We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful AJ Fountain. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with AJ below.

AJ , looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Can you recount a story of an unexpected problem you’ve faced along the way?

Problem solving can be a dance and the more I’ve treated it as such instead of a nuisance the more I’ve felt fulfilled in life, personally and professionally.

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

At our video production business, Stoked Ember, we’re in the business of making people fall in love – with the outdoors, with adventure, and with your brand. We collaborate with outdoor and nature-centric businesses of all sizes to share stories in creative, compelling ways through videos and photos. We dig deep and get to know your heart and intentions so that we can better share your story. Oh, and we’ll make sure it’s a lot of fun along the way.

With our band, A Brother’s Fountain, a self proclaimed “Colorado Campfire Folk” band. The main inspirations for our music are the outdoors, friendship, adventure, and the great mysteries of life. We’re a rag tag group of best buds who took a back door into the music scene. We started out busking on the street corners of Old Town Fort Collins, Colorado. These days, you’ll find us playing our music while floating down rivers, camping in the backcountry, or at venues big and small across the states and world.

I’ve had the honor of running both of these businesses with my best friend and bro from the same mo(ther), Justin Fountain. While we’re far from the perfect pair of business partners this world has seen, I still couldn’t think of a better one. They say that memories pass between generations, through experiences that get hardwired into our DNA made by people we likely never met. Maybe it was adventures like the epic 1950’s road trip to Alaska made by Grandma and Grandpa Fountain – that unwittingly set a particular course for our lives. Perhaps it’s nature and nurture that deserve credit for pushing us off a paved path and onto one devoid of others’ foot prints, of igniting a spark that set fire to all the kindling we could not see.

How can we best help foster a strong, supportive environment for artists and creatives?

Depending on how you look at it, it’s either the darkest time in history for supporting the arts or the most robust. As much as I want to be a glass half full guy you can’t ignore some of the facts. The streaming age is here and musicians are not being financially rewarded for listens to their music in my opinion. In the past with actual physical record sales you could parse out the percentage you would be making as an artist, now it’s arbitrary based on the platform and pennies on the dollar, well hundredths of a penny. 0.003-0.005 on Spotify.

I think to combat this the best thing folks can do is support musicians more directly in other ways. Patreon is an excellent platform to get special perks, BTS, pre-releases, etc.. and support artists on a more dependable, recurring basis.

Also, never overlook the power a simple message. How has the music/video/art impacted you. Tell them in person, comment on a post, or slide into the dm’s. It can make an artists day to hear that.

Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

Our ultimate goal with both Stoked Ember and A Brother’s Fountain is to love God and love people. To respect the process of being lifelong learners, and never underestimate the impact others can have on you and you can have on others. To stand for a different identity based on the assumption that we all have a story to tell and we’re currently right in the middle of living out that story. And of course that our favorite place to live and tell those stories are in God’s great creation, outdoors.

To get to create music and videos under these assumptions is a great honor and my driving force every day.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.stokedemberproductions.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/stoked.ember/?hl=en
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/StokedEmberProductions/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aj-fountain-970151a1/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYfT4Hf5Ml9sVZ_VnGOli5g
• Other: Band: Website: www.abrothersfountain.com Insta: https://www.instagram.com/a.brothers.fountain/?hl=en FB: https://www.facebook.com/abrothersfountain/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAXVph5sE9gxKtqMVD1y7XA