What Happens When You Finally Trust The Whisper, Join Me for a Conversation with Mark Winters

A lot of people daydream about quitting the sensible job for the thing that actually lights them up. Mark Winters did it and he did it with the same curiosity that made him an aerospace engineer. We talk about how a mind built for math, science, applied physics, and computational fluid dynamics can also be a mind built for poetry, songwriting, and the kind of live shows that feel like a real conversation.

Mark walks us through the turning point that changed his direction: picking up a guitar to sing an anniversary song for his wife and realizing the emotional connection was bigger than anything he’d felt in his career. From there we get into the real work of becoming a musician later in life, teaching yourself music theory, learning performance, writing originals, and eventually releasing multiple albums. If you’re searching for a career change story, an independent artist journey, or practical inspiration for starting creative work now, this ride delivers.

Mark shares the chaos and charm of his first car, a beat-up 1960 Volkswagen Bug held together by grit and duct tape, plus a rain-leak fix involving a milk jug and string. We also dig into his 20,000-mile Good Vibes Highway Tour, towing a live-in trailer for the first time, playing 60 shows in 65 days, collaborating with other musicians, and discovering places like Oregon, Banff, Vancouver, and the other-planet landscape of Moab. He explains why he loves intimate venues, how he builds a trio sound, and what it means to put a little extra positivity into the world.

If you’ve been ignoring that quiet inner nudge to try something new, Mark’s advice is simple: listen for the whisper. Subscribe for more road trip conversations, share this with a friend who needs a push, and leave a review so more people can find the show. What’s one “whisper” you want to follow next?

You can find Mark online at Rock Music, Sugar Land, TX | Mark Winters Music

Find him on social media @markwintersmusic

Transcript

Welcome To The Road Trip

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Welcome to Dan the Road Trip Guy. I'm your host Dan, and each week we'll embark on a new adventure, discovering memory and life lessons of our incredible guests. From everyday travelers to thrill seekers and everyone in between, this podcast is your front row seat to inspiring stories of passion, resilience, and the pursuit of happiness. So buckle up and enjoy the ride.

SPEAKER_01 0:32

Hey Dan, how you doing? Happy Wednesday. Yeah. It's a beautiful, beautiful sunshiny day here in Houston. I'm about to take my puppies out for a little run.

Meet Mark Winters

SPEAKER_00 0:40

Feeling good. I appreciate you being here and taking this virtual trip with me. I wish we were in the car together. Take a couple minutes, Mark, and just tell my listeners who is Mark Winters.

SPEAKER_01 0:49

Who is Mark Winters? I'm uh uh I'm an aerospace engineer. I went to school. I love math, I love science, I love applied physics, computational fluid dynamics. It's all something that just I don't know. I've always had a curious mind to figure out how things work, take them apart and put them together again. I think uh it's been a phenomenal part of my life. I had a little spark of creativity that started when I was younger, when I was uh around five. Um I started writing poetry with my grandmother, and we we've stayed poetry pals for my whole life, and I've had that sort of dit going and painting as well with her. Um and uh I decided after I'd graduated and practicing aerospace engineering, I decided I wanted to do something musical. And so in 2011, I put it on my list because music has always moved me and sort of the soundtrack for whatever I was doing. I uh uh I decided to to pick up a guitar and sing a song for my wife for our anniversary. And uh had the most amazing time just sort of going through the journey of buying a guitar and learning and then surprising her in our favorite Italian restaurant with a song. I got this phenomenal, I don't know, energy. I'd never gotten doing anything else in my life. Just this sense of connection, singing to someone else. It was it was 10 times anything I'd ever done. Writing poetry for someone or you know, practicing engineering, anything. I I never had found that level of connection before, that level of passion. And so then I I became, I became obsessed with learning music. I had I didn't know anything. I had to teach myself music theory and composition and uh performance. And so I I started leaning more and more and more in. And uh round about 2022, I made the decision that I was just my soul was lit up way too much playing music to do anything else. And so I really started pursuing it as my full-time career and did my first big long tour last year. And when I write, it's it's interesting. I have the science mind that sees the world, and I have this poet mind. And so I've I've been learning to shape my voice in my writing so that people can feel kind of the three things in my life that are my driving principles. One, I'm just very positive. I love the world, I love people, and so I want that to come across in in what I'm writing. I love math and science, and I love poetry, and so those three things sort of help shape the songs that I create and the live performances that I give.

SPEAKER_00 3:14

Aaron Powell Thanks for sharing that. And you're from Texas?

SPEAKER_01 3:16

Yes, sir. I've been in Texas. I was born originally in New Orleans, Louisiana, but uh went to uh high school, college, and I've been in Texas ever since. And so my wife and I are we consider ourselves I'm an adopted Texan. She she was born in Houston.

The Rusty VW Bug Story

SPEAKER_00 3:31

So this is Day on the Road Trip Guy. First question for me is always tell me about that first car or just a really fun car story.

SPEAKER_01 3:39

When I hear that, I think always of my uh my very first car I got. I started driving early, I was 14, and I bought this old 1960 blue Volkswagen bug. It was sort of blue, it was rust and blue in combination. Um, and it needed a lot of repair, exterior repair. And so I I found a paint and body shop and I volunteered my time to help them prep other cars to paint. I learned to wet sand. It's uh a fabulous thing to do. It's a dirty job that nobody wants to do. And uh they let me use the equipment to start restoring my my Volkswagen. Uh I had to put a had a moon roof on it, and it was all rotted out, and I had uh the seats were terrible. They had this, I don't know what it was, hay flying around everywhere when you drove it. And uh, of course it didn't have air conditioning or anything, but that, you know, whatever. You're you're a new driver, you know. You don't need that, I reckon. But then it had cracks all along the front window, and so it didn't seal out well. And so I remember working hard, sanding other people's cars, then fixing mine, and then cutting fabric and doing the thing, and I got it to a point where it was sort of barely drivable. And I remember taking my car, it was in Wichita Falls, uh, sort of North Texas. Um, and I remember driving, getting in my car and driving it down to driving it to the inspection place to get it inspected, and being just the most nervous person ever because, well, it wasn't it wasn't licensed, right? Right. And so I'm kind of driving it down there. I'm sort of worried. The windows, they had these, so you have a little roll-up windows on the side, and then you had this little triangular window that you could sort of kick out. Oh yeah. And that was your air conditioner, right? Yes. And so I remember kicking out this window, and I guess I didn't do it, I I'd used duct tape to tape the seats so they wouldn't so the the hay wouldn't fly everywhere, right? I remember the the window when I when I turned it, somehow it got underneath the right seats duct tape. So there was this giant plume of hay flying around inside my car, right? And I started rolling the window down, and the window didn't roll all the way down. I guess it got stuck. I had fixed it, but it got stuck. And so I couldn't get rid of the hay, right? And so I'm driving hay flying everywhere, and I'm trying to get down to get my uh my uh my car inspected, and uh just thinking to myself, what have I gotten myself into? And that's my my first recollection of a funny drive. I later, so I got it inspected, uh, I got some more duct tape and taped the seats down, and I remember the third day I took it out, I drove it to school and it started raining. The rain was uh was coming through the cracks in the seal of the window. I didn't know that it was cracked at the time. And so the seals were all cracked, and so the rain was starting to come in. Uh, and so I got rain on the floorboard, water on the floorboard and whatever, and so I I cleaned that up. And on the way home, I borrowed a milk jug from the cafeteria and some string, and I got more of my duct tape, and I duct taped the string to the window in the cracks where the cracks were forming, and I had a wick system wicking the water down into my jug, right? For the drive home because it was still raining when I got when I was going home. And I used that that wick system for two months before I could afford to pay for the cracks to be repaired on the front windshield. So the Volkswagen was good to me for many, many years, but uh it had it had humble beginnings.

SPEAKER_00 7:21

Yeah. The old Volkswagens are popular today, and people try to uh purchase those and fix them up. That's cool.

SPEAKER_01 7:27

It was, you know, you could fix that car with like a wrench and a hammer and a duct tape. That was it. It was like the most basic repair on anything, right? It was almost so light that one person could lift it up. I mean, it was just a super light thing, pretty, pretty phenomenal. And it had like a little lever on it, and it and you had it one gallon of extra because it didn't have a gas gauge. And so when you drive it until it went it went dry, then you flip it over and you had another gallon, right, of gas to get you wherever you need to go.

A 20,000 Mile Music Tour

SPEAKER_00 8:00

Absolutely. Well, thanks for sharing that. I love I love car stories. Hey, you travel a lot today, but any epic road trips in your life, one that just sticks out?

SPEAKER_01 8:10

Damn, I uh my my first tour that I went on as a musician. So I d I drove a lot during college and and whatnot. And so I had like smaller trips, maybe four or five hours, maybe even longer. My wife and I may have taken a few road trips to see your parents in Florida, and I thought those were long. And then I went on my tour in the spring of last year, 20,000 miles. Pretty epic. And uh it was my first time ever to tow a trailer. Like I have a small 20-foot trailer that you can live in. Sure. Uh, and so I I towed that west out of Texas, well, through Texas and then out of Texas through New Mexico, up into Canada, all the way across the top of Canada, back down the coasts of California and zigzag back and forth back to Texas. I experienced so many firsts on this epic road trip. First of all, it was amazing. I'd never been out touring as a musician, so it was just phenomenal to be out on my good vibes highway tour. I was like living the moment. Play a show every night. So I played 60 shows in 65 days worth of being out on my tour, and uh got to got to share all my positive energy with everyone. I called it creating a little extra protons, right, in your orbit. So I got to share lots of extra protons out there on my on my tour. Uh I got to wake up in the morning in a new place, a national forest, a state park, uh a beautiful city, running, rollerblading, surfing, going to play my show, connecting with other musicians along the road, you know, doing collabs, you know, learning to be mobile. The world is so technologically advanced now. You can do, I cut two new songs while I'm on my tour from the road, right? Just doing it all, you know, from my laptop. So just a pretty phenomenal, epic road trip. I saw places I'd never even thought to visit. The beauty of Oregon. I didn't even think, I didn't even know much about Oregon, it's just phenomenal. You know, the beauty of the top of Can Banff in Canada. I never even thought about visiting there. Just pretty much every amazing place. Windfalls, I has the most amazing river running through it. I just so I got all these stores. Moab, I don't know, it's like Mars there. If you've ever been to Moab, it's like wow. What? Where am I? I'm driving in. I'm like, where are we on a different planet? Where am I? Lots of amazing things on my uh Good Vibes Highway tour, and it was pretty epic, 20,000 miles.

SPEAKER_00 10:33

Wow. 65. Yeah. That's a lot of miles. 65 days.

SPEAKER_01 10:36

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 10:37

Favorite city along the way? Anything that stuck out to you? You mentioned some beautiful places.

SPEAKER_01 10:42

Yeah, I don't know that I have a favorite. It just I kept uncovering these amazing places that really were just uh one-of-a-kind gems. I don't know. I I I I had so many amazing encounters. I don't know that I have a favorite. I don't maybe I might be partial to Vancouver. Just it's so phenomenally beautiful there. It's just unreal. And I was there in the spring, the weather was as awesome. But I I don't know. I I I can't say that I have a favorite, man.

Growing Up With An Engineer Mind

SPEAKER_00 11:08

Hey, before we jump to the music journey in a little more detail, tell us about your journey. Uh I looked on your website and it says you're a rocket scientist. So tell us about growing up and and landing in that role, and then we'll talk about music.

SPEAKER_01 11:24

I remember early on being out in the workshop with my mom's dad and my dad's dad, tearing engines apart and building uh shelves and and building furniture and just sort of being very mechanically inclined. And I remember, you know, first time I did algebra, I just really just enjoying the experience of solving equations, just something that was really a lot of fun for me. And then when I got to geometry, I really loved it. And then I started applying it to what I was doing, making things and creating things. And so sort of logically led me to studying aerospace engineering in uh in college. So I went to Texas AM University.

SPEAKER_00 12:05

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 12:05

Gigum, Aggies. Yeah, there you go. I studied aerospace engineering, found that I had a really passion for computational fluid dynamics. I love how I love the math and the mystery of the math for objects moving through fluids, uh, air or water or other fluids. And so I I embarked on uh a journey to learn to design helicopters and uh jets. And uh that was the big part of my initial journey as an aerospace engineer, just working, worked for Bell Helicopter for a bit. Okay. And link flight simulations, uh, designing uh helicopters and trainers for jets. Just uh found the home for my logic and and my engineering mind. I also found that I was a bit more creative, maybe, and outgoing than the average engineer. Had a great time doing it, met some great people, had some great mentors, and and really enjoyed the work. Really enjoyed working with the test pilots who were in the programs that I work with. They were very creative and also very outdoorsy and out athletically inclined like I was, and so just uh had a great time meeting some great people.

The Creative Spark Becomes A Plan

SPEAKER_00 13:11

So then at some point, and you st you talked about riding with your grandmother, but at some point music kind of bit you and you said, Hey, I'm gonna I'm gonna change direction.

SPEAKER_01 13:21

I guess I have some eureka moments like when I sat down to write poetry with my grandmother. I was five. I didn't I wasn't planning on doing it. I just did it and I wrote a poem about Lilies and I really liked it. It was really bizarre because I was, you know, super testosterone kid running everywhere. So who knew I would like that? I don't know. And so that same thing for music, I decided to sing a song for my wife for our anniversary. Who knew I would just have such a deep emotional experience with that? And so it sort of surprised me. I guess I've always had a creative side of my personality, you know, my journey. It just was something I didn't didn't nurture as much. And so I ended up sort of being surprised. And then as I started leaning more into music, you still don't know. It's like a a career change. You d you don't know. You don't know, are you gonna be good at it or not? Are you just is it was it a momentary flash of the pan? And so over time, you know, I I learned uh, I guess I put my 10,000 steps in to learn to play the guitar, to learn to sing, to learn to write, to learn to play the piano. And as I was doing that, I found uh a greater love for music than I had found in my you know engineering pursuits or my business pursuits for that matter. I started leaning more and more into it and st and and uh looking for mentors in the space and looking for education in the space. I came to the conclusion in 2022 that uh I had lots of things to say and I wanted to share them with people, and it brought me great joy to to to write music and and and bring it out into the world and share it. And you know, my wife, she she pivoted with me. She she pivoted from being married to the engineer uh to uh the artist, and she's been an amazing supporter. I I I couldn't have done what I've done without her telling me, it's okay, Mark. It's okay. We'll find a new way uh, you know, in this new direction in your life.

SPEAKER_00 15:12

Aaron Powell You walk in and you go, you know what? I think I'm done with that uh rocket science thing. I'm going to be a musician.

SPEAKER_01 15:19

Yeah. She's like, okay. I mean, initially she's like, great, let's do it. And she wants to go to every show, and and she's right there with her foam finger go, Mark. But then the you know, after a while, the luster wears up. You know, she's hearing the same songs. I'm writing all the time. Yeah. I'm going on tour. Uh there's a lot of life adjustments that we have to make. And she's just been phenomenal at staying on the journey with me, being being on the road trip no matter how many detours I take, right?

From Cover Songs To Original Albums

SPEAKER_00 15:45

That's what it's about. You mentioned you wrote a song or you sang a song to her. Did you write that song or was that a cover song?

SPEAKER_01 15:52

It was a cover song, an amazing song. This is a song by Tesla called What You Give. It's about being mindful, being a giver in life. Uh, and that's a defining quality that I really love about the song. It was one of the few songs that I didn't want to rewrite the lyrics for. As I started singing more songs, I started with like a brown-eyed girl. Well, my my girl has she's got blue eyes, so I changed it to blue-eyed girl, right? And people were like, Van Morrison is not gonna be happy with you. And so I started changing more and more of the lyrics, and uh, that sort of led me to okay. I I wrote my first album, end of 2018, then early 19. And uh that that's why, because I w I had things to say that I couldn't find in a cover song somewhere.

SPEAKER_00 16:35

That's cool. How many albums? Four. Four albums. Okay, that's good. Influences. Uh, you've listed a few I know on your website. I saw that or read up, but um musical influences that maybe you pattern a little after, maybe you don't.

SPEAKER_01 16:48

Yeah, I would say yeah, I learned to play guitar playing John Mayer songs. We like John Mayer. Phenomenal guitarist. Love his style and you know, a lot of his early writings, just my mind just really helped me a lot. So I would say guitar-wise, you know, John Mayer. Uh I love Jason Moraz's quirky positivity. Uh, you know, he's such an amazing groove singer too. His, you know, when he's singing, he's so in the pocket and in the groove and just makes you feel what what he's doing. Really love that about him. Maybe uh maybe Tom Petty, my grandfather liked him, just a he had a way to say things very simply, right? So he could use a small amount of words and a low amount of complexity and really share an emotion. And then, you know, maybe more recently, I I love Beautiful Things by Benson Boone. He's like a a really dynamic singer, and I really love that about him. And um maybe Chris Stapleton, I love a lot of his ri lyrics as well. I listen often to release radar to find new new people. I've been into uh the Red Clay Strays recently, which is a really phenomenal, I'll call them like a Southern Rock gospel band or something. Okay. I think the Country Music Association picked them up as sort of uh like a new country. I I don't think of him as country at all, I think of him as Southern Rock. And then Steven Wilson Jr. is sort of on my playlist lately. He's uh got the most unique sound and I love his writing. It's very different. He just the way he writes and the words he chooses are very different. So yeah, I got some uh some modern people helping shape me. Uh maybe some people I might end up playing a show with in the future. That'd be awesome.

Trio Shows And Intimate Rooms

SPEAKER_00 18:21

We hope so. Your shows, I believe you tell me you play in smaller venues. Is it just usually you or do you play with other artists?

SPEAKER_01 18:29

Uh yeah, it's uh locally I play in a trio. Um and so I I'd love at some point to be playing bigger rooms where I can change uh where I can, you know, uh bring everyone with me. I think uh, you know, at the moment I'm still building my following. I I love to play small theaters, listening spaces. Yeah. Hundred-ish to two hundred people rooms is good for me. It's intimate. I can tell stories and connect. Yeah, I do play some bigger show. We have a bigger show coming up this weekend, March 7th at the Armadilla Palace. It's it's a bigger venue. So we have a full band, like a five-piece that we're playing that show with. But I really enjoy the intimacy. I found that's one of the things that took me a while to figure out. You know, I did a little had a four-piece light rock band that I had put together, you know, in 2019. Coming out of COVID, I played with that group again. But I found myself enjoying more of an acoustic sound. And so I I found another person uh in the community here to play with, Michael Shanks. Uh, he's a phenomenal guitar player as well. And so we we had a little duo going, and then I found a lady Rochelle to sing harmonies with. And so we we have the nice acoustic vibe trio. And so I've found that this is for me the most comfortable place to tell my story and to share my music. And I think it connects best with people who who are looking for some of that, you know, extra positive energy in their life, but they don't want like to go out to like a giant stadium and hear, you know, this huge production, right?

Bucket List Einstein And Life Advice

SPEAKER_00 19:55

Yeah, absolutely. We like those. Switch gears a little bit. Anything on your bucket list in life that you want to check off?

SPEAKER_01 20:02

Yeah, bucket list. Um, you know, I'm pretty active on checking things off. I've checked quite a few. I'd say my my wife and I love hiking in the national forests, and we've gotten through about half of them. So we got another half to go, so that'll be on the bucket list. I love families. Uh, maybe sometime my wife and I have a a daughter and a son. Maybe sometime in the future I'll have uh a grandbaby of some kind or another. There we go. A long way away from that. But yeah, that would be kind of cool too. Maybe those are the only two things at the moment that I could think of.

SPEAKER_00 20:31

Thank you. Imagine today you could take a road trip with anyone, living or deceased. Who would it be? Where would you go? What would you talk about?

SPEAKER_01 20:39

I would I would say I'd love to go. I'd love to scoop up Albert Einstein and uh hop on the road. So many amazing things that I've heard that he said, right? Um, about imagination and intellect and purpose, so much about innovation and he had such a curious mind too. I, you know, and how he discovered relativity. There's so many things that you sort of read about, but you don't know the context of it unless you actually talk to the person. And so I'd love to, I'd love to give me like the perfect thing. Like invite him on my tour with me, right? And so he could be my tour companion while I'm driving, and we could talk shop all the way to the next spot. He could go on a like a 20,000 mile trip with me, and I could just, you know, immerse myself. That'd be pretty phenomenal.

SPEAKER_00 21:26

Well, that would be fun. Thank you. Nobody yet on Day on the Road Trip Guy has wanted to take a road trip with Albert Einstein. So that's cool. Well, this has been fun. We're coming near the end of our little virtual ride here, Mark, and I really appreciate your time. But I'd love to ask you, leave my listeners with some life advice on how to live a great life, how to live a wonderful life.

SPEAKER_01 21:49

You know, Dan, I I would say to me, listen to your inner voice, right? To me, even if it's a whisperer, like the whisper I should write a poem about lilies, or the whisperer that I should play a song for my wife for her anniversary. Those whispers can bloom into amazing pillars in your life. So just be on the lookout for those bad boys and uh give them, you know, give them a little bit of attention because you never know uh where you're gonna when you're gonna unlock something that's really amazing. And and you could be out on your own good vibes highway tour if you do that.

Where To Find Mark Online

SPEAKER_00 22:21

That's great advice. Sometimes it gets a little too noisy in this world, and we need to kind of relax and and listen for sure. Well, Mark, this has been fun. Before we go, leave my listeners with how to find you, your music.

SPEAKER_01 22:35

So you can find me at markwintersmusic.com and you'll find all things musical there, my latest releases, uh you'll find my tour schedule there, and uh where where you can connect with me on the Good Vibes Highway Tour. And if you want a little extra dose of positivity, periodically you could join my email list. I'll share some extra protons. Usually I'll I'll send you a poem or like a stripped down version of a song I'm working on, maybe a special invite if we're gonna do a community service day in your area to make uh make the community a little better. But yeah, markwintersmusic.com, you can you can find me on social media as well with the same handle or on your favorite streaming platform.

SPEAKER_00 23:12

Yeah, and it looked like uh I looked at the tour schedule, it looks like you're about ready to hit the road and be out there for a bit.

SPEAKER_01 23:17

My first show's uh in Arkansas, uh like the end of March, and uh then I'm headed west from there in the spring, and then uh I'll be back in for the summer, and then I'm headed out again in the fall, going going east and north.

SPEAKER_00 23:29

Well, you need to come to come to Ohio.

SPEAKER_01 23:31

I think I have some shows there. I'd love to love to have you out for one year.

Final Thanks And Listener Invite

SPEAKER_00 23:35

Yes, absolutely. Well, Mark, again, this has been a pleasure. I appreciate the time. Thank you, Dan the Road Trip Guy. Thank you for tuning in to Dan the Road Trip Guy. I hope you enjoyed our journey today and the stories that were shared. If you have any thoughts or questions or stories of your own, I'd love to hear from you. Feel free to reach out to me anytime. Don't forget to share this podcast with your friends and family and help us to spread the joy of road trips and great conversations. Until next time, keep driving, keep exploring, and keep having those amazing conversations. Safe travels. And remember, you can find me on the internet at dantherroadtripguy.com.