Pursuing Passion: From Tech to Music with Rick Molloy

TEASER CLIP

PODCAST INTRODUCTION

BECKY BOYLAND: Welcome to Second Verse, the podcast where we dive into the stories of indie artists finding their second act in music after life took them down a different path. I'm Becky Boyland, singer songwriter, StoryBrand certified brand messaging expert and web developer. Like many of my guests, music has always been part of my life, but has long been telling me it wanted to be more in the forefront.

Now, I'm passionate about helping other artists step into their own spotlight, whether that means crafting their message or simply finding the courage to pursue what they love. If you've ever felt the pull to return to your creative passion, or if you're simply fascinated by the journeys of artists who took the scenic route to their music careers, you're in the right place.

This podcast is about resilience, reinvention, and the joy of pursuing your art. Art at any stage in life.

GUEST INTRODUCTION: RICK MOLLOY

His journey is proof that it's never too late to do what you love. In this episode, we talk about navigating the business side of music, the power of collaboration, and what it really takes to turn a creative passion into a sustainable career. So grab a hot beverage, settle in, and let's dive into Rick's second verse.

Thank you for being on Second Verse.

RICK MOLLOY: Oh, I'm so happy to be here. Becky, it's so great to talk to you again,

BECKY BOYLAND: and you have such a cool story and so many interests that I either share or wish that I could do. So I think it's gonna be so much fun to talk.

RICK'S JOURNEY FROM TECH TO MUSIC

BECKY BOYLAND: But let's start with what inspired you to get into music, or what's your music origin story?

RICK MOLLOY: Well, my origin sort starts out, not so happy. I dropped out of college a very long time ago, I'm not sure I should say how long ago. Dropped outta college and I moved to Seattle back when Seattle had a music scene and that didn't go well at all. So I went back to college, got a real job, worked in tech for 20 years, 20 ish years, and eventually.

And I haven't went back to tech at least, or a traditional job since, and I have never been happier in my life.

BECKY BOYLAND: That is so amazing. And I think there was that mass exodus at that time of, of people getting out of the workforce for many different reasons. But I think there's no more inspiring reason than doing that gut check, do I really wanna be doing this anymore?

And I'm sure a lot of people. That are listening are saying, man, that sounds like a lot of fun.

CHALLENGES AND REALITIES OF PURSUING MUSIC

BECKY BOYLAND: And I'm sure that it was smooth sailing the entire time, right?

RICK MOLLOY: It, it was smooth sailing for a lot of it. It's actually only gotten real in the last year and a half. The economy hasn't been doing as well in the states as I started looking.

Closely at what was going on. I had to up my commitment to doing the things that I'm doing as a business and not just for fun, like, oh, it's a token business, right? I'm gonna go on trips and uh, do music stuff. But now I'm actually trying to provide legitimate things and actually receive money that was paying my mortgage, my bills, my health insurance, all the things that we need as adults to survive.

And so it's definitely not all smooth sailing. But it's still very exciting

BECKY BOYLAND: and it's so often that anybody who's in music doesn't realize they're also in business, that they want to make it as an artist or in any level of business. But I think we should talk about all these wonderful aspects that you have in the music business.

So break that down a little bit for us, or actually, you could even start with what you were doing in tech for those 20 years and how you took a turn and came back into all these different aspects of music.

RICK MOLLOY: That's really interesting because I worked at a large corporation in Redmond, Washington for about 13 or 14 years.

Then I joined a startup, which became successful. I did that for another 10 years, and then we got acquired by another large technical corporation based in San Francisco. During that time, I did all sorts of roles. I've been a developer, I've been a program manager, I've been a manager. I've been a technical lead.

I think the thing that was most, empowering to me that I felt the most successful and the most satisfaction was working with teams of people trying to solve hard, gnarly problems. And finding ways to do things that either hadn't been done before or that people had traditionally said was hard or impossible.

Right? And so a lot of this is done through getting a bunch of really smart people that are working really hard. Never forget that part. But in addition to that, just having the optimism and the hope and the confidence that you're gonna go out there and keep trying, even if everything isn't successful.

Every single day, you're just gonna keep trying until it is right and then pivoting towards what makes sense. That's true in music, like we show up every day, try and be kind to folks. Work hard, be smart, be optimistic, and try to have fun as long as you're paying attention and mostly doing the right things and being conscious.

Opportunities are around if you choose to see them and take them. One of the big keys is showing up, being consistent and being aware. Even if you start out good, you don't stay good and there's always people better than you, but you have to be willing to work on it and just do a little bit better, and when the world knocks you down, you just get back up and keep going, right?

BECKY BOYLAND: Whether you have to do it in a corporate setting, any kind of business setting, even when you're writing and playing and performing, you wanna be with people that are great to hang out with.

RICK MOLLOY: The, the people are what makes it worth it.

THE IMPORTANCE OF COMMUNITY

RICK MOLLOY: And I think that was one of the things I missed most when I left the corporate environment.

I lost my social network. I had all of these friends, or at least associates that I spent 40 to 60 hours a week with. All of a sudden I'm by myself in my music studio or with my partner. We're still having. A wonderful time, right? I'm working on music, doing guitars, and then we do a lot of travel, and that is very, very exciting and interesting, but it doesn't have the same sort of social stimulation as working with a bunch of incredible people.

And I think as I really started thinking about how do I make sure that the things that I love doing are what my business is? As opposed to finding ways to love the things that I do, which is also important.

BECKY BOYLAND: Yes.

RICK MOLLOY: What I want to be doing is the things that I love in a way that is honorable, that makes sense, that people are willing to compensate me for those things that feels good to everybody, right?

And from that sort of the community and the social piece was one of the big things that was missing for me. So I worked hard to kind of incorporate that into the things I'm trying to do.

BECKY BOYLAND: That is such a great point that I wouldn't have thought about.

BALANCING ART AND BUSINESS

BECKY BOYLAND: When we dream about doing music on the side, the idea of being alone with your hobby in your studio is just so great until you then elevate that, push it to the forefront and you realize that there is a trade off in doing this.

It's not something that everybody aspires to do because it would be worth, they'd have to figure out and learn to like, whereas. Because it's our passion to love this music. Mm-hmm. That doesn't take away the work. It just makes the work a little bit different. But I think that's such a great reminder that we do have to build all that community because it's sort of forced upon us in other business roles.

Yeah. For better or for worse, and that can be an amazing thing, but it's coming back around into our quiet little studios and not having anybody around us that's only going to work out for so long. I think we find that so many other artists, as we start to build those communities, feel the exact same way.

Where are all my people? Where are all the people that are gonna understand what I'm about and what I love? Once those connections are made, just amazing.

RICK MOLLOY: Yeah, it's really an interesting. Thing, one of the anecdotes from work that I kind of centered myself on. Right? So I did very technical stuff at Microsoft.

I was on the parallel computing team. I was on the VR team or the AR team, HoloLens. This was 14 years ago, right? The thing that just got released from Apple, you know, last year it is now. Uh, in the process of being cut, I've been doing very, very technical things. We had very technical examples and one of them was like, well, what's the best way?

To build rockets. What are you gonna do to build rockets? There's lots of answers, but the really simple one is you get a bunch of rocket scientists around and you lock them in a garage with a bunch of cool stuff, and they're just gonna build rockets because that's what they do, right? You make it so that there's nothing to do but succeed.

As long as you're showing up and doing the thing that you do, it's success. That's part of what I do. Not just making, writing, producing, and performing music, but the more practical sides of my business. That's actually part of the thing that inspired me to try to proactively create places where people don't just, I have a guitar shop.

Where I make custom guitars and I repair guitars, I set up guitars, but I also teach workshops, right? And so as I got into teaching the workshops, the whole point was like, well, people can pay me for two hours of labor to set up their guitar, or we can do it together. It's my time. It's the same amount of time, so it doesn't cost more right for them.

And I get a hangout for two hours with someone who's interested in guitars, and they get to learn really practical, valuable skills. Right. It's kind of a win, win-win situation in that, right?

BECKY BOYLAND: Absolutely.

RICK MOLLOY: And that's kind of the, the music studio is the same way, right? Of course I will record bands and that kind of thing, but also I'm working on having community days where we just invite folks together and we make music that everybody likes and it's not about anything other than trying to make good music in a day.

BECKY BOYLAND: And that's phenomenal. And I think that is so visionary of being able to build community around all of these different facets of what you're doing. Everybody just walks away happy.

I can't imagine that they couldn't. So you're basically locking musical rocket scientists in a room and seeing what happens.

RICK MOLLOY: I read this book called The Go-Giver, and it's not that The Go-Giver inspired me to do this. I was already kind of doing it and it clarified what I was doing.

BECKY BOYLAND: That's absolutely awesome.

RICK MOLLOY: I've been trying to focus on this idea of I wanna be able to give more than I take. Right?

BECKY BOYLAND: Yeah.

RICK MOLLOY: I live in the Seattle metropolitan area. This isn't a cheap place to live, even though I try to live in a not expensive part of it. That just means I need to give more to make it worthwhile to folks.

BECKY BOYLAND: I love that. I love that so much.

And now I have to get that book because it's been open in a tab in my browser for several weeks now.

RICK MOLLOY: You should. It's a wonderful story, right? It's a great parable, and I think there's a lot of truth to it.

ENCOURAGEMENT FOR ASPIRING MUSICIANS

RICK MOLLOY: After I went back to college and started working in the tech scene, I was still trying to do music at that time.

I just had to stop at some point because I had a career, I had a family, I had ki, I had little kids, I had a family. I had a house that, you know, we couldn't quite afford, even though it wasn't very expensive. And music was just the last thing, right? It was only taking every time I spent time doing that stuff, there were other things in my life that needed time for me.

It was always at the expense of things. The places where I was able to give were at work. Do you have the things you're responsible for? But I think very few people realize that one of the best ways that you can see succeed in a corporate environment is by empowering other people to do better. In addition to doing your own stuff, right?

But if you can manage to do your own things, but still find times in ways that make sense to you and make sense to other people, to give sort of freely of your knowledge, of your skills so that other people can be more successful, that is the power of teams in the community.

BECKY BOYLAND: Yeah. It's a big difference between passing the buck...

RICK MOLLOY: Yeah.

BECKY BOYLAND: And rather building into people. And, and holding your own weight in the process.

RICK MOLLOY: Yeah. You absolutely still have to do your own stuff, but to the extent that you can, everybody can be working at their strength, all using their superpowers, and the superpowers are collaborative. You end up with super teams, right.

And it, and it's much better than say people competing for each other or you know, people doing the things that are hard for them so that they get better at it. Right?

BECKY BOYLAND: Yeah.

And I imagine that when you have artists in these types of corporations, you do have that more collaborative type of experience because that's just how we roll usually.

RICK MOLLOY: Yeah, absolutely. In tech, there are so many artists, not just music, but. People actively doing beautiful, wonderful, creative things that are truly amazing, right?

BECKY BOYLAND: Yeah.

RICK MOLLOY: The, the skill level of these people that aren't doing this full-time, right? They're doing it because they love it and they are just gifted at it, you know, whatever it is.

Whether that's painting or drawing or music, or. Performing Right. Or talking, you know, whatever it is. Right. You know, we would, I'm, I'm sure, because you were in tech too, right?

BECKY BOYLAND: Yes. I've done web development for 20 plus years now, and I do often run into other, other people that do that, that also are, you know, they've also got guitars in the other room.

I actually worked with a young guy who was a standup comic who was starting to get some prominence locally, and so it's very interesting. And at the time I didn't think a whole lot about it, but over the years I've realized that this is a very common combo. We love to work our brains out and then have something tangible, even though music and art.

Are not always entirely tangible. There's this product, this thing, and it feels so good. But it is interesting that that's the attraction. There are so many people that have those two sides that feel very different, but apparently they go together well.

RICK MOLLOY: You know, I hadn't thought about that as being like the art is the tangible side, right.

Of the tech stuff, but, but so much of the tech stuff is truly completely in our head and never leaves. The screen, or even in on my case as a developer, it never leaves basically a text document. Imagine writing weird English and math all day every day, and the only thing you get to touch is your keyboard and your mouse, but that's what it's like.

Right? I go back and I think to some of the people that we did some of the most amazing things. There was this time when I was at Tableau where we were in the middle of. Moving our app from a Windows app to a cross platform app. So we would work on Mac and work on Linux and you know, not just Windows.

And I was the tech lead for sort of the bottom half of the stack. So all the crunchy bits that you can't see and touch. And then this wonderful guy, Ian, was the tech lead for the top half of the stack. So all the UI, that kind of stuff. And Ian made these absolutely amazing Lego sculptures. Like the size of my music desk.

BECKY BOYLAND: Oh wow.

RICK MOLLOY: And you know, the little things were nice too, but like, just amazing. And so he basically, he retired, you know, 'cause he had been there a lot, much longer than I am. He retired much sooner than I did and is still retired. He's trying to work, but he does art and he's a standup comic now.

BECKY BOYLAND: That's awesome.

RICK MOLLOY: Right.

BECKY BOYLAND: Speaking of, this was my most recent Lego kit. I discovered it recently, or it was recommended to me as something to unwind. I realized how great it was because I have always loved putting things together, whether it was doing some kind of carpentry, which you can talk to.

RICK MOLLOY: Mm-hmm.

BECKY BOYLAND: But, I, I can see that. I can understand why that seems to be the case. Part of it too is we just can't shut off the creativity and all of, in some ways that underlying math that goes along with it, all these little things just scratch all those itches in our brain. And it totally makes sense to me that all of those things sort of go together.

And I've spent a lot of years working with people in non-measurable situations. Yeah. And I think that's where music and web development were so helpful because they did give me something that I could look at, point to a product, a finished thing that I could put a number on, I could put a metric to.

RICK MOLLOY: No, for sure.

I never did. Like I always stayed away from the. Art side of art, if you know what I mean.

BECKY BOYLAND: Yeah.

RICK MOLLOY: Right. Partially because just a few of my best friends, it's not like I was skilled, right? We would joke about developer art, which was glorified stick figures. I was well beyond stick figures, but I had friends that were truly exceptionally gifted.

One of my best friends, Garrett, he was in one of the first bands I was in, and his father has coffee table watercolor books. He grew up. Doing a fine, beautiful art. That's what the family does. You sit around and you make oil paintings or ings with markers instead of, they look like art every single time.

BECKY BOYLAND: It's a very different type of coloring book than what I grew up with.

RICK MOLLOY: Yeah, it's so it's, but that's sort of like objective, like, well, there's pretty good, and then there's like, this is world class exceptional art. Right. That really brought me early on to, well, okay, so that isn't something I can do. I mean, I could, in retrospect, now that I am my age now, I'm like, well, if you just keep practicing at it, you just had 15 more years on it than I did.

If you're committed to it and you keep practicing, you actually get better. Some people start out different and some are clearly gifted, but if you don't keep working on that gift, if you don't practice it and work at it, it doesn't stay there. Derek of course did keep doing that and he's still an amazing artist.

He was doing set set design for the Portland Opera a few years ago. He's been the lead designer for back when we had print magazines.

BECKY BOYLAND: Back in the day.

RICK MOLLOY: And they actually made money.

BECKY BOYLAND: But you know, I think what's really challenging for so many people when they are thinking about, oh, can I get into music later on in life? And they just have been told forever that, no, it's too late once you get past a certain point. But that realization that you had that, well, he's just had more experience.

If I keep working at it, I can do this. And that is really the freeing moment when many of us get to that point where, well, what if I just start now? Then I've got all this time ahead of me. I can still do this thing so it's not too late. I always love those lists of people you've known, well known in. Any creative industry and you feel like they've been doing it forever, but they didn't really start until they were like 40 or right, 60 or 80.

And that is so encouraging to me and it's really ideal to just dive in and do it, because if you don't start it now, then a year from now you're gonna say, well gee, I wish I had started that. And so all those moments are, are lost, but why not now?

SPONSOR: ATTITUDE CREATIVITY

BECKY BOYLAND: We'll be back with more after the break.

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BACK TO THE INTERVIEW

RICK MOLLOY: Yeah. You know, I talk to people because I have a, a guitar shop, right? I talk to guitar players when they bring in their guitars, they get set up and, um, a lot of them, they're adults, right? These aren't little, these aren't kids that are bringing their guitars. Occasionally a parent will bring in a guitar for a kid, but by and large, I would say 90% of my customers that are actually having their guitars set up, repaired, or worked on are middle-aged adults, these are the people that can afford to buy a guitar and then spend another $150 to have it perform better.

BECKY BOYLAND: Right?

RICK MOLLOY: Many of them have started playing in the last three or four years. One of the things that I'm able to do is encourage them, right? Everybody has sort of the doubts and fears, and these are all people that have already like made that transition into, well, I'm gonna do something about it, not just, yes, sitting on the fence, and they still have those fears.

Every week, I'm telling people, look, I don't care how good you are. What matters is that you feel good when you do it, that you enjoy listening to yourself, that you are coming at it with a positive attitude and that you are making the progress that you want to make. Right? What matters is that you feel like it's worth it because if it doesn't feel like it's worth it to you, you, you either need to figure out what it takes to make it worth it, or you should do something else.

It's supposed to be fun.

BECKY BOYLAND: Exactly.

RICK MOLLOY: People get so self-conscious about it. We all are as musicians, right? I can hear the mistakes in my own stuff, so, well, it doesn't matter whether I'm looking at a, at a mistake I've made in a guitar that I'm making or a mistake in a piece of music that I'm making or that I've already released that I can't change anymore.

You know what I'm talking about, right?

BECKY BOYLAND: So when it's permanent and you think, oh, I wish I could have that little bit back.

RICK MOLLOY: The reality is that that's actually how we get better, right? Until we can hear those mistakes, we can't move past 'em. The things that are complete will always be below our current skill level.

BECKY BOYLAND: Right? Yeah. That's such a great point.

RICK MOLLOY: Otherwise... Right? Like the things that are complete will almost always be below our current skill level, because hopefully we're growing, right?

BECKY BOYLAND: Yeah.

RICK MOLLOY: Even in the things we're doing, we are working on those things that we can. See and hear and feel that are not perfect, but that doesn't mean that everybody can see them or hear them or care about them.

The mistakes that I see in my stuff, other people don't notice them as much because they're not as tuned into it. It's especially true when non-musicians listen to musicians perform. They just go with the feelings. They don't care that we're slightly off pitch. It has to be really bad for it to be noticeable.

BECKY BOYLAND: Right. And I think it is not only a marker of our skill to be able to hear that, but there's a growth and a maturity about it. For many years that would just crush me. That, that mistake that I made in a, in a live performance, I would dwell on that and be worried about it. At this point in my life, I can say, yes, I've done that better, and I call it what it is, but it doesn't ruin my day.

It's just, okay, next time around I know I'm gonna do this differently. That in itself is a liberating feeling that I can have that growth in both ways. As a musician and just as a maturing person.

RICK MOLLOY: It's, I had a customer that approached me. I'm not gonna mention any names because that's not what the mistakes are about, right?

He had just received this custom guitar that he had purchased from someone besides me. I. He reached out to me because it wasn't up to snuff. He wasn't able to play it due to some things going on with the physical stuff on the guitar, and I'm like, well, send me some pictures right over text because not everybody can come to my shop right away and I'll see what I can do about it.

My first reaction was, oh my gosh, what a beautiful guitar.

BECKY BOYLAND: Wow.

RICK MOLLOY: The customer's reaching out because there's some flaws with this thing and they're bad enough that it's actually problematic. But the first reaction was, wow, what a beautiful guitar. I can see why you want to be able to get this playing the way that you want it to be.

Yeah. That's, you know, and that's the thing, right, is that's what people's reactions are to art. When people makes it usually is they appreciate it.

BECKY BOYLAND: Yeah.

RICK MOLLOY: They don't say, oh my God, what the heck is wrong with that? They say, that is so cool. We, we just all need to remember that, right? When we're, when we're anxious about it.

BECKY BOYLAND: It's what we're trying to get across.

GUITAR CRAFTSMANSHIP AND EXPERIMENTATION

BECKY BOYLAND: Since you have the, the tangible physical art of the instruments and then you have the music that you write, are there certain themes and feelings that you gravitate to, that you want your audience and customers to really experience?

RICK MOLLOY: So, for the physical stuff, when I'm building guitars or working on guitars, my whole goal is to make the guitar sound.

As good as it possibly can. This primarily applies to instruments that I'm making or if I'm like replacing stuff on it, right? But that's really the first priority is the sound, because it's a musical instrument, right? The next priority to me is all about, it's gotta be really nice to play. So when you touch it.

Nothing's in the way. You're not fighting against it. It's making it easier for you to do the thing you wanna do, whatever that is. Whether you're a punk rocker playing in your single pickup, you know, Les Ball Jr. Or or a finger style guitarist that really wants these, you know, well, the kind of music that you make when on that you enjoy in your carbon fiber guitars, right?

BECKY BOYLAND: Right.

RICK MOLLOY: Where they just have this real purity of tone. Right. But nothing should be in the way of that. It should only encourage that. After that, I go look at re reliability, and then finally I go look at like aesthetics. But I'm not ever gonna let aesthetics compromise that other stuff because for me it's all about the music.

I. There's other people that will, that will do, do things differently, right? Like I, oh, a couple of weeks ago I have this baby Taylor, which you saw it, right?

BECKY BOYLAND: Yes. And, uh, the infamous Baby Taylor.

RICK MOLLOY: And for people that know partscaster electric guitars, you just take 'em apart like Legos and put 'em back together, right?

Well, I kind of realized that this Baby Taylor was a little bit like that, so I've been taking it apart and rebuilding it repeatedly. It's on its fourth top right now. You saw the second one when we were in, uh, Scotland together. The second one wasn't one of the big wins. It wasn't awful.

BECKY BOYLAND: It, it was the quick and dirty.

I think it was really apropos.

RICK MOLLOY: Well, the thing about it is it's still quick and dirty, right? I can spend four hours and rebuild the top on that guitar because that lets me experiment without actually having to build a whole guitar. In general, everything's exactly the same on it except one thing. So I can experiment in ways that are freeing, right?

I don't have to worry about, oh my God, it's this guitar that's taking me 150 hours. I better not deviate.

BECKY BOYLAND: Yeah, that's so clever. That's such a great use of something where you can really dial in just that one variable.

RICK MOLLOY: And I got top number three was, was amazing, except it kind of broke the, and it lasted for about a day before I broke it.

Oh. Because was too thin. I was talking to another Luther year and we were talking about how light and robust to make him right. Eddie said that his mentor sometimes made things. Irresponsibly thin. I think this one was worse than that. Basically, I was sitting down playing it and kind of dropped into my lap and I caught it with my elbow and it put a hole through the top.

BECKY BOYLAND: Oh my goodness, I love that line. It was irresponsibly thin.

RICK MOLLOY: Irresponsibly thin, which you know is best said with a British accent too. Top number four is better than the top we had in Scotland, but it's not quite as nice as the one I had last week that one had. The kind of harmonics and purity that, that you hear in the carbon fiber guitars.

That's amazing. It really was like that. And it was made with a $10 guitar top. Right. That's the other thing about these experiments is, you know, it's, it is cheaper than a run to Starbucks.

Because you know that if you get something besides a drink, it's more than ten bucks.

BECKY BOYLAND: I, I resemble that remark.

RICK MOLLOY: Yeah. My Starbucks run is about $14.

BECKY BOYLAND: Guilty. Guilty.

RICK MOLLOY: So that's freeing. Because it's like Legos. You just take it apart and put it together. If it doesn't work out, you do something else. It's not for sale.

I don't need it to be, the thing I'm practicing isn't getting my Myer corners on pieces of wood that are one millimeter thick. Exactly. Right. So that when you look at 'em under a microscope or a 10 X iPhone camera, you can't see that they're off.

BECKY BOYLAND: Right.

RICK MOLLOY: Which is a thing.

BECKY BOYLAND: I, yeah, I can imagine. And when you were talking about.

The aesthetics being in their right position. That's so different because as an early guitar player, and then sometimes too, this will still, you know, get me that. But it's gotta be pretty, and and that's true. It does need to be pretty, but there are so many pretty guitars. Made at a very inexpensive level that are gonna be so unplayable and difficult for somebody who wants to learn to play.

And they think that guitar's too hard. Unfortunately, that guitar's too hard.

RICK MOLLOY: No, that

BECKY BOYLAND: it's, it's not that all guitar or learning to play guitar is hard if the guitar is properly made and with all of that care so that it isn't fighting with you, like you said.

RICK MOLLOY: Well, even nice guitars need to be set up and the reasons for that are very practical.

Having a guitar business is not about making it easier for players to play guitar, unfortunately, almost all of them are about making money, and if they aren't about making money, then they're a hobby.

BECKY BOYLAND: Right, right.

RICK MOLLOY: Or there's something else. Right. But the reality is, I was talking about the baby Taylors, because that's just a really nice example.

So the first thing is that for the amount of money that you spend, they're fricking great guitars, right? Especially if you compare 'em to the kinds of guitars we had for the equivalent dollars back when the eighties or the nineties.

BECKY BOYLAND: Absolutely.

RICK MOLLOY: They sound pretty good. They're relatively playable and very consistent, but the reality is they make seven or 800 of them a week, and the margins are so thin.

If one guitar gets returned, it removes the profit of multiple guitars. And so when you have that sort of cost equation where if. Some kid steps on a guitar and returns it to Guitar Center, and a guitar center says it's the fault of the guitar. They return it to Taylor and Guitar Center doesn't lose money.

Taylor loses money. Right?

BECKY BOYLAND: Right.

RICK MOLLOY: And so they build those things so that when the little kids step on them, they don't break because they can't afford to lose money. They make the best guitar they can while still making sure they're structural. It's the same thing with a setup, right? If one in 10 guitars gets shipped halfway around the world, across the country, and all of a sudden it starts buzzing because there was some weird humidity event in the FedEx truck, as it you know, drove through Alabama or Texas, that's gonna take away the profit of multiple guitars.

They will set the action too high so that they won't buzz. The downside of that is even nice custom guitars. Harder to play. When you go through and you reduce the height between the string and the fretboard, by half, they're half as hard to play.

BECKY BOYLAND: Yup.

RICK MOLLOY: You can typically do that even for nice $3,000, $4,000, Taylor Guitars or Martins, right. These are nice instruments. They're very, very good. We're not talking about like custom boutique stuff. We're talking about you go into store and you spend a bunch of money on a guitar. That is nice. I think that's one of the cool things about the carbon fiber guitars is they don't move, so they probably are better set up because they're made outta carbon fiber.

The current Baby Taylor, by the way, has lots of carbon fiber on its top.

BECKY BOYLAND: Does it really? Very interesting.

RICK MOLLOY: Even though it looks like it's all wood. Yeah, all of the bracing I made like little tiny I-beams with carbon fiber on the top and the bottom.

BECKY BOYLAND: That's awesome. My primary carbon fiber that I play, if I don't bump a tuning gear, I don't have to tune that thing for weeks.

RICK MOLLOY: Right. Yeah, it's awesome. That's all the, it's a wonderful, wonderful thing. So,

BECKY BOYLAND: Yeah, it's so impressive. I always just like the nerdiness of it being something very unique and different, but it's turned out to be not only incredibly practical, but sonically, it's amazing and yeah, I'm a believer in that. And not to say that I don't love my guitars made out of traditional woods because I have many of those as well.

RICK MOLLOY: I have more, but that's okay.

BECKY BOYLAND: You probably do.

RICK MOLLOY: So you could use me as long as I don't have as many as Rick, I don't have too many.

BECKY BOYLAND: It makes me feel better.

RICK MOLLOY: Good. Good. The whole point is to feel better, right? Because about what you're doing.

EMOTIONAL CONNECTION IN MUSIC

BECKY BOYLAND: So with your music, do you have certain things that you gravitate to theme wise? Style wise? Feeling wise?

RICK MOLLOY: It's interesting because for the longest time when I was younger and angsty, I made all of this dark alternative rock, and I kind of identified with that and. I still do. Two years ago I put out a Christmas song that was not a happy song, but compared to the one I finished this year, it's positively cheery.

If you ever hang out with me, 99% of the time, I'm legitimately happy. I'm learning to detach the sound from the topic and not necessarily talk about the dark, not I don't wanna shy away from it or. Be falsely happy in music, but I talk about the things that concern me, the things that keep me up at night, the things that hit a little too close to home.

One of the things that is neat though, is if you can take the sadness and either move it up or turn it up a notch, not move it up, I, I enjoy seeing the, the emotional movement in the song. I make music and listen to music and perform music for the way it makes me feel.

BECKY BOYLAND: Yeah.

RICK MOLLOY: If I'm not feeling something, if I'm not seeing people feel something, then I'm not getting what I want out of it.

I think recently, especially since I started doing all the songwriting camps, and I. Writing with other people. I've been a lot more free about the things I write about, which has been really wonderful to me because we just write about whatever the song is about.

BECKY BOYLAND: Yeah, yeah.

RICK MOLLOY: But you kind of gotta let the song be the song, whether it's, you know, it fits my artist image as sort of dog dark, alternative rock or not.

It doesn't matter. The song you're writing is the song you're writing. You have to serve the song. I found that I've done a lot more writing of say, Americana, almost country style music. Just because that's what's going on. Right. And I've been really enjoying it.

BECKY BOYLAND: That's really fun. And I think just having that realization that sometimes that song really does wanna tell you what it wants to be, especially when we are very emotional in our writing.

It can feel very alone. So not only being able to write with other people and follow where the song is gonna take you, but also having listeners come back and say, oh, I feel seen by that. That completely resonates with me. And then suddenly you realize that I. Your angst or your deep feelings, because I do that too with what I write.

Just having people say, oh yes, this is what I'm feeling too. You realize the power in being able to connect people with your music. I think there's just so many benefits to that from an audience standpoint and collaborating with other people.

THE POWER OF COLLABORATION

RICK MOLLOY: I'm fortunate to have been part of a co-write where one of the songs we wrote together, it makes people cry.

If I'm in an open mic and I'm playing that song. It's regular for people to come up and talk to me about the feelings that that song brought up for them.

BECKY BOYLAND: Right. That's the best.

RICK MOLLOY: The first time I performed it, I cried. I I couldn't finish it because it's, and it's like, it's not about a person, like it's not about a real person.

I. It's not about a real experience. It's a, I don't wanna say made up, but it's, it's a relatable experience. Something that's close to a lot of things that means a lot of things to people that we, a lot of us have had similar things to, and it's, it just feels good, right? To be able to help people feel that.

BECKY BOYLAND: Yeah, it's that concept of true. Though not actual, and that doesn't make it any less valid. It a similar experience where I was playing a song for someone and I'd been. This was a recording. I wasn't playing it live, but it was something I'd been living with and thinking through. I was trying to create content around it, so it was starting to deeply embed itself in me.

The recording was partway through and I'm just sobbing. They're looking at me like, what is going on right now? It took me by surprise, but I thought, okay, I can be very happy about that because it means the song is doing what it's supposed to do.

RICK MOLLOY: Yeah, and I, I think that when an artist is. Performing as you're recording.

They are often so into whatever they're doing, whether it's singing or playing keys or guitar or percussion, when they have that emotional reaction in the moment, that can be some of the best recordings. That emotion gets transmitted through the recording. Yeah. In ways that if you have a song that's an emotional change song and you're able to experience that emotional change as you're recording it, then it's gonna come through.

In ways that just having the music and just having performance perform it won't.

BECKY BOYLAND: Yes.

RICK MOLLOY: It's part of what people talk about. Well, you start with a great song and then you get a great singer to do a great performance. Or maybe it's a great performance of a great song by a great singer, right?

BECKY BOYLAND: Yeah.

RICK MOLLOY: The most important thing is the song after that is the performance after that is the singer and then the gears down like at the end. Right?

BECKY BOYLAND: Exactly. Because it can be just a single instrument doesn't even have to be the greatest instrument. It's playing a supporting role.

RICK MOLLOY: Yeah. I mean, I look back at some of the stuff we did at, at Knoydart, and some of the best performances were the ones that were 10 minutes after the song was written, recorded with an iPhone.

BECKY BOYLAND: Yeah.

RICK MOLLOY: They were better than some of the performances we did up on the stage. Not true of every song.

BECKY BOYLAND: Right.

RICK MOLLOY: Some of those songs were so good.

BECKY BOYLAND: I still, when I'm listening to even the finished recordings I've done, I am transported completely back to Scotland. That's so cool. Sometimes sharing those with other people.

I almost wanna set it up for them that this is a really special song because of this experience, but then I remember that's just my experience. I want 'em to have their experience. It makes me practically giddy to share the song with someone where I can just have them listen to the recording and see, see how they react to it, and that they get the same feeling and vibe that we had in the process.

And I think there's something just so amazing about whether or not it has anything to do with the content of the song. Making this kind of moment that you'll look back to and all of those memories. So I think that's probably what's so exceptional about a collaboration because there's built in this experience that will always be part of carrying through with that song.

RICK MOLLOY: No, it's, well, like the song we wrote together, every co-write I've ever done is always different too.

BECKY BOYLAND: Mm-hmm.

RICK MOLLOY: Where like, I did my thing. You did your thing, it worked. I thought it worked really well. It was just straightforward and easy. I didn't feel bad that you wrote 80% of the lyrics. I don't care. I just wanna make a good song. Right?

BECKY BOYLAND: Yeah. Yeah. And even throughout that week, there were other songs where I don't think I contributed hard, hardly any lyrics myself. So it was definitely learning that exercise and letting the song be the song and doing what was best for that. Every single one of those was so different. So great. We really came out with so many incredible songs, and that's kind of unheard of, I think.

RICK MOLLOY: That group was so special. I, I went to another big group with more people. The thing that was cool about that group wasn't that, that everything was amazing. The thing that was cool about that group is we had enough people there that I think there were like 40 new songs.

BECKY BOYLAND: Oh wow.

RICK MOLLOY: And so it was, and there were people of a lot more experience levels.

We were so fortunate that every single person there was like was, I'm just laughing 'cause I'm remembering about the first day every single person was gifted. Right. And just like really good, you know? Um.

BECKY BOYLAND: And we were glad we made it.

RICK MOLLOY: We just all made it. We didn't miss the boat.

BECKY BOYLAND: We, we started the adventure in a way that we won't ever forget, but I think that made it even better.

RICK MOLLOY: I don't know...

BECKY BOYLAND: Survived the taxi.

RICK MOLLOY: Well, I'm actually used to stuff like that on trips. It's not the first time where the ferries broken down or the train's caught on fire. That's kind of a, a thing with me.

BECKY BOYLAND: Noted.

RICK MOLLOY: And the first, the first plane ride I was ever on, I was two years old. Apparently there was water in the gas, so the plane was in the middle of not flying.

Fortunately, there happened to be an abandoned runway underneath, so they, they landed real quick and, and took care of it. When I was 17, I had counted all the flights I had been on, and over 50% of them had had to make. Mechanical failure or worse.

BECKY BOYLAND: Oh my goodness.

RICK MOLLOY: So I was like, all right, whatever. You know the,

BECKY BOYLAND: I'm grateful that you are here to be able to tell those stories, because I don't think that is most people's experience.

We did have lots of unexpected things just trying to get to this songwriting retreat, but it was just amazing. Yeah. Yeah. It was. I'm so delighted with the song that we came out with.

FROM OPEN MICS TO PAID GIGS

BECKY BOYLAND: Did we get to talk about the fact that you've got several shows coming up now and your indie musician career that's starting to actually support the guitars, and...

RICK MOLLOY: I know, right. I'm not used to the music part of... making music costs money. I'm not used to having like, oh, I go play a show and I walk away with more cash than it costs me to put the show on.

BECKY BOYLAND: Right.

RICK MOLLOY: Much less being paid a, actually fair or reasonably good wage for my time. That's a new experience to me. The thing that happened to me was not this December a couple months ago, but a year ago from that, I had already been going to the songwriting camps and workshops and I was like, man, I really should play out again.

Right. Basically I was like, it would be cool if I, because I used to play it all the time, but I, you know, I. Almost 20 years off, right? And I was like, it'd be really cool to do some open mics or something like that. And then out of the blue, it wasn't a week and a half after I said that, I got this email from an ex-coworker and I had completely forgotten about this because it just wasn't top of mind.

But on my last day in the office, he had come and said, Hey Rick. 'cause he was a friend. At work. He's like, I'm, I've been wanting to learn to play guitar. What do you think I should do? And I'm like, uh, I don't know. Go buy a baby tailor or a Mini Martin and go up on YouTube and watch Justin guitar and then figure out if that's what you want to do.

Right? And so at this point, it was like four years ago, and that incident had kind of escaped my mind. Fast forward, I'm saying to myself, I want to start being at open mics again. And I get this email out of him. The blue from my friend, and he is like, Hey, I just wanted to thank you because ever since you said that, I've been working on it and I've been playing a bunch of open mics.

I'm just grateful. And so I'm like, well, I want to hear you play, like, do you have any recordings of the open mics? And so my first reaction was like, oh my God, this guy is good. After only three years. It's like, he's good. And my second reaction was like, Hey, can I go to an open mic with you? And so we did.

It wasn't. Two days later that there was a couple of spots that were last minute cancels towards the end of the year at one of the places I've been doing an open mic at and he's like, Hey, does anybody wanna play? I've got these slots open. And so I played my first two hour show, my solo show, well over 20 years, probably more like 23 years, the day after Christmas.

BECKY BOYLAND: That is so exciting.

RICK MOLLOY: And then fast forward and I'm like, well that was cool. Now I gotta figure out how to. Do more of that. And it would be really great if I could figure out how to get paid because the free drinks were awesome. I definitely appreciate it. Uh, but, um, then out of the blue, I, uh, I get a request for a, for a, a two hour concert.

And this isn't at a bar. This is me in a venue with chairs in front of me.

BECKY BOYLAND: Awesome.

RICK MOLLOY: And they're writing a check to me as well.

BECKY BOYLAND: Mission accomplished.

RICK MOLLOY: And so that... Right? And I almost didn't do it because I had other stuff going on. I'm like, when you ask the universe for stuff and it provides it to you and it's truly what you wanna do, you need to go after that.

So I committed to it, even though it's a little bit scary. That was three weeks ago, and then a week and a half ago, I got two more requests for paid gigs for three hour shows.

BECKY BOYLAND: Phenomenal. Oh my goodness.

RICK MOLLOY: These are at a bar.

BECKY BOYLAND: I wish I was driving distance.

RICK MOLLOY: But uh, they're actually like, uh...

BECKY BOYLAND: Oh. I mean, me.

RICK MOLLOY: I know. I appreciate it.

One of them is the day after Valentine's Day and I have to learn about 25 songs before that show in two and a half weeks.

BECKY BOYLAND: Ah.

RICK MOLLOY: But you have to do the things that are uncomfortable for you. Right. The other thing is that I am confident enough that I know that even though I won't have all of the words memorized for these shows these days, it's actually acceptable when you're background lounge music to have supporting technology with you.

And it's. Better because it makes the overall music better, but I know that it's gonna be more than good enough that it will sound really nice, even if I am remembering some of the lyrics with some help. It's okay because it's about the performance and the feeling and the overall experience because people aren't there to watch me.

People are there to have dinner, have a good time, and have a nice background music, and that's the most important thing. I'm there to provide that to them. I'm just grateful that I'm getting paid for it.

BECKY BOYLAND: Yeah, totally agree.

ADVICE FOR ASPIRING MUSICIANS

BECKY BOYLAND: And, and I was gonna ask you, well, what, what advice would you give to people who are wanting to make this change in their lives?

And everything you just said was, was that advice you have to chase after that thing, because if it comes right in front of you, you have to step out and do it. That is probably the hardest part because. We do sort of get into this groove as musicians that, well, this is just fun. This is this thing on the side.

In order to make anything that's just fun into a serious thing, there are sacrifices. Effort. There are sacrifices, and then there's reward.

RICK MOLLOY: Yeah. I'm playing songs that aren't my favorite songs and I'm okay with that. Right. Because I do have the freedom to pick the songs that I want to do. So I pick songs that people will know.

Right, that I know that I can perform well and that have emotional meaning in general.

BECKY BOYLAND: Absolutely.

RICK MOLLOY: And so by, so by doing that right, it's makes it much easier to succeed. The other thing about advice, because with a guitar shop, it does happen. I see so many people on the cusp of wanting to be able to play, but being shy or whatever.

It's, there's so many open mics and so many of them are truly supportive and open. If you can find someone to go with. It's okay. We, we were at one of the, like this place was so busy that there weren't room for the guitars in the back room Saturday night. Right. It was that busy and someone is up there and it was their first time performing ever.

And she was nervous. She forgot the words. It wasn't a perfect performance, and all she got was a hundred percent positive feedback and support from everybody there.

BECKY BOYLAND: That's so beautiful and it is a reminder too that I. People largely do wanna support other people and be kind. Putting yourself in places where that is the case, and being a part of that process is what reminds us what it is to truly be human.

RICK MOLLOY: Mm-hmm. Yeah, to care about people and be part of a community really. Yeah.

BECKY BOYLAND: Yeah. That's just all so incredible. That's beautiful stuff. This has been so fun. I wanna just ask you where people can connect with you and learn more about your music, your studio, your guitars, and all the things that you have coming up.

RICK MOLLOY: The easiest way to find me is, is around socials, because I go by Rick Molloy, even though my business is called Celestial Studios and Celestial Instruments, um, those are easy to find too. But if you go to any of the social things, like it's just me, right? I do on Instagram, I do guitar history videos. I put pictures of the things that are in the shop.

Sometimes you can see in my stories the crazy things going on in my life. Like me ripping the top off of a guitar because I just broke it. That's the easiest way to connect with me, and I would love it if anybody that saw this did that right and said, "Hi."

BECKY BOYLAND: And you will be richly rewarded by following him on the socials because it is good stuff. It's really fun stuff to look at and, and you cover so many interesting topics in addition to sharing yourself as well, and I will have all of that in the show notes. Thank you so much. This has been so great. It's been both catching up and also just getting to hear your story and get your story out in front of people.

I'm so grateful.

RICK MOLLOY: Thank you so much for inviting me, Becky, and. I'm so glad you're doing this. This is you finding your own way too, right?

BECKY BOYLAND: Yeah.

RICK MOLLOY: And it's so cool to see. I just love it, so you're so welcome.

FINAL THOUGHTS AND ARTIST TIPS

BECKY BOYLAND: What an incredible conversation with Rick Molloy. His journey from tech to full-time music is such a great reminder that it's never too late to pivot toward what truly fulfills you.

A few things really stood out to me. First, there's the power of community. Rick talked about how important it's to surround yourself with the right people, whether it's in music, business, or life. Finding your creative network can be the difference between feeling isolated and actually thriving. Then there's the mindset shift from hobbyist to professional.

He shared how he had to move from seeing music as just a passion to actively treating it as a business. That's a leap so many artists struggle with, but it's absolutely necessary if you want to make a sustainable career out of your art. And finally, the importance of just starting. Rick didn't wait for the perfect moment to return to music.

He took steps, played open mics, built his guitar shop and said yes when opportunities arose. That's a lesson for all of us. Waiting won't make the dream happen. Action will. Your action step is if you're an artist wanting to move from passion to profession, start by clarifying your message. Your audience needs to understand who you are, what you do, and why it matters to them in seconds.

Take a look at your social bios, your website, or even how you introduce yourself at gigs. Does it clearly communicate what you offer and who you serve? If not, that's your next step, and if you need help refining that message, you know where to find me.

Now to wrap things up, Rick and I mentioned the amazing experience we both had as part of a group of songwriters at a retreat in Scotland last year. We were all so blown away by the number of incredible songs the entire group came away with. And here's the one that Rick and I co-wrote.

Stick around to hear "Washed Away" by me, Becky Boyland, written by Rick Molloy and me, available now wherever you stream your music. Now you've enjoyed this episode to the end, so it would mean a lot and help the podcast to grow if you leave a rating and review.

And as always, keep chasing that Second Verse.

"WASHED AWAY" BY BECKY BOYLAND, WRITTEN BY RICK MOLLOY AND BECKY BOYLAND