Now, a couple of years later, I’m just a (almost) 29 year old musician who writes songs during the day and works selling sausages and waiting tables at a food stall in Grand Central Market in Los Angeles. Almost every hour someone will come up to me and it is the same thing every time. It is either:
A) Weren’t you that one singer on The Voice? Oh, cool… We voted for you… Do you work here?… Um… yeah, I’ll get the fries instead of salad.
B) Hey! I used to listen to Meg and Dia all the time. My brother and I used to love you guys! We used to jam your one song, what was it…it was like…uh…
C) Hey. Are you….Dia? Dia Frampton? What are you doing working here?
I dreaded every time someone would come up to me. Not because I don’t like talking to people…trust me, every time someone says they listen to my music I feel nothing but gratitude. But here, behind the counter filling up the ketchup bottles, I just felt like a total failure.
I felt embarrassed. I felt useless.
I’d go to the studio for writing sessions and feel …like a second hand coat.
I had a big producer straight up say, “Oh, shit. You’re 29? I didn’t know you were THAT old…you look younger. You’re trying to put out a new album? That’s tough. Good luck.”
The thing is…he didn’t say that with malice. He said it in a matter-of-fact way, because in a lot of ways, with how the industry is, he’s right.