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

Christian, looking forward to hearing all of your stories 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?

My journey has been a roller coaster. It started when I was 11 when my dad taught me how to play guitar. Fast forward 7 years later and I was getting into producing on the computer. I was not too serious about the computer stuff for the first couple of years, I was just having fun and figuring things out. When I finished my service in the Norwegian Army is was at a crossroads: Get a degree and take a 9-5 or see if I could make this music thing happen.

I got my first paid gig in 2016. It was for a group of students that wanted a crazy party song for their graduation party, which is a huge deal in Norway, Google: Russetid and you can catch a glimpse of it. That gig would later get me more gigs and multiple releases. One of the songs got synced to the TV show “Ex On The Beach Norway”, which started to land us DJ gigs.

Over time, I built relationships with artists, other producers and industry professionals. I eventually got a job as a producer at Publisher/Label/Studio The Woods Norway back in 2021. We did songwriting camps, networking events and a lot of in-person and online sessions with other writers and producers from all around the world. I landed a placement with Mike Perry, which I think in lot of ways made people take me more seriously in the industry.

I moved to LA in 2022 on student visa. Coming here was a bit of restart since most of my network at the time existed in Norway. But I figured if could do it in Norway, I can do in LA, so sent my resume out to a bunch of studios and although it was not my plan to stay here, it sort of just happened. FAM Recording Studios ended up being the studio i worked for. It is one of the coolest-looking studios you will find in LA. Through FAM I have landed work with 2 x Grammy Nominated TeeFLii, Desiigner and many more.

My advice to anyone who wants to do to this is to find someone to learn from, which is funny because that is not something I did a lot, but whenever I did, it really accelerated my skills. It is also important to understand who you are working with, what they want and be willing to go the extra mile to make sure your work is solid and that the clients more value than they expect. Remember that no matter who you are working with, everyone is human and treating everyone with the same respect benefits you equally when you work big and small artists. And most importantly: Keep learning.

Major Milestones:

First paid gig: This was a turning point because it showed me that people were willing to pay for my skills.
First major label placement: My first major label placement was with Universal. The fact that happened would always serve as a reminder for me that I can do it, whenever I had halts in my career.
The Mike Perry placement: I had around 50 demos in my dropbox at the time and I got close to signing a couple of them, but nothing happened until it suddenly did. It showed me the importance of right time, right place and patience.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I am a producer, songwriter and audio engineer who specializes in pop music who makes my living from producing, writing, recording, mixing and mastering music.

A lot of times clients tell me that they “did not know they could sound like that”, I think that is the number one problem I solve. I really do my best to understand what the artist wants to sound like and I tailor the music and sound to match. Working in a lot of different genres has been important to develop that skill and I think it is very underestimated to learn multiple genres.

My skillset and my work ethic is what I am the most proud of. I do have some cool placements and what not, but I tend to focus on what I can do instead of what I have done. My goal is to go all the way to the top and I think that is close to impossible to do of you are not one of the very best in the business, which is why I always give my clients the best of my ability.

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

A billboard number 1 and a Grammy. For what I want to do music is something of a world championship and I want to win, that sounds so cheesy, haha. But yeah, I really do want to go all they way to the top and collaborate with the greats of the industry. The writers, the producers, the artists, the A&R´s etc.

What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?

My ability. I really made sure I really can do this before I started taking on clients. I treat my clients with a lot of respect and I take my work seriously and think that makes a difference. Do not get me wrong, I have fun and enjoy the process but you will not see me drinking or not paying attention when I am working.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chrisostmoe
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/christian.vif.lfc/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christian-%C3%B8stmoe-234557246/

Image Credits
Jonathan S.H Park Marcus Andre Joteig Jun Kim