Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Brandon Dominguez. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Brandon, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with 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.

Moving to San Diego after COVID was by far the biggest life-changing risk I’ve ever taken. Being a fresh college grad in the midst of the early 2020’s (near the end of COVID), I felt a very strong sense of urgency for change. It was a weird feeling, given I was set-up with a great, “safe” job in Northern California and saving money living at home with my extremely loving and supportive family. On paper, the move was a paradoxical dichotomy: it simultaneously made no sense and seemed to be the only way forward for me to grow.

“Why would I leave?”
“My whole world is up here.”
“I don’t NEED to move.”
“What if it’s right move?”
“What if San Diego is what I need to catalyze my creative endeavors and make me learn?”
“What else is calling me down there?”

I had no family in San Diego. No friends. No immediate prospects for work. No context for the music scene. I had quietly played jazz and fusion guitar professionally in the background since I was 16 and had a solid musical foundation in the Bay Area, but had also decided on a whim to delete all of my social media and start from scratch.

I had only visited San Diego a few times in my life and had one Comic Con under my belt. Something was just calling me. Yeah, it was beautiful and “full of things to do”. But to completely uproot everything? Nothing added up on paper. To this day, I can only attribute it to God calling me to be here… “at the right time at the right place”. Or, as I now refer to that pulling, just, “the time at the place”.

With healthy excitement and cautious optimism, I set out and moved to San Diego in the summer of 2022 with nothing but a guitar, a fresh Economics degree, and a whole lot of passion. Safe to say it paid off immensely.

Within a few months, I quickly tapped into San Diego’s music scene and started with the local open mics. I went from a “quiet background guitarist” who had been professionally active for a decade playing for others to what I always sought to become: an independent singer-songwriter writing my own material and breaking out of just being some “ random guy shredding”. I started my artist project (someguyBran) around 2023 and haven’t looked back since.

This isn’t to say there were some pretty intense growing pains and a lot of change and falling down involved. There isn’t growth without struggle, and moving to a new place where you have no foundation and constantly having to put yourself “out there” is in itself a skill. I learned that “showing up” isn’t necessarily the end point, and might only lead you to the next beacon, upon which to strive for further growth. I was always the quiet kid growing up, and this move proceeded to be the perfect opportunity to really fail and come back stronger than ever before. I am proud of who I’ve become and am only more inspired every day to continue building upon what I’ve created in a relatively short span of time.

Since making SD home, I have been blessed by some amazing new friends, creatives, and experiences that I will forever treasure. I’ve released my debut album (the first of the trilogy), several singles, and have built my musical career on a scale I hadn’t considered before. I also got into the best shape of my life (down nearly 20 pounds from college and 60 pounds from high school) and transformed from the fat, shy kid to a more confident version of myself (and with only more progress to go). More importantly, I reinvigorated my personal faith in God and will always strive to infuse that, along with my other personal passions, into my music.

I am so grateful to God for these recent growth opportunities and challenges. I quite literally do not know where I’d be if I hadn’t taken a shot in the dark nearly three years ago. I also wouldn’t be in my current stage of life without my family, who have always been the best and most supportive and loving people ever. I’ve only been able to tackle these challenges because of this strong support system and my faith. Looking forward, as an independent creative, I have learned to love the search; be it for the beacons to chase or the next dragon to slay. The only ways forward.

Brandon, 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?

I am an independent musical artist/singer-songwriter/guitarist who seeks to foster authentic connection and combine my passions for faith, history, writing, and health into cohesive music and artistic endeavors. I also have entrepreneurial and teaching leanings and aspirations for both personal fitness and music. I don’t particularly care to be “defined by a genre” per say, and try to live by the motto:

“Genre: Yes”.

It’d be fair to say that my upbringing lent itself naturally to my current aspirations and trajectory. My mom is a professional vocal coach and jazz singer and my dad is a business exec who used to dabble in bodybuilding, so I feel my varied upbringing played a big role in me marrying these passions and striving to combine them and build upon them in a scalable way. As a result, I think I was blessed with discernment and the unique gift of marrying pragmatic situations with “creative zeal”.

I believe my “unorthodox” life has led to me being different than others in the sense I can “get” most people and see where they’re coming from across vastly different spectrums (from both a business and connection standpoint). I’ve been everything from the overweight shy kid with no confidence to the “spiritual” musician and athlete to the business-minded guy. I was always raised from a dichotomy of both discipline and sensitivity, and I think both are instrumental to relating to others and putting in the work, even if you don’t feel like it. This also includes enjoying the journey and ebs-and-flows of an otherwise non-linear path.

I always write my music with the intention of capturing the moment of the song and comparable impetuses in my life, along with observations of others and the world itself.

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

Simply put, I believe that the most rewarding aspect of being an artist is the ability to simultaneously both express yourself and find and share fulfillment in that expression. I’ve often heard it said by many fellow creatives that “there’s no other way they could possibly be”. I would agree with this statement to a large extent. I don’t find it feasible to truly and holistically “disregard what others think” or “not require” external validation. Rather, I’m a strong proponent of “minimizing” that desire for external validation as much as humanly possible, while reconciling the fact that the best art is authentic, self-aware, and in fact made better by sharing it with others.

It’s the best feeling to create things organically that others relate or attach profound, subjective meaning to. This applies whether it’s one person or a thousand people. Knowing that you stayed true to your convictions and integrity and pulled from within the depths of your own imagination are the sweetest cherries on top.

Have any books or other resources had a big impact on you?

I’m the biggest history buff I know. I was always that kid watching the History channel for hours upon hours.

Ancient Aliens? I was there.
“History of the World in ** Hours”. Entranced.
Rogan? Can watch several episodes in a day.

In fact, the context and study of the rise and fall of empires like the Roman Empire (and Byzantium subsequently) have long lived rent free in my mind and actually still inspire my writing process and daily ideation quite a lot.

It’s hard to isolate my favorite sources of information and distill them into a small list of specific texts, but “The Richest Men in Babylon” is a standout text that inspired a lot of my financial and entrepreneurial spirit as I came out of high school. “Basic Economics” by Thomas Sowell is another fascinating (and dense) read that stimulated and influenced my decision to pursue economics during my undergraduate years in college and translated to elevated fluency in understanding many of the world’s real-world, financial machinations.

Similarly, religious and spiritual texts like the Bible and “Tao Te Ching” are beacons of wisdom where I harvested immeasurable knowledge and life advice. As a Christian, I view the Bible as a pivotal North Star of both spiritual and disciplinary significance. One of my personal takeaways from the Bible, along with its immense historical credibility and many parables and practical advice, is that we are all human, flawed, and need to rise up and take on lives of blind faith, urgency, and discipline to succeed and best serve where we are needed. I also believe that the fact you don’t necessarily need to be a Christian to receive all of the fruits of the Bible is in itself testament of its all-encompassing significance.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://someguybran.com/
• Instagram: @someguybran