Jeff Hortillosa shared their story and experiences with us recently and you can find our conversation below.
Jeff, really appreciate you sharing your stories and insights with us. The world would have so much more understanding and empathy if we all were a bit more open about our stories and how they have helped shaped our journey and worldview. Let’s jump in with a fun one: What makes you lose track of time—and find yourself again?
Nowadays, jamming with my band SIPA.
I’ve had a lot of ups and downs with my relationship to music this last year. It’s been a journey to get back to loving it.
Life has changed so much since summer 2024. I got married and moved to a town outside of Austin. Shortly after that, my father passed away. Dad was a huge lover of music, and when I lost him, I lost my way. From the outside it would seem I was making progress: I mostly focused on my marriage, fixing up my house, and working my job at a nonprofit. However, inside I was dealing with so much grief that I lost all motivation musician. I was stuck in a joyless oroboros of rumination.
After months of not writing, not performing, not posting, and not finding a reason to even make an effort, I knew that I had to take action somehow to get back on my feet. I started seeking counseling through a mental health nonprofit in Austin called SIMS. I’m glad to share with y’all, that it’s made a huge difference.
Possibly the brightest guiding light, is the objective of achieving the joys that I very first felt with music. To separate out all the swirling thoughts and feelings of the last 15 years as a professional.
Once upon a time, music brought me the most joy and liberation. As a kid, music helped me enter a loop of seeing my vulnerable self and finding confidence in that. Through the emotionally tumultuous years of my adolescence into young adult hood, I worked through things oftentimes writing songs for myself and playing guitar. As a “grownup” I became a professional musician, and I spent a good dozen years pursuing that life. When something you love becomes your job, and that job isn’t always so great, it can lose it’s appeal. Your best friends become your coworkers, co-investors, and nonstop roommates. Your art becomes a product, and you yourself become a product too.
What I seek now is called a lot of things. “Beginner’s Mind,” some would call it. Or listening to your “inner child,” some might say. For me, that’s playing without being bothered by thoughts of money or the industry, or being cool, or playing wrong, or any of that stuff. It’s important to recognize those feelings and then let them go. Trying to deny those thoughts makes it harder to let them go. And in the when you’re playing live and improvising, the music needs you to be free.
SIPA is my band that plays all my original music. I’m lucky enough to be able to surround myself with high caliber talent. I love jamming with my team (acoustic guitar, fiddle, percussion, bass, drums) because we can all use the band as a space to explore our own freedoms. It’s been a journey to want to share my art with the world, and feel secure enough in myself to be a pillar to others.
Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
Howdy! I’m Jeff Hortillosa, aka Horti, I’m a guitar virtuoso singer songwriter.
The band I lead is called SIPA.
My wife’s name is Hannah, my dogs are named Basil (border-beagle) and Pork (mini-pitty).
I was born and raised in Kentucky.
We live around Austin.
I’m formerly of a band called Whiskey Shivers – 2x winner of Austin’s Best Bluegrass. We played thousands of shows, we were in a movie, on TV a bunch, in magazines, drove the entire country, toured other countries….etc. But that band broke up a few years ago! So now I’m doing my own thing(s).
From 2020-2025 I was working full-time at a nonprofit called the Other Ones Foundation – that works to help get folks out of homelessness and back into stable situations. I started out in the field, then got promoted to an office job, then got promoted again to the communications team making digital content for grants and socials. However, like many non-profiteers, I was caught up in what’s turned out to be a nationwide reduction in force.
Now I’m focusing on music and free-lancing with photo/video work. Life is more unpredictable as an artist, that’s for sure. But it’s also great to be your own boss. You have to take the frustrations with the victories. Luckily, I’ve been here before, and I’ve gained plenty of perspectives from my last band, my last job, and my entire whacky life.
Thanks for sharing that. Would love to go back in time and hear about how your past might have impacted who you are today. What was your earliest memory of feeling powerful?
I took drum lessons in second grade but it didn’t really click. The lessons didn’t make sense, and I never seemed to get it with practice, so I started hating practice. It wasn’t long before I quit.
Then in seventh grade, in all my pre-teen angst, I discovered music. It felt like I’d just stepped into a world full of sounds that guided me and understood me. Suddenly, I was obsessed with the drums again.
It’s funny to look back on and remember those nights, teaching myself drums in middle school – I forget that so much of my self-worth was founded upon that.
Over the two years, I stuck with it. There were one or two things I knew from lessons, and I practiced them for hours, every single day. I eventually learned songs by ear from CD’s. I had my parents buy the magazines and VHS instructional tapes. Drums were my world, and through them, I had the password to a secret society of elite powerful magicians.
I started playing in bands immediately in high school. I made a ton of friends. I taught myself guitar, bass, piano and ukulele. I started writing songs and quietly sang them to myself. From songwriting, I got into poetry and reading in general. I got into English, theater, and the art of acting. Eventually I grew the confidence to sing my original songs in front of people.
When did you stop hiding your pain and start using it as power?
“Stop hiding your pain and start using it as a power” would be a great bullet point for a key feature of a songwriter.
As an artist in general.
When I was a kid, long before I made music, I was always a kid who drew pictures, wrote comics and composed little short stories. I remember weaving anecdotes loosely based on my family’s problems or personal insecurities into some sort of fiction. Whenever the want to songwriting finally hit me years later, I was ready to turn pain into ….SOMETHING. Of course, I had no idea to what affect my art would have let alone if it would be empowering or embarrassing.
As protective as I was about my comics, I was a thousand times more shy when it came to singing anything, let alone music I had written. In the beginning of the creative cycle, your true art can feel like something to be ashamed of. I think if you don’t let it out, somewhere down the line, the unreleased power makes you bitter, and you can even feel as though all of art is a burden.
Luckily, I have some excellent people who have always been supportive of me as a creator of some kind. Whether or not they loved what I created wasn’t always necessary!
To pinpoint an exact moment for the readers: once in 2015, to a sold out crowd at the Scoot Inn in Austin TX, I sang a song I wrote for my roommate, Jay, was struck by a car at 24 years old and died. We lost him just a few months before the show. I was already falling apart by the third verse, but by the final chorus I couldn’t finish singing at all. Luckily my band Whiskey Shivers was able to finish jamming it out as I sobbed through the end of the song in front of a thousand people. Grief is a crazy thing, and everyone there felt what I was feeling. It was a powerful moment of togetherness and support.
So a lot of these questions go deep, but if you are open to it, we’ve got a few more questions that we’d love to get your take on. Where are smart people getting it totally wrong today?
Most people, of all intellectual levels, are misusing their phones in not smart ways.
They ARE cool. They certainly DO make it easier to choke down the more mundane moments of life. It IS easier to face the day knowing that whenever life gets boring, you can summon a quick dopamine pop.
But doesn’t that suck, too?
It’s nice to escape, sure, but it doesn’t have to be all the time.
I’m not immune either. All over the place, it’s just kind of become the default human mode.
Phones tend to make us forget
The world isn’t really designed to entertain “you.” It’s not catered to “your algorithm.”
We’re not isolated creatures living our own realities, our words and actions affect the lives of others,
even the ones we don’t get to see in our curated feeds.
I’m sounding like a luddite, but I’m not.
More connectedness has benefitted humanity.
However, our devices aren’t always connecting us
and we all need to be more aware of who’s selling us
the disconnections.
Before we go, we’d love to hear your thoughts on some longer-run, legacy type questions. Have you ever gotten what you wanted, and found it did not satisfy you?
There’s a connection between sadness and ambition.
As a musician, I think of the day after an amazing show. The night before, there were tons of people, bright lights, money was made, fun times were had…then you wake up the next day and you feel empty and sad.
I used to struggle with that feeling a lot. Metabolically, you’re sad because you had such a rush of adrenaline just a few hours before, and now your internal chemistry has leveled out. I’ve always wondered if sky divers or mountain climbers have that feeling after they do something crazy.
And any lifelong musician will tell you, it’s not just about one show. It’s the ups and downs of the entire album-release cycle, or, in my case, the ups and downs of a band’s entire existence.
The only thing to do then, and it’s easier said than done, is to perceive the experience with gratitude.
Considering all my years of both success and defeat… It definitely took me time to live out this perspective. To be looking back and feeling like – I’m SO HAPPY that even happened! And I got to be a part of it, how lucky, I’m just a normal dude! After that, I can think, well, onto the next thing.
The thing is, It doesn’t have to be some roller coaster. Being able to create more music that moves you and moves people, in itself, is an incredibly inspiring thing.
SIPA’s song Playing Band is about this!
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://instagram.com/sipatheband
- Facebook: https://facebook.com/sipatheband
- Youtube: https://youtube.com/sipatheband
- Other: https://sipa.bandcamp.com
Image Credits
Joi Conti
