IF YOU LOOKED AT MY BANK ACCOUNT IN 2012, YOU WOULD HAVE questioned my life choices. Six years after graduating from college, I was still pursuing a career in music. I was earning $38 a month from streaming royalties—certainly not enough to cover the rent for my Roscoe Village apartment.
I had started as a solo singer-songwriter before launching an indie folk-rock trio, Fort Frances, in 2010. We rode the highs — sold-out nights at Schubas felt like we were on the brink of hitting the big time — before bottoming out at the lows of indie rock obscurity: playing at 10 p.m. on a Tuesday in Columbia, Missouri, for four people. Touring was a game of working to break even, lugging massive gear down basement steps, cramming into a Quality Inn motel room, eating granola bars, getting sick, not going to the doctor because of poor health insurance, coming home — and convincing myself that I should do it all
