Rising Stars: Meet Barb Carbon of Atlanta

Today we’d like to introduce you to Barb Carbon.

Hi Barb, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
At 45, I’m in the middle of a major career transition that I didn’t anticipate or want, but I’m swiftly coming to the realization that the universe is ushering me into a new season that already feels more genuine, liberating, and grounded. I started playing guitar in my teens, inspired by my two older brothers who both played a bit. As a true 90’s kid, I grew up in the age of grunge and alternative. I was enamored of all the usual suspects: Nirvana, Smashing Pumpkins, Stone Temple Pilots, Alanis Morrisette, Fiona Apple. But in high school, I discovered the Indigo Girls, and it changed my world. I learned as many of their songs as I could manage with my rudimentary guitar skills. In college, their music helped me to embrace my own sexuality, and their activism laid the groundwork for my personal ethic. When I dropped out of college in 2000, I traveled to see some of their live shows and ended up living south of Seattle with Brandi Carlile. She hadn’t been discovered yet. We would play little bar shows around the Pacific Northwest. At home, we would spend our days writing in separate rooms and then come together in the evening to share what we had come up with. I fell in love with music and the process of writing songs. When I left the Seattle area to head back East, I followed the Indigo Girls on tour like people used to follow the Grateful Dead. I saw 22 shows in 2 months and survived by playing street guitar and selling handmade hemp jewelry in the parking lots outside the venues. When my car broke down in Atlanta at the very end of the tour, I took it as a sign that I should stay – especially since I didn’t have the money for repairs. I played street guitar in Little 5 Points and slept in my broken-down car until I had enough money to rent a room in Kirkwood. That was how this became my home. I’ve moved around a bit, but I’ve spent most of the last 25 years in Atlanta. I kept writing and performing music, at first as a hobby and a side hustle, but then around 2014 things started to get more serious. The band that I founded with Arrie Bozeman, The Aint Sisters, started to enjoy some local popularity, and by 2018 we were considered to be an exciting up and coming regional act. We found ourselves on bigger and bigger stages playing alongside other bands and artists that we could hardly fathom playing with. When we walked out onto the Meadow Stage at Suwannee Hulaween in Live Oak, Florida, opening for String Cheese Incident and Bob Weir of the Grateful Dead, we knew that we had cultivated something special. Despite having magical musical chemistry, Arrie and I had consistently struggled with interpersonal challenges and deep, often irreconcilable, differences of opinion about business and ethical matters. Over the year and a half following that Hulaween appearance, the stresses and mounting pressure that came with success began to exacerbate those existing issues and drive us further apart. This past spring, as we toured extensively along the East coast, the constant exposure and inability to neutralize the growing tensions finally severed us permanently and The Aint Sister chapter of my life has come to a close. Despite the heartbreak of having to let go of a dream that held tremendous potential, I have been able to shift my perspective and see this not as a tragic ending, but as a beautiful new beginning. The Aints had begun as an acoustic folk duo, but had matured into a full rock band. We were loud and exciting. We put on show. Sometimes there were lasers. Occasionally, a mosh pit broke out. That was a lot of fun, but it was a serious detour for this singer-songwriter, Indigo Girls loving troubadour. Don’t get me wrong, I love to rock, but I also love to sing a ballad that quiets the audience to a whisper and gives people goose bumps. We had a bit of that in the Aints, but it was secondary to the howling guitars and booty shaking grooves. I’m a songwriter. The most incredible part of the musical experience for me is building a deep, authentic connection with the audience and feeling that energetic exchange. I’ll miss jumping off drum risers and screaming punk anthems, and maybe someday I’ll do those things again, on my own terms. But for now, this shift has reminded me of who I am and what really matters to me, and I am nervously excited to share this next chapter with the world.

We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
I jumped the gun in that last answer, so I think I covered this already, but I can expound a bit. No, it has not been smooth or easy. As I mentioned, there were quite a lot of interpersonal conflicts and challenging dynamics in my last project, but I’ve also had to struggle with my own internal challenges. As a kid, I was a star athlete and a solid student. Most things I tried came fairly easy to me. Not music. The guitar was a mystery. I didn’t understand the patterns on the fret board. Scales made no sense to me. My long, awkward fingers struggled to make chord shapes. Then there was the singing. When I first started trying to sing, my dad used to “jokingly” yell up to my room that it sounded like I was killing cats. It took me a long time to get to a place where I could even hold a tune. I finally got the hang of singing melodies, but to this day I still struggle to sing harmonies. My skill was my songwriting. I was more of a poet who played guitar as a function of delivering my lyrics. This was fine as long as I was mostly playing solo, but as I branched out and started playing in bands and sitting in jam sessions, I found myself lost and feeling extremely insecure. I couldn’t keep up. A lot of the struggles that Arrie and I faced in the Aint Sisters stemmed from a combination of her perfectionism and impatience combined with my lack of skill and insecurities. She was on a different level musically, one that I may never reach, and scrambling to catch up with her and the other musicians we played with left me with a broken sense of self-worth and no time to do the thing that I do best – write songs. Although it was hard and, quite honestly, painful, I’m grateful for all of those years of being pushed far beyond my comfort zone musically. I am undoubtedly a better guitar player and singer because of it, and even my songwriting has improved as a result of having more chords in my arsenal and having a better sense of building arrangements and dynamics. Part of me is still angry and sad about the way things ended up, but I think that’s just part of the grieving process. On a higher level of understanding, I believe that all experiences are learning experiences and sometimes the most challenging ones are the ones that offer the most potential for growth.

Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
I’m a writer. Yes, I’m a musician and a performer, as well, but at my core, I’m a writer. The written word has always felt like the most fertile ground to sow connection, understanding, and wisdom. When you give me access to the words that you write when you’re sitting alone in your truth, you give me a direct line to your heart, to your struggles, to your soul. When I write a song or a poem or an essay that paints a raw picture of my experience, and when I play that song for someone who has been through something similar, it’s like a beam of pure energy lights up between our hearts, connecting us through that shared experience. That’s what I felt, as a kid, listening to the Indigo Girls for the first time. As a highly emotional teen coming to terms with being gay, it was lifechanging to hear these amazing women singing songs that alluded to their own struggles with sexuality and emotion. Their music made me feel less alone. As a writer, it has always been my aim to pay that kindness forward by baring my soul and sharing my experiences so that others might feel less alone.

Do you have any advice for those just starting out?
I can’t imagine being a young person right now. The world, and everything in it, is just coming at you constantly from every angle and there’s so much pressure to “be somebody” or do something “extraordinary.” We live in an era where our attention is a commodity, and our empathy and passion are used to leverage that commodity. Most adults I know struggle to navigate modernity without being crushed by depression or overwhelm. It must be absolutely brutal when you mix in teenage hormones, middle school bullies, and the looming possibility that humanity might not survive the next few generations. My advice to young people, whether they are pursuing music or anything else, is to seek boredom and stillness. Go sit in the woods by a creek and listen to sounds of nature. Lie in a meadow and watch clouds pass by. Meditate. Take walks without headphones or earbuds. Be alone with your thoughts. If attention is one of the most prized commodities, don’t give it away. Be mindful of where you allow your attention to flow. And when I say, “seek boredom,” I mean true boredom. Let yourself kick at the gravel in the driveway or stare off into space. Don’t fill every empty moment with screens or sounds, not even music. Let empty moments be empty, because that is where creativity thrives. Do nothing and let everything come to you.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://barbcarbon.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/barbcarbon/
• Facebook: https://facebook.com/barbcarbonmusic
• Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/barb-moose-carbon
• Other: https://www.patreon.com/barbcarbon