Today we’d like to introduce you to Dacota Muckey.
Hi Dacota, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
I began playing music (somewhat professionally) at the age of 13. A couple of friends who were a few years older than me had a band that was gigging local venues and parties while they were freshmen in high school. They became in need of a bass player so I turned the volume down on a bass and pretended I knew what I was doing.
As the years went on, I began to find my voice as a writer and an instrumentalist. I met two brothers, Jake Huxford and Riley Huxford and we formed a three-piece jam band that would later be named The Trip.
We began writing, recording, and hitting the midwest festival circuit as hard as we could. We were young and wild and looking back on it now I realize how much fun all of that truly was. We were always camping, partying, and providing entertainment somewhere for friends to just get wild and have a good time.
As time went on, I realized I still hadn’t truly found my voice. I wanted to keep messing with the possibilities of sound; so I wrote a 6 song singer/songwriter EP in which 5/6 songs were only me either at piano or guitar. As far from jam band as I could get, as stripped away from the walls of sound I was used to leaning on; this new vulnerable reveal of my musicianship felt like an entirely new personality.
Behind the scenes from my on-stage life, I was always interested in business. I wanted to do any of the extra work I could do to truly understand all aspects of the music industry. I’ve been lucky in the sense that I don’t just learn music business to solely benefit my own career, I have an authentic curiosity and interest in it. This spurred a meeting with a promoter at local venue who referred me to another local agency and then finally sparked a brief internship for a company called Mad Diamond Entertainment.
I didn’t intern for this group for long and pretty soon they just took me as an artist on their agency booking corporate restaurant type shows that began to show me how music could pay the bills. The two brothers and owners of this business would become lifelong mentors and friends. Brett Wiscons has been booking shows for me ever since and Vince Wiscons gave me a financial jumpstart that I’ll always be grateful for.
Vince had heard that 6 song singer/songwriter EP entitled “Gypsy,” and decided to sign me to his independent record label, Captain Beardo Records. With some money to play around with and a post-teenage post drug abuse reckoning with myself, I began to write song after song that would soon become the 11-song album “This Is the Music That Heals Your Soul.” A bold title with songs of self-reflection, spirituality, and lessons I wouldn’t be so eager to take on myself.
Performing these new songs live with my original three-piece band…we decided to rename the group to “Dacota Muckey & The Trip,” to signify the merging of my solo albums with the jam band trio.
Between solo and full band shows, we began to perform across the country from Hawaii, California, Texas, Minnesota, Colorado, South Carolina, Florida, US Virgin Islands, and everywhere in between.
I realized we were becoming road warriors and I was tired of paying rent at places I never resided in so I went out and bought myself an RV that I still live into this day.
Fast forward to the year of 2022. Last year was the most successful touring year of our lives. We played major slots at a few medium-scale festivals. We played all over the country. Our Sugarshack Session on YouTube was bringing in all kinds of new listeners who were turning up at shows and festivals we were playing, but something still didn’t feel right.
We had a new drummer, John Donlon, as well as the addition of keys from Andy Greenwell and Sax from Curtis Williams. The only original members were myself and Jake Huxford. The songs began to feel stale, especially since most of the group didn’t have a hand in writing or recording on any of them.
We were essentially a brand new group playing songs from my old chapter of life. We needed something fresh. We had different perspectives on life now. We had different ideas on the kind of music we now enjoyed and wanted to play and we just wanted to stop while we were ahead an re-invent ourselves.
So now here we are: A summer that would typically consist of a hectic schedule of shows has reduced itself to weekly songwriting sessions, hours staring at a computer in each of our home studios, a backlog of voice memos, collaborations to get us out of our habits… time to restart, reinvent, begin again.
We don’t want to fall into old patterns of writing, singing, or performing. We don’t want to operate from a scarcity mentality. We’d rather choose 10 songs out of 100 to share with the world than just work with what we’ve got. This is why we’ve decided to pump the breaks, go inward, and not come out until we have something great to share.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
The music industry is smothered with alcohol and drug abuse. In the festival scene, the abuse is typically disguised as a pseudo-spiritual ritual but in my eyes, it’s often still drug abuse. I was certainly taken by that lifestyle for a while. I would indulge in drugs like cocaine, ketamine, molly, nitrous, and alcohol until ultimately four life-threatening seizures made me reckon with myself.
I’ve now managed to stay away from the harder substances and have had months of sobriety from alcohol (which I consider as hard a drug as any) though recently have fallen back into occasional nights out drinking. Sobriety is a journey and as one friend put it: a superpower. The sooner you can have control over what you put it in your body, the sooner you can move on to doing great things with your life. The two aren’t mutually exclusive though I know in my experience, one path was rapidly leading to either death or a life of mediocracy.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I am a musician/writer/performer/booking agent.
I’m most proud of the moments with those who have connected with my music. People telling me their stories off stage about what the music has done for them. ‘Proud’ feels like a dirty word when it comes to this experience though, because in the end, artists don’t control how their work is received or interpreted.
Alright so before we go can you talk to us a bit about how people can work with you, collaborate with you or support you?
Find me on Spotify, YouTube, or anywhere there is music. Just search my name and you’ll find me 🙂
Contact Info:
- Website: www.dacotamuckey.com
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/dacotamuckey
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/dacotamuckeymusic
- Twitter: www.twitter.com/dacotamuckey
- Youtube: www.youtube.com/mrdacota
- Other: https://open.spotify.com/artist/42NRRzNA8uQDxzYEl2hDlo?si=d-FgOjmOR7WyBugPEIBozw
