We recently connected with Alexx Artificial and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Alexx, thanks for joining us today. Did you always know you wanted to pursue a creative or artistic career? When did you first know?

When I was a young boy, before preschool, possibly as young as three, I was walking with my grandmother in a grocery store humming and whistling and I thought to myself that was it, I would be a “tune-maker”. A few years later I began wanting to be an astronaut, which morphed into a few more things into adulthood but I never stopped making tunes. It was the only constant. I did do a band in my early twenties that did fairly well but I was in school the whole time, pursuing a career in what I hoped would become astrobiolgy. When the pandemic forced me to reevaluate what I wanted in life, I realized that what I had thought was my dream was actually a means to an end. I thought I would never be able to really do music so I would do something cool that would allow me to do music on the side eventually. I felt foolish, like I was waking up from a delusion. So I decided to keep a job that I considered half way to my goal and take a break from education to pursue music again. I feel like I am finally being myself again. It’s completely contrary to what sounds like the right thing to do but in this case, it’s right for me.

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

I am a musician and music producer, I record bands, mix, and master. I also make my own music, provide remixes for other artists and I love to collaborate with artists I respect.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

My old band was called Giant Battle Monster, a math rock band that started in 2008 before the genre had seen the kind of numbers it sees today. There wasn’t a lot of other groups to work with and there weren’t a lot of musicians to put in your group either. I was extremely lucky to be in an outfit with two other highly skilled and talented players. But when the band started receiving more attention, we started needing to do much more work, and it became evident I was the only one that liked math rock all that much. Eventually we were offered a deal to tour Japan and when the details didn’t meet his standards, the drummer said it would be the last thing he would do and the bass player simply couldn’t do it at all. Realizing that if I was going to keep the band going I would need to work with other musicians eventually regardless of who went on the tour this time, I offered the rolls to other musicians that were actually willing. They were seasoned professionals with a reasonable amount of experience on the road and the tour was a blast.

Are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?

This will be most relevant to young people and complete beginners. I wish I had spent money on a decent computer years before I did. I had one but it was severely underpowered and incapable of performing the tasks I should have been doing but thought I couldn’t. Used laptops aren’t that much if you compare them to guitar amps and pedals. My advice if you’re starting out and dreaming of putting together a fancy guitar rig, but you don’t have a competent computer to record your music, produce your social media content, edit video, design your graphics, livestream, and the myriad of other marketing and production tasks you must master to make it in music: get guitar gear that gets the job done, and the absolute most powerful used pc you can afford or you’re going to be the only one hearing that fancy guitar rig in your bedroom. You simply can’t rely on anyone else to do those things in the beginning, it’s not going to happen.

I use two laptops for different purposes, both when streaming, they were both flagships at one point, years ago. Electronics depreciate mercilessly. Use this to your advantage and buy out of date used machines. You’re not gaming. Seven years ago people made music, streamed, edited video, and did all the same work that you need to do now, pretty much the same way you need to do it. So buy whatever Macbook Pro is from then. It will cost you about as much as one good pedal and you can pipe your entire music career through it.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.alexxartificial.com
• Instagram: alexxartificial
• Youtube: alexxartificial
• Tiktok: @alexxartificial