Keith Richards, Firestones, and the Persevering Artist

How Sensitive Creators Can Best Bring Their Work Into the World

Image: rollingstone.de

"You're too emotional," my friend's been telling me. "Hyper-sensitive." He says that's why I got replaced as the composer for a hit TV show several years ago. He says that’s what compelled me to escape my record contract with Sony on a legal loophole in the early '90s. I could go on and on about all the reasons he's wrong, but I won't. The truth is, I am hypersensitive. I haven’t made a scientific study of it, but I'd say my antenna is several degrees more ticklish than most.

But to be successful at making art, you need an extra measure of sensitivity. Beyond the technical skills—the ability to play the piano, paint, or sculpt—the artist’s superpower is the capacity to feel deeply. The empathic intake of life’s emotional textures forms the raw material of art. But here's the paradox: to achieve commercial success, we also need to develop the ability to shut off that emotionality at will.

There are three basic stages to creating commercially viable art: conceiving the idea, developing it, and bringing it to the marketplace. The last stage is the tough one because it demands that you dial down your sensitivity. If I were selling Firestone tires, for example, it would be so much easier than selling the contents of my inner life. When someone says they love the music I write and record, it makes me happy; when they don’t, it can be crushing. It makes me feel like the essence of who I am—because I can’t help but believe my music is just that—is unlovable.

I’m not sure that makes me an anomaly among creative people. Being thin-skinned to the world and steeled to the hard realities of making art a commercial endeavor is a paradox that’s painful and difficult to sustain. You’ll often hear people try to alleviate the sting by offering platitudes.

Platitudes That Don’t Help

Image: garageart.com

“You’re so much more than what you create.” That’s an attempt to disentangle my art from who I am. But I can’t. That statement is total rubbish to the one doing the creating.

“No one can make you feel bad about yourself except you.” Talk about blaming the victim. And it’s a lie if there ever was one. People can and do make you feel bad.

Then there’s this famously unhelpful one: “Whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” C’mon, Nietzsche, it can also leave you weeping in a fetal ball.

So what about abandoning empathy altogether? Perhaps the way out of the paradox is to stop considering refracted emotional verities and start thinking in purely quantitative terms—until it’s all just higher Instagram engagement, Spotify streams, and Substack subscribers. To hell with poetry and empathy! To the dogs with love and truth! That way, we can churn out art like Firestone makes tires: scientifically, dispassionately, and with a mind toward selling as many widgets as possible. (And hey, my Firestones are damn good tires.)

Of course, none of that’s possible—at least not for some of us. The real issue is how to manage the paradox of art and commerce. How to soldier on.

What Keith Richards Taught Me

Keith Richards’ autobiography Life, which I read recently, pointed me to a simple but important idea:

Managing the paradox is all about being part of a collaborative experience—being part of a band.

Reading it got me thinking back to a gig my old band, Sussman Lawrence, performed one night at a college bar in Ames, Iowa, in '81.

The place was packed, and we assumed they were there to see us. It turned out they were there for the free beer. Five minutes into our set, the pitchers of Miller emptied, and so did the club. We played to no one but ourselves that night. But the beautiful thing was, not one of the five of us gave a damn—we had each other. The support and friendship of fellow creators is what bolsters us and gives us the strength to persevere.

Being in the company of people who understand the costs of making things, of bringing the fruits of their imaginations into the world, is how we keep going forward. It sounds simple, but it’s a step many of us neglect to take—especially given how many ways there currently are to work in total seclusion. It’s now possible to compose music for an entire season of television without ever working with another musician. Just as AI-driven tools and digital platforms allow visual artists and writers to create without ever leaving their apartments or engaging with another living soul.

The Double-Edged Sword of Technology

This is a strange byproduct of all our great new technology. We can create more quickly and efficiently than ever, without the bother of dealing with other people’s opinions. You don’t need a bass player anymore when you have Logic Pro or Ableton Live. You don’t need to go to a studio when you can record pristine audio in your bedroom. You don’t need to consider what an editor thinks about your writing when you can just run it through ChatGPT and Grammarly.

But while we gain speed and cost-effectiveness, it’s easy to forget what we lose from the isolation. Art is, at its core, a conversation—between the creator and the audience, between collaborators, between the work itself and the world it emerges into. Without that conversation, the work can lose its soul. The friction of collaboration—the argument over a drum fill, the discussion about a lyric, the collective push to get a song just right—is where much of the magic happens.

Finding Balance Between Solitude and Collaboration

Image: soundtrap.com

Of course, solitude can be necessary. Some of the best ideas emerge in the quiet, in the moments of deep focus and isolation. But even then, an artist must eventually step out of the echo chamber and into the world. This is where growth happens. Sharing work, receiving feedback—however painful—and refining the art in response to real engagement is what separates great creators from those who remain trapped in their own heads.

Today, we are lucky to have access to a wealth of collaborative tools that facilitate creative exchange. Platforms like Soundtrap, Frame.io, and Figma let musicians, filmmakers, and designers work together remotely. Writers can workshop their drafts in online communities, and musicians can jam in real time across continents. But no matter how digital collaboration becomes, there’s still something irreplaceable about real, human connection—the kind that happens in a studio, in a café, or on a long walk with a fellow artist.

The Way Forward

The way ahead is simple. Call a sensitive-antennaed friend and have a conversation about love, meaning, and empathy over lunch. Join a writing group, a musician’s circle, a filmmaker’s collective—some space where your art can exist in dialogue, not just solitude.

And the next time you choose to isolate yourself, make sure it’s because it serves the work, not merely because it’s convenient. Your art will be better for it. And the talons of the marketplace will feel a lot less sharp.