We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Micheal Daniels a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Micheal, thanks for joining us today. Let’s start with the story of your mission. What should we know?
My mission is to show, regardless to your circumstance. I choose music more for the feeling it brings me and because of my motivation and desire for success hustled different jobs and hobbies to fund my lifestyle. The music business has proven to be interesting more because it is expensive. I have managed groups and to be honest people seem to believe talent alone will walk them into the door when it comes to success musically. Most of the humans that I have met want to be rich and see music as I way to get to the bag. I have always allowed music to be a place to bring me peace and happiness. Money has come easier because of the many ways you can get paid in the music industry. I opened a recording studio for myself but because I am a DJ, producer and audio engineer I find it easy to make money. When it comes to studio my love for the music and desire to help people makes it easier for me to give time than to get paid for time in the studio. I would much rather work with and for people who love music. The money has gotten in the way of 90% of the folks I have worked in music. I have also noticed the folks that have made money in music tend to be more picky on who they work with musically. Myself, being a studio owner who is also successful in other areas, have had the opportunity to see interesting lanes in the music business. Because of my love for music I stay in a position to not allow the business to push me one way or the other. For me making money outside of the studio has help me stay happy with the things I choose to do inside the studio. It has allowed me to keep the love without the pressure of having to accept things that don’t sit well with me because of the need to get paid from it. While this has been wildly critical for me, most people I see and don’t necessarily agree with my way of doing it. It isn’t something that works for everyone but because of my motivation it has become easy.
Micheal, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
My introduction to music was in church when I was a young child. My mother kept us at church and while church wasn’t my thing the music at the church kept my attention. The drums were the instrument that got my attention. By the time I was a teenager was allowed to play in the church. That was a bit scary at first but after getting over the fear fell in love with the experience. This experience was pushed to a higher level when allowed to play for the band in school. Playing in the school band introduced me to something that church didn’t and that was structure and dedication.
Life for me was tuff because my mother was raising me alone with my four sisters and two brothers. To play in the band making it to practice and gigs made me learn to be on time and how important that was to my ability to do the job. Even though I was not getting paid, my love for this made me do what was necessary to make this happen. My high-school music teacher never knew it but I looked up to him like the father that was never around. Because of my behavior as a young teen and desire for a better life working a job became important. I never owned my own drum set so working doing music was complicated. My teacher would let me use the school drum set for gigs, but between using my mother’s car and borrowing the set from school it started to feel stressful to make money with music. Getting a job seemed to make more sense because my desire for money was important to me. My love for music led me to the job of Dj and also installing music into cars. My first paycheck my ass bought a stereo for my room. Music was still important even though drumming wasn’t as important.
I started learning problem solving and the value of being a man of your word. Working was important because I had children when I was young following in my mother’s footsteps. Because of my desire to take care of my responsibilities along with wanting everything, money was the most important thing for me everyday back in those days. Because child support was a part of my story finding other ways to get a dollar became important. My love for cars was another thing that stuck to me. Being good at whatever work I did made people ask me for Dj jobs and so working on cars installing stereos, detailing and lowering vehicles was my first side hustle. These were things I like to do, also which balanced working at my job which paid the bills. This taught me discipline and problem solving while earning respect from clients that wanted me to do work.
When I got older working on houses became something that got my attention. My girlfriend getting some property and helping her with maintaining it was my first introduction into home repair work. Having my own home started to be something that was motivating me. Figuring out how to make that happen seemd out of reach but I had the determination and the desire which fueled me to figure it out. Patience wasn’t something that was clear for me when it came to anything but I learned that it was necessary with this new path. Finding the right people to advise me was important, nobody in my family owned a home except my grandmother and we never talked about home ownership. It became important for me to get the information on how to make purchasing a home happen. My friends that I worked on cars with had their own homes so we began talking about the subject. It wasn’t going to be easy but with patience and consistency it will happen was the message. This process helped me to pay attention to the things that were important daily. Looking at my past moves became important and how to adjust my behavior was another thing that took place during this time.
Time management and staying true to the things that allowed me to get paid while saving to purchase a home was crucial and making the right moves was an eye opener. Music was still a part of my life and Dj jobs were keeping me going and were fun. I got my first home because of luck and prayers from god being answered. It needed a lot of work but that was fine for me. Just like everything and everyplace my house had a music room. This was were my introduction to music production. My downstairs was a studio mostly for Dj and playing music. One of my friend ended up leaving equipment at my house but it took me forever to learn to use it. This was also where my first introduction into music management started. After purchasing my second home things ramped up 100%.
My second house became the place for a jazz band that I managed, would practice. We worked together for some time attempting to get money together for going into the recording to studio. My limited knowledge of studio made this process interesting and my knowledge of getting and keeping money along with the place to practice was the value. We spent all the profits in one week in the studio. This was when I decided to build my own recording environment. My third property was where my studio was built. Having a studio opened up doors musically in my city.
My strongest ability is planning, time management and organizing situations to complete goals. While some may not see this being connected when it comes to music, in the home owner game it is super relevant. If your doing music for fun its like playing which is limited when it comes to the need for planning, play whenever is okay. In the times where people take music seriously a plan is more important. As a music producer seeing all sides of the spectrum is another value that comes from my studio. Approaching music from an owner, producer and record label perspective has allowed me to see a lot. Respecting every aspect of the music game has become important. Allowing my personal opinion to be a gift for whomever wants it is high on my list for my brand. Potential clients approaching music seriously gets different results than those who just wanna have fun. Making a song is easy but putting music out is something else.
How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?
My life started as a young boy because I had a child young. Because I never met my father this choice caused me to make a choice at a young age to step up. Navigating this was challenging because my guidance came from my mother who started young having me and my brother when she was young. While she did her best to never let us go without my desire was bigger. Church was what kept her grounded and taught me some things good and bad. Music was the consistent thing which helped me like church. My desire for money was interesting when young and church was a hole financially in my opinion. Unable to figure out why giving to church, it was easy for me to not go as I got older. Music was everywhere but what came with it never did much for me financially. Trying to make it make sense was hard but as DJ it became fun and also put money in my pocket.
It was music that helped every time things seemed tuff. My journey wasn’t good until slowing down and putting things into perspective. It took a lot of mistakes until the idea to build my own place to make music became a reality. I called it Commen Sence Studio with a play on words. Commen sense was spelled with a C because I couldn’t find a cents sign. Because I owned the studio cost was under my control. Also my choice to make money in the studio was under my control. Music being something that I loved my desire was to not allow business to take over the feeling music gave me. Doing music whenever I wanted and not letting the money control my movement in the studio was important. Navigating my time with my joy in CSS studio was a slow process. My level of success was and is leveled up by being financially successful in a lot of different ways. Being seen as a decent business man, my business minded friends ask why do music? It’s because of the love for me is my answer. It feeds a part of my life that nothing has ever been able to feed. It also helps me stay inline with reality when dealing with people. I have used music more for therapy than making a large sum of money. Yes, it makes money but for me helping those who can’t afford it brings me joy. My experience musically has been interesting in a lot of different situations. Being older and a man of color has shown me a lot. Multitasking has become my strongest success story. I’ve always had to do that to keep myself from being poor while trying to enjoy the ride. Always going into the studio happy is easier when I go in alone. It gets complicated with others and owning a studio has proven to be important because I am able to make music whenever my heart desires. What to do with the music is another story.
Any fun sales or marketing stories?
I started doing music with family and friends. My first project could have been a home run but it also taught me a lot. The music was so good investors were knocking on my door the minute the heard our work. Because I didn’t feel the people involved were ready for the limelight, the choice to take the slower approach paid off. My first group of artist only made one project before they broke up. My second project was put out because one investor loved the music so much they wanted to invest in putting it out. We put out the project as a compilation because most of the artist didn’t show much desire to support music on this project. This taught me a lot as well about artist and how sensitive they are about music. One artist told me he couldn’t sell his music because everyone thought he was rich after seeing him on a CD. Even though he didn’t have to pay a dime for studio time or putting out the music. Navigating this was problematic as a business man and sad as a human. It put things into perspective for me as a studio owner. Navigating talented humans has been the most interesting part of doing music.
My favorite musical experience was working for kids. The kids were picked at a talent show at a local community center. The winner was allowed studio time which was supposed to be one month. The kids were given tuff rules that they had to abide by in order to get the studio time. Most of the things were what it takes to do anything in life in my opinion. Being on time was a big deal and these kids were early usually which showed they really wanted to do it. We ended up working together for several years ultimately. We did a music project and shows around town. They had fun doing music and sold every last one of the CD’s. The enjoyment for me was watching them grow as artist and humans. Life for these kids was challenging outside of the studio but music was what kept them in line. They ultimately broke up as a group but I currently work with one of the young men. Music being expensive has been the biggest thing folks have had problems navigating long term. My desire to teach humans to be successful while navigating music has been more important.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: common sence studio
