Feature: Kevin Michael Stafford Decodes “Ten of Cups”
Can you tell us about the inspiration behind "Ten of Cups" and the story it tells?
In the summer of 2016, my wife(then fiancée) and I had just gotten engaged, and her sister Scarlett gifted us with a love tarot reading. In this reading she covered several topics, but there was one card she drew that represented the highest potential of our relationship - that card was the Ten of Cups. The card depicts an image of a husband and wife embracing in their yard with their children playing and a rainbow overhead. Ever since that reading, we began calling it “our card”. For our first wedding anniversary, I got her a framed 11x17 print of the card - and in 2023 when I went back to school to learn sound engineering so I could record and produce my music, it was one of the first songs I started writing.
I wanted to express in the song how beautiful it is to go through the ups and downs of life with another person when deciding to go all in for love and marriage. I’ve never met a married couple who said it was “easy” and it’s not, but it is the most rewarding thing I’ve ever done - to give my heart to another, to commit to sticking together through bad times and good, learning and growing as individuals and as a couple - “Ten of Cups” is the love song to send to the person you want to do hard things with, and come out the other side stronger and better for it.
Can you talk about the recording and production process for this song?
I recorded this song half in the studios at Musicians Institute in Los Angeles and half at my home studio. I wrote and performed all the instruments, lyrics and vocals, and mixed and mastered the song using Logic Pro.
What impact do you hope "Ten of Cups" will have on your audience?
I hope my audience connects with the emotional story the song tells about relationships. Thematically, the song aims to create a beautiful narrative about enduring love and commitment, using tarot symbolism to deepen its meaning. The Ten of Cups reference speaks to emotional fulfillment and relationship harmony, while the mention of the Five of Pentacles acknowledges the inevitable challenges couples face. This juxtaposition creates an honest yet optimistic view of long-term relationships, celebrating both the triumphs and the struggles that strengthen bonds.
I hope people listen to the song and want to choose love in their own lives.
Can you tell us more about you as an artist?
In many areas of my life, I have been described as a jack of all trades. It’s no different in my life as an artist as I never seem to be able to pick a lane, and I want to do it all. I started playing piano at age 4, and in my grade school years would write short stories on our Macintosh Apple computer at home and print them off to have my peers read them.
As an adult, I spent a few years as the guitarist/clean vocalist for the Victory Records’ death metal band, Beneath the Sky, where I got my first touring experiences and was able to place on the Billboard heatseekers chart with our albums. After a move to Los Angeles, I worked as a performer and music director for the nationally renowned sketch comedy theater, The Second City and traded screams and mosh pits for laughs and costumes.
After the pandemic, I knew the thing that was always holding me back from releasing more music was that I never learned to engineer and record. That part was always done by a studio hired by the record label or an outside company with the theatre. So, with some encouragement from my wife, Natalie, at 35 years old I enrolled in college at Musicians Institute in Los Angeles to learn audio engineering and some other skills to help me take ownership over the next phase of my career as an artist.
I have since started my own label, Broken Sword Records, and have been releasing singles and building out a sync library to write music for film and television.
What role do you feel emotions play in your music, and how do you channel them into your performances?
Emotions play a huge role in my music, as most of it derives from real experiences in my life. Everything from my relationships to events to transformational experiences make up the lyrical content of my songs, and the emotions surrounding those experiences shape not only the words but the musical choices that accompany them.
Having crossed over into the worlds of acting, both on screen and on the stage doing traditional musical theater like Rent and musical comedy with The Second City, channeling my emotions for performance has naturally shifted back over into my music, allowing me to access parts of my voice I never would have found without exploring multiple mediums of art and expression.
I always hope that my listener would leave the song having felt some of their own emotions, whether they’re connecting to mine or having their own separate emotions altogether.
