How I Managed to be a Successful Musician and Freak Out About it?

So the year is 2011, I have been through a lot, and it affected significant areas of my life. If you have been following this blog for a while now (well, just kinda started, but anyway), you know that my life got into an emotional and physical spiral from 2009 to this point.

I felt like I’m growing up way too fast, which is funny because, at 21, you are not ‘supposed’ to be a kid anymore. Even so, I felt like I’m going from being a 20-year old kid to a 21-year-old grown-up. Life moved very fast for me, which can be a blessing but also a curse.

Promo Picture we have used to promote one of the released singles.

After my emotional rollercoaster, me beating Anorexia and developing my new ‘persona’ in New York for six months, I decided to restart my music career from where I left it. I had three singles ready to go and promotional pictures from photoshoots that got me broke. So I thought to myself, why the hell not?

I released three singles that year, and the feedback was terrific. The radio loved it, the press wrote endlessly about it, I received a lot of attention from publishers, private companies, and other artists that wanted to work with me, whether as a songwriter or a producer. I had almost a full album lined up that I did with a so-called producer in Israel. He taught me a lot honestly, he was kind of my door to the music world, but, as you will find out later, I received tons of wrong advises from people I trusted on, and it burnet the crap out of me.

Back then, we relied on the radio as well as digital and printed press to measure a single’s success, whatever it means. It was way before iTunes kicked in, let alone Spotify nor Apple Music. These singles were played over and over again across national radio stations in Israel. It was a fantastic experience, but with that, of course, massive anxiety.

I think it was the first time life introduced me to career-related anxiety. I was experiencing some depression as a teenager (eating disorder results and such…) but not feeling anxious about anything. And nether less to say, IT CREEP THE HELL OUT ME.

Yedioth Achronot (ידיעות אחרונות) the biggest, most-circulated newspaper in Israel, wrote a two-pages long article about me. Wouldn’t that freak the hell out of you too? No? Is it just me? Ok.

Is that how being successful feels like? Why do these Facebook messages telling me that I’m an amazing musician scare me so much? Why the deal I just signed with one of the biggest wireless companies in Israel sent me to hide under my blanket? Why the booking confirmation of my concert at one of Israel’s most prominent music venues made me feel like I want to throw up?

I didn’t know what to do and what’s going on with me. Eventually, I did all of these things, but I never felt complete. There’s always something missing. I didn’t know what it was, but I knew I am unhappy, even though I’m living my dream.

I felt like I needed a change. A career change, a scenery change (yet again), and all the change you could throw at me at that time, I would have taken it. That’s why, later that year, and the beginning of 2012 (which brings us to the next blog post), I have arrived in London, with the best musicians that were hand-picked. We locked ourselves in the most legendary music studio (think Led Zepplin, Elton John, The freaking Beatless) to record my full, grown-up, yet pure, debut album.

More on London, my first album, this priceless experience in the next post. Have a pleasant Holiday, and thank you so much for sticking around with me through this journey.

Once again,if you survived until here, you are up for a treat, and some Hollywood material script called my life.

Be kind to one another.

xx

Love, S.

How I Managed to be a Kid at 20 Years Old?

A kid at 20, post-winning my biggest fight(s).

Welcome back to my journey. I really appreciate you sticking around and keep coming back to visit this section. Honestly, I’m still trying to get used to writing these blog posts, but I find it quite refreshing to let it all out, at last.

Today I would like to move forward to 2010, where I had to win major fights (because I had no other choice) and to start my life at the age of 20 in a mentality of 15 years old.

In 2010 I was a 20 years old kid, I’m saying I was a 20 years old kid because that’s what and who I was. Through my adolescence, I didn’t really experience what it’s like to grow up as a ‘normal’ young man. What normal even means, am I right? Well, I invested my time and precious energy in fighting a long and nerve-wracking eating disorder. I suffered from Anorexia between the ages of 16 to 21.

There were reasons for that. As a little kid, I was almost always overweight. I was laughed at and kicked at, but I guess that at that time I didn’t really let it get to me. Until I have graduated from middle-school to a new high school. That was at around 15/16 years old. We started to have pool classes and I was like “Nah… I can’t do that when my body is in this horrible shape”. So I started a diet, and this diet escalated to starving myself pretty quickly. I moved from overweight to way underweight in a matter of a few months, and I thought I was happy.

But I wasn’t.

I lost all the good times my friends have had in high school. I wasn’t drinking (gosh, did you know how many calories are in beers and Vodka-Redbull?!), I wasn’t going out (cause, what’s the point?), and overall, I wasn’t really living.

I didn’t have a girlfriend, and even when I had, my desire to give out love (let alone make love) was basically non-existence. When you’re hungry, that’s all you think about, the rest is just there, but not really there. So I somehow survived high-school and it was the time that everybody at my age must deploy to the army. I wasn’t feeling it AT ALL. I couldn’t see myself holding a weapon and really getting in another framework where other people might judge me closely and tell me what to do every day.

I couldn’t stand that feeling that it might be how my life is going to look for the next 3 years (‘FUN FACT’: In Israel, males must serve in the army for 3 years, and females must serve for 2 years). And of course, there are exceptions - ME. Of course, I was the exception, because, I mean, how couldn’t I be the exception?

I got a release letter from the army at the age of 18, and I was ready to go out to the world. I was happy that this heavy block is now off my back and I can take my music more seriously, but most importantly at that time was to heal myself from that horrendous eating disorder.

I flew out to New York at the ages of 19 and spent 6 months here discovering the new me. Luckily I found it, and without therapy, other than life itself, I managed to overcome my eating disorder and get out of this toxic environment I was rasing inside my head.

When I came back from this journey, I started to make music more seriously, and when my eating disorder was off the plate, I was ready to fill in this jar with music, emotions, story-telling, and performances.

More on that in the next post.

Once again,if you survived until here, you are up for a treat, and some Hollywood material script called my life.

xx

Love, S.

10 Years in the Making...

To you, my dedicated followers and extended family of all those years, this one is for you.

I don’t tend to write essay-style posts and, honestly, I don’t think I ever wrote a post like this in my life (even not in what was so-called High School). But this decade is coming to an end, and, as part of my upcoming resolutions (which hopefully won’t be a forgotten memory again by February), I decided to start writing my notes, thoughts, and what’s in between on a public blog.

For those of you who don’t really know me, my name is Snir Yamin, I’m an Israeli national that made the U.S my home since 2016, by blood and tears, but we will talk about this later on. My musical journey officially began in 2009. I had these really expensive photoshoots taken of me to make the cover art of my debut album at the time, but for Public Relations purposes as well.

One of the pictures of off the debut album photoshoots. This picture became the cover art of one of the singles.

Somehow I played the card right that year, which landed me my first real gig in Tel Aviv’s most prominent music venue, called The Barby. Think of Blonde Redhead, Regina Spektor, Ziggy Marley, Lil Dicky, Passenger, Jose Gonzales, and such. These are the artists who performed and keep performing at The Barby regularly, so you can imagine my excitement…

It was an MTV-Unplugged style performance. I opened that evening with an entirely acoustic set, in what was a 360-degree stage. It was one-of-a-kind-production, and it was sold-out. It was my first, freaking, real show EVER (excluding the occasional pubs and restaurants in the small town where I grew up). I remember, boy, it’s funny that two days before the concert, I had this Yamaha keys that were like, plastic and for practice-only. But I really wanted to play a real piano on that show (it was only for 1 song, and I couldn’t bring my childish Yamaha keys to the club… Of course). So, I bought a second-hand, $1,000, Roland key that, at that time, weighted more than me. For one. Freaking. Song.

For years later, it was in use when I had my studio at my Mom’s house, so I’m grateful to that impulse buy, after all. I dressed to impress, I’ll give myself that. I wore this army-style jacket my Mom bought me when we visited New York City a year prior. I still love this jacket, I might bring it back!

My 2009 performance at The Barby (mark my words, I will bring this jacket back in style!)

At the end of that show, I met who became to be my first manager. Can you imagine my overwhelm? I just finished my first headlining sold-out show at one of Israel’s most famous venues, AND I just got myself a manager?! WTF is this life?! Also, after finishing the concert, I had my friend take a video of me singing one of my well-known songs at that time.

The video was really compelling because the crowd sang along at some point. I decided to upload it to YouTube (it was really new at that time). I don’t think the video is still up there, so don’t try to look it up, you sneaky little creatures… A day later, I got many Facebook messages from companies and agents, telling me that they were really impressed with the video. Mainly, they said, given the fact that it was my first show, and I was only 19 at the time.

They want to promote me, and I even got a deal with an Israeli Wireless Company, called Cellcom. This song of mine was used in commercials for that Wireless company, and I was blown away.

Well… Yeah, it sounds better than it really was (of course).

It appears that my manager at that time, was in love with me, as I discovered through very up-front confession, and I couldn’t really handle it. After a few shows that were booked, we decided to part-ways. But hey, maybe it wasn’t that bad after all, as she invited me to her wedding a few years later! It all happened really fast, and it was really overwhelming for me. I pumped the breaks shortly after and decided to take some time off of my yet-to-begin, music career.

That was my 2009, the year that kicked it but also kicked my feelings and introduced me to what anxiety is all about. More on that later on. I will try to dedicate every post to each year, and I promise you, if you survived until here, you are up for a treat, and some Hollywood material script called my life.

xx

Love, S.