Day 110: Brian O’Neal

January 18, 2010 at 12:01 am, Category: Featured, Inspiration

“… as long as I’m able to hear music and continue to appreciate it the way I do, that keeps me going.  That’s the rest of my life, no matter what happens.  … as long as I have ears and my two hands and at least one instrument, I’m happy.”

.



.
Right click here to download…
.

Toni Reece: Thank you so much, Brian, for agreeing to take part in this Project and before we begin, can you please introduce yourself?

Brian O’Neal: Hello.  My name is Brian O’Neal, and I am a professional, national recording artist and CEO and founder of DO Foundation nonprofit for the homeless.

Toni: Okay, and just so that we have a little bit of background, can you give us a summary of what is the DO Foundation?

Brian: The DO Foundation … well actually the word DO really stands for Daisy O’Neal which is my late grandmother, and it’s named after her because that’s the person who inspired me my entire life for music and helping the homeless, and also it’s short for “do something.”  I notice a lot of people in the world do a lot of talking about homelessness and poverty, but they don’t actually do anything.  So the title DO Foundation … we really prefer DO Something as a Foundation, but that name was taken, so it is DO Foundation.

Toni: Well thank you for that, and at the end of your interview post people who read and follow the Get Inspired! Project will be able to be see how to reach your Foundation, and also we’re going to post it on the Project page.

So, let’s go into the very first question, Brian.  When you think about inspiration, who do you inspire and how do you think you do that?

Brian: Who do I inspire?

Toni: Yes.

Brian: I think I inspire many people who follow my music.  That actually started when I started recording music which is what they call “smooth jazz.”  I kind of hate that title but … I started out by inspiring a lot of other musicians.  They watched me pretty much teach myself how to play, since I’d never taken lessons.  All the while, I was a software developer working 12 hours a day on a computer, and I’d go home and I’d record all of this music and take it back to work.

I’d notice a lot of my coworkers were wanting to do the same thing.  Not necessarily record music, but want to branch out and do other things in life.  They figured well, if you’re a software developer, how in the world are you going to be able to go home and be a full-time musician too?  I started inspiring people that way, and they would tell me that quite often, kind of going in one ear and out the other, because I felt, you know, no matter what you tell me, I still have a lot of work ahead of me.

Their words of encouragement was okay, but it felt deep down inside I was really trying to impress my parents because my parents, as I was growing up, they always told me to never do music, I’d be crazy for trying to be a musician.  They were very non-supportive.  My dad would say typical things like “Get a real job.  Being a musician is not a real job.”  He associated drugs and alcohol, women, and sex and all that … rock and roll, playing in bars.

So I spent a lot of time working on that music and, like I said, a lot of coworkers would … I would inspire a lot of my coworkers and, in return, they would make a lot of comments about that.

Well, it was recently, Toni, that I walked off that job to do music full time, and I noticed my music changed.  It became more intense, and I developed a pretty large fan base.  Pretty much all the remarks that I get from my fans is how inspiring the music is.

And by the way, the music that I do does not contain lyrics, so part of my mission is to educate my fan base and even the world with music, stating that you can say a lot of things without saying words.

Toni: That’s a great sentiment.

Brian: Yes, there’s actually a track on my recent CD called “No Words Necessary”, and there’s a video that goes with it, and the video is a lot of things that could happen to a person or things that we do day-to-day that are expressed without saying words.  It’s pretty nifty.

Toni: When you talk about the way that you inspire others through your music and also by setting the example that you did by staying passionate about your music and then ultimately making that decision, you know, the belief without evidence move, to do what you love and feeling that difference.  To me that’s all about taking action.  And is that something that you also do … you talked about your professional life … is that what you do in your personal life, how you inspire others?  Is that what you’ve done with the DO Foundation is to take that action?

Brian: Yes.  Well, the music actually led to the DO Foundation and, because I’m a jazz artist, that’s actually doing videos to songs that I don’t have lyrics to.  It causes people to actually really watch the video and what’s going on, and really listen to the music.  Because my fan base grew from that, a lot of people opened up and said “Hey, this is different; a video without a singer.  There’s all instruments doing all the speaking.”

That kind of set the platform for me to actually say things verbally and people would listen.  And because I’ve always had the other passion of helping other human beings, homelessness and poverty, the few times that I mentioned that to my fan base, the reaction was just overwhelming.   People were listening.  So here I have a stage to speak and people would listen; I would have a very large audience.

I had written a song called “Dreams in Color” and it’s about homelessness, and I actually spent two weeks as a homeless person to film the footage for that.  I merged it with the song, made the video, put it online, and got hundreds of thousands of hits on that.

The messages that I got from people were basically that I inspired them to actually notice homeless people.  We’ve got people who walked around every day, regular people like you and myself that step over homeless people, ignore them, and homeless people are actually considered … or they consider themselves invisible.  The two weeks I was on the streets, I got a chance to talk with many of them, and the biggest gripe is “Why do people ignore us?  Why do people think that we’re not here?  Why can’t people help us?”  So that’s in the video.  That message is very strong in that video.

Toni: By putting this out there and showcasing with your music and then the song that you’ve written and taking this cause, how do you think then that that helps other people explore their potential, by what you’ve done?  How might that then help somebody else explore their own potential?

Brian: Well, it causes them to stop and think, and … it’s kind of hard to explain.  I get so many messages from people on how it changes their lives and how they’re inspired.  Basically, what they see in the video and what they hear in the music, it really causes them to slow down and actually look, listen, feel.  And they also realize that they are passionate people inside, and it doesn’t matter what their peers think, because peer pressure seems to be one of the biggest things that holds people back.

It actually held me back for a while when I was younger.  Peer pressure meaning that a lot of my friends that were going to sports would say “You’d don’t want to be a musician”, or “You don’t want go into computer science, because you’re not going to make that much money, you’re not going to have the women.”

Even with more mature people today, and I speak with a lot of my fans and they told me that they don’t  help homeless people or they won’t stop and give a dollar because if they’re with a few girlfriends, they’re embarrassed, or they don’t want the homeless person to follow them, or they’re afraid of something.

So it causes them to open up and realize that they are human, homeless people are human, and we all have the right to have help.

Toni: So, when you are inspiring others through your music or the work that you’re doing with this Foundation, it’s really setting an example in  a very unique way for others to say it’s okay, let’s, like you said, stop, think, slow down, look, listen, and then I also heard that you’re asking people to move through their own fear.

Brian: Yes.  I notice that it’s working much better, and I’m able to reach a larger crowd when I do things first.  Because I’m in the limelight as an artist, as a national recording artist, people are watching me.  When I shot the video, I was on the streets for two weeks, and I didn’t know it would have that type of impact with my current fans, the fact that I truly went homeless.  I was a bum, and I was out there.  That brought in 2,000 or 3,000 more fans – brand new fans who had never heard of me.  Those people are still following me.  After realizing that because I’m in the limelight like that through my music status, things that I say and do, people are watching.

Toni: Right.

Brian: They follow by example.

Toni: Well then let me ask you this, Brian, what do you need to be inspired?  You’re out there inspiring others, you’re aware of it, so what do you need to stay inspired and to be inspired?

Brian: Well, I’m inspired … that’s a tough one, because I think that’s just who I am and how I’m made.  I think I give my late grandmother, Daisy O’Neal, the credit because she was one awesome woman.  She gave to any and everyone.  She’d give her last dollar to anyone, total strangers.

Coming up as a child, she always told me things like “Brian, if you want to do music, you do music.  If that makes you most happy, that’s what you do.  Don’t listen to your friends, don’t listen to your parents when they tell you get a job to make a lot of money, get a job that’s going to allow you to travel and buy big houses and things like that.  If music is in you and that’s makes you happy, then that’s what you do.”

I remember her saying that many times around age six or seven,  and that kind of kept me going the rest of my life, and I’ve taught my own children that.  I’ve spread that to others, like my best friends and other people in the family, and I notice large changes in them.  I notice that they are happy.  They may not be as rich as they want to be, but as people they’re much happier.

Toni: So when you think about … when you’re going “You know what?  I need to fill my own bucket here.  I need to find inspiration and seek inspiration.”  I heard that acts of kindness inspire you and following your purpose inspires you … what else do you find inspiring?  For you?

Brian: Music.

Toni: Music.

Brian: Not my own music.  Music does so much for me and not the typical top 40 stuff and things on the radio.  I find the most inspiring music is music that’s attached to visual things like the music that’s in movies.  I can sit and watch the most exciting visual movie, but it’s that music that’s behind the scenes that’s driving me.  I can actually go to a movie theater and close my eyes the whole time and really get into the music.

Most people don’t realize that almost every single thing you watch on television, commercials and all, has music behind it; that’s what I’m listening to.  I can be staring at the television, but I don’t really see much, but I hear everything.  Instruments speak to me and instruments inspire me a lot, and there’s a handful of them that do the trick for me.  The cello.  The sound of the cello does it, hands down.

Toni: Yeah.

Brian: Anything with a cello, yeah, that does it for me.  Second would probably be oboe, and then piano, and acoustic guitar.

Toni: And so, Brian, you’ve been very honest with how you inspire, what inspires you, the acts of kindness to people following their passion, music … what are you doing and what will you continue to do so that you can keep exploring your own potential?

Brian: I will continue being a musician for one, because it’s in my blood and I’ve learned that that is the engine that drives me.  They say music is the universal language of the world; that is so true.  If music goes away, or I’m not able to hear music or feel it, it would probably stop me right in my tracks.

Toni: So, staying connected to the music.  Is that through your own writing that you’ll continue with growing your own potential?  Is it writing?  What does that mean for you?

Brian: Well, it’s pretty much all of it.  I am a composer first.  The performing aspect of it, I do a lot of performing and I travel the country.  That’s fun, and it’s nice to play for an audience and to feel what they feel right there in the same room.  But if anything had to go away, I wouldn’t mind if that part goes away.  I could stay home every day the rest of my life just composing music for other people and myself.

But as long as I’m able to hear music and continue to appreciate it the way I do, that keeps me going.  That’s the rest of my life, no matter what happens.  If there’s no Do Foundation, there’s no touring, there’s no fancy house in the mountains and fancy car, as long as I have ears and my two hands and at least one instrument, I’m happy.

Toni: Only one.

Brian: Well, minimum one.  I play about seven, but, you know, I could do everything with a piano.

Toni: Well, you have been really kind today to give up your time to be a part of the Get Inspired! Project, particularly knowing that you’re going to be going back out on the street, you said, tomorrow.  What’s so interesting about this interview is that even though your passion is in music — and that’s really come out loud and clear throughout this interview — but it’s interesting that your passion is putting the music out there without any words so that the message speaks louder than the words, and you’ve started a Foundation about doing something without screaming it from the mountaintop; that’s pretty awesome.

Brian: And by example.

Toni: And by example, absolutely.

Brian: The more I do, the more the people around me do and then that just kind of spreads, and so on.

Toni: It does.  It really does.  Well, we will definitely have a way for people to get ahold of you and, as I said in the beginning of the interview, we will spotlight your Foundation and I’m sure there’s people that are going to be listening and reading this that will want to hear your music as well, so thank you, Brian, very much, for this interview today.  Good luck to you going back on the street, stay safe, and hopefully we will reconnect in the future.

Brian: Thank you so much for taking your time and interviewing me.  I so appreciate it.

Toni: You’re welcome.  Take care, Brian.

___________________________________________________________

For more information about Brian O’Neal:  www.dofoundation.net, info@dofoundation.net

.