Highlight of the Year: Spring Fling ’12

Being the editor-in-chief of The Mirror, our campus newspaper, definitely has its perks!

Last month, Erskine’s Entertainment Board announced that Corey Smith would be performing at Erskine for Spring Fling. I decided to hold a contest to get more readers out to The Mirror site and the winner and I got to interview Corey Smith before he went on stage.

This just goes to show you how involved students are in the activities on Erskine’s campus. EEB is run by students who try to bring in bands they know Erskine students are going to love. The Mirror steps in to get student’s questions answered by their favorite artists. Student photographers capture the moments along the way. It truly is a cool process when you just think about it. Yeh, we have faculty advisers but we really do get to make most of the important decisions for our organizations. It’s pretty neat and the product is one that is enjoyable for many students and faculty and staff on campus.

If any of you readers are Corey Smith fans, take time to read the following transcript from the interview.

Corey Smith Interview

Schadell Brooks and Jacob Blakely

S: Who would you consider your biggest musical influence?

My dad. It’s all encompassing. It’s impossible to say one. My dad sort of filtered what music I heard when I was a small kid.

S: Tell us about your educational background.

I went to Gainville College, transferred to West Georgia College and then I transferred to UGA. I was a social studies secondary education major.

S: How many years did you teach?

4 years. Mostly world history, some geography, philosophy, guitar.

J: What kind of musical background did you have? Did you take lessons or anything?

I sang for as long as I can remember. I sang in church choirs. My dad was in bands so they were always having band practice around the house. There were always guitars sitting around. He would show me a few little things here and there but I never took interest in guitar until I was about 15. Then I just picked up a bunch of books and sort of applied. You know its little things like how to hold the guitar, fretting the chord that can take you a while to learn but because I’d been around it a lot of that just sort of came to me pretty quick and I picked up a lot of these books like Bob Seger, George Strait, or Garth Brooks. And I could already sing so I would start out singing and playing the chord. I had a youth pastor at a church that I went to when I was in high school that played guitar and he showed me some stuff and when I went to college I took formal lessons for a year.

J: How do you actually write your music? Does your music dictate your lyrics or vice versa?

It varies. It happens both ways. Sometimes the lyrics and the melody hit at the same time. More often it’s the music first and the music sort of dictates the vibe. But there’s more than one way to skin a cat. I think it’s important to experiment with a lot of different approaches.

S: Who are some of your favorite mainstream artists right now?

I like Kings of Leon, John Mayer, Adele, that’s good. Those are just a few. You might notice the glaring absence of country artists.

J: Do you record most of the guitar parts on your CD’s or do you let someone else do it?

I play guitar on every CD, on every track. It varies from record to record. Certain records I play all the guitar, electric and acoustic on. I don’t have a session player that I just go to. Now I have a great guitar player on tour with me.

S: Tell us about touring with Florida-Georgia Line.

I’ve been doing shows with them for about 6 months. I met them through my agent and had them on a few shows. It was a good fit. Fans seemed to like them. They’re younger so it’s nice to have the youth and the energy out here.

S: Any advice for them?

Take it slow. Enjoy it but don’t be in a hurry.

S: For those who saw your tweets before you got here, tell us about going to your boys’ recital and their musical background.

They’ve only been taking piano lessons for maybe 6 months. I want them to come to enjoy it on their own. I’m trying to be careful about forcing it on them, pushing it on them but they have drum sets and guitars and stuff already. They don’t listen to me when it comes to instruction though.

S: You’ve come such a long way in your career. What has motivated that? What’s the driving force?

God. Some people would call it God. It’s my calling you know. It’s kinda like I’m believing that I’m doing things for a reason and then certain opportunities come up and I weigh the options. I had a friend of mine explain life like a fork. At some points its like things just make sense and you have these tuning fork moments where you’re like aw, this is what I’m supposed to do. You don’t have those a lot but as you get older and you look back it all starts making sense and you realize that’s kinda your path. I feel like music has been that way. There was a time that where it was purely just what I did for enjoyment. I would play for friends at a party. I started playing in bars for crowds of 50 people. I played for my students at school. It felt right. My goal was just to be able to make a living doing it so I expected to be touring about three hours from home and playing for a few hundred people every night and the next thing I knew I was playing for thousands of people and now I’m touring all over the country.

J: Do you have any classical musical influences?

When I was in college I took pick style classical so that was the training there.  It’s only recently that I started listening to classical music. I think classical music influences everybody whether they realize it or not cause it’s such a part of popular culture underneath the surface. Now, I listen to a lot of Gershwin and Eric Copeland.  But that’s just kinda stuff to relax to. The Gershwin stuff though is really helpful as a writer cause he’s really hooky and has great melodies.

S: How do you deal with people who have negative things to say about your music?

I try to ignore it but sometimes it’s hard to. I just quit going to the places where I know I’m going to find that stuff. I think there a lot of negative people out there who just use [the internet] as an outlet. I don’t mind criticism especially when it’s fair. I think all different types of people are guilty of it. I have a hard time fitting in anywhere. I don’t fit in well in country because I’m too progressive or too untraditional. I don’t fit in well with rock because when they hear me all they here is country. So I just get in my own little group.

Corey Smith & I before the interview

Jacob Blakely, the contest winner, with Corey Smith

Katie Putnam, Photography Editor, with Corey Smith

Taylor Wolfe, EEB Chair, with Corey Smith

“The Mirror”: A Reflection

Last year I wrote that I never thought I would be writing for a school publication, but this year I took a step farther and found myself as the editor for the Arts & Culture section of our school newspaper, The Mirror.  Although it can be a challenge to find students who are willing and, more importantly, have time to write articles for my section, I have really enjoyed the challenge.

Being involved in the performing arts at Erskine, it was easy for me to keep up with what was going on, though I had to work harder to keep up with the visual arts.  However, as I found out, it can be a challenge to find an interesting angle for each article – sometimes it is all right just to write about what happened, but as all the staff found out this year, students are much more interested in reading and writing articles that give it a unique perspective.  For example, this Monday afternoon was the reception for the senior art show.  Instead of just writing about the event, though, my friend Rebecca wrote only a little bit of a “traditional” article, because she interviewed the two senior art majors (with a combination of serious and lighthearted questions, which also makes for a good story).  This sort of article is much more popular, because students would rather hear the opinions and stories of other students than just a recap of what happened.

I have to admit that all this is partially to advertise the newspaper, because I think more people should read it – we’ve been improving the newspaper so much this year, and I think it appeals to a much wider audience.  Whatever your interest is, you’ll find lots of student-written, -edited, and –published articles at: http://www.erskinemirror.com/, or check out our Facebook page:  http://www.facebook.com/erskinemirror (Seriously, check it out, especially the Arts & Culture section!)  But I also want to point out that it just goes to show that you never know what you’ll get into in college, especially at a small one like Erskine.  I’m not sure that I will be active later in any sort of journalism, but it certainly does not hurt to have this experience.  And, if nothing else, I enjoyed doing something different, from writing articles and editorials to being an editor myself.

The Mirror

Have you ever read a newspaper while drinking your morning coffee?

Chances are if you’re close to my age, you probably haven’t. Instead, you probably get your news online via Twitter, Facebook, an RSS feed, or a mobile news website.

That’s why I was thrilled when Erskine asked me to head up the steering committee to bring back our student newspaper, The Mirror,  in an all online format.

Erskine’s newspaper was once the second best college newspaper in the state of South Carolina. So, I was definitely feeling the pressure to provide the student body, faculty/staff, and alumni, with a paper that would not only appeal to a different generation of news junkies, but also still be fair and balanced as possible, and full of stories that are factual and encourage students to observe what’s going on in and outside of the Erskine bubble.

We were all able to rally together to pull it off. We unveiled our brand new website May 6, 2011. For real though, I feel the best is yet to come. I’ve got all summer to plan exactly what the new Mirror will entail, but I definitely expect to deliver all that I mentioned above. I’d love to go into broadcast journalism one day if I don’t end up singing, so this paper is going to be a great experience for me. I’ve already had some challenges amongst leadership and with staff writers, but that’s the thing about being a student leader. You have to learn to roll with the punches. I’m just excited that I get to step up, create, and deliver something new to Erskine. It’s a way that I can leave a legacy for future Erskine students.

As for the website…

I’ll let it speak for itself: http://erskinemirror.com

College means trying new things

Although Erskine is a small college, don’t let anyone fool you – there is plenty to do here and students are extremely involved.  In fact, the longer you are here the more careful you have to be to not get over-committed, because there are so many activities and organizations to participate in.  However, college is so much more than just schoolwork, and extracurricular activities are a great opportunity to get to know people, have fun, and try new things.

Something that I have recently become involved in that I never saw myself doing is writing for the school newspaper.  One of my friends is heading up the revamped Mirror, our college publication, that is going to be starting soon in an online version.  A couple of months ago she told me her ideas for the newspaper, and we discussed exciting columns and interesting stories that she could include.  I told her that I might be interested in contributing a small column, or helping with a little editing, but that I wasn’t sure I had the time or the talent to do more than that.

A few weeks later, after a staff meeting for interested students that I was unable to attend, I received an e-mail with two article assignments.  Oh no!  I panicked for a minute, swearing that I never volunteered (which I sort of did), and thinking that there was no way I could write for the paper.  However, after reading the assignments and actually thinking about it for a few minutes, I decided to be daring and accept them.  Why not?

Of course, being a college student, I procrastinated until the week before the deadline to start these articles.  Finally, I decided to at least start them, since this was going to be a new experience for me.  The first was fairly easy – a quick, fun article that I finished without much trouble.  The second was more involved, and required some interviewing and good writing – an Op Ed piece.  Oh, dear.  So, I struggled for a couple of days to get a good concept of what I wanted to write, because, well, I had never done this before and I wanted it to be decent.  Finally, I sat down, collected my thoughts, and started seriously writing. . . and an article was finished about an hour and a half later that was not half bad, if I do say so myself.

Sometimes I berate myself for my willingness to be a part of so much on campus, because there are days when it feels like there simply is not enough time to fit everything in.  But then there are times like these when I remember that it is good to try new things, and entirely worth it when the result is something that I am proud of.

(Interested?  You can read it at: http://www.erskinemirror.com/ )