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

Alright, Brandon thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Can you talk to us about how you learned to do what you do?

This is a question I get asked sometimes by people, and to be honest it’s always something I find difficult to answer, but it is a very necessary one.

I learned everything I know how to do, by simply watching other people do it and then applying my own personality to it. Starting when I was just a toddler and I saw guitarist on the TV playing, I always wondered to myself “how do they change tunings so fast”, and from that naive thought, I spiraled into a void of wanting to learn everything about it since. Same with downhill skating. I came across on Youtube one day when I was 11, a video by Loaded Boards called “Let Go” and again, it spiraled into me wanting to learn everything about the sport and what it takes to ride down mountains on a skateboard.

Doing your research and spending real time finding out everything about a subject that deeply interests somebody, is by far the most profound method of learning your craft, and it will serve so much value when it comes time for real, first hand experience. As an example, before teaching myself how to play ‘Math-Rock’ styles of guitar, I would dedicate sessions to researching: who are some of the top bands in this genre and who are the ‘leaders’ of this sound, what are they doing to create this sound, and as people, who are they and what are their values/routines? Before even touching my guitar and attempting to play this genre, I spent a few months strictly putting in the time to understand what this genre is before trying to make something of my own from it. Then came all the practice. Thousands of hours of practice of making all the newly learned techniques that were difficult and uncomfortable, become easy and free flowing.

By far the most important skill I had to learn along the way, was patience. Patience, patience, patience. As well as consistency of practice! The key is a nice, slow burn, so that you’re still motivated and learning something new 10 years into the journey, not content with your progress after 3 months and stopping there.

Personally, the big obstacle up until recently was clarity and knowing exactly what I wanted. One year I’m doing this sound, then next year this, and there’s no real long-term commitment to a single thing. Though it is really important and valuable to spend time doing a bunch of different types of music or whatever it may be, there is something to be said about just sticking with one subject and manifesting that before moving on. That is how one can speed up their process and success as an artist: Clarity on their goal.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers

My name is Brandon Roach, I’m 23, and I’m a musician, producer, downhill skateboarder, & content creator from Denver, Colorado. I create ‘Electronic Math-Rock’ for my solo artistry, as well as for my band ‘Slim Organics’ with DJ Jah Slim.

I first got into guitar at 6 from seeing people on TV play, and was instantly drawn to learn how to do ‘that’. Similarly at 11, I saw a video on Youtube one day of downhill skateboarding, and became absolutely obsessed. Throughout my childhood and early teenage years, I began to live out my days of skating the hills in the Denver suburbs. learning the discipline of downhill sliding, while coming home at night and playing all that experience from a day’s worth of skating into my guitar. As I became older, my routine stayed similar, but I was always looking for the ‘next thing’.

For skating, my friends and I got our license and we began to venture into the mountains out of suburbia, learning the art of big mountain skateboarding. As for music, I became exposed to the Denver scene through my older sibling producing beats for artists relevant in the area, and sought after creating my own compositions and unique sound after hanging around them. My influence and mission creation at the time was ‘Trap Beats’ over ‘Psychedelic Rock’. I released my first EP onto SoundCloud titled ‘The Portal Out’ in the summer of 2019, and followed that with my first full album “Trap String Theory” in early 2020.

Life was great. I had a sound I was dedicated to, began to build a local following, was playing shows and had a ton planned, then the pandemic hit. All of my plans had changed, and I basically had to restart all over again. All the time in lockdown was devoted to strenuous hours in the studio everyday, putting in immense time, practice, and research. There was nothing else I could do.

I began to play more complex and difficult styles of guitar through discovering “Math-Rock”, and exposure to faster genres of Electronic Music – House, Techno, and Trance from working with DJ Jah Slim. We had met just prior to lockdown, and we became tapped into a new fusion of sound: ‘Math Rock’ guitar with Techno beats. Along with another new sound, we created our band, “Slim Organics”. We’re both fully plant based and slim individuals, so the name stuck perfectly. We put out our first album in 2022, began to do small shows, and started building a loyal, healthy niche fanbase.

As for my solo artistry, I released a few more singles throughout 2020 and 2021 of a more complex sound, played with tons of locals and even started a jam band, but I wanted to build my audience with a method more aligned with the world today. I shifted to focus strictly on videos for the past year or so on social media, thanks to the changes in most algorithms allowing anybody to be seen now. I’ve had some measurable success through reaching a new audience to some extent, but I definitely became caught up in coming off as only a content creator. I’m looking back to reconnecting with my roots of putting out tracks for people to listen to, and finally connecting everything I’ve learned throughout this journey. It’s been difficult to learn how to balance this all, but worth it in every way.

Today currently in 2023, I’ve continued to skate down mountains throughout all the years since learning, and still play my guitar every day that I’m able to, trying to improve every time. It’s been a rocky year so far – I voluntarily chose to get shoulder surgery last December to finally fix my arm. I’ve had a torn ligament in my shoulder since I was 17, and as I got older, my arm continued to come out place and affect my quality of life/full potential. So with 2 more months of recovery and physical therapy left, I plan to continue practicing my guitar as much as I can, rehearsing for shows this summer both with “Slim Organics” and myself, and of course training to get back on the hills! Lots of fun and exciting work planned for this year and beyond.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

The most rewarding aspect of being a creative, is being able to tap into my true emotional self, and be able to turn it into something tangible for other people to consume. Life is full of challenges and mental hurdles; creating music, along with skating down mountains, is by far the best coping mechanism I could’ve worked for in this life. It keeps my inner child always at play.

Also just the feeling both of these activities give me. That feeling of looking up a mountain from the bottom after descending from the very top, or that feeling of playing an hour set of relentless tracks and nailing each one perfectly. I am very thankful that the life I’ve worked for myself, is shrouded in a feeling of empowerment and endless adrenaline.
A truly rewarding life to be living.

In your view, what can society to do to best support artists, creatives and a thriving creative ecosystem?

What society can do best to support artists, is to continue taking away the “middle man” between an artist and their audience, and give creators more independence! In 2023, it is entirely possible to create and sustain a profitable career for any creative art without a label or contract signed that gives up your rights to ownership. 20 or so years ago, that at all was not possible. Artist would be payed a 1 time ‘advance’ payment from the label, and wouldn’t see another dime until it sold a certain amount, while at the same time not owning any of the streaming rights. Most of the time, musicians in particular, had no creative freedom and were severely controlled.

Thankfully, it’s not really like that anymore! This is what society can continue to do, is understand where the industry once was, where it is now, and continue to change it to be more what it should be: Independent, creatively free, 100% ownership to the artist, and overall less about trying to squeeze as much money out of an artist as possible without their consent. Knowledge and awareness of this issue, is a big help for independent artists trying to sustain themselves.

Also, support your friends. Support your damn friends! Share their posts, comment on em, maybe stream their song a few times or even go to their shows! If the industry is to be independent and self reliant, then we rely on people to show up in someway, rather than a label do all the marketing for us. Community and building connections is more important than ever, it will be the only way to have true freedom in this industry.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://linktr.ee/littleroachmusic
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thelittleroach/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-yX4bTgJw4QDOTBF6qPjgA
• Other: https://linktr.ee/Slim_Organics

Image Credits
Valerie Rowe, Ally McCormick, Cat Evans, Alan Abila, and Jonah Tyler