Today we’d like to introduce you to Greg Vance.
Greg, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
I’m a full-time touring drummer, session player, music educator and recent founder of Dreamscape Co-op, a communal space for artists to not only collaborate on songwriting, session jobs, and compositions, but to collaborate on media as, with other passionate local artistic entrepreneurs, who want to integrate more fully in the community.
I began my career as a self taught drummer, with a burning passion for music and percussion. I steadily worked to hone my craft through trial and error, DIY touring, as well as booking and promoting local and regional bands.
While I stayed very busy musically in Missouri, recording, touring and booking/promoting shows, I felt I needed to branch out and live in an area where musical opportunity didn’t require the near impossible task of consistently piecing together new projects to start from scratch, and trying to motivate those around me to reach for bigger picture opportunities.
There was also the issue in my local area of a lackluster percentage of people who could affordably produce drum videos for me, as Youtube and social media in general was starting to be the obvious trajectory for musical opportunities, and my job cooking in busy restaurants didn’t provide the funds to hire film companies.
After paying someone a lot of money to record my first drum video, I quickly learned I needed to acquire some basic equipment and learn the process myself for it to be sustainable. Viewing my drum centric Youtube channel,(www.youtube.com/drummergregvance) over the past 15 or so years, you’ll see varying degrees of attempts at getting better at producing higher quality content, but it’s definitely been a work in process!
In 2013, a drum video I posted to Youtube opened up the opportunity for me to join one of my favorite metal bands in Nashville, TN. I moved from my home-base in Springfield, MO to join Enfold Darkness in Nashville, TN. I knew moving to Music City, USA would grant me better opportunity to thrive, learn and grow as a musician.
While living in Nashville, I recorded and toured regularly with Enfold Darkness, and took on another musical project as a full time member: Oubliette, on the same record label, while also playing and filling in with others in the area, and doing some session gigs touring with various artists and bands. This gave me tons of time performing, so my experimentation with music related video production started to get faster and higher quality, by just putting in reps and staying motivated.
My friend Mike Low and I purchased and operated a music venue, recording studio and rehearsal space outside of Nashville called Autograph Studios. While operating Autograph, I got back to private teaching and focused heavily on increasing my chops in multiple genres ranging from bluegrass to funk, but also started getting great opportunities to record other artists and start feeling more confident in my abilities to offer it as an affordable service to folks who were in the place in life I was when I was in Missouri.
I wrote and recorded “Adversary Omnipotent” with Enfold Darkness and “The Passage” with Oubliette while living in Nashville, but also collaborated with countless artists and bands. As a direct result of putting in that work, I started getting great opportunities through my Instagram (www.instagram.com/drummergregvance) and Youtube channel while posting live drum videos while on tour, including the opportunity to do my first ever European tour with another metal band. Seeing wins from my hard work, just encouraged me to stay on top of it and continue improving. As Mike and I’s plates “runneth over” we ended up selling Autograph, before the Covid 19 pandemic. (Weird luck, or something)
After 11 years in Music City, I joined Syr, a Celtic Folk Rock band based out of Columbia, SC that my wife was already playing bass guitar in. We were commuting so often for the busy Syr touring schedule, my wife Kelly and I decided to make the move to the Columbia area to focus on that project, and for her to bring her amazing skills as a professional luthier back to the area, because she actually grew up here!
I would be remiss if I didn’t take this opportunity to brag on my wife for a minute! Kelly is an incredibly talented luthier. If you’re not familiar with what that is, it’s someone that can make guitars (and other stringed instruments) but is considered an expert when it comes to repairs. While living in Nashville, she worked for Gibson guitars, producing some of the most well known guitars in the world, and later got the opportunity to take her skills over to Novo guitars (a well known artisanal custom guitar company.) She built and oversaw the production of such guitars played by Keith Urban, Corey Taylor, Martin Gore, Jeff Tweedy, Sophie Allison, and many many more.
Upon moving here, we opened Fine-Tuned Strings Repair shop together inside Star Music in downtown Columbia, but now she is located inside Dreamscape Co-op in Irmo! So we get to work in the same building together!
Upon moving here, I was able to acquired a teaching position at Freeway Music, a well known locally owned music school with 6 locations in the area. Teaching and working with other musicians in the area has given me a chance to put down some roots, and my goal when moving was to integrate and see where I could be useful.
After spending over a couple of years here, I noticed there are so many incredibly talented artists, musicians, producers and film people. There are a handful of well established studios in the area, I’ll specifically shout out Archer Avenue, The Jam Room, and Strawberry Fields (apologies for anyone I’m missing) but not a lot of opportunities for the lesser known, lesser budgeted up and comers to really get some hands on collaborative experience with other artists in the community.
I think providing a space like this gives me the opportunity to work professionally with other artists in the community who stay as busy as I do, but also opens the door for groups of talented, corporately over-worked artists the opportunity to provide value to the community, while working in tandem with like-minds they never have enough time to just “kick it” with, though the desire has been there for far too long.
The bottom line: why are local businesses hiring corporate ad firms to produce high quality content for their local businesses when there are countless incredibly passionate, dedicated local artists who would love nothing more than the opportunity to integrate more into the community and work with other fellow small businesses.
Local musicians, film visionaries, digital media gurus, photographers and more are awaiting a collaboration opportunity with YOU, at Dreamscape Co-op! Hey, and while you’re here, visit my amazing wife to get that guitar tuned up and ready for some action, because you now have friends who can show you what you can do with that pup and our whole community is founded on collaboration on ANY creative project.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
The road of an artist is never smooth, but I think we feed off of that. Particularly early on when moving to the area, I feel I’ve encountered a fair amount of apathy and gate-keeping from a small minorities of locals, who don’t quite understand what I’m trying to do here. But that doesn’t discourage me.
I understand many immediately assume the worst in people, and since I didn’t grow up in the area, I honestly don’t blame them for being hesitant to even attempt to understand what my collective truly is.
I had a few people ask me why I didn’t file as a charity, but it seems like a silly question because hair salons work in a similar way.I’m not looking to mask the fact that I want to make a living doing what I’ve worked for decades to learn, but what differs from my business model with a normal business, is that I don’t have employees.
I don’t charge the public astronomical rates, and re-allocate percentages to employees with no skin in the game.
Dreamscape Co-op as a collective operates as a switch board. There are certain things I’m very proficient in and am happy to do myself, and there are things I’m not. But I network constantly and have my ear to the ground in places many people are too busy to even notice.
The collective collaboration effort stems from bringing in other artistic entrepreneurs who are working to build their own business and put our skills together to produce higher quality content for a fraction of corporate pricing.
Our rates are more affordable because the people getting paid to do the work, are the actual people doing the work and treating each project as if their own name is at stake. I work with like-minded people who equally want to succeed by keeping our communities needs met on a local level.
I can’t imagine a better model for a stronger community, local economics and the feeling of contributing to place you call home.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about Dreamscape Co-op?
Dreamscape Co-op is an Irmo based studio space for local businesses and artists to work with the areas top community focused creative entrpreneurs.
Our physical space offers a full podcast studio, mixed media content recording studio, photography, and videography. We also book live music and entertainment and are always looking for community events to book incredible live musicians.
We produce ad content for local businesses at affordable rates and offer social media coaching, ad campaigns and community workshops and classes.
Visit our website to reach out!
www.dreamscapeco-op.com
Any big plans?
The plan is to continue to expand the physical creative collaboration space and serve the community enough to offer better opportunities for locals, so they don’t keep looking for greener pastures in other cities and feeling the need to move away from home to succeed.
We want to have our local creatives in one area, sharing work projects and providing each other opportunities to grow as a creative community, but also as entrepreneurs and small business owners.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.dreamscapeco-op.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dreamscape_co_op/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61580428937586
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@DreamscapeCo-Op
