We recently connected with Josh Vuncanon and have shared our conversation below.

Josh, appreciate you joining us today. Earning a full time living from one’s creative career can be incredibly difficult. Have you been able to do so and if so, can you share some of the key parts of your journey and any important advice or lessons that might help creatives who haven’t been able to yet?

Being such a creative person my whole life with a brain that races 100mph it was always difficult to know which direction to go, but thankfully I was put in this position as GM of Whiskey Rose here in Raleigh NC. It’s been a major challenge as the nightlife business in Raleigh is very competitive and one idea seems to travel to each bar in a blink of an eye so its very difficult to stay creative and original, I’d like to say we have done a good job or staying different and changing ideas up to stay apart from the competition. It’s a forever changing obstacle. We have made it 3 years now and that in itself is a major challenge this day in age for bars, many don’t make it past 1-2 years. From the past 3 years I’ve learned a lot, something’s I would have changed and something’s I would have started sooner. Being such a big fan of live music myself I would have started some of those projects sooner in the growth of the business so that they would have grown more traction as we continue to grow.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

Well let’s see here – I started as a DJ back on 2005 at a legendary country bar called CITY LIMITS SALOON. That place was way ahead of its time for what it was. I was there for about 9-10 years things get blurry that long ago, if you know what I mean. I had put that part of my life behind me and then fast forward to 2022. I was working for a new company overseeing corporate security for their bars/nightclubs and in a flash I was in put in a GM position of this monster of a Party Country bar called Whiskey Rose Raleigh. So with my passion of live country music, the scene, and more here we are blazing a path in the downtown scene.

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

One of the goals I have during all this is to help bring new ideas and grow the local country music scene here in down town Raleigh and in North Carolina overall. It’s a major passion of mine. There is a massive amount of talent that leaves and goes to Nashville for opportunities. Hopefully as we continue to build a scene in NC, more talent with be homegrown and achieve bigger goals in NC.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

Being such a creative minded person it’s always amazing to actually see of the ideas come together and be successful. My mind is always spinning, some ideas work some ideas dont. You can think it through as much as you want to but until it gets put in motion you’ll never know what gonna happen. So when the ideas work it’s always great to see

Contact Info:

• Website: https://Www.whiskeyroseraleigh.com
• Instagram: @whiskeyroseraleigh

Image Credits

Photo Credit – Leah Taylor
Ig@snapshotsandsoirees