We were lucky to catch up with Andres Freyre recently and have shared our conversation below.

Andres , appreciate you joining us today. We’d love to hear the backstory behind a risk you’ve taken – whether big or small, walk us through what it was like and how it ultimately turned out.

I had a career as a bookkeeper at an armored truck company.
Working at this company was stable but sucked the living soul out of me.
It wasn’t great for my art and mental health.
I decided to put a two week on my job to do what I love
It was extremely stressful at first and took time to adjust my way of living to the reality of having a limited artist’s budget and scale down.
After a year and a half I feel very content and healthy.
I feel I made the best choice for my mental health and my art.

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 come from two turbulent places
One being East LA and the other is a neighborhood in Tijuana called La Sanchez Taboada.
If you know anything about East LA in the 90s was the gang violence to which I was front and center for via my older brother that was involved in that world.
I grew up alone with my sister most of the time with little to nothing to eat.
My mother worked multiple jobs to pay the rent and bills but still would come up short leading to possible eviction.
I always wondered why my father was never in my life.
I however also had a very confusing place in my heart for Tijuana.
I lived there from the time I was months old to the age of five years old.
Those five years were beautiful because I knew it was my place to be with my entire extended family surrounding me from my grandmother to her sisters, my cousins, uncles, and aunts.

That neighborhood in Tijuana is known as the most dangerous part of the city.
I grew up there without electricity, running water, gas, paved roads, or phones.
It is a place that had a lot of action to be witnessed and experienced by everyone in residence.

I lost a lot of family to drugs and violence in my life between these two places.

I couldn’t come to peace with my position in life or all the trauma I was dealing with other than music.

I started DJing as La Cosecha Internacional to keep the memories of my youth alive, to deal with what I felt all those years when I was alone, and to share my experiences in life with anyone who wanted to listen via playing these classic records I collect.

In the beginning I was told by every venue in LA that nobody wanted to listen to the records I played and had no future as someone to be taken seriously as an artist.

Ten years later I’ve been featured in Vogue Magazine, have a show on the world’s biggest radio station, have played events for Drake/Prada, and at the MOCA LA.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

To make it as a working musician it takes a lot of time, effort, and be able to believe in yourself when you play dozens of empty venues.

It’s extremely heartbreaking at times and you have to make sacrifices whether personal or financial.
The question is why do you want to do this?

I had times when I would play an event in LA from 12-4pm then would drive to San Diego to play another from 8pm-12am
Then wake up in San Diego drive to Long Beach to play another event that night.

Only at this pace and with that type of dedication can you build a reputation.
The most important part is to perform with all your energy wether it’s 10 people or 1000

What’s worked well for you in terms of a source for new clients?

The best source for new clients or work is word of mouth so always be professional, dressed sharp, and provide a pleasant experience for everyone involved.

Make people feel like they are part of an experience or witnessing something new and exciting.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.nts.live/shows/la-cosecha-internacional
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/la_cosecha_internacional?igsh=NTc4MTIwNjQ2YQ%3D%3D&utm_source=qr
• Youtube: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Xifbtck1bvQ
• Other: https://www.vogue.mx/estilo-de-vida/articulo/la-cosecha-internacional-proyecto-musical

Image Credits

Diana Santos
Flores De Otay