I Released an EP!

This is actually old news. I released Love Songs EP in May of this year. It’s my fourth singer-songwriter EP, and I’m very proud of it. I had a CD release show at the Contented Cow in Northfield where I shared the stage with Bryn Battani and Mary Clare Stroh. It was an amazing night!

I’ve performed a lot over the years, and as I’m writing I’m constantly trying out songs in live settings. Some songs I play a few times, lose interest, and never play again. Some I like right away and they become a mainstay. These songs are constantly developing as I perform them, which is why I don’t record a song at first. I keep tweaking them over time until I’m done. Then I can record.

This latest EP is a collection of my best folk songs written during my college years (2018 – 2020). The title of Love Songs is meant to poke fun at the cliche of singer-songwriter types only writing sappy love songs, but it also refers to the songs themselves. Passersby is your typical love song about romantic love, Loaded Gun is about loving someone going through a hard time, Gratitude is about love of life, Football is about platonic love, and Moonshine is about self love.

I think it’s some of my best work and I would appreciate you checking it out! Love Songs EP is available everywhere.



My Musical Goals: 2022

In January of 2021 I made a list of music goals for the year. That December I looked back and saw that – miraculously – every single goal had been accomplished. Hoping for the same outcome, today I’ll be making a 2022 list.

1) Create a presence as a singer-songwriter. In 2021 I did a lot of performing, and that was fantastic. What I didn’t do was write new songs, record new music, or choose a name for my project (I perform as Luke Smith, but that’s too common). I did these things for Late Night Luke, but this year I’d like to do it for my acoustic project, too.

2) Create a presence as a producer. I did this a lot in 2021, so I mostly want to continue what’s worked: making videos, releasing songs, and creating microcontent. I plan on releasing more hip hop, collaborating more, and continuing to build a body of work.

3) Clarify brand / consistency. I’ve always had a slight musical identity crisis. For the longest time I was a singer-songwriter who did electronic music on the side, but for the last two years I’ve been a producer who’s a singer-songwriter on the side. I need to clarify who I am and spend my time accordingly. I am a combination of both, but I need focus.

4) Build / join more communities. One of the most rewarding experiences I’ve had as a musician was booking and hosting a monthly songwriter showcase. I got to provide paid gigs to all my musician friends, meet new musician friends, and enjoy a great night of music. It was your classic win-win-win scenario. Unfortunately, it was axed due to covid, but I’d love to start it up again. I also want to host an open mic night and join or start a club for music producers.

Notably absent from this list is anything career related. It’s not that I don’t have career aspirations; I’m just focusing on one thing at a time. This year is about growth, connection, paying off debt, and learning as much as I can.

2021 Year End Review

This is not my typical experience, but I actually completed every musical goal I set at the begining of the year. I’m just as surprised as anyone.

My first goal was to be a singer-songwriter again. For most of 2020, I had zero shows. I stayed in my room making electronic beats, which I loved, but I missed my acoustic roots. This year I played a ton of shows, wrote new songs, and started recording an EP (my first singer-songwriter release since 2019).

My second goal was to collaborate with other artists. This mostly involved my friend Jplayin. I recorded two release for Jplayin, and had him as a featured rapper on two of my songs. I also got to work with Brandon and the Clubs, my former classmate. We dropped a Ke$ha-esque pop song. Stylistically it was a very different direction for me, but so fun to make. I had a blast working with both of them!

My third goal was to create consistent content. This mostly involved my weekly YouTube videos on songwriting and music produciton, which was then broken into microcontent for Instagram and Tik Tok, but I also peppered in the occasional blog post. I’m happy to say that I now have over 100 YouTube subscribers!

My fourth goal was to get an internship / volunteer, and this Fall I got an internship with the Minnesota Music Coalition. I got to assist with the Caravan Du Nord concert series and travel all across Minnesota, meeting tons of new artists and old favorites.

I’m also happy to share that I lost 30 pounds, finished 67 songs (mostly beats), and I officially graduated with my degree in Music Industry. I also started teaching guitar for the first time this Summer, which has been a fantastic way to make money while honing my craft.

I’m focusing on the good here, but I don’t want to give the impresison that I’m an unstoppable productivity machine that doesn’t make mistakes. This year was far from perfect, but despite my own flaws and battles, I was able to make things better for myself. I can only pray this trend continues and I keep moving forward.

Just Do It

I haven’t dropped a singer-songwriter track since May of 2019. Since then I’ve been working on other projects, releasing videos, and finishing up my degree. It’s easy to use busyness as an excuse, but it doesn’t tell the full story. As someone who has watched six hours of Squid Game in one day, I can tell you it’s not a lack of time.

A couple of months ago I was planning to buy a new microphone specifically for my singer-songwriter EP. I had been using an MXL 990 to record my acoustic ($100), and I was excited to upgrade. An unexpected expense ate that money up and I was frustrated. I didn’t feel like recording the old way, and I even considered shelfing the project until I had better gear. Also, I was toying with the idea of turning my EP into an album, possibly recording a full band and having a bigger release.

These two excuses gave me the instant gratificaiton of being able to delay my work, and it came with the added bonus that I could imagine my work being better for it. So I didn’t have to do anything in the present, but on a far distant day, I would have something amazing.

The problem with this of course is that I continue to do nothing. There are some situations where perhaps it would make sense to wait, but in my personal experience, it’s never been justified. Regardless of the gear you have, the idea that waiting is going to help you make something better in the future is flawed. Making stuff is how you get better. You can always get new gear later on, but in the meantime you can be improving for free.

Your reservation might be that you have a really good song or concept that needs to be exactly right before coming out. If that’s the case, you can write and release other things. Just don’t let that be an excuse and lose momentum. Also, it’s worth mentioning that songs I wanted to save two years ago, I wouldn’t even release now. Your tastes evolve as you keep creating.

So, after countless roadblocks and excuses, I’m finally recording my EP. It’s already an improvement from my last project, but I still find myself making excuses. It’s not going to be perfect, but it is going to be done, and that’s enough.

My Internship with the Minnesota Music Coalition

I am extremely blessed to be an intern with the Minnesota Music Coalition. Their mission is to support Minnesota musicians by creating a statewide network, offering educational resources, paid performances, and other opportunities.

I first heard of the MMC when I attended a Caravan Du Nord in Faribault. Caravan Du Nord is a traveling showcase of Minnesotan artists. It features local legends like Reina Del Cid, while also putting the spotlight on up-and-coming acts like Kaleb Braun-schultz. These events frequently take place in smaller towns like Red Wing and Austin, bringing great music to places that don’t often get it.

This bringing of music to small towns is what first excited me about the MMC. I was thrilled when I learned that Frankie Lee, an artist heard on the Current, was going to be playing in my hometown. It wasn’t so much that I was a fan of Frankie Lee, but that an artist of that success could be seen in Faribault. I was used to driving 45 minutes to see ANY show, let alone someone well known. It caught my attention.

That was a few years ago and now I’m an intern helping to put on Caravan Du Nord events all across Minnesota. It’s been an absolute pleasure attending workshops, meeting artists, watching shows, and trying my best to be useful. I’m not sure what the future holds, but I’m happy to be where I am!

It Takes Practice

This Summer, I started teaching guitar lessons. It’s been interesting learning guitar again through beginners’ eyes and hearing their perspectives. A variation of this question comes up again and again: “What’s the secret?” When they’re struggling, beginner’s tend to think that they’re doing something wrong; they want a quick tip or trick that’ll resolve everything.

The answer I give rarely satisfies them, but it’s the only answer that’s true. “There’s no secret. You just need to keep practicing.” Practicing new material can be frustrating because we’re constantly rubbing up against our own limitations: hitting wrong notes, missing rhythms, and having to work on the same parts again and again. It can be a daunting process, but it’s how we grow.

Audio production and mixing is one of those areas where it’s tempting to think you can just have someone explain it to you and you’ll be able to execute it perfectly. Afterall, mixing is more of a technical skill. You’re turning knobs; you just need to know what everything does and then you’re good to go, right? Wrong. It’s more of an art than people realize, and an ear for mixing needs to be developed just like a musical ear.

This concept also applies to genres. Someone can absolutely crush it at lofi, but when they try to make EDM, they struggle. This comes from a lack of experience in that genre. There’s definitely mixing and sound design skills that carry over from genre to genre, but when writing in an unfamiliar style, you’ll have a lot of new questions. I often hear people say that they are bad at a particular genre. They accept it as an unchangable fact about themselves, when in reality they probably just haven’t practiced it enough.

So whatever it is that you want to improve about yourself, there is no secret sauce that will make everything easier. I only have one tip to give you: it takes practice.

Making a Song List

I’ve always considered myself a songwriter. It’s what excites me most about music! I love being creative and writing songs, but it wasn’t until 2020 that I started taking my craft seriously. I went from averaging one song a month to two a week. As I started writing more and more, I wanted to make a comprehensive list of my songs: a document listing the names and dates I wrote them.

What I did is simple, but effective. I used Google Sheets (which is free) and entered the names and dates of my recent songs. There were several open cells begging to be filled, so I included BPM, key, and genre.


Charting a song’s data was a great reward for finishing, and I never wanted to break my streak. Also, I noticed trends at a glance, like how much I loved writing in the key of C, that I wrote a ton of hip hop, and that I frequently used Bedroom Beats 2. These aren’t bad things, but if I felt like my sound wasn’t evolving or I wanted to do something new, I knew what changes to try.

Later on I started tracking what I offloaded, including where it was offloaded from, and the name of the sound if it came from a sample pack. You can go crazy with a list like this, adding chord progressions, modes, the alignment of the stars, and anything else you want to track.

If for no other benefit, I recommend keeping a list to hold yourself accountable. “Write more songs” is a hard goal to follow. “Write a song a month” is much better. You don’t have to quadruple your output, but you should challenge yourself and do more than you did yesterday. Going from a song a month to two songs a month is good progress. Don’t measure your progress against others, but only against yourself. Now working from a new list in 2021, I have a clear goal: write more songs than 2020.

Pre-save Summertime! Coming out September 10th:
https://distrokid.com/hyperfollow/latenightluke/summertime



Creative Offloading

Today I’m going to talk about something I learned in music school. It’s called “offloading” and it’s one of the reasons I was able to write 50 songs in 2020.

In songwriting you have these creative tasks: chord progressions, melodies, basslines, drum patterns, lyrics, sound design, etc. Offloading means to take one of these tasks and rather than generate it creatively, you offload it to a different source. This happens when you take a chord progression from another song, use a drum loop or MIDI pack, or anytime you load a preset. That’s offloading too since you’re offloading the sound design.

This is incredibly helpful for starting and finishing ideas. When you offload a task, you free up time and energy to focus on the next step. If you’re feeling uninspired, a drum or melody loop can be the kickstart you need. Rather than trying to create every piece of your music originally, it helps to decide what parts you want to write and what parts you want to offload.

You might hate the idea of offloading if you haven’t heard it before. It might feel like cheating. I used to feel that way, too. One of my buddies used to Google “Awesome chord progressions” and write songs that way. He even stole a progression from a YouTube ad. He wasn’t afraid to take inspiration wherever found it.

Over the years, I softened to the idea. I didn’t realize it at the time, but my biggest problem was my ego. I enjoyed being “creative” more than I enjoyed making songs. Offloading to me is about letting go of my ego and realizing that if I want to make captivating art, I need all the help I can get.

If you haven’t offloaded before, try offloading your least favorite part to write. If you’re a drummer and you love writing drums, offload the melody. If you love melodies and struggle with drums, offload the drums. If you’re really focusing in on sound design, design the sounds and offload the chords. For lyrics, you can even borrow rhymes. There’s a lot of possibilities and room to experiment.

If you feel guilty or think that it’s cheating, realize that it’s a collaboration. Pretend that your friend sent you the drum loop. They want you to use it. That’s why they made it, and honestly, that’s not far from the truth. Producer Com Truise said that sampling is “Collaborating at a distance.” And the big difference between sampling and using a loop (other than the legal difference) is that the creator of the Splice loop wants you to use it.

If you try to be 100% creative in every area of your song, you’ll write a lot less songs. And honestly, no one cares if you do “everything yourself.” They’ll only know if you tell them, and if you feel the need to tell people, then maybe you don’t believe in the song to begin with.

My Musical Goals: 2021

I’m sitting in a room at my parents’ house right now, and I just finished a beat. I’m moving out soon and much of my stuff is packed. I’m listening to Tycho on headphones (Epoch). He’s been my go-to writing music ever since I started this blog in 2018. Since then, I’ve learned so much, and there’s a lot I want to accomplish. Here are my musical goals for 2021.

1) Be a singer-songwriter again. I started performing as a singer-songwriter in 2013, and because of the pandemic, I barely played in 2020. I found myself writing less for my singer-songwriter name and focusing more on beats and electronic music. I love writing electronically, but I want to come back to guitar and voice, too. There’s something personal and uniquely expressive about playing guitar and singing. In general, I want to sing more.

2) Collaborate with other artists. Working with people on Songs From Home was a really cool experience. I loved hearing my instrumentals come to life and the surprising directions they went. I haven’t worked with a rapper since 2014, and I really want to change that. I’ve been stockpiling rap beats and in February I’m going to start reaching out. I’m not trying to sell anything at first; I’ll be DMing talented locals with free beats and see if there’s any interest. In the future, I’d love to work with all kinds of singers and musicians.

3) Create consistent content. Every teacher, vlogger, YouTuber, and Gary V will tell you about the importance of content creation. I’ve done the random Instagram post, blog, or video, but it hasn’t been consistent in awhile. In 2018 I released a video and blog post every week for months and that was awesome; I want to return to that level of output. My goal now is to make a weekly YouTube video and take clips of it for microcontent on Instagram. I’m hoping to slowly build a following and get better at consistent creation.

4) Get an internship / volunteer. I graduated with my Bachelor’s of Science in Music Industry, and now I’m ready to be rich! And by rich I mean gainfully employed (but first, an internship). In my projects class I focused on the licensing side of music, but recently I’ve been interested in non-profits like Musicians on Call and the Harmony Project. I’m also excited for volunteer opportunities like working at Big Turn Music Festival. There’s a lot of people that need help and endless ways to get involved.

Whichever way I go, I’m excited to learn more about these fields and be part of a world I love. Thanks for following my journey!

2020 Year End Review

I know one day doesn’t really mean anything, but for a lot of us it’s the end of a terrible year and it feels like things will get better. I certainly hope so. 2020 has been rough on us all, but today I want to focus on the good parts.

For me the best part of 2020 was exploding creatively. I wrote 50 songs this year and released 17 of them. That includes the Beat Station EP, Songs From Home, Finals Week, and two singles (It’s Fall, and Covidween). Starting in June I wrote two songs a week and was able to continue for most of the year. I broke the mental block of being precious about my songwriting and was finally able to write without second guessing myself and judging every step. My Beat Station challenge of writing only at the coffee shop pushed me in the right direction; I was forced to make those songwriting decisions in the moment since I couldn’t make them later.

After releasing Songs From Home I was excited to get back into demo writing. It was here that I took the “Finish a song even if it’s bad” mantra to heart. After spending so much time agonizing over perfect mixes, writing a lot and not judging the result was like medicine. One of the coolest discoveries of writing songs even if they’re bad is that sometimes a “bad” song will turn into a “good” song by the time you’re done. The reverse is also true, but that’s why consistent writing is so important. I always heard this advice, but only in 2020 did I internalize it.

I had the awesome opportunity to perform on KEYC in Mankato, a local news network. And I had my songs played on Keepin’ It Local 89.7, a show on the MSU radio station. They even played the entire Finals Week EP. How cool is that? I also got some press for Songs From Home from Mankato Life and Faribault Daily News. It was really cool to have my music played and recognized locally.

Perhaps my biggest accomplishment of the year was getting my Bachelors in Music Industry from MSU. I started my college journey in 2018 with a music theory class and later made the decision to fully enroll. My plans for 2021 are to write a ton of music, work with rappers and artists, and learn more about the licensing side of the business.

Thanks for reading my highlight reel of the worst year ever. Here’s to an amazing 2021!