The Obelisk Questionnaire: Curtis Dewar of C-Squared Music & Heavy Business
The Obelisk Questionnaire is a series of open questions intended to give the answerer an opportunity to explore these ideas and stories from their life as deeply as they choose. Answers can be short or long, and that reveals something in itself, but the most important factor is honesty.
Based on the Proust Questionnaire, the goal over time is to show a diverse range of perspectives as those who take part bring their own points of view to answering the same questions. To see all The Obelisk Questionnaire posts, click here.
Thank you for reading and thanks to all who participate.
The Obelisk Questionnaire: Curtis Dewar of C-Squared Music & Heavy Business Podcast
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How do you define what you do and how did you come to do it?
I do PR for metal and hard rock bands.
I started off initially writing for several underground sites and just kind of fell into it if I’m being perfectly honest. I had someone ask me if I could help them with their PR and I just said “sure” and then I got a few more jobs offered to me and I just kept saying yes. :)
Finally, I started my own company Dewar PR back in 2014 and I had that going until June 2021 when I started C Squared Music with Corinne Westbrook. I met Cori in February of that year and we just clicked, so we decided to start working together and so far it’s been a great working relationship! We also work with Holly Royle who does freelance PR for us and Aliyah Daye does the C Squared Podcast with us as well. All of three of them are absolutely amazing to work with and we all get along fantastically.
Describe your first musical memory.
This is gonna sound so uncool, but my first musical memory is having the vinyl edition of the Disney Jungle Book soundtrack. I played that fucking thing over and over and over and over again.
Describe your best musical memory to date.
This would probably be the first metal album I actually bought which was “To Hell With the Devil” by Stryper on cassette. I had heard a few of their singles on Much Music (Canadian equivalent to MTV) and was super excited to own a copy as up to that point I only had pop albums.
When was a time when a firmly held belief was tested?
Hmm… Probably when I was running Dewar PR in that I thought I could do it all myself. I kinda started to realize in Nov./Dec. of 2020 that I couldn’t and in order to grow I’d need to change something, so when I met Corinne a couple of months later, everything just popped into place in terms of a vision for how to grow things.
Where do you feel artistic progression leads?
Not sure on this one. I personally think progression is good and that growth is something all artists should strive for.
How do you define success?
I *personally* define success in terms of “am I doing what *I* want to do?” That’s really it.
What is something you have seen that you wish you hadn’t?
A lot of ripoff artists in this industry. Or even worse are people who are selling advice that don’t actually know what they are doing. There are a TON of “coaches” who will sell all sorts of advice that is just crap or not correct for that musician’s genre.
Describe something you haven’t created yet that you’d like to create.
Well I’m not a musician, I’m a PR so I’m not sure if this counts!
What do you believe is the most essential function of art?
BELIEF. The artist needs to convey that they truly believe in their art in whatever they are doing and it doesn’t matter what style that is. It could be death metal, doom metal, metalcore or whatever.
Something non-musical that you’re looking forward to?
Getting a break for a few days over the holidays! I rarely take any time off (And probably won’t take much this either), but it will be nice to be able to catch up on things and get ready to kick butt in the new year.
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