We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Bryan Lamar & Jeff Coulter a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Bryan & Jeff, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Earning a full time living from one’s creative career can be incredibly difficult. Have you been able to do so and if so, can you share some of the key parts of your journey and any important advice or lessons that might help creatives who haven’t been able to yet?

We have been fully reliant on our creative work to earn our living for several years now but it was a long road to be sure. We started our business roughly 11 years ago and for the first 9 of those we had to have other jobs to make it work. When we first started the Studio, we reinvested every cent we made into acquiring new and better gear, learning tools to up our skills, and eventually rent on our first location. Eventually we started taking more days off from our other jobs and little by little we were able to make the Studio our Full-Time career. It was by no means easy and many people told us we would never get here or that it was taking too long, but taking our time and not rushing helped to make our foundation as solid as possible and we’ve really enjoyed the journey.

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

We started out playing music together in the eighth grade, and we performed all around South Florida throughout high school. As soon as we graduated we began touring nationally. We did countless tours throughout our early twenties and recorded an album for a small indie label, and although we had a blast and learned a lot, one of the biggest lessons we learned was that we wanted to have a life and career in music without having to be on the road playing hundreds of shows per year. So we decided to come home and be a resource for our incredibly talented scene of musicians in South Florida. We started recording and producing friends and local musicians we would scout at open mics and we are still so grateful after so many years to have the opportunity to work with the high caliber of artists we do.
Over the course of those years we have built the studio from a bedroom to a world class, industry standard creative space where we offer not only music production but video services, pro audio, editing, voice over, Audiobooks and more.

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

The best thing you can do to support artists and creatives is to look in your own backyard. The vast majority of working artists are not famous, they are normal people who live near you and work the local scene. Most people end up missing out on so much great music, art, and entertainment right around the corner. Additionally going to a local bar or coffeeshop to hear an evening of music will save you money and put whatever money you do spend directly into the hands of working artists who will continue to liven up your local arts scene.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

The music business absolutely forces you to be resilient. The one thing you can almost always count on is that things are not going to happen exactly how you thought they would. Learning to roll with the punches and not to be too picky on how things end up working is key, not only to success, but to mental health and happiness while you achieve that success. It’s hard to think of any one story because almost every day we have to react to the unexpected and reformulate plans on the fly. The trick is to try to have some fun doing it and not get bogged down in how it “Should” have happened.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.raincatrecordings.com
• Instagram: @raincatrecordings
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/raincatrecordingstudio
• Youtube: www.youtube.com/raincatrecordings

Image Credits
BRYAN LAMAR