The First Time Someone Wanted To Hear My Story

Neon Notes — Week [19] 

When I started making music, I never expected to be interviewed for it.
At the time, I was just trying to figure out how to make a coherent song.

I started making music at the beginning of January 2023, and within a year and a half I signed with Triptych Music, a sync label, had two written interviews, and appeared on Neon X Radio, formerly KSWV Radio Shockwave, an internet Synthwave radio station out of California.

All of this was so surprising because I had such little experience and never thought anyone would be interested to hear my story.

It all started when I met a Synthwave artist (Memory Design) on YouTube. At the time, I was making much more Synthwave style music and was in the early transition into the sound I make now.

We started chatting and they invited me to a Discord channel with other artists, fans of retro music, and the hosts of KSWV Radio.

I introduced myself and instantly found a connection.

The person who introduced me encouraged the hosts to play one of my songs, and they asked me to send it to them.

In my head, I was thinking there is no way they'll play my song next to some of the biggest Synthwave artists at the time.

I sent them the song, and to my surprise, they played it on the next show.

I was humbled, excited, and a little nervous. That meant my song was being heard by thousands of retro music fans. This is a niche audience that is looking for a particular sound, and my song was in the mix.

A short time later, they played a few more of my songs and they were well received. It eventually led to them asking me to be an on air guest on their main Saturday night Synthwave show.

They asked me about how I got started, my production techniques, and my influences. Just the basic questions to let people get to know me.

Unfortunately, the recording is no longer available, but it's a memory I will always cherish.

Just a few months prior to that, two internet magazines, Full Send and Ready Mag, reached out for written interviews. Answering all those questions was so much fun and made me take a step back and really look at what I was doing.

People were actually starting to notice my music.

This really shifted the way I thought about my music. It let me know that I could make what I wanted to hear, and that there was still an audience for it.

That was something I never expected when I opened Ableton for the first time.

Now Creating

• New song Thursday at 3pm est.
• Continued art replacement
• More collaborations soon

Thanks for reading.
If you have thoughts about any of this, I’d love to hear them.

This post is part of my weekly Neon Notes series. New posts go live every Wednesday.