We were lucky to catch up with Rel Hoffman recently and have shared our conversation below.

Rel, appreciate you joining us today. Can you talk to us about how you learned to do what you do?

Honestly the way I learned was by making TONS of mistakes along the way! Mistakes that were made from an eager mind, motivated and driven to take everything that was in my head and find a way to represent it in a way that was tangible to others, whether that be through my music, voice acting, sound design, or content creation. What ended up being most important to me wasn’t purely based on what I *wanted* to do (because I wanted to do EVERYTHING lmao), but more so on what I *didn’t* want to do…or more specifically, things I wanted to avoid. I never wanted to settle for anything less than the best I could do at the time, and I never wanted to limit myself to one or two things, my ADHD brain could never juggle only one ball at once – so I did everything as often as I could, even if it meant it was messy at times! Just like how messy this answer is right now! But I learned about myself in the process; all we do as humans reflects who we are on the inside.

…I guess if anything I could’ve focused on single projects for longer periods of time before jumping to the next project when I didn’t even finish the first thing. Ambition is great to have, but focus is essential, and I suppose my habits of jumping from unfinished project to unfinished project was the obstacle that stood in my way the most.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

Right! So my name’s Rel, but I go by MyToasterIsMoist on all social media platforms (horrible name, I know). And I actually got into my industry *not* by going to college, *not* by having rich parents, and *not* by being some kind of naturally gifted genius – I got into my industry by busting my ass for over a decade trying to prove to myself that I could constantly outdo my previous work. I was constantly trying to improve myself and push past my limits…and through time, that ended up catching the attention of a lot of really cool people who helped push me even further!

Be it through my music, or my voice acting, or my audio work – I try to express myself through all the things that bring me joy in life! Getting to make music for people, or do sound design for cool projects for people, or make voice acting demo reels for people…getting to share that joy with others is…I mean it can’t really be expressed in words how satisfying and fulfilling that is. For anyone that I work with, I want them to know that I don’t look at what I do as just “work”, it’s way more than that to me; it’s a passion! It’s expression! It’s who I am as a person! Exclamation points!

Looking back, are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?

Dude honestly I wish I knew sooner that you can get a LOT of cool work remotely, without having to physically be in some well-populated area like New York or California. As an audio engineer, I always thought most of my work would be in person, but in 2020 I found that there’s an incredible amount of people who are always looking for audio work! So in 2020 when I started mixing demo reels for voice actors, that’s when everything started snowballing! The internet is crazy, dude. Use it to your advantage and reach out to people! Make some cool friends.

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

I think the single most fruitful piece of advice I could possibly give to people who are just starting out is…the most cliche thing you could possibly say. BE YOURSELF. Don’t try and define who you are based on popular trends or what you THINK people want to hear. There are million copycat clones out there, the people who truly stand the test of time are the ones who dare to make mistakes. The ones who dare to try something different or unique. And secondly, you gotta enjoy yourself! Yeah work can be stressful, but when it serves to push you to grow as a person, it becomes way more satisfying watching yourself grow…there’s nothing like it, dude.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://mytoastercanmix.com
• Twitter: @InvertedToaster
• Youtube: MyToasterIsMoist
• Other: Spotify: Chemical Mother (my solo music!)