In this episode, Bree Noble hosts a conversation with Andrea Hamilton, a versatile musician and producer. Together, they explore the unique challenges of balancing a career in music with a role in church leadership. Andrea shares her experiences navigating multiple income streams, from producing podcasts to top-lining for EDM artists, all while managing the demands of church musicianship. This episode provides a glimpse into how Andrea has successfully woven her artistic passions into a sustainable career, offering practical advice for musicians looking to diversify their income and thrive in the ever-changing music industry.

Follow Andrea on Socials: @HopefulAndrea

Andrea’s  worship side project: @BinleyWorship

Check out her “Theory for Singers” course here: www.HopefulAndrea.com, and her Bible podcast here: www.DevotionsWithDre.com where Bree is a guest.

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Watch the episode here

 

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Balancing Church Leadership And Music With Andrea Hamilton

Introduction To Andrea Hamilton And Her Journey

I am excited to be here with my friend Andrea Hamilton. That was funny. I’m like, “My friend, who?” I know her. That’s what’s crazy. Most people were like, “We’ve met online.” We know each other in person. It’s been a long time since we’ve seen each other, but we took a songwriting class together a long time ago.

I’m excited to have her on the show. I had her on the Female Entrepreneur Musician several years ago. I’m excited to have her back because we’re going to talk about something that is niche. In my audience, there are a ton of people who are working at churches as worship leaders all across the board, including denominations, non-denominational, and universalists.

There are a ton of people in my audience who do this. I thought it would be important to have this conversation, especially because I am also a worship director at a church and have to learn how to manage time and boundaries and try to manage how you do what, when, and not take on many things, and all the streams of income that go along with it. We’re going to get into that. I would love for you, Andrea, to let people know about your background and story. You can talk about how we met.

Thank you for having me on. I feel honored because this is a show I gleaned a lot of wisdom from. I’m excited to be on an episode. I’m a songwriter, top-liner, and producer. I do pop music, worship, and gospel music. I also worked at a church on a church staff for several years. I transitioned off of that. We have a lot to talk about and geek out about with that. I’ve been writing for the SyncWorld. These past several years, I’ve been focusing more on the top lining for EDM. I toured a little bit and did a lot of random things. I produce for other artists. I teach a few lessons here and there. It all comes together.

You are the true example of the whole many pieces of the pie come together for the income streams. I didn’t even realize you were producing people. Do you have a home studio?

I do have a home studio, but I farm out my drum tracking.

The top lining is cool. Are there any particular places that you get those gigs from?

How Andrea Got Into EDM Top-Lining

The top lining thing that was interesting for me in 2018 was the height of the evolution of Spotify playlisting like labels. We’re having lots of conversations with Spotify about optimizing playlisting. At that time, I was doing YouTube covers for fun. Once a month, I’d pick a song that came out that day. In 2018, Happier by Bastille and Marshmello came out. I covered it the same day it dropped. That night, a well-known, although I had never heard of him yet, EDM producer from Germany saw my cover and emailed me, “Can I have your vocal? Can I remix this?”

I didn’t know who he was. I thought he was some kid with a laptop. I said, “Sure.” I sent him my vocals, tuned and untuned. I sent him the midi. I had lip-synced it. I had the whole logic track. It was to a click. He was like, “Thanks.” I’m like, “Have fun.” He created a cool remix. A label picked it up. That was my first EDM top-line situation.

The label that released it got it on a playlist, and it blew up. It had millions of streams, which was the first time that’s ever happened in my life. After that, I started getting asked to the top line by a lot of international EDM producers at different levels in their careers. I said yes to as much as possible. My rule of thumb was if Spotify has more monthly than monthly listeners than mine does, I should collaborate with them.

 

That’s how the original EDM stuff started happening. That was in 2019 and 2020. I was top-lining a lot of more EDM stuff. It’s a different genre for me. It’s a learning curve with the writing style. I’ve got my Spotify listenership through those collaborations because the labels that those songs end up on have much better means to put the song on Spotify in ways that’ll get heard. It still doesn’t get heard in my indie stuff like those EDM top-line songs do. It gets a little boost from crossover fans.

I did an episode with Cassandra Kubinski talking about the specific thing. She was using those kinds of partnerships to boost her own Spotify. I’ve done lots of gig stuff, but it’s usually never stuff that I’d want to put on my own Spotify. It’s niche things that are for ads. These are things that I would never want to associate with my own.

I have a lot of those. Work for hire stuff that I have to make them sign a thing that they won’t put my name on because A, it’s too political, or B, it’s for an advertisement for something embarrassing.

I’ve done many ones that are political. I’m always like, “Should I let him put my name out there or not?” It is scary on either side because my audience is all over the place. If I were to do something that was more conservative, that might upset some of the other people and vice versa. It is a good idea to keep your name out of it but still take the work.

As long as this song isn’t saying or doing anything that is harmful, I would say no to those things. Do I have to agree with every premise of every nonprofit or company that I work with? No. There’s so much corruption. I wouldn’t be working with anyone if I stood on principle completely all the time. It’s a hard line to walk. We did one that was like, “Go out and vote. Care about democracy.” I was like, “Yes, I could sing that.”

I did one like that. It was all about getting people to vote.

There’s nothing wrong with that.

It’s a good thing, but not anything I want to associate with my artist persona, necessarily.

I don’t identify strongly with either team. I’m a person who understands a lot of the nuance in the conversations on these different topics, and I don’t completely agree with either side. My nonprofit work is in the anti-trafficking arena, which is non-partisan. I don’t want to alienate anyone and detract from my main area of compassionate care, which is stopping trafficking in our nation.

With that particular cause, do you align that with your artist brand? Are you doing shows where you’re raising money for that or anything?

I have merch at my shows that have to do with two anti-trafficking nonprofits an ambassador for. One of them is the US Institute Against Human Trafficking, which is what I’m like. I volunteer with them. I do training and speak at different first responder gatherings and things about training for how to spot trafficking. You can become a trafficking-free zone. I bring some of the informational stuff. There’s a nonprofit called Project AK-47, which rescues child soldiers around the world. They have these cool name tags and merch to get the word out about them. I bring that to a lot of shows.

I love aligning with the cause. We want to help get the word out. It rallies people around you and your cause. That’s great that you’re doing that. We’re going to talk a bunch about churches, but I also wanted to talk about the entrepreneurial stuff you’re doing now that you said you’ve been moving into in the last few years.

Transitioning From Worship Leading To Entrepreneurship

There was a transition. I resigned from the church. I was part-time there at the time. I’d already been transitioning and thinking about it. There had been a lot of change. The whole leadership team was completely different than when I had started working there several years prior because that’s how most churches have a lot of change and evolution.

I didn’t feel I was as good of a fit. I didn’t feel like I was serving them and their vision. I don’t feel like we had the same priorities about artistry and style. Thankfully, it wasn’t anything important. It was creative differences. That is important. I don’t like working with people who don’t think the same as me creatively and artistically. I eventually did have to find a way to move out of that.

There was a season in 2021 and 2022 where I knew I was going to have to transition off staff there at some point, and I was building up my other income. That looked like teaching more lessons. I had been telling people, “No, I didn’t have time to teach lessons.” I had reconnected with all the people. There was someone who had quit teaching in my area. I got all her students. That worked out great. That was a blessing.

I also started producing people’s podcasts for them. This was before I even had my own podcast. I have a lot of experience in audio production in general. It was a matter of learning the distribution knowledge for podcasts. That helped me get my income to a point where I could transition off of the church staff. I didn’t know what Sundays would look like. For a while, they were random.

I was grateful to be singing somewhere most Sundays because that was part of the income pie. It’s something I love to do so much. I got to see a lot of different communities and churches with different songs and styles. I learned a ton of new music, but it was random for that first year, being somewhere different every Sunday. I got invited to contract. Most Sundays, I’m at one church, which is nice. I get to know people and streamline some of the things.

You’re not on staff but a contracted person who comes in every Sunday.

Yeah, it’s been fun.

I’m curious because I struggle with finding subs for myself when I want to go on vacation. How did you find all those churches when you were transitioning out? Where did you put your information? Did you network with people?

It was people I knew previously, all except for one. There was one church in Long Beach that was between worship pastors. They wanted me to be there once a month. That was perfect. It was a friend-of-a-friend situation there. It was Erick Schat at Glen Kirk. I’ve known him forever. When he would go anywhere, I would sub for him.

The church that my family members go to is ten minutes away from me. I’d played keys there a couple of times before. They knew that I was more available now. They had me come start to sing when I could. I’ve been in the area a long time. A lot of them used to play at my church, but now, they work somewhere else. It’s a small world.

Before you were on staff, you were touring and doing different retreats.

That’s the way into half of these churches. They’re like, “You’re a female that leads worship. You play guitar decently or piano. Please come to our women’s retreat so we don’t have to hire three musicians.”

I did a ton of women’s retreats when I was touring. There are plenty of women that can sing, but they don’t play an instrument. They don’t know how to lead.

There’s that trifecta. Are you comfortable talking, transitioning between songs, and making those decisions in the moment? Get encouraging people to sing along and read the room. Your vocals which is common. There are many female singers that can kill it on vocals. It helps if you play an instrument. This is not everybody’s calling, but for me, I play two instruments. That has opened more doors for me and created more opportunities where the budget would only get one person there. If you can sing and play, you’re killing two birds with one stone for those communities.

The fact that you play guitar and piano does make you more portable. I play piano or keys. They have to have a keyboard, or I have to drag my keyboard, which I hate doing. I have to drag my amp.

You can’t do the fireside outdoor night with that.

I’ve done that in the past, but someone’s like, “I’ll bring you a keyboard.” They brought me this crappy Casio keyboard.

It has the speakers on it.

There are no pedals. It was awful. Let’s go back to when we met. It was when you were in college. My husband is an English professor at Azusa Pacific. I decided, “I should be able to take classes for free as the wife of a faculty member.” I decided to take a songwriting class because I was working on my first album and wanted to write some songs. I enrolled in this songwriting class.

That’s where I met Andrea. We got paired up to do some projects together. We wrote a couple of songs together. We kept in touch. I’m curious. I know you released your first album while you were in college, which I thought was impressive. What happened after that? Did you go straight into the worship world? Were you having one foot in each place for a while? How did that lead to becoming on staff at a church?

What happened after college for me was a lot of not worship. I was trying not to do worship. On a personal level, I was a Christian already at the time. I loved God. Worship music wasn’t as good as it is now. I graduated college in 2007. I didn’t like most of the music I was hearing. I liked gospel music, but I don’t get asked to sing that. I get asked to co-write it, but not back then. I was more of an indie songwriter style.

After I graduated college, I had that album. I didn’t want to do much of a backup plan. I was myopically focused on touring. One of my friends, Tyrone Wells, told me that I should sign up for NACA, which is the college booking. It’s the biggest college booking thing at the time. I’m terrible at the business side, unlike you, Bree.

He’s telling me I should do it. I’ll do it more to push myself and get in front of an audience I wasn’t comfortable with because my peers were barely older than them, and they seemed cooler than me. It was a more nervous gig. I didn’t even get in. NACA West told me I was an alternate. I was like, “I should go because I already rented a booth. I’ll trudge through these next three days.”

I get there, and there’s been a bunch of canceled flights. They need me as the third alternate. They need me on stage that night. I had to borrow a keyboard from my roommate. I was there with Amy Cooney, who’s an incredible artist. I borrow her keyboard. I went and played what I’ve been playing at coffee shops for the past couple of years. I told some jokes that I’ve told before. One of the songs I played was funny. Somehow, I ended up booking 2 or 3 tours of colleges in my first year out of college. How I paid the bills was NACA bookings. That was fun.

The year after that, I started touring internationally through a booking agency that was sending me to Asia a lot. I would do covers at hotels. I would do some of my own shows. I’d get to stay at the hotel for free because I was playing there. That’s how I made my living for the next few years. I got sick. I had to stop that.

After that, we reconnected because we were both dealing with the autoimmune disease.

I quit touring in Asia. When I started to get better, it was 2011. By that time, I could sing again. I was teaching to supplement my income by then because of less touring and more teaching. I ended up feeling like I should start doing more worship. My heart had been changed by how I saw music, my role in the world, my voice, and everything. It made more sense in my brain.

I was more drawn to worship leading. I wasn’t trying to make a career out of that. I was like, “Let’s gather in groups and sing to God.” I enjoyed it more at that time because my life had slowed down. I’d entered into a deep season of prayer and worship in my own heart during that illness to get through it and seek the Lord’s will for my life. After that, I started getting asked to lead worship. It was almost like something shifted. The season changed, and I started leading a lot more worship. I ended up on staff at a church.

Were you looking for a position at the church?

No, I fought it. If you share our faith, part of what we believe, and it’s okay if you guys are all different readers out there, but is that God communicates to us in subtle ways, and he’ll confirm it with stuff? I felt like he was telling me to apply for this part-time worship leader thing at this one church that I’d been subbing at. I was like, “No, thank you. That’s not interesting to me.” It seems like I would be in an office sometimes. I’m allergic to that. I resisted it. I was like, “If I’m sure that you’re telling me to, I will. Let me know.” I had this dream that confirmed it. I woke up from the dream. I know what it meant. I knew I was supposed to work there. I applied that day. That was in 2012.

You worked there for several years.

It helped me feel more connected to a local community after a season of being everywhere and nowhere because I was sick. I built up my sense of community. I met some lifelong friends. I got better at music, worship, writing charts, leading teams, being wise with groups of people, and leading a room. I have had a lot of musical growth but also a lot of personal growth.

All that time you were on the worship team leading worship, I was not. I was on a worship team but I was raising kids. I was doing the entrepreneur thing and teaching online. After COVID, I was like, “I need to go out and do music.” I have not done music at all for two years other than I sang at an online funeral and one in-person funeral. I’m like, “If all I’m doing is funerals, that’s depressing. I need to do something.”

I did it because I needed to renew my abilities. I hadn’t been singing and playing. I’m like, “What better way to renew your abilities than having to do this every single week?” I’ve built up my piano skills like never before, doing this for several years and singing. I don’t have to practice every day because I’m singing 2 or 3 times a week when I’m rehearsing and doing the thing. It is keeping my voice up. Did you find that that was true for you?

It’s the perfect way to grow as a musician. It’s not that that’s the sole reason you should do a job like that. You have to do different songs every week. You can’t repeat your set. You have this day coming once a week that you are committed to. It is like going to the gym and having a trainer and the accountability of like, “I know that I have to practice so I can show up and do this. Let me sit at home and figure out these songs. I might memorize these chords so I can be more engaging.”

Your musicianship takes off in that way, even if you serve in a different role. Let’s say somebody is the drummer or the keyboard player. They’re growing. They have to remember where the hits are, the pauses, the diamonds, the dynamics, and different voicings. A lot of these guys who ended up touring with world famous pop artists started out playing in churches.

Many of the sought-after Nashville studio musicians honed all their skills in churches. I want to talk about how working for a church can expand way beyond your regular hours, and they’re all good things. I play for funerals, baptisms, and women’s events. How did you handle that the whole time you were there with your boundaries? It’s easy working in a church to get pulled into everything and expected to do it for free, even though it’s not part of your hours.

Balancing Church Work And Music Career

It’s hard to have boundaries with some of that stuff because there are emotions involved. You’re that person’s leader. You’re the person who sang that song on that meaningful Sunday when they had a life-changing realization or experience with God. You don’t want to be the bad cop. You don’t want to be the mean person who’s like, “No, I can’t sing at your mom’s funeral.” It’s hard to navigate these things with a tender heart.

One important thing to look at is the culture of the church that you’re involved in. Some church cultures make it easier than others to have healthy boundaries with your work and schedule in life. If you’re at a church where it’s being drilled into your head that you need to say yes to everything and sacrifice your own personal rest and boundaries, it’s going to be harder to push against that. You’re going to experience more consequences from other people or even from leadership if you do.

I’m not saying that you can’t say no. I was in a few of those different seasons throughout. It got a little busier and more intense in our church staff culture. I was a person who was still saying, “No.” I did experience consequences from that. I got demoted one time, and it was real life. These people had their priorities.

As an artist, you’re never going to fit perfectly within that system because you’re an artist, and you’re not going to fit in any system. It’s part of how it is. They have different priorities, values, and expectations. They’ve never been a musician slash artist, most of them. They’re not going to understand the amount of preparation, how much energy, and how the rest of your life is operating. That’s not on their radar. You have to be your own advocate.

You don’t have to fit into a system to thrive as an artist. Sometimes, creating your own path is the best route. Share on X

If you are in a church that has an understanding of that, wants to see their staff members, experience longevity instead of burnout, and prioritizes rest and Sabbath, you are going to have an easier time expressing like, “I’m getting asked to do a funeral once every three weeks. This is taking away from my family time or my artistry time.” That’s a harder thing to pitch for church people.

It’s healthier for me to have some situation where I’m not the only person being asked to do these memorials. Can we build a team up here? Offer a solution. Don’t be like, “This stresses me out.” No. Be like, “What if we built up a team and gave other people opportunities to sing and serve more or whatever the solution is for the situation?”

It’s you who find a bunch of people that you could call if you can’t do it. For our church, nobody other than me could, maybe one person, confidently do a funeral. We’re not large. I need to build up my networking. That goes into the other subject that I wanted to talk about. It’s networking in the church world. Sometimes, networking feels like we’re trying to get something for ourselves. We don’t want to ever feel like that, especially among people in church. How did you handle that?

I have some cringe moments. I can see myself getting schmoozy and networky. I was ambitious as a singer-songwriter, an artist, and a person. I’ve always been more of that driven type of temperament. I would bring up, like, “If you need anyone for this or that, call me.” Over time, I felt like, socially, I was picking up on. It wasn’t what that person was expecting me to say. It didn’t go anywhere.

What ended up having more productivity and fruitfulness around it was if you do a good job, you don’t have to say the schmoozy things or give people your cards as often. It’s not that we have cards anymore. We all have phones. Asking to have doors open for you is more uncomfortable than doors being opened for you because trust is built, and it goes unsaid. There’s even a bible verse about that. It’s like, “Let other people brag on you.”

You don’t have to brag about yourself. Let other people speak highly of you. It’s like, “What if I put all my time and energy into making this experience, whether it’s a Sunday, a worship night, a wedding, or a memorial, making this experience exactly what people are hoping it will be and needing and bringing such musical excellence and wisdom and presentation that I’m memorable enough that I do come to mind when someone needs something like this again?

When you focus on excellence in your craft, the right people will notice, and the doors will open for you organically. Share on X

That was a lot more fruitful for me at the end of the day than trying to play at different youth groups. Most church staff people don’t listen. Even if you are good and if you do have some awesome songs that would benefit their youth community, if they don’t know you, they’re not thinking like that. In my experience, it’s not the same as other parts of the music industry in that way.

What I’ve also learned is that some people don’t value music the way we do. Someone may come to church every week and see how awesome I am, but it doesn’t register with them because they’re not musical. They don’t see the difference between me and whoever the last person was here. For those people, you can’t do more than you can do. There are the people in the church who are your huge advocates. They will be telling everybody, “The song she did last Sunday.” You love those people, and they will be your advocates.

I did get committed followers in the music community out of being there, talking with people, and singing there. People who are more interested in music are being like, “Do you have your own music? I’m going to follow you. I’m going to come to your show.” That did happen. That’s part of any community you’re in. You’re going to have those super fans and those people who are interested in music. You’re going to have people who don’t realize whether you’re good or not. They’re not in tune.

I built my music career at a church in Glendo, which is a small church. There were a lot of people there who knew a lot of people in the community. That helped me get corporate events and women’s events because of all the people in my church. I started telling them, “I’m doing these performances. That’s what I’m focused on.” It wasn’t like schmoozy, weird, or anything. That worked out well for me. At this church that I’m at now, there are plenty of people who don’t even know that I have recordings, and Spotify. How do you walk that line of promoting yourself within your own church and letting people know that you have other things going on?

It does take a while for people to realize that you have those other dimensions. At the new church, I’m contracted now, and most of the people in that room do not know that I have music out. I’ve been asked that maybe twice the whole time. In one-on-one conversations, I’ve shared that with them. I’m treading lightly. I don’t think that’s why I am there. It’s a different thing.

 

Nowadays, it’s almost like I have to build my own path for my music. The number one thing that’s going to help me do that is not my church community. If I have enough conviction, dedication, and excellence in building this thing, people in my church community are going to organically pick up on that. I don’t think I can build it directly by sharing it with them. If it comes up organically, I will. I’m careful with that nowadays because I don’t want to come across as having an ulterior motive or talking about it to people who wouldn’t gravitate towards it or even understand it because it is such a different thing. You’re serving a different goal when you’re there.

It can happen organically because the people in your church are connecting with you on social media because they like you, and they see, “She’s got a show over here.” You’re not putting it in their face.

I’m not going to announce it on the microphone. A lot of the people in my previous church community did help me musically. They were like, “Do you do cover songs? Do you want to play here? Do you do this? Do you want to play this festival or this fair?” That’s any community. There are more entrepreneurial, creative people in that community who are going to think, “Do you also do this?” If they’re naturally a connector like that, they’re going to help you out.

That’s how I got to sing the national anthem at Dodger Stadium. People in my church were like, “You should send in a tape.” They found out there was this faith night and they recommended me to do it. I would never have thought to do it without them. It’s a nice little cherry on the top of my bio that I did that.

That’s impressive. I’ve never done that. Were you nervous?

Yes, it was 60,000 people. You have to sign this thing to say that you won’t sing it too fast. You won’t put all these embellishments in. You won’t change the tune. You have to sing it with their organist, who is this famous organist who plays at Dodger Stadium. You go and get all outfitted up with the headphones and the mic pack. You practice with the organist first and they walk you out on the field. I was like, “Oh my God.”

How’s the monitoring situation once you’re on the field? Are you getting an echo?

No, you’re all fitted up with headphones. You can’t hear anything that’s going on on the field. You can only hear you and the organist. It’s a lot of decay.

I’ve sung in smaller stadiums. It’s acapella. I’m hearing myself a second later.

I’m singing for the 66ers San Bernardino team in a week. It’s something I’m doing with my church. It’s relevant to what we’re talking about. I was like, “If I sing, we can have a church night and invite all the church members. Another way you can connect the church with other things you do is to make it a church event. It worked out that way for the baseball game because it’s not all about me. It’s about the game and how we’re going to have fun. I am going to sing the national anthem. For those smaller stadiums, I’m going to have to deal with the echo.

I’ll bring my iso into your monitors, even though they’re not plugged into anything.

When you were full-time at the church, how much time did you have to work on your career? How were you able to balance that?

I always told them no when they asked me to go full-time. I capped out at 29 hours a week. I stayed part-time on purpose. That was one of the things that ended up. I couldn’t grow with them in that way when they were growing because I didn’t want to. I was a worship director for 29 hours because that was my preference.

When there was growth and things started picking up, they felt like they needed that point person to be there all the time, full-time, which would’ve only added 10 or 11 more hours. It’s already hard to get my brain to write, promote, do any shows, and collaborate. It was already tough to keep my career going. I did not want to increase my hours there. I was like, “I’m sorry. I can’t do that. I can show you how I’ve made everything efficient here.” I’m an efficient worker in these 29 hours because I know it’s full. They ended up saying, “No.” They took another guy on the music team and made him the lead of the department because he wanted to be full-time, and I didn’t.

I was back to worship leader for that last little season after that. A bunch of other transitions happened again. I was the music director, which is more of the band leadership stuff. I had four titles in those several years. A lot of that was my decision, which feels better than when it’s someone else’s decision. I knew that saying no to full-time is rare. Most people want to transition from part-time to full-time at a church. Their life goal is to work in ministry vocationally only. It is a paradigm in which not everyone saw my reasoning. I saw my reasoning. I’m glad I stuck with my guns.

It depends. If you’re somebody who’s the sole breadwinner for your family, you need the full-time benefits. It makes sense to take that. I was able to get the salary I wanted at the church because I could say, “I don’t need your health insurance because I have it through my husband.” That saved them money to make it possible to do it the way I wanted it and say, “I’m only working these days a week.” I knew I had to still be able to run this business. It’s a passion for me. It brings in money. It wouldn’t be worth it to say entirely goodbye to that.

Another thing I’d throw out there is most churches don’t pay incredibly well. If you’re thinking of your finances and your family in that regard, there’s an even better solution. Some people are like, “This is a perfect fit. I’m supposed to do this.” Even then, it makes me nervous. It always makes me nervous when someone is putting their heart and soul in life and faith into a church job because of the volatility. Church jobs are notoriously volatile. We are the ones that get the brunt of that. You see it all the time.

Church jobs are notoriously volatile. It's wise to diversify your income so you're not solely dependent on one source that could change overnight. Share on X

Our church board of directors changes every two years. It’s all different leadership. They could have different opinions on how things should be run. Pastors come and go.

That was another reason there was a lot of turnover and volatility on the staff I was at. There was a tragedy that happened, and people passed away. It was dramatic all the time. I know that that’s most churches. I never felt comfortable going all in. That’s my personality. I’ve always been like that. I’m like, “I’d rather have my other sources of income and diversify my income because if anything ever happens with this, I’ll expand these other things.” That’s always felt safer for me. I always want it to be like that.

 

The Importance Of Diversifying Income As A Musician

What I’m all about at Profitable Musician is that you have to diversify because all the people were putting all their eggs in the performing basket. When COVID happened, they didn’t have anything to fall back on. You teach and perform. You’re a worship leader. You’re doing top lining and producing for people. If something crazy happens like COVID, you can switch some of those things to virtual. You can go more in on some of the other things. You’ve already started them. Starting a new income stream is hard, but ramping up one you’ve already dialed in is much easier.

Diversifying your income streams is key in the music industry—whether it’s teaching, producing, or performing. Having multiple avenues can safeguard you against the unexpected. Share on X

You already have those channels open. One of the hardest things that happened to me was I got a voice injury. I pulled the attendant on one side when I was singing. It was after I had left the church job. I’m like, “I’m out here trying to be a full-time entrepreneur. Let’s get this up and rolling.” I was teaching more voice. I was sick that day. I don’t know what happened, but my voice was lopsided. This muscle light got tight and swollen.

My vocal cords weren’t coordinating perfectly for months, which meant I could sing a little bit, and it would tire out. My entire career changed shape a few months later because I had to reach out and see if I could play keys more and sing less at all these places. My subbing became more keyboard-focused for a while as I recovered my voice, which was stressful.

Are there any positions at churches that are keyboard anymore? I have a student who got a gig like that, and it got me thinking. Are there many of those anymore? Most worship leaders are multifaceted. They can do all of it. They need someone to play a keyboard for the hymns.

There are churches that hire pianists who are also organists or who can read all those hymns and classic stuff. On the other hand, the more modern churches, the bigger ones, will have a worship pastor and a music director. These are two different people. The music director is under the worship pastor, but he or she is focused on playing. A lot of times, it is the keyboard. There’s an MD that’s a drummer that I know.

Let’s say it’s the keyboard. They’re leading the whole band. They’re playing keys. They have a talk-back mic to tell everyone where to go next. They’re running the tracks on Ableton. That was my job for the last several years when I was on staff at the church. Everything had changed. They had hired a new worship pastor, my friend Emily. I was needed on keys more often. I was singing every other week instead of every week. I was playing keys.

The music director at the time transitioned off staff and COVID hit. I was like, “The writing is on the wall. They’re not going to hire someone now for that. Let me do it.” At the beginning of COVID, I learned about Ableton. I like YouTube University. How do I do tracks in Ableton? I called a couple of friends when I got Stuck and started becoming the music director after that.

That’s an interesting perspective because I’ve never worked at a church that was big enough to run tracks on Ableton. I’d go crazy. That’s why they need a music director versus a worship leader. There’s no way I could think about that while also singing and introducing the songs.

The weeks I did sing after I became music director, I was the one who knew about the Ableton laptop and syncing it with the lighting and the lyrics. I would try to transition to being a worship leader, caring about lyrics and what I was saying, and playing acoustic. I’m also listening to the tracks. I’m also listening if the band messes up during rehearsal. It was a lot.

This has been great. I wanted to give you an opportunity. If there are any other dos and don’ts that you want to throw out for worship leaders, potential worship leaders, or people in school who maybe want to be a worship leader or work at a church, what would you say to them?

Bloom where you’re planted and start right where you’re at. If you’re in a high school now and you know that you’re called to be a worshiper, start a club at lunch or in the mornings. Start worshiping with people and leading them in a couple of songs. Start sharing in between those songs something you feel was highlighted to you from the Bible or a story about your faith. Start leading right where you’re at. Maybe your opportunity is you volunteer at your church.

 

Don’t think of yourself as someone who’s already should get paid when you’re starting off or when you’re not as good as the other people who are getting paid. Be realistic, be humble, do the hard work, and put in a thousand hours not in your bedroom but in front of people. There’s no short-cutting it. You have to experience those moments in the community and with people who love and care about the God that you do and you. Take feedback for what it is. Another tip is if something doesn’t land with somebody, that’s great for me to know. I love helpful criticism and feedback. I want more feedback. I never want to get defensive or shut off that feedback because that’s my route to growth.

A lot of times, we expect to get paid when we’re not ready for that. On the other side, there are plenty of people who are amazing but aren’t getting paid. We have to even this out.

We have to know our worth, but you have to make sure that you’re accurate with your opinion of your own skills needs to be accurate before you pull that card.

Where can everyone find you? How can they find you on social media? Where do you hang out?

You’ll find me on Spotify if you search Andrea Hamilton. My worship side project is called Binley. Binley is my new last name. On socials, you can find me at @HopefulAndrea. If you want to follow my worship stuff, it’s @BinleyWorship. If you’re interested in geeking out about the Bible with me, I have a podcast called Devotions with Dre. You can find that at DevotionsWithDre.com.

It’s great to talk to you, Andrea. Thank you so much for everything that you shared. It’s going to be helpful to people reading this.

Thank you so much.

 

Important Links

• Andrea Hamilton
• Female Entrepreneur Musician
• Cassandra Kubinski – Past Episode
• Spotify – Andrea Hamilton
• Binley
• @HopefulAndrea – Instagram
• @BinleyWorship – Instagram
• DevotionsWithDre.com

 

About Andrea Hamilton

Pop and worship songwriter Andrea Hamilton Binley collaborates for sync, co-writes for the church, and toplines for EDM labels.

Her Spotify streams run about 300,000 a month, and she gets to collaborate with platinum writers and producers like Kevin Fisher, Matt Arcaini, Dustin Smith, Rebekah White, Tyrone Wells, Megan Tibbits, and many others.

As producer and teacher as well, she’s joining us today to talk about being an artist in the church, and what the income pie could look like for a writer in today’s world.