THE FOLLOWING IS A NEWS-GAZETTE STORY BY JENNIFER BAILEY
ABOVE: Dustin Liggett talks about the studio where he gives music lessons, in a building near his home in Oakwood.
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OAKWOOD — In a building near Oakwood Grade School, it’s apparent the love of music is strong, and the melodies and sound meaningful, with teachers giving instrument lessons and students learning from them.
A lot of these places where great music came from, like Sun Studio in Memphis, Tenn., aren’t big places, said musician and teacher Dustin Liggett.
“But they were close-knit,” Liggett said.
It makes him feel good that so many people have and are currently learning to play music in his unassuming-from-the-outside music shop.
Liggett, 43, who’s been known to play shows locally as Dustin Danger, started Rebelsfare Collective in a newly constructed building outside his home a few years ago. He’s lived in Oakwood most of his life.
“If I had to sum up what I hope to accomplish with Rebelsfare these days, it would be this quote (from Tupac Shakur), “I’m not saying I’m gonna change the world, but I guarantee that I will spark the brain that will change the world.”
Liggett said, “Music is community; one of the universal magics that connect us all throughout time and change. That’s what I hope to foster here, simply to pass onto others, young, old, tall or small, my love of music and let them run with it in their own ways.”
With the music shop B & J Music in Danville closing this year, Liggett has gotten some new students. He normally now has about 25 to 30.
“I’m proud of this shop,” Liggett said. “People seem to like it. It has a vibe at least.”
It breaks his heart that there’s limited places for music lessons in Vermilion County.
“Being the only one now. One, that’s wild to me. I feel like I kind of need to do better. Not for me, not to get more people. Just to like, hey you can still do this in Vermilion County. You can still come here. There’s still a spot. I’m sorry we don’t have a proper parking lot,” he said.
Also, if someone wants an instrument, they have to special order it.
Three former B & J Music instructors — for drum, violin, cello, and piano — now teach at Rebelsfare. Some others are conducting lessons out of their homes.
Liggett teaches in the back of his building and rents out the other two rooms.
“It’s going good. It’s been fun,” he said about having the other instructors there.
“People have learned a lot in here,” he added.
Some students participate in band and music programs in their schools.
“I like the one-on-one. I feel like you can gear it more toward an individual,” Liggett said.
He hopes it continues like it is for a while.
Music background
Music has been a leading charge in Liggett’s background.
“I always wanted to be an artist growing up. That’s my thing,” Liggett said. “I was pretty good at it, got some scholarship offers for college. I started drum lessons when I was 10 and took it on for three years. Then my mom got me my first guitar. When I was 15, I just really kind of got into music.”
He ended up going to college for music, studio production, at Greenville College outside St. Louis, Mo. He chose the college, in 1999, because it was one of the first wireless campuses and had the best sound equipment. Also, the band Jars of Clay came from Greenville College.
“So, I learned engineering from the man that engineered them, their early stuff,” Liggett said.
Liggett wanted to be the guy that wrote the songs and he didn’t necessarily want to be out in front of people so much, even though he ended up doing that.
He dropped out his junior year and started a punk rock band, The Villains. He went on tour, wrote songs, played in 13 different states. They played the iconic CBGB in New York City twice. They would play Army bases to basement parties, clubs and bars.
At that point, he wanted to do that.
“Never in my life did I think I’d be a teacher,” Liggett said.
The Villains started gaining momentum and were offered a developmental deal with a label in Florida in August 2005. A month later, he learned he was going to be a father, with his first daughter.
He turned down the label deal and got a job at the local grocery store that used to be in Oakwood. He’d worked there previously during summers in college.
Then he learned they’d pay him $1 more an hour if he’d work at a bank. He was there for 12 years, and during that time welcomed his second daughter. He said he went separate ways from a marriage, and both girls were living with him while he was still working at the bank.
He then thought about making some extra cash if he just taught a couple music lessons.
He put it on Facebook thinking he might get a couple people to teach. He ended up with 10 that first week. Then it jumped to 15 and then 20 around 2016.
Liggett started teaching lessons in his living room, then moved the lessons to his basement.
“At that point it just really shot up. I ended up with like 35 to 38 students a week; still working at the bank,” he said.
It got to the point where he didn’t know if he still needed the bank job.
“Maybe I could just do this?” he questioned.
He went part-time at the bank and started giving more lessons. He left the bank in 2017.
At the same time, he calls himself “kind of a weird dude,” and especially when he was younger, he would see different things. He envisioned himself at the Grammys. He wondered if that was possible and he looked into it.
When he was working at the bank, he was still writing, recording and releasing his own music. So, he did qualify. In 2018, he was at the Grammy Awards in the audience in New York City. He is still a member of the academy and has been three times since. He made second-round Grammys nominations twice with some of his music.
He also recorded songs at Sun Studio in Memphis and then he started playing everything. One time he did five shows within 24 hours.
He then met his now-fiancée, and he wanted to become more serious with lessons, and not have them just in an unfinished basement.
They had a side lot outside their home, and in 2019 he decided to build a shop to have his own area.
They opened Rebelsfare Collective on March 17, 2020.
“Three days later, everything shuts down,” Liggett said about COVID-19.
When he opened, he sold instruments and operated it like a music store.
“I lost pretty much all my live gigs that I was doing,” he said. “I was running a karaoke business at that time too. We would have like five, six nights a week where we’re doing karaoke from Danville to Fithian to Potomac, Oakwood.”
He sold all his instruments and then went full into teaching.
“I’ve been doing it ever since,” he said.
Rebelsfare started when he and writer friends published books, and he recorded other local artists. He didn’t want it to be called anything with himself.
“The reason it was a collective was because it started out with a bunch of people,” Liggett said.
He kept the name because to him, they don’t just do music there; you get a collective sense of learning; it’s different, he said.
From all walks of life
Liggett teaches drums, guitar, he’s taught ukelele, bass lessons, piano, studio engineering, live sound, songwriting, performance and vocals.
Students have been all ages — from retirees who’ve never touched an instrument or used to play and want to get brushed up to special-needs students, teens and kids as young as 4 years old.
Boy drummers are a different breed, he said, laughing.
“Barging in here. Grabbing the chips (free snacks Liggett offers). If they get frustrated, smashing the crash cymbal, you know,” he said.
He has really quiet kids too, one with anxiety, who wanted to sing. Liggett was also teaching that student studio engineering and how to program drums.
With teaching now keeping him busy, he just did his first show in two years this past May at Sleepy Creek Vineyards winery. He played maybe five solos and had friends and students involved in the three-hour set, which was more like a little showcase for them.
“Because I wish I had that,” Liggett said. “I wish I didn’t have to learn the hard way of being scared to death. They get to come up, experience that, and just play a song. And maybe next time they play two songs. I just feel like that’s a better way for me to perform live now is to help the younger generation.”
He’s had a lot of students who’ve been with him for years. Now they’re off to college, and moved from one instrument to the next, and he’s teaching them studio engineering too.
He is planning a songwriter showcase in the round, with about four different songwriters, each playing a song and telling stories and jamming with each other.
Liggett has written hundreds of songs, rock to folk and others, and is on Spotify.
“I probably write one to two songs a week,” he said.
Taking chances is what art is about, Liggett said.
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