Check Out Conscious Effort Creative’s Story

Today we’d like to introduce you to Conscious Effort Creative.

Hello Conscious Effort Creative, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
Tyler Hardwick: I got my start as a senior in high school playing the National Anthem on guitar for local independent wrestling shows.

One of the wrestlers passed my name to his younger brother, who had just returned from the military and was looking to form a band. It was through that band that I met Ryan. We’ve been writing, recording, and playing music together since 2010 and ultimately opened our studio, Conscious Effort Creative, in 2018.

Ryan Barber: I already had a background in the music industry as I had gone to audio school at CRAS in Arizona and bounced around a few studio internships in Nashville and Franklin, Tennessee. I also toured across the country briefly with a live sound company.

Tyler Hardwick: We met at the same band audition in 2010. I was still a skinny 17-year-old, and for some reason the group — who had much more experience than me — allowed me to join!

Ryan Barber: The collaborative chemistry and mutual respect happened almost immediately. After the audition, we both remarked to friends in private, “Well, I don’t think I got the lead guitar role!” In reality, we ended up sharing that role for the next 10 years.

Tyler Hardwick: Fast forward a few years from 2010, we renamed our band Spectre and began writing and recording our first EP.

Ryan Barber: Much of the recording work at that time was done “guerilla-style” with a mobile recording rig I designed and tailored to our work environment. Those couple of years of recording took some serious dedication. It wasn’t uncommon for each recording session to take a few hours to set up and tear down, as our rehearsal space was shared with other musicians.

Tyler Hardwick: The Spectre EP, “Satellites”, was released in 2017 and performed well enough locally to help us get the attention of other local musicians looking to collaborate. We were invited to the inaugural Harvest Festival in Loogootee, Indiana that fall and recorded live performances from artists such as Reverend Payton’s Big Damn Band, The Kentucky Headhunters, Calabash, and The Cosmic Situation. At that festival, we also met more of the local music scene.

Ryan Barber: Six months later — in 2018 — we moved into our current space on Main Street in Loogootee, Indiana and Conscious Effort Creative was born. That mobile recording rig that served us so well in the early years finally got a permanent home, and the collaborative works began in 2019 with a Steven Wagler single titled “Halfway”. We continued with Damian Baker’s first solo EP “Better Place” in January 2020, and followed up with the Breathing Rm album “In The Psilo” in April 2020.

Tyler Hardwick: In that same time period we also launched the Conscious Effort Podcast, which in its infancy was an outlet for the humorous stories that occurred throughout our work and everyday lives but has since evolved into an interview format where we’re able to feature other creative guests and showcase their business and creative works in the local community and beyond.

We’ve been fortunate to have such guests as Tommy Siegel, a webcomic and founder of the Washington D.C.-area band, Jukebox The Ghost; Elijah Leighty, a novelist and filmmaker who wrote and directed the indie-film “Spacebangers”; Trenton Scott, a businessman with deep ties in the local community; and Logen McKeighen, who recorded his debut EP “Orange County Line” in Nashville with producer Dean Miller.

I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle-free, but so far would you say the journey has been a fairly smooth road?
Ryan Barber: It’s been a long road. The biggest struggle has been the sheer number of hours we had to put in early on before it became easy. There was a lot of trial and error before our first instinct became the right instinct.

Tyler Hardwick: We’ve joked many times over the years that with all the time and effort we’ve put in, it’s a good thing we love what we do. For years Ryan would haul the entire recording rig from one city, I’d haul all my music equipment from another city, and we’d meet in a third city to set up. An 8-hour day of work took at least 12 hours altogether.

But we wanted to work so badly that we never thought twice about it; in our minds, that was simply what it took. We had many marathon recording sessions in those days because we worked in a shared space. Once we dialed in a sound we wanted, we had to finish whatever we started that night because we wouldn’t be able to leave the equipment.

In the years since we established our permanent location, a new challenge has been knowing how and in which directions to grow. There are many projects we’d like to work on and ideas we’d like to pursue, but you just can’t do everything at the same time — especially with a small team. I’ve been guilty of trying to tackle too many projects at once, and I learned it’s better to focus on one or two projects at a time.

Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
Ryan Barber: We specialize in music production — tracking, mixing, and mastering. Our favorite projects are those that start small but evolve into something larger than the original scope. We love trying to take a project and turn it into something bigger than thought possible, and that mindset is what sets us apart the most.

Tyler Hardwick: I will second that. We love to try to take things as far as we can. As for proud moments, the Spectre EP “Satellites” stands out because of the time and effort that it took working without a permanent setup. Despite it being our own band, I never listened to the EP until three years later.

I had heard the songs in my head for so long that it took me a few years to finally appreciate what we were able to accomplish all those years ago. The Breathing Rm album “In The Psilo” stands out because of how much it pushed our creativity. Lastly, I’m very proud of the Conscious Effort Podcast.

Since introducing the new video format this year, it’s played a big part in helping us grow closer with our local community. Locally, we’ve probably become as well known for the podcast as we have our music work. Recently, we’ve also got the opportunity to work on sound design for film.

It’s a new arena for us, but certainly exciting. It’s a perfect example of a project we’ve wanted to pursue but only recently had the time to focus on.

What do you think about luck?
Ryan Barber: Networking — fortunate meetings — has been our biggest luck. Even folks you meet on the periphery can turn out to be lucky contacts in the future.

Tyler Hardwick: In our early years, we were fortunate to know a gentleman named Jeff Chambers, who opened his music space to us. We learned so many lessons in our years with him, and his ethos of “making a conscious effort” inspired and shaped our outlook.

Those same fortunate meetings Ryan mentioned led us to find our studio location as well as music collaborators, podcast guests, and our recent film work.

I suppose the universe has been kind to us in that regard. I also think there’s some odd luck in Ryan and I even crossing paths and finding our sort of yin-yang relationship: I like to write; Ryan likes to record. I push ideas; Ryan keeps those ideas grounded. We work very symbiotically despite our opposite natures.

Regarding bad luck, I struggle to think of specific occasions; bad luck isn’t something I tend to commit to memory, or maybe I simply don’t notice it. Although we have not always had good luck over the years, I’ve often remarked I was either bold enough or naïve enough to think we could succeed.

I always believed we were right around the corner from our goals, even though they were often further away. But that outlook has kept me going.

Contact Info:

• Email: ConsciousEffortCreative@gmail.com
• Website: ConsciousEffortCreative.com
• Instagram: Instagram.com/ConsciousEffortCreative
• Facebook: Facebook.com/ConsciousEffortCreative
• Youtube: Youtube.com/ConsciousEffortCreative
• Other: Lnk.bio/CEC

Image Credits
Kyla Greene (K.G. Photography) and Tyler Hardwick