Meet The Capitali$t Remixologist, the successful entrepreneur, failed by the venture capitalist system, and then founded the first independent Songa in his home with his wife Erin Spelling. A man who built everything to prove himself—then nearly lost it all trying to keep his dream alive.

In some ways, the story of my life was written the moment I was voted Most Likely to Succeed by our graduating class of ’91. I lived in the shadows of Dad’s expectations—and his buildings. Achieving Dad’s skyscraping standards and protecting that high school moniker were a heavy weight to bear.

**Erin** and I met in school as overachievers—our pairing only made sense. But our love was more than just common sense and good appearances—for a while, at least. We both stayed close to home and went to Saint Louis University, even though our parents had long since fled our hometown during summers and winters—hers to West Palm Beach, mine to Steamboat Springs. Erin got pregnant soon after graduation, and the pressure to succeed intensified.

I started a real estate marketing agency. When it grew to ten employees, I felt like I had to provide for eleven families now. I poured everything I made into the business—including my Self. At home, I was checked out with Erin and the kids, feeling like my life’s work was at the office. All those late nights. The stress. The loans. I was doing it all for them, wasn’t I?

If I could just land that next big client, it would all be alright.

Entrepreneurship and keeping the dream alive became an addiction.

And then, I found out Erin had a trust fund. I hate to admit it—and would never do so to her—but I was emasculated. She grew her reputation as Huntleigh’s premiere realtor, and the gap between us widened. I ate poorly and never exercised, but compensated for both with nights alone in our den or at the local bar, escaping the pain with each shot of whiskey I took. The kids were set for college, weren’t they? They had their mother’s inheritance. So if I drank my paycheck away, then so be it.

As the business struggled, I did everything to make it—and myself—look like a success: a vacation home, a new car. I went into more debt buying both, but wasn’t any happier on the other side of it. In fact, I was less.

The honor the Class of ’91 gave me wasn’t an honor at all.

It was a curse.

And then, on the same day that I signed an offer from a successful—unlike me—entrepreneur to buy my company, Erin asked for a divorce. I’d gone from a CEO and husband to… nothing. I didn’t know what I was without those two things.

But appearances dictated that my wife and I maintain our perfect facade while the divorce was finalized. Erin had received an invitation to a mysterious musical experience taking place in the Tower Grove neighborhood.

I’d never been a fan of musicals. But I heard there’d be comedy there too. And I’d always been a fan of deflecting pain through laughter and jokes—now more than ever.

I saw her at the table before we left for the evening. Erin looked stunning, even if she was locked into reading our separation arrangement. I didn’t know until later, it wasn’t her lawyer’s work at all—but that of a collection of authors who’d written the secret manuscript that was circulating around St. Louis.

We took our kids to the event that night—for what I thought was our family’s ending.

But it turned out to be just the beginning.

I threw away my old pair of black shades. After that night—after the music, the laughter, the strange sense of possibility—they didn’t feel like me anymore. I bought a new pair: champagne-colored, lighter in every sense. My daughter said they made me look “less like a boss and more like a bandmate.”

First came my passion for the pen. Then the microphone. Then the mini bass.