We recently connected with Arnie Brenn and have shared our conversation below.
Arnie, appreciate you joining us today. Can you talk to us about a project that’s meant a lot to you?
My debut EP titled “INTROSPECTACULAR” to be released on April 20 was made with nothing but sacrificial love.
I’ve played multiple instruments since I was 11, but I was majoring in risk management & insurance in college. At the time, I had stopped playing instruments after high school because I wanted to focus on studies I had zero interest in. I was failing my classes. I didn’t know myself. I just went with studying something normal to fit in.
When I was a sophomore in college, COVID happened. I was forced out of my restaurant gig, so I started door dashing, which meant I had a lot of time getting back in touch with my musical side behind the wheel. Around this time, I went further with my music exploration and discovered some of the most interesting sounds beyond genres.
One day, my auxiliary cord stopped working during one of my 5 hour delivery shifts. Those 5 hours of silence actually forced me to look inward and re-evaluate my life a bit. I thought so much about what really mattered to me and why I cared so much about how people perceived me if I showed passion about something. Change didn’t happen overnight, but I knew something was happening.
Out of the 5 hours, I started humming to fill the silence & thought, “why do I always hum this melody by default?” Anyways, I hummed further until I had the brilliant idea to pick up my guitar again & record what I was humming over some drum beats online. For the rest of that day, I had listened to the recording over and over shocked at what I had just created.
I rushed my recording over to my buddy Vincent. He was impressed & his positive response was enough to encourage more songs out of me.
Then, I thought to myself that this is what I want to do forever. I didn’t care how broke I end up. I still don’t. From there, I got to know myself even better and matured as a person through songs I was writing.
I sacrificed having roommates for two years to write songs in a one bedroom house, which is crazy cause I couldn’t stand to be alone at the time. It wasn’t easy but I became more comfortable with myself in those two years. I was no longer oblivious to myself.
Now, I have an EP set to debut on April 20. It’s a 19-minute bell curve experience. It’s a sonic collage of my influences. It’s my champion sound for shadow boxing my way into an embrace with my own humanity.
Arnie, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
My name is Arnie Brenn. I am your Filipino friend. I’m a multi-instrumentalist & I produce music in my bedroom. I make psych-pop/rock music. I am a DIY musician based in Oxford, Mississippi. I wrote my first song during a door dash shift when my auxiliary cord broke, and I was forced to hum my way out of silence behind the wheel. I am here to entertain my fellow deep thinkers.
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
I didn’t come from money. I felt rejected by the music scene. I made songs on a 2010 laptop. Every session was choppy and the program never responded. My house flooded twice during the making of my EP.
Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?
My advice to anyone building a presence is to have something that’s visually consistent with your brand whether it be the clothes you wear, colors you rep, pixelation your photos/videos have, hairstyle you wear, or font you type. Just build an immersive and memorable world around your product. Make sure it’s something that resonates with who you are targeting. If it resonates with you the most, make sure you’re targeting like-minded individuals.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.arniebrenn.com
- Instagram: @arniebrenn
- Youtube: @arniebrennmusic
Image Credits
Arnie Brenn