Here is part two of my interview with Eric, a recording studio producer. I have to say, this is my personal dream job. Maybe someday…
So how did you get into this career?
I was incredibly fortunate. It was really good timing. Sort of random, but sort of not. When I moved back from Germany, I started managing my friend’s band. And they ended up recording an album here. The album took 9 months to mix. I was just here all the time. And, at that time, I had my own little marketing and design agency with [a friend]. The owner here was looking for somebody to come on board and sort of be his right-hand guy.
We just hit it off. He brought me on sort of as a contract, temporary sort of thing. And it just worked out really, really well. If there’s a lesson to be learned from how I got this job, it’s that I was doing something that I really wanted to do but didn’t necessarily see a career in. I never imagined myself even in the music industry at all, let alone – I mean, I’d always been interested in audio stuff, for sure, and that’s what I always thought I was going to go into was radio. But I was managing the band because I wanted to do that, and I was fortunately in a financially comfortable position where I didn’t have to worry about making a living at it. I was just doing it. And everything just sort of fell into place.
Cool.
Yeah. I feel really, really lucky. It’s pretty ridiculous.
But when you look at the story you can see it wasn’t just luck. There was some element of right place, right time. But a lot it’s that putting yourself out there and trying something new.
Yeah, because this job – the job I have was never advertised. It wasn’t like there was a help wanted sign. I was doing what I wanted to be doing, and all of a sudden met the right person. And whammo. Which I think it’s a lot like meeting your soulmate. I guess one way to do it is going out and meeting people, going on a dating site or whatever else there is, but the other school of thought is live your life the way that you want to be living it, and that person will show up in your life. And that’s kind of how it happened.
That’s cool.
I think so.
What advice would you have for someone who wants to follow in your footsteps?
I would say, if you can find a way to get into – the music industry obviously is incredibly hard to get into. We have well over 100 people every year trying aggressively to just intern here, unpaid. Unsolicited. We don’t advertise for internships. And people are just beating down the door. Two or three people every week, it seems like. I hate to discourage people who don’t have the financial means to work for free, but that’s been the career path of everybody here who’s been hired since I’ve been here, is they’ve been willing to come in, work for free, learn, work their ass off, and be really, really dedicated and willing to do anything. I think this place is better than most music industry employers in terms of rewarding that kind of thing. But I think that’s the most important thing, just getting into it. You don’t have to have a degree. Almost no one who works here actually has a degree that’s in music or audio engineering or anything. Almost everybody has a degree in something else. And some people don’t have a degree at all. So it’s really more about practical knowledge and the desire and ability to work in a really fast-paced environment like this.
Is there anything else that you want to add? Any advice or comments, just in general?
For people who want to work in this field, it requires a lot more work and business acumen than most people think when they imagine a career in music. But it also is exactly as cool as you think it is. Not all the time, but overall, it’s amazing. It’s totally – there has never been a day where I’ve been dreading coming into work. Never. Even after the craziest late night, it’s still always a total pleasure to come in here.
