Check Out Paul Spaeth’s Story

Today we’d like to introduce you to Paul Spaeth.

Hi Paul, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
From my earliest memory, I knew I was meant to be a musician. When I was three, my dad took me to a Toys ‘R Us and told me I could pick out any toy in the store. I chose a yellow, dinosaur-shaped toy piano and never stopped playing it. Perhaps as a way to soothe their ears, my parents finally put me in proper lessons a couple of years later.

I grew up in small-town Wisconsin to parents who were not musicians. In my fact, my dad was a high school football coach and math teacher, and as his firstborn child, he might have wondered what he got himself into. My whole journey has been self-led; a fascination that seemed to naturally unfold step by step. From that first toy piano to my grandpa recording me improvising on the piano at age nine (clips which you can hear in the URL below), to my first synth, to life-changing music institutes and the USC film scoring program: at each step I asked “what next?” and the answer followed. It was almost magical. I knew in my heart I was meant to share a universal love that I felt pouring through my music, and the universe obliged.

After graduating from college, however, my journey was far from easy. Looking back on it, I know it was massive self-pressure. What started as joy and self-expression became “you better make it — you’re at the top of your class, everyone has said from day one you’re a prodigy: you’re going to live up to the hype, right? Are you going to pay your bills in Los Angeles as a working film composer?”

If I could tell that 22 years old something he’d actually heed, it would be to relax, take it easy, and only create music when it feels good. Do other work to pay the bills for a time; travel, enjoy life, discover yourself — don’t worry about success, success will come and go. It will be the moments of joyful collaborations and sharing that you’ll remember, not the big paychecks or accolades.

It’s no surprise that my path, having started so straight and narrow, became circuitous and obscured. I suppose I’ve lived the hero’s journey: I was given a gift, then lost it and myself in a dark night of the soul, began conquering all my shadows one by one until I found the eternal gift was within me all along — only to now claim it consciously as my own.

During that dark night, many years were spent exploring various avenues as sources of income. Yes, I had great musical opportunities here and there, some which paid well, but the income wasn’t consistent, and eventually I lost the love for music. Suddenly, this expression of my heart became the thing I must do in order to survive. Survival and Loving Expression don’t go hand-in-hand. I had to take the pressure off.

So I turned to another innate part of me that had always been there: a sense of entrepreneurism. I began working in digital marketing, e-commerce, digital production, and even was the marketing and media lead for a friend’s startup in the Bay Area. Intense, long hours, lots of stress — sometimes punctuated with a quick TV ad gig here and there to keep my composition chops up and my hat in the ring.

I’m grateful that at age 38, I’ve come full circle. Having taken all those life lessons and experiences with me, I return to music with a completely fresh take and an open heart. I feel the curiosity, joy and playfulness that I felt throughout my childhood. I am creating music when it feels right, and I’m not agreeing to projects when it doesn’t. There’s no judgment on the projects themselves, it’s just that I choose for myself, in the words of Marie Kondo, that which sparks joy. It’s a resonant feedback loop of joy that I simply want to share. Much like love — true love is simply there, always present within us, and once tapped into, we can’t help but share it.

Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
Piano was my first love. It was my safe space, my bubble in the middle of difficult circumstances as I grew up. I spent ten years completing my piano album, Redemption, during my “dark night of the soul” period. Sometimes I would sit at the piano and an entire song would just come out, from start to finish — as though the music was coming into my life in the most pivotal moments, as a balm to soothe me.

When I was in high school and early college, my piano music garnered over 1 million downloads on MP3.com and a relatively large audience came to know my work as a pianist-composer.

Since then, I wrote music for incredibly important documentaries on Native American injustice, short films, video games, and even TV ads.

However, I’m most proud of my latest project — the first project in my new paradigm of freedom: my score to the short film “Into Temptation.” My good friend, director Quinn da Matta, and I crossed paths over a decade ago. We’ve worked together before, but this time just felt different. We’ve both come into our new paradigm of freedom, if you will — we’ve entered the flow and accrued the experience to make use of this moment.

The film deals with intense subject matter, the Catholic priest child sex abuse scandal, but handles it in such a humane and heartbreaking way and from an angle never before explored in film. The music had to tell a twisted love story, not simply paint over the pain with dark tones or scary black-or-white treatments. I was so grateful to have Jacob Braun (cellist on the Amazon series Leonardo) and Ben Smolen (principal flutist of the Pacific Symphony) lend their deft touch and humanity to the score.

Alright so before we go can you talk to us a bit about how people can work with you, collaborate with you or support you?
I would love to hear from filmmakers, stage producers, and any creative producer who wants to connect with a heart-centered musician and composer. I love collaborating on any medium and exploring new ways of delivering impactful experiences.

My piano albums can be found at www.paulspaeth.com and my film music is available at www.spaethmusic.com. The original soundtrack to the film Into Temptation is now available on Apple Music and Spotify. The film has also been submitted to all the major film festivals.

How you can help: INTO TEMPTATION is currently in the film festival circuit, and we could use more festival exposure and media attention to get this very important story told. After its run ends in October of 2022, we would love to discuss distribution. Anyone can follow which festivals it’s playing in and attend the screenings by visiting https://www.into-temptation.com/

Regardless of where this film goes, Quinn and I know this film is the beginning of the rest of our careers. Our lifelong friendship and collaboration has me deeply grateful.

Contact Info:

• Email: paul@spaethmusic.com
• Website: www.spaethmusic.com
• Instagram: paulspaeth
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/paulspaeth
• Youtube: www.youtube.com/paulspaethmusic
• SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/spaethmusic
• Other: www.paulspaeth.com

Image Credits
Kirk M. Oliver, Chris Tennyson