A Day in the Life: Social Distancing with Rodney Eldridge

by - June 15, 2021


Well, where to start!? Listen, I’m a hot mess so here we go!

6:00 a.m.: Alarm goes off. I lean over, grab my phone and snooze it. 15 minutes later I do it again. It takes me about five alarms to actually get up in the morning.

I wish I could tell you a sweet story about how I go to the gym and pump that sweet, sweet iron to look cute and sexy... but I don’t. I roll out of bed, grab my phone and check my stocks to only realize I don’t invest enough money for it to actually matter. But I check it anyway, so I feel like an adult that is doing something to earn extra income.

At this point, I take a shower and start looking through my clothes only to realize that I need to do laundry because my favorite shirts are dirty most of the time (I travel a lot... try not to judge, but it’s ok if you do).

Now that I’m fully awake, I start my meditation to get centered. I put both hands over my chest and say out loud all of the things I am thankful for in that moment. “I’m thankful for fresh air. I’m thankful for my job. I’m thankful for my family.” Things like that. Honestly, if you haven’t tried it, you should! I feel so good and thankful to be alive when I’m done.

The next part changes day to day. While I would love music to be my full-time gig, I still work in film. Depending on if I have a project underway or not, I might be on a plane to a location shoot, on the computer hunting down resources for production or coordinating any myriad of details. But let’s say I don’t have a project going on. I will typically spend a few hours dreaming about what I want to accomplish. I’ll kind of make some notes on how I can help those dreams become a reality today. Let’s be real here, I am an enthusiast for life.

Speaking of being an enthusiast for life... if someone calls me with a fun time, chances are I’m there. I will never miss out on a party or a hang. It fuels me creatively. I write about experiences that I’ve lived, so the more the better. And I have lived through some experiences. Some good, and some where I’m left questioning, “Why did I just do that?”

I’m extremely ‘go with the flow’. I don’t plan out a lot of things, I just let them happen. My songs tend to come to life in the same fashion, usually pretty quickly. When a melody or lyrics come to me, I’ll whip out my phone and record a snippet, or even a video if there’s a piano or guitar nearby. My phone is a petri dish of songs that haven’t yet come to life.

But like a lot of artists, I think, I get a feeling when I strike gold. And that centers me because I will work at a good one until it’s done. Over the last year, I blew up my life - questioned my faith, ended my marriage, moved from the city I’ve lived in nearly all my life, walked away from my band to start a solo music career. It’s been a lot. And I’ve found a sort of peace with it all through my songwriting. Creating these songs has been cathartic. They’re very real, very raw and very honest, which can be a hard thing to come face-to-face with. But it’s been good for me. Challenging, yet at the same time it feels right. Like this is what I’m meant to be doing.

So for now, I’m focused on getting these songs out there into the world. I want to connect with people on that same level, let everyone know it’s okay to be who you are supposed to be. I just dropped my first single, “The Weight”, and a whole EP is coming a few months behind it.

As the world starts to settle into whatever this next phase is going to look like, I’m looking forward to finally getting back out there and playing some shows, getting that face time with people, having new experiences and discovering even more about myself.

While practicing social distancing, watch my music video for "The Weight":

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