Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Jose. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Jose, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today What’s the best or worst investment you’ve made?
Best investment I ever made was investing in merch production, like handmade stickers and pins with graphics and designs I made myself. I poured a lot of love into everything I make. Makes for great conversation pieces as well as amazing gifts for all my friends, fans, and fam out there!
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?
I’ve been making music since I was a kid. I use to plug in headphones to my brothers big stereo system and play through vinyls he had collected. I would even make my own mixtapes on cassettes and rip music right off the radio to tape so I can listen to it on a Walkman (portable tape player for all my young ppl reading this lol) I’ll never forget putting on meddles by Pink Floyd and telling myself, “WOW now that’s real music!” After that my life was changed. I knew what my true calling was, and it was to make and play music. I begged my family to buy me an electric guitar for my 12th birthday. They told me if I made it to middle school they’ll get one for me as a congratulations/birthday present. So I barely made it but I made it through. The rest was history. I was ripping riffs and sweep picking in as fast as 3 months into my crazy new obsession. I would play and practice all my favorite metal songs sometimes for 8 hours straight. Sometimes even until my fingers would bleed. I was so dedicated to learning everything there was to learn about the craft of music. I joined a few bands till one finally stuck and became a bit successful. For a while I thought I had really made it, we toured, played all the local dive bars and we were only 15-16 years old. Other bands in the scene would sneak us on to lineups at places that we couldn’t even get into. They would let us play and kick us right out. Those were some of the best times. In highschool I joined the drama club where our drama teacher Mr.Q taught me how to run and operate a lighting and sound console. This was truly a canon moment in my career. They use to pull me out of class to set up sound for teacher conferences. Eventually led to me learning out to edit film and furthering my love and passion for engineering and producing music of all kinds. Benny Benassi was all the rage back then, skrillex was still Sonny Moore in from first to last, and I was in a popular local metal band. I learned my first daw which was garage band on my highschool tv production see through case Apple computer and would joke around making beats and little house songs and trance and techno. It was a joke to me coming from a background of playing musical instruments my whole life. I would record my friends talking and put samples into my little songs and they loved it. This was the very start to becoming AonQ. As the years passed I eventually learned better daws like reason, logic,renoise and pro-tools. I would go on to record demos for my friends bands as well as my own while making house and drum and bass and dubstep before dubstep was even a thing. I just thought it was fun to switch things up and make sound tracks for my friends funny videos. When the metal band broke up and everyone went their separate ways, I was crushed. I wasn’t sure what to do because music was my life and now I would have to start over. Find new band mates start something new. My girlfriend at the time didn’t want me to do any of it. She was sick of the spotlight and rockstar lifestyle. So when that relationship ended my friends all came together and really pushed for me to start releasing all the EDM tracks I had made over the years, which I always did as a joke. Little did I know that those joke songs and tracks would gain traction. My experience in drama club launched me into trade school for engineering which I dropped out of because the decision came down to either finishing school or paying for rent and food. Luckily I had made incredible connections through my brothers and sisters in the metal community that put me onto working production jobs setting up sound for stages and programming lights, lasers, and more. Not only did they carry me forward but it really propelled me. Later on in life I would meet Otto Von Schirach and the notorious Nassie who pretty much plucked me out of the streets where I had been living out of my Honda CRV and started to put me in the frontlines of their bass shows. I mastered my craft of both stage production and music creation while getting to tour with major talent. The Bermuda triangle family really took me to new heights like I had never experienced before. They showed me love, pulled me up and helped me connect to a greater audience. Till this day I still rock out shows with the crew as the diamond eyed tiger. Some nights double preforming as the tiger and as AonQ. I’m forever thankful for them and everything they e taught me when it comes to runnings shows, working with talent, and all the business aspects to the industry. Taking me on tour with legendary acts like Mobb Deep, Wu-tang, Dead Prez, Anklepants, bone Thugs-n-Harmony, Lil Easy E, and many many more. Not to mention getting the opportunity to work at some of the biggest festivals like iii points in Miami. Or Sound Haven in Tennessee. All these experiences are what made me the artist I am today AonQ, the answer on question or the ambient oscillation of the nebula quasar. I am that walking talking funky bass cat, broadcasting multi frequencies across the galaxies!
How do you keep your team’s morale high?
That’s a great subject! Sometimes life can get hard and straining. We as humans can only handle so much pressure when it comes to working in tough environments. Whenever I’m frustrated.and feeling overwhelmed, I take a deep breath, step back and look at the bigger picture. I take my time to readjust and maneuver my way through whatever obstacles I face. It’s all about perspective. Like Jerry would say in his music “Once in a while, you get shown the light
In the strangest of places if you look at it right.”
Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?
Being too nice will get you hurt and stepped on.
I use to be such a people pleaser. I hated having to charge for my music and performances, this led to many times where people took advantage of me and made tons of money off my work without properly paying or treating me right. I had to grow thick skin over the years and really stand my ground when it would come to booking shows. I grew very sick of greedy promoters and people who really had no love for the art like I did.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://aonq.bandcamp.com/
- Instagram: @AonQ_Official
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AonQofficial/
- Twitter: @aonq_music
- Youtube: https://youtube.com/channel/UCgxKrv60u3LIbUUB0cZE9qA?si=BZdcHjnM_LzHWD0p
- Soundcloud: https://on.soundcloud.com/8fp0gWxfIIwz23ZoIC
- Other: Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/37i9dQZF1E4raoB29lbBBY
Image Credits
Triggerhappy media, Lauren Boyle, Redbull, sureshot_studio