Why a Wiser, More Enlightened Elderbrook is Done Chasing Superficial Goals After a Decade

Music's symbiosis is peculiar. How can a musician and a listener, both strangers, be tethered so profoundly through an arrangement of sounds?

Elderbrook has touched the lives of millions of listeners over 10 years. He isn’t a paint-by-numbers artist—he writes music meaningful to him. If you feel a kinship with him, his music must mean something to you, too.

The decade has been good to Elderbrook. “Cola” is an enduring generational hit. His collective catalog has been streamed over a billion times. He’s released three albums, collaborated with legends, performed at iconic music festivals and has a Grammy nomination under his belt.

Looking ahead, there’s always another mountain to conquer. But maybe there shouldn’t be.

"I should have some goals, right?" Elderbrook asked EDM.com while reflecting on 10 years of his project and his ongoing "Another Touch" North American tour. “I don’t know if I’ve thought in depth about what it is I want to achieve through music. It’s cathartic and therapeutic for me to make music. I like making music.”

“One important thing I have thought about is that I shouldn’t chase sounds I’ve heard elsewhere. I should make stuff for myself that sounds cool. Because that is what ends up being the best music.”

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This enlightenment did not come naturally. It’s an ethos he exercises every day. Truthfully, he has set goals, but they were sometimes the wrong ones. Cliches exist because they often wield some truth, and after 10 years of trial and error, Elderbrook confirms the journey’s splendor is far richer than the destination.

“I’m working on not chasing the next thing,” he said. “The reason I spoke so passionately about it is that it’s something I struggled with: 'I’ll be so happy once I get 100 million views.' Then you get 100 million views and you think, '1 billion would be nice though.'"

“I don’t have anything with 1 billion views, but once I do, I’ll think, ‘It’d be nice to have two songs with a billion views.’ You’ll never reach it. It’s not about not setting goals, but setting goals to make a song that you love. Nothing quantifiable by other people. That shouldn’t matter.”

Roman philosopher Seneca famously said, “Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.” But it’s easy to misinterpret opportunity as luck. Passion and fear are sometimes indistinguishable in a business fueled by dreams and unlikely success. 

The music industry’s hamster wheel runs artists into the ground if allowed. The demand to build momentum is so fierce that artists can’t acknowledge burnout until their last enthusiastic ember is stamped out.

Elderbrook’s “Something About You” collaborators, Rudimental, once taught him an important lesson about saying “no.” It’s a teaching he continues to practice in the pursuit of music made for him, not for metrics.

“It’s not realistic when you see all these people online headlining festivals,” Elderbrook says. “You kind of compare yourself with them and feel like you need to say yes to everything, otherwise you’re never going to make it. You think you need to do this every single day. But really, a lot of it is that you need to look after yourself.”

“If you can look after yourself, the next song you make will be 10 times better than if you’re stressed out trying to write an amazing No. 1 song smash hit single. Take your time, say no. Just say no because it’s very easy to say yes to everything. It’s overwhelming. It creeps up on you, and it can end badly.”

Now a father of two, Elderbrook has come a long way from the college student selling hip-hop beats for 200 to 250 pounds sterling. Fortunately for his family, his fiscal maturity has kept pace with his musical and personal evolutions.

"I suddenly had $1,000 in my account for the first time in my life,” Elderbrook recalled of his college days. “I thought, ‘Pfft, yeah. Mr. Big Shot.’ I’m walking down the street. I walked past a thrift store and saw a trombone in the mirror–not the mirror, I’m not a trombone. I saw it in the window and said, ‘Yeah, I’m going to buy that trombone!’ No, it was a trumpet! ‘Yeah, I’m going to buy that trumpet. I bet I’m really good at it.’ It was $500.”

“When my money ran out the next week, I had this trumpet. I was just looking at it. I still have it now. It serves as a reminder not to waste your money on stupid s–t.”

Elderbrook keeps the trumpet as an important symbol of modesty. Unfortunately, that is all it’s good for.

“I still can’t play it,” Eldebrook laughed. “One night, I picked up this trumpet and I could play it immaculately at five in the morning. But every other time I’ve tried, it hasn’t worked for me. It just clicked for me once. That was one time and I don’t think I’ll ever recreate it. But the people who were there can vouch. I nailed it at 5am this one time.”

Who could have witnessed him playing a trumpet at 5M?

“Listen, man,” Elderbrook replies coyly. “I’ve lived a life.”

Elderbrook is currently making his way through North America on tour. He probably won’t play the trumpet, but if his last tour is an indicator, you can expect a sprawling, one-of-a-kind performance with DJing, singing, dancing and live instrumentation.

You can find Elderbrook’s upcoming tour dates here.

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