venue in the next city, load in, set up, play the guitar and sing my butt off for two sets, pack up, get in the van, drive to the next city, load in, set up, play a show, wash, rinse, repeat. We did that every day, for weeks on end. For years, that was my job and I loved it.
During that time, I also learned a ton about running a business: how to be resilient during difficult times, how to navigate complicated personalities, and how improvisation not only allowed my bandmates and I to spontaneously produce musical moments, but also that listening deeply to each other was a critical component in getting our business right. I realized that what propelled and united us for so long was that we had purpose together. And we felt and experienced that purpose every day as a single unit. For us, that purpose was to give each other a musical platform for self-expression and make those expressions as great as they could be.
After the Seapods officially wound down, I started my own music projects, Marlow and Bump, with my wife, Angela Ford. I worked with other regional artists in upstate New York, recording them at my home studio and also playing on their albums. Then, something unexpected happened: I became fascinated with technology, marketing and the intersection of the two. I taught myself to code and started developing interactive media for artists, local businesses and advertising agencies. I discovered a new creative outlet. It was like I was 12 years old again with my first guitar. I was all in.
I eventually got into product development, strategy and partnerships for technology companies. This brand-new career in digital marketing ultimately led me to work at a large technology company based in Menlo Park, Calif.
During this new phase of my career, I began meeting people in the industry and found that we shared a common love. The people who produced the most inspired work and truly helped advance their businesses all had a common denominator: music. They were former professional musicians—or, like me, part-time professional musicians—and they were applying what they learned as musicians to their work as business people.
It was something I hadn’t anticipated when I first took my hiatus from the music industry. The “musician-tomarketer” or “musician-toother” thing was a thing.
It got me thinking that there are tangible, valuable business lessons to learn by connecting the ways bands and musicians work, collaborate, fight and make up—all in the name of creating music—with the way other organizations operate in order to create things people want and need. Musicians tell stories through their songs. Brands and businesses tell stories through their products and marketing.
To create something meaningful and memorable, both bands and businesses need to do similar things:
- Build and foster creativity and innovation
- Collaborate with many personalities and opinions to produce something incredible that connects with people
- Get the best out of your teams
- Listen to help make better decisions
- Recognize which opportunities to capitalize on or accentuate
- Determine quickly when it’s time to kill an idea
I’ve noticed that while many bands may not be thinking about these exact operational concepts or using them every day, businesses often do and they thrive on them. I’ve seen bands and some businesses struggling internally, and out in the market, because those core tenets were not clearly defined or even present. When bands and businesses acknowledge and utilize these tenets, they’re better set up for success. So I wrote a business book, Lessons From the Road: Musicians as Business Leaders, with tips from musicians.
In addition to sharing my own experiences and observations, I interviewed 10 people whose paths mirrored mine. Most of them are from the business world and have former, or still very active, lives as professional musicians. A few folks are full-time musicians who help show that the music world is not much different from the business world. They all share how they weave their musical experiences into their jobs every day.
I’m sure you have seen a few of the people who contributed to the book perform live, or maybe you’ve listened to an album that they’ve worked on: moe.’s Al Schnier, Smashing Pumpkins’ Jimmy Chamberlin, Strangefolk/Assembly of Dust’s Reid Genauer, Mark Newman band member Naomi Margolin or Glenn Rosenstein, who has worked with artists ranging from Talking Heads to Ziggy Marley to—yes— Ominous Seapods. Each person told their story as both a musician and a business person, dropping nuggets of valuable information about the co-mingling of those two worlds. It was almost cathartic for them. I know it was for me.
The road we’re all on is indeed strange and often takes unexpected turns. But the most important lesson I’ve learned is that you really need to know your unique strengths; build up your life and career around that. No one else possesses exactly what you know, believe in and are passionate about. Start by defining this, then develop it into your own sense of purpose. Have the conviction to trust in yourself. And while the road you’re on will still have plenty of bumps, your purpose becomes the map guiding you through each twist and turn, bringing you toward something more fulfilling with every milestone you pass.
Todd Pasternack served as one of Ominous Seapods’ singers and guitarists in their latter years and currently performs and records in The Ford Family Band with Angela Ford and their son. He is the author of Lessons From the Road: Musicians as Business Leaders and serves as the Head of Ecosystem Development for North America at a large technology company based in Menlo Park, Calif.
This article originally appeared in the October/November 2019 issue of Relix. For more features, interviews, album reviews and more subscribe below.
