We were lucky to catch up with Brannon McLeod recently and have shared our conversation below.

Brannon, appreciate you joining us today. Are you able to earn a full-time living from your creative work? If so, can you walk us through your journey and how you made it happen?

Personally, I found myself slowly getting to the point of being able to support myself with a music career over a course of many difficult years. As a child who was so passionate and focused on wanting to play music, thoughts about making a living or earning money never crossed my mind. It wasn’t until my late teen years that I began to be rapidly cornered by the confrontation: music or a 9-5 job.

Music is just a hobby to most. Unless you’re Taylor Swift, not many people take you seriously when you tell them you want to play music for a living, especially the anti-college teen who just graduated high school as I was. My relationship with my parents became tumultuous, as I was so adamant about this risk I wanted to take. They just couldn’t see it the way I did. To me, the real risk is working a 9-5. Working for someone else. Giving you’re entire day, week, month, year to someone else, only to risk being laid off and losing the lifeline IV they have in your arm. Working for yourself removes all risk in my eyes. “I cannot fire myself,” I always believe.

After years of struggle, free gigs and work, falling outs, broken friendships and backstabbers, heartbreak, late nights and physical pain, I have earned my privilege to make a living with music full-time.

I am a touring drummer and get to go to the UK and Europe each year, also constantly making trips around the states, I also have my own band called Dimphonic that developed a generous fanbase through my YouTube channel, Dramaface Recordings. Essentially, I have many facets related to music that compound my income to make it sustainable for me to do it for a living. It was all a process of planting seeds, sometimes in the sand, and watching them grow. Sometimes they didn’t. I am continuing to branch out, grow my businesses, and constantly thinking of new ideas to do more.

I am an advocate for going out and making it happen. No one will do it for you, and it itself won’t come to you. You MUST fight as hard as you can, sometimes against others and yourself, to turn your dreams into reality.

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 Brannon McLeod! I’m 32 years old and music is my life and I love entrepreneurship! I also love cars and animals a lot :) Rebelliously following my dreams and passions has gotten me into the industries I am in today. I am –

-A full time touring and session drummer
-Mixing/Mastering engineer
-Owner and operator of a recording studio, Dramaface Recordings
-Entrepreneur(I enjoy building small business ideas and running them/selling them)

I’d say that I’m most proud of my passion to keep moving forward despite setbacks and failures, and trust me, there are MANY! Remaining vigilant about staying positive and attacking problems with simple solutions is what I strive for more than anything!

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

I grew up believing what was forced into my mind as a child. I learned way later in life that our beliefs, good ones or bad ones, almost all result from our environment that we were molded in.

After so much self-reflection and trying to figure out what holds me back, I realized that so many obstacles I personally face are nothing more than these mountainous beliefs that have become cemented in my head as truths from such a young age.

Some of these beliefs include feelings of inadequacy, not being good enough to succeed. Beliefs about finances that made it feel like I’m set for a low income for the rest of my life because I don’t have a formal education, things of this nature.

They are all falsehoods that mature with you throughout life and become part of your belief system. I am now spending time in my own personal “therapy” to break these.

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

I feel in today’s world, with all the advancements of technology, AI, distractions and shortcuts, immediate access to virtually anything you want, artists and creatives are possibly the line of fire for those repercussions.

Why go to the show when you can stream it? Why buy the whole album when you can buy the single?

These are questions that haunt people like myself. But, time must go on. If we want to remain relevant, we must find a way to put our pride aside and adapt to the times.

It’s difficult to imagine, but I think we can do it if we really try!

Contact Info:

• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@dramaface