Artist Recovery Podcast

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Artist Recovery Podcast is Bringing Light to the Darkside of Art. I’m Rich Wright, your host — and here we're redefining recovery as Renewal, Resilience and Creative Transformation. Because for artists, it’s more than survival… it’s Remembering.
This show is about the real journey of being a working creative — the highs, the lows, the pivots, and the reinventions that shape who we are. Together we’ll explore how setbacks can spark transformation, how loss can open new paths, and how resilience fuels the heart of every artist’s story.
If you’ve ever faced doubt, setback, or the call to reinvent yourself, you’re in the right place. Let’s recover — and create — together.”

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Artist Recovery Podcast

Artist Recovery Podcast S2 Ep. 37 | John Voelz — Faith Deconstructed, Music & Creative Reinvention

September 11, 2026 • Rich Wright • Season 2 • Episode 37

0:00 | 1:52:02

Singer-songwriter, author, and traveling musician John Voelz sits down with Rich Wright for a long-form conversation that traces one of the most winding creative paths you'll hear — from a boat yard in Richmond, California to a jukebox-soundtracked childhood in a family bar, through a three-month VW bus tour across America, into the fire of a rigid fundamentalist church, and out the other side as a full-time creative living on the road in an Airstream.

John opens up about growing up with a father who couldn't read but out-worked everyone, learning to build a life from raw ingenuity and provision. He shares how teachers who believed in him — choir directors, speech coaches, English teachers — carved the inroads that shaped his voice, and how a strict church experience tried to burn it all down, literally, when his albums went up in flames.

This is a story about freedom — the word John tattooed on his body — and about what it costs to chase an unconventional creative life. He talks candidly about becoming a pastor to redeem the church's ugliness, building a decentralized ministry rooted in community, funding a charity wine for a struggling art school, and eventually getting fired over "a difference of vision." Then came the dream: a coffee shop, beer-and-wine bar, and live music venue that opened six days before the COVID shutdowns — and the three-year fight that followed, ending with selling the house, the business, and everything else to hit the road.

Through it all, music remained the thread. John reflects on his surprising second act as a professional Santa — turning down 700 appearances in a single season — and how slipping into that suit pulled him back from cynicism and reminded him how beautiful people really are. The conversation closes on the darker side of the creative life: mental health, perseverance, the song he wrote in the Airstream the night Betty White died, and why creatives need each other to make it through.

A raw, funny, deeply human episode about pivots, provision, faith, reinvention, and the unshakable pull of making things.

John Voelz is the author of "Becoming an Idea Mentalist," "Quirky Leadership: Permission Granted," "Broken Record," and the "Because I Wear the Suit" series. He hosts the Gig to Live podcast for working musicians and performs Americana, country, folk, rock, and pop across a wide regional circuit.

Connect with John:
Website: https://johnvoelz.com
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-voelz-b953264/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/johnvoelzmedia/
Youtube: @johnvoelzmusic

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