Whenever I have company over at our house, my mom loves to tell stories about three-year-old Tia. Apparently, Toddler Tia had a habit of waking up my parents every morning by jumping on their bed and singing to them, brilliantly off-key and loudly. I love that story, primarily because it reminds me that music has always been important to me. Back then, it was one of the first details of my daily routine; today, it still is and I was able to make music my priority for three months this summer as an intern at Sub Pop Records.
Little was constant at Sub Pop. A typical day at work included chatting with the all-seeing receptionist, Derek, about different aspects of the industry; playing with the many dogs brought into the office, including my boss’ married pups; prepping a mailing to the small list of friends my boss sends new releases to; sitting down with people from different departments to chat about their work; and meeting artists and bands that dropped by to say hello.
What became clear to me, and quickly, was that the employees at Sub Pop did everything in their power to make the internship experience a valuable one. I learned about the nature of touring by filling out settlement sheets and sending out posters for multiple bands; about album production by listening to unreleased records and correcting lyrics; about licensing and business affairs by handling sensitive metadata for both old and new releases; about marketing by attending weekly meetings and packaging LPs; about digital assets by archiving albums; about A & R by making photo albums and transcribing lyrics for bands; about having an idea and watching it come to fruition by talking with Sub Pop’s president, Jonathan Poneman, over lunch about discovering Soundgarden and starting Sub Pop.
I could write thousands of words on my summer at Sub Pop, but all that anyone needs to know is that it changed my life for the better.
I grew up fantasizing about working in the music industry and entertained the idea of being in a band, managing one, or becoming a producer. The larger this dream became, however, the more people discouraged me. Those people saw no value in music and, together and almost simultaneously, began a relentless barrage of supposed advice promoting careers almost solely in law and medicine. My hopes of having a career in music business faded and I became rather ashamed of them up until my internship at Sub Pop.
Working with this group of people and accomplishing the tasks I was assigned made me realize a few important life lessons, the first being that it is not only okay to have an unorthodox dream, but that it is almost better to have one. I had feared, but accepted, the fate I saw for myself at a nine-to-five job doing work I didn’t believe in by adhering to other people’s expectations; however, I spent the summer surrounded by individuals who loved their jobs and were working towards goals that they invested time, money, and energy into. The work environment was full of creativity, excitement, and a whole lot of love, instilling in me an enthusiasm to do tasks as menial as printing mailing labels. The second a-ha moment I had was in realizing how accessible the world of music business was to me after taking my first step through Sub Pop’s physical door and the music industry’s figurative one. Being at Sub Pop ultimately made me feel that the 4th grader in me was allowed to thrive and, ultimately, lead the 19-year-old me to unconventional and exciting success.
This summer was by far the most formative in terms of my career mindset, and was a tremendous stepping stone for me. Without this internship, I never would have had the once-in-a-lifetime opportunities I did, or have made connections with individuals promising to help me in the future. I never would have rediscovered my dream.
Editor’s Note: This guest blogger was a 2014 Scripps College Internship Grant recipient. To learn more about the 2015 Internship Grant process, click here. Deadline Feb. 5.