Don’t miss the fifth episode of our Real Talk with Women in the Music Industry podcast series, featuring three-time GRAMMY-winning producer Cheryl Pawelski!

In this fun and revealing conversation, Cheryl gets real about her experiences preserving, curating, and championing some of music’s greatest legacies – and shares some incredible behind-the-scenes stories involving Aretha Franklin, Taylor Swift, and legendary Elektra Records founder Jac Holzman.

After a fateful ABBA show cemented Cheryl’s calling in the music industry, she held positions at Rhino, Concord, and EMI-Capitol Records before co-founding Omnivore Recordings. Her journey is sure to inspire anyone looking to pursue a creative, courageous career and blaze a unique, uncharted trail.

Tune in and rock on!

Special thanks to Gregg Bendian for connecting Cheryl with She Rocked It.

Click here to watch the video version of this episode on YouTube!

Listen on Apple Podcast

Listen on Spotify

Episode highlights:

• [2:11] How Cheryl’s unique career in music took shape 
• [6:23] How Cheryl navigated the male-dominated music industry 
• [10:25] Why Cheryl pivoted from major labels and co-founded Omnivore Recordings
• [12:35] Some behind-the-scenes stories featuring Aretha Franklin and Taylor Swift 
• [15:21] #Realtalk about Cheryl’s relationship with rockstar wife Audrey Bilger, president of Reed College – including how they met!
• [25:15] Cheryl’s advice for up-and-coming women in the music industry
• [28:10] Cheryl’s one tip to rock it  

Links from this episode: 

• Cheryl’s website: https://cherylpawelski.com/
• Cheryl’s GRAMMY wins and nominations: https://www.grammy.com/artists/cheryl-pawelski/17213
• Omnivore Recordings: https://omnivorerecordings.com/
• Annenberg Inclusion Initiative study: https://www.newsroom.spotify.com/2022-03-31/usc-annenbergs-inclusion-in-the-recording-studio-study-finds-that-more-work-toward-gender-equity-is-needed/ 
• Jeff Tweedy: https://jefftweedy.com/ 
• Wilco: https://wilcoworld.net/ 
• Aretha Franklin: https://www.arethafranklin.net/ 
• Robbie Robertson: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robbie_Robertson
• Jac Holzman: https://www.rockhall.com/inductees/jac-holzman 
• Bethany Lyons on the She Rocked It Podcast: https://sherockedit.com/bethany-lyons-owning-it-like-a-boss/
• Gregg Bendian: https://www.bendianmusic.com/ 

Transcript

SHE ROCKED IT / KAREN GROSS: Hello, and welcome to the She Rocked It podcast. I’m your host, Karen Gross. So happy to be back with another episode of our Real Talk With Women in the Music Industry Series. 

This is kind of a bonus episode because I had this conversation with Cheryl Pawelski on Instagram Live and realized that we had to share it here on the podcast because Cheryl is a woman in the music industry that you need to know about. If you don’t know her name, well, I highly suggest that you go check out her website and dig into her incredible background. We’re going to include some info in the show notes as well. 

But in brief, Cheryl Pawelski is a three-time Grammy Award-winning producer. She’s an archivist, she has preserved and championed some of music’s most incredible legacies. And if you look at a snapshot of her Grammy wins and nominations, you’ll get a sense of this. She’s won for projects with Wilco and Mr. Rogers as well. So she’s worked with an array of incredible artists throughout her career, Aretha Franklin, we’re going to talk about a great moment that she shared with her and also with Robbie Robertson of The Band. 

And also, you’ll hear in this conversation how Cheryl transitioned in her career, from working at major labels to co-founding Omnivore Recordings, where she’s really found an incredible home for herself to develop a multi pronged career as a creative in the music industry. 

And there’s a lot of inspiration we can all gain about blazing our own trails and finding our calling. So without further ado, here’s Cheryl Pawelski and how she rocks it. T

CHERYL PAWELSKI: Thank you. That was a nice intro. Thanks for having me. 

SHE ROCKED IT / KAREN GROSS: Oh, truly, my pleasure. Shout out to Greg Bendian, a rockstar himself, for connecting us, we really appreciate this connection and the support of She Rocked It. But let’s dive right in. So tell us a little more about yourself and from your own words, and what you’re up to these days.

CHERYL PAWELSKI: Well, geez, you know, I’m a producer of catalog or historical recording. So, you know, I, what am I up to? It’s, well, it’s a weird job to begin with, right? Because who knew that it even existed? 

SHE ROCKED IT / KAREN GROSS: I’ll be honest with you. I didn’t before I started researching you, how cool you found this really amazing lane. 

CHERYL PAWELSKI: Yeah. And you know, there’s there’s no real pathway to that. So it’s, you know, it’s, it’s one of those jobs that you kind of make up, right? And, but I came, I was fortunate to come up at a certain time when all the labels with the introduction of the CD, all the labels, were able to kind of 

SHE ROCKED IT / KAREN GROSS: Remember that, kids?

CHERYL PAWELSKI: Yeah, the CD. They went from big black disks to shiny little silver ones. And now they’re ones and zeros on your computer. Yeah. But you know, currently, it’s just a working on Omnivore projects. So he’s got, you know, between probably 50 and 100 projects, in various states of completion and clearance, you know, you have to go through and do all the legal rights to these things. You know, there’s projects that I consult on, working on some music, documentaries, and always entertaining this book project that everybody wants me to write. 

SHE ROCKED IT / KAREN GROSS: I’m sure it would be an amazing one. And I just have to say, like, just from you looking at the three Grammys, you’ve won, I feel like reflects this incredibly eclectic catalog of you know, catalogs, really of music that you’ve had your hands on over the years. Everything from most recently Wilco’s you know, reissue the 20th anniversary super deluxe edition of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot? 

Yeah. Such a beloved album for so many of us, then Mr. Rogers. It’s Such a Good Feeling: the Best of Mr. Rogers. Hank Williams, The Garden Spot Programs in the historical album category. So doesn’t that’s like a snapshot of like, all these amazing, you know, musicians and musical, you know, histories you’ve you’ve touched over these years. 

CHERYL PAWELSKI: Yeah. I mean, it’s Mr. Rogers. I think that that was the pandemic year we, 

SHE ROCKED IT / KAREN GROSS:we needed some of that energy. 

CHERYL PAWELSKI: We won online, it was very strange, but yeah, it felt like a warm hug. Right. Like everybody needed a little Mr. Rogers that year. So 

SHE ROCKED IT / KAREN GROSS: We still do, honestly.

CHERYL PAWELSKI: Yeah. Can we all just calm down and be nice to each other?

SHE ROCKED IT / KAREN GROSS:  Thank you. Yeah. 

CHERYL PAWELSKI: No, it’s, it’s, you know, it’s been an interesting career. It’s, you know, I still feel like I’m the kid answering the phone for my boss. But, you know, it’s, you know, 30 years down the road. You know, I’ve, I’ve, I’ve worked on I’ve had the good fortune to work with so many great artists. And, you know, I, I got to work with Aretha Franklin. You know, I mean, come on. That’s it.

SHE ROCKED IT / KAREN GROSS: You mentioned, we’re gonna shout out some of these artists that, you know, I think I read in one of these articles that, you know, you grew up in Milwaukee, and saw an Abba show, and snuck away to see it, and your parents didn’t know. And it like was that pivotal moment, as a musical person that you’re like, “this is this is my life. I feel this so deeply.” You know, we each have a show where we hit where it hits us like that. 

CHERYL PAWELSKI: That show was mind blowing. And it was worth getting in trouble for it. Because yes, I lied. And yes, I took the bus. And no, I didn’t check to see when the buses stopped running. Had to call dad.

SHE ROCKED IT / KAREN GROSS: Ooh Busted. 

CHERYL PAWELSKI: Yeah I was so busted. But you know, it’s, it was it was worth worth worth the cone of silence that my dad employed on the way home. So 

SHE ROCKED IT / KAREN GROSS: I love that it was and how does the you know, a kid from Milwaukee get the courage to do this, like for real? You know, I’ve had a, I’ve had conversations with women in the industry, I’m just always so curious, because it’s not historically hospitable to women. And, you know, I’m imagine you’re familiar with reports, like the USC Annenberg initiative, did this inclusion study and the numbers are, are pathetic, and especially in the production world, and you’re in the, as a producer, I mean, it’s like less than 5% of maybe 3% of women in that study, you know, that’s the representation of women identified as producers in that study. So first of all, how do you get the courage to enter the field? Then? How do you get the courage to stay in?

CHERYL PAWELSKI: Well, you know, I mean, here’s the thing, it, historically, you know, women were socialized. You know, it’s like, the books that you saw when you were in grade school, right, like, women are nurses, and teachers, and mommies, and blah, blah, blah, you know, men, boys drive trucks, and they do everything else in the world. Right. So we weren’t really socialized that way. But, you know, by the time I, I landed on this fabulous Earth, you know, things things had changed enough and, it was still, you know, when I got in the business, it was still very, very male dominated. And,

you know, it wasn’t so much courage as it was a matter of knowing when I knew enough to do what I do. Right? Like being in the business. Yeah. I don’t know, I think I have a cloak of invisibility that I sometimes can pull over myself, you know, like, “don’t mind me, I’m just back here in the studio doing my thing”. Right? But I also think I communicated with, with the guys that I worked with, pretty well, you know, like, I can talk football. I’m from Wisconsin, come on. 

SHE ROCKED IT / KAREN GROSS: That helps! 

CHERYL PAWELSKI: You know, yeah. And I think, you know, being obsessed with records since I was a kid, I could kind of compete with them. You know, one of the big things of all the older guys that I worked with when I first got into business, so it’s just the baby sprout, you know, the beer and cheese wagon, and suddenly, I’m in Hollywood working at Capitol, but I committed all of this stuff to memory. And one of their favorite things to do is try to like, outdo each other, like, “what’s the matrix number on the beside to the single by blah, blah, blah,” and I knew that stuff, you know. So, and I, I am ambitious, and I am competitive and I think that, you know, the, for folks that were compelled to music and are passionate about it, a lot of those older guys that had committed their lives to it, they didn’t they didn’t see the gender thing. Right? Now, that having been said, another female friend of mine in the business once once said a very insightful thing. And she said, “Well, we’ll never know the opportunities that we didn’t have.” Right. So it’s just, you know…I can tell you that coming up behind me, there’s a lot more women in the business. And there are a lot more opportunities in in in the business these days for women, and you don’t just have to be a secretary. You know, Jack Holtzman, who was the founder of electro records said to me once he’s like, “Well, Cheryl, I wish we would have had you back in the day”. And I was like, “Jack man, I would have been a secretary”. And he said, “You’re right. I’m glad we have you now.” You know, and, and, but you know, that there was some gentlemen that really were mentors and paved the way for me, and I’m, you know, I’m very grateful to them.

SHE ROCKED IT / KAREN GROSS: That’s awesome. Coincidentally, my partner Tim just played a show with Adam Holtz Holtzman.

CHERYL PAWELSKI: It’s great. 

SHE ROCKED IT / KAREN GROSS: The world is very small. Who knows Greg Ben anyway, I love the connectivity. 

CHERYL PAWELSKI: So so tiny.

SHE ROCKED IT / KAREN GROSS: That’s amazing. Um, and so you started your career kind of more traditionally in labels and then I believe around 10 or so years ago. Co-founded Omnivore Recordings. Correct. What gave me the courage and the right word. But I’m curious maybe what word you would use what gave you the courage perhaps or the idea, the initiative to branch out and do your own thing away from kind of that more traditional path? Because, you know, we talk a lot of with women who are looking to make a pivot into something that feels more aligned. Yeah. And I’m curious that kind of what gave you that? You know, that feeling that you wanted to make that jump? 

CHERYL PAWELSKI:Yeah. Did I jump? Or was I pushed?

SHE ROCKED IT / KAREN GROSS: Right, yeah. 

CHERYL PAWELSKI:And that’s the truth. Because you know, what I do in the business as a producer of historical recordings, they, the job, you know, there’s a handful of jobs left at the labels. So if I wanted to keep doing what I do with the amount of creative agency that I wanted, I had to do it on my own. You know, there’s, again, like, there’s just a handful of jobs left, because as as the digital world encroached, the idea was, “well, everything’s available digitally. Why do we need you to go into the vaults and do this work?” Right? So there were a lot of layoffs. And those jobs didn’t come back. And you know, I mean, you’re not in the music business, if you don’t get blown out a few times, right. So you just got to learn not to take that personally. But I also I got tired of that, too. I like to build things and I don’t like starting over. It was useful to work at a bunch of different major labels. It’s always important to to work in different environments, you learn so much just being in in different cultures, right? Labels have different cultures, different companies have different cultures. And that was an important foundation. But I really wanted to keep doing what I do. So I just said, “Meh, I’ll go do it myself.” And so that’s, that’s what we’ve done. It has it certainly hasn’t been easy, but I’ve got great partners that all, you know, major label veterans, and we’ve been able to tight rope our walk our way to 13 years. I think it’ll be 14 I guess. Yeah. In January. So yeah. Holy, moly! 

SHE ROCKED IT / KAREN GROSS: Yay! Two of those Grammys were your own releases, right? From Omnivore. So two of the three. 

CHERYL PAWELSKI: Yeah, 

SHE ROCKED IT / KAREN GROSS: Really exciting. And I’m just curious, you know, you’ve worked with such an incredible roster of artists and creative people. I’m just curious, do you ever get starstruck? Like, how do you keep your shit together when you’re working with Aretha Franklin, you know, how does that work? 

CHERYL PAWELSKI: It used to be hard. It used to be really hard, because some people were really intimidating too, you know, Robbie Robertson, who we’ve just recently lost, he was an intimidating guy, you know. But after you spend time with people that just, you know, they’re people, every now and again, with Robbie, I’d be sitting there and we’re working on stuff. And I’d be like, “Oh, my God, this is the guy that wrote, you know, The Wait! It’s the guy that wrote Up On Cripple Creek, but you know, it, it kind of changed. Like, I know, his his kids, you know, they’re my age, you know, so everybody’s just people at the end of the day, and, it took a while, though.

SHE ROCKED IT / KAREN GROSS: Aretha Franklin, though? I mean, talk about gravitas.

CHERYL PAWELSKI: Here. Here’s the thing, though. Like, you know, we were in a hotel room in New York City. And so somebody had sent over I think Clive Davis had actually sent over a stereo system so we could listen to some music together. And she’s patting around in their little stocking feet. And and she jumped, like she moves the rig out, drops to the floor and starts Patch- wire- because it hadn’t been wired up. And so she’s and I’m like, “Oh, my God”. So we’re sitting there on the floor, patching this thing together. And you know, so forget about 

SHE ROCKED IT / KAREN GROSS: That is a great story. Yeah. You had to plug everything in too, right? That’s like a rockstar

She totally did! She’s just like, “oh, well, that goes there”. And, like,

SHE ROCKED IT / KAREN GROSS:Even a diva has to know how to plug in a rig. 

CHERYL PAWELSKI:For sure. 

SHE ROCKED IT / KAREN GROSS:You heard! . And I saw you up in a picture with Taylor Swift. I mean,

CHERYL PAWELSKI: Oh, yeah.

SHE ROCKED IT / KAREN GROSS:A little starstruck maybe? 

CHERYL PAWELSKI: Again, she was totally cool. So my, my wife had this necklace on with a B on it. And Taylor was like, “I love that”. And, you know, Audrey was like, “Oh, really?!” you know. But even even, Taylor was so cool. We were getting some pictures autographed for our friend’s daughter and her friend or there were two sisters. And so we just asked to have the two names on one picture. And she said, “Are they sisters?” And I just said, “Yeah,” and she’s like, “I need another picture!” She was so cool, you know, so just really very conscientious of the potential sister fight that was about to ensue. 

Great to hear like, yeah, that people are as cool as you hope they are. That’s really cool. And you mentioned your wife, Audrey, and I kind of want to go into the personal side, we’ll talk about the professional. You got like a two Rockstar household because she is the president of Reed College. Great school, right? Badass. 

CHERYL PAWELSKI: She is! 

SHE ROCKED IT / KAREN GROSS:So like, how do you two juggle…I love how proud you are! Look at that! 

CHERYL PAWELSKI: She’s amazing! 

SHE ROCKED IT / KAREN GROSS: I love that. Both of you have these huge careers happening? How does that sort of work? Like, do you? You must be championing each other, you know, all the time. But you’re obviously both, I would imagine very busy people. So tell us about how you kind of support each other. What does that ecosystem like, in your, in your, in your marriage? And in your life? 

CHERYL PAWELSKI: Yeah, well, you know, college presidential roles often have the need for their spouse to be involved. Right. So if, if, if someone’s a college president, it’s expected that, you know, I come along and go to events 

SHE ROCKED IT / KAREN GROSS: You can be the arm candy. 

CHERYL PAWELSKI: I’m totally the arm candy, you kidding me? She’s the she’s, she’s everything smarter, funnier, just better in every way.

SHE ROCKED IT / KAREN GROSS: You’re making me melt over here. Like, so proud. 

CHERYL PAWELSKI: It’s true. It’s true, I’m so proud of her. But you know, she, so, you know, I, I have a more of a formal role to play. And also, you know, we get a new crop of students every year students, you know, there’s always a percentage of them that are, you know, into music and want to talk to me about, you know, the business and I’m always happy to go and be in classes, you know, at the schools if they want me to do that. So that’s, that’s, but I think the big thing is really just being present and part of part of the school community. Now Audrey, because she’s, she came out of the faculty as a literature professor, 

SHE ROCKED IT / KAREN GROSS: I just have to say that Omnivore Recordings just wrote in the comments, “Audrey is a boss.”

CHERYL PAWELSKI: She is a boss. And she also named the company. The company, she named my label. 

SHE ROCKED IT / KAREN GROSS: I read that! She came up with the idea omnivore which is such a perfect word, Audrey you rocked it!

CHERYL PAWELSKI: She’s she’s a literature professor, right, 18th century British literature and this the smartest of my liner note writers that write album notes for our releases, they asked for her to edit the notes. So she’s worked on Grammy Award-winning projects as an editor of the the liner notes in our projects. So you know, we just in she’s she’s just a lover of music. She, I mean, one might expect that you would have to be to be hanging around with me. But 

SHE ROCKED IT / KAREN GROSS: I just have to…because I’m being nosy, now — how did you guys meet from your two separate worlds? 

CHERYL PAWELSKI: Oh boy, ok, well, I had a cruddy band, and Audrey had a cruddy band. Not only is Audrey a boss, she’s a drummer.

SHE ROCKED IT / KAREN GROSS: Stop it. 

CHERYL PAWELSKI: Yeah, 

SHE ROCKED IT / KAREN GROSS: I think we might need a reissue of this band. 

CHERYL PAWELSKI: No! 

SHE ROCKED IT / KAREN GROSS: Both these bands. 

CHERYL PAWELSKI: So her band was to be playing the same venue that my band had was playing. And she and a bunch of her bandmates came down to check us out just to check out the room. And she she struck struck up a conversation.

SHE ROCKED IT / KAREN GROSS:  That is the best. 

CHERYL PAWELSKI: So we met through music. Yeah. Yeah. 

SHE ROCKED IT / KAREN GROSS: Very cool. Yeah. And you veered into production. I was going to ask you so you’ve you’re obviously from playing? I didn’t even know you have a band to being a producer. What What kind of how did you grow those skills of production? Was that sort of like learned on the job kind of thing? Or how did you get into production? 

CHERYL PAWELSKI: Yeah, um, well, the thing about my work is, it’s very interdisciplinary, right? So I’m not in the studio recording artists, right? I’m not an engineer, I employ engineers. I know enough to be dangerous. But, you know, I have to know how to write because I have to hire writers, I have to know about graphic design because I work with designers. I have to know how to research and I have to know, clearances. So legal rights. It’s a very complex business. So basically, you what I need to do, for my work is to coordinate everything, right. And the thing I learned in school, we had a television station. And it was the first time that all those skills were put to use, and it kind of locked in for me. When I, when I understood… because I was just compelled creatively, but I didn’t know how…you know, I thought I was gonna go into advertising, you know, because, but, and that is a little bit interdisciplinary, right? So it’s just you, it’s not something that you can really be taught. It’s something that, you know, I guess it’s, like, you know, the TV thing locked it in, because I was producing TV shows. And it was the first time I was like, “I’m a producer, I get it, now!” I have the writers, I have the people running the cameras, I have the story concept, you know, because that’s, that’s my job, right? I have to come up with the concepts, I have to come up with the through line in the stories, and then I have to know how to guide all of the people that do the component parts. So it was, it was, it was, it was frustrating to not know what that job is, but you know, you feel your way to it. So, so I’ve, I have a weird job. It’s not just, you know, it’s just not technical, I have to know the technical. Some of it, though, you know.

SHE ROCKED IT / KAREN GROSS: I love that. I was, I was wondering actually about how you kind of created this multidisciplinary, multi-pronged career for yourself, you know, and it’s very liberating to hear that you’ve, you know, kind of, like we said earlier, you’ve kind of created these lanes for yourself, and you don’t have to box yourself in one of them, which is cool. You know, you have so, um, that happened, it sounds like almost organically, that you found these things that you love doing. And you can also have kind of a macro role as supervising, and it’s very cool. I love that you found, you know, that appear to be a possibility within the industry. 

CHERYL PAWELSKI: Yeah, I mean, I almost feel like, you know, I’m a librarian in a way, you know, it’s, it’s, I organize things. It just so happens that, you know, the thing I wanted to do when I woke up, was, every day with my days, the thing I wanted to do was, you know, the, the passion was for music, you know, and. But then there were all these other little things that I enjoyed doing thing and skills that I cultivated. And it just so happens that, you know, all of those things add up to being a catalog producer, you know? Especially the passion for music and the history of music. So,

SHE ROCKED IT / KAREN GROSS:  Just seeing you in front of your library now. It’s all kind of gelling together, you know,

CHERYL PAWELSKI: Part of it! 

SHE ROCKED IT / KAREN GROSS:   I’m sure there’s a whole other wall. I love that. I love that you were able to follow your calling your passion for digging deep into music, being an archivist, helping to produce and pull these things together. I know Jeff Tweedy just gave you a beautiful shout out about kind of having you on the team for Wilco knowing that he trusts you, so many others trust you with their music. To do justice to it. 

CHERYL PAWELSKI: Yeah, it’s, it’s, it’s a little unnerving sometimes. Can’t mess that up.

SHE ROCKED IT / KAREN GROSS: Handle with care. But you have this caring, caring hands and caring spirit. 

CHERYL PAWELSKI: But it is is, I mean, it’s, it’s, sometimes people ask, you know, if, if, if that’s if that’s like, a heavy responsibility, and it is. You know, you it’s, you’re, you’re really dealing with somebody’s art that they’ve given to people who are passionate about it, right? So you have a responsibility to the audience, and certainly to the legacy of the artist or the artist if they’re still here. You know, I love working with with Jeff and and the Wilco team because they, they do, you know, there is a level of trust there. And that’s, that’s, that’s like, the greatest compliment of, of all time.

SHE ROCKED IT / KAREN GROSS:  And he’s, you know, having read some of his books like he’s he’s also deep, you know, he, you know, I’m sure he doesn’t hand over that trust lightly. Yeah. Very curious. He’s really forgetting about his craft, super smart.

CHERYL PAWELSKI: Super, super smart guy, and so talented. 

SHE ROCKED IT / KAREN GROSS:  Amazing. Well, I’ll ask you just I can you know, for all of you folks who want to learn more about Cheryl, go check her website. There’s so many great articles, so much more to talk about. We try to keep these conversations about 30 minutes. So sadly, we’re going to wrap up soon, but dig into her amazing background. There’s so much there and I just want to ask you two more questions, Cheryl. One is like if a woman is looking to launch into the music music industry now, what are some tips you might give to women looking to embark on a career these days?

CHERYL PAWELSKI: Um, don’t don’t expect to do the job you think you want to do? Immediately. You know, it’s, the music business is is churning and changing minute by minute truly. And the thing about it is, any experience that you get, even if it’s tangentially related to the music business, you’re gonna use that someday.

But you certainly, you know, I mean, and also the, the, the jobs that look, the sexiest are usually the worst, are usually the hardest. And, you know, I always hear, you know, kids will say to me, “I want to be a music supervisor, because I want to pick the music that goes in movies”. And I’m like, “that’s not the job of a music supervisor”, you know. Your, the job of a music supervisor is to clear all that music. So you have, you have to work within a budget, you know, you have — the people that pick the music, or that’s not you. I mean, generally, and those jobs, talk about, you know, self-starting jobs, those those are, your, you’re out there on a high wire, just just, you know…it’s entertainment in general. So I would just say, you know, you’re not going to walk into a studio tomorrow and be a producer, it’s gonna take years, right? But if you’re smart, you’re going to maybe be the person that gets the coffee, or you’re going to be the person that winds up at a publicity firm that works in, with music artists. Or a t-shirt manufacturer that that works on tour merch, you know, all of that stuff adds up over time so I would just say, you know, go to where the business is, and get as close to it as you can, and just amass as much experience as you can. And the other thing is, you might wind up in a job that you didn’t even know existed as a job, right? Because the music business, who knows who knows what the jobs of tomorrow are going to be? So I would just say, jump in and, and do. 

SHE ROCKED IT / KAREN GROSS:  I love it.

CHERYL PAWELSKI: Just learn from that. 

SHE ROCKED IT / KAREN GROSS: That’s great. And if you need somebody to get your coffee Cheryl, I’d be happy to do it so just let me know.  

CHERYL PAWELSKI:  I like it like about 630 in the morning, you’ll be over? Gotta get to the gym. 

SHE ROCKED IT / KAREN GROSS: No, that’s great advice. I love that. I love, that keep yourself open to those you know, unexpected opportunities and 

CHERYL PAWELSKI: For sure 

SHE ROCKED IT / KAREN GROSS: Avenues that right might actually take you in the direction you were meant to go. I love that. And, we always end our interviews, as you know, with my final question, more broadly, for any woman who’s creative and courageous, like you and wants to rock it maybe a little more in their lives, what’s your one tip to rock it?

CHERYL PAWELSKI: Do the work. Just do the work. Be relentless. Work harder than everybody else. Do the work. Because you will meet all the people that you need to meet, you will learn all the things you need to learn but you’re not going to do any of that if you just don’t do the work. 

SHE ROCKED IT / KAREN GROSS: There is no getting out of that work. 

CHERYL PAWELSKI: You got to but you gotta love it, you know? Like what do you want to do? What do you want to do with your day? Right? Every day that you wake up, okay? If you want to be a musician, if you want to be a dancer, if you want to be the best secretary, you know, personal assistant, whatever, whatever you do, the best dishwasher, but do the work. You know, love the work and everything else sorts itself out. But yeah, just do the work.

SHE ROCKED IT / KAREN GROSS: Amen. That’s very, very important advice. And honestly, it really comes down so much I think we want to interview, “doing the work is the shortcut” was Bethany Lyons’ quote from season one of our podcast and it’s an old way of doing the work is the shortcut. There’s no shortcuts you’ve got so shout out to Bethany it just came to my mind. 

CHERYL PAWELSKI: It’s true. 

SHE ROCKED IT / KAREN GROSS: So, rockstars behind the scenes are doing the damn work every day.

CHERYL PAWELSKI: 25 hours a day. 

SHE ROCKED IT / KAREN GROSS: Well, thank you for taking the time to share these awesome insights with us. I hope you all enjoyed this as much as I did, and Cheryl, just keep on rocking it as you are and inspiring us and 

CHERYL PAWELSKI: Thank you so much. Thanks for having me, it was fun. 

SHE ROCKED IT / KAREN GROSS:  Super fun for me too. All right, take care. Bye. 

CHERYL PAWELSKI: Bye bye.

Thanks for tuning in to the She Rocked It podcast. I’m your host Karen Gross. This episode has been produced by Tori Marchiony oni with audio engineering by Teng Chen. The She Rocked It theme song is by Karen Gross and Tim Motzer. Please join us over on Instagram and check out our website at sherocked it.com to join our Rockstar Network and check out all the cool things we have going on. Hope to see you soon!