Edmond councilman picks up guitar as hobby
EDMOND — Finding one local city councilman is easy twice a month at the council chambers, but when it comes to the weekends, he has found a new hobby in entertaining.
Most know Nick Massey as one of the newest city council members and a longtime financial planner in Edmond, but his hobbies have taken him new places.
“The wonderful thing about doing music this way is that I do not need to make a living at it,” Massey said.
While Massey studied classical piano for 10 years, he always had joked that he would one day pick up the guitar.
He played occasionally during his 30s, but he set it down until his granddaughter asked him to teach her just three years ago.
He was 67 years old at the time, and Bethany Hagen was 16.
“So, she started playing, and then I thought, “Well, jeez, just in case she gets good, I better start practicing so I can keep up with her,’” Massey said.
“In the course of playing again, I got the bug,” he said.
Now, after years of practicing and tuning his skills, Massey, 70, plays at local open mic nights, making many appearances at JJ’s Alley Bricktown Pub in Oklahoma City.
“It is kind of my relaxation,” Massey said, who has worked in financial services most of his life. “I got my day job.”
Claiming to not be a world-class performer, Massey does every show for free and even entertained people at his 70th birthday party. He has been playing in public for a little over a year.
“Open mics are very interesting,” Massey said. “Sometimes you get some people who are really good and then some who are just starting out.”
When he goes to an open mic night, he never knows what to prepare and has about an hour’s worth of songs just in case.
“They have not thrown me out, so I just keep going back,” Massey said. “People should do what appeals to them.”
His day job includes managing hundreds of millions of dollars for clients at his financial service business.
“Most people do not think about me in that light. They think of me as a business person,” Massey said.
Having a hobby is nothing new for Massey. Before the guitar, he was a race car driver and said he has never shied away from new opportunities.
“All of my life I have had what I do for my day job ... but I don’t ever do just one thing,” Massey said. “It would be easy to say, ‘I am too old for that.’”