We were lucky to catch up with Dylan Emmet recently and have shared our conversation below.

Dylan , 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.

Some moments, you never forget. I had just found out that I was a father. I had a two year old daughter I never knew about living back in my hometown in Upstate New York. My entire life, I had planned to live in Los Angeles and make my music career happen there. All of a sudden I was hit in the face with reality. I need to leave LA if I want to be a good father. Not only that, but by leaving, I might be sacrificing my lifelong dreams in music that I had worked feverishly for my entire life.

I was leaving to move back to New York the following weekend. My friends and I went to shoot a music video in the middle of Joshua Desert. I needed one last Hurrah with the LA crew. We partied pretty hard. It must have been four in the morning when I found my friend John and I sitting and looking up at the craziest starry sky I’d ever seen. In that moment, I asked God for guidance. I knew in my heart I had to be with my little girl. I also knew that leaving LA was going to make everything I’ve worked for astronomically harder, maybe even impossible. In that moment, I felt it deep in my heart and gut. I can do this. I’m not giving up.

I’m still playing the risk out to this day. My career has taken a much different shape than I originally thought, but somehow, I am making it work. I take trips to LA to write and collaborate. I have literally eleven different hustles in music that allow me to pay my rent. Everything from producing for artists to writing songs for people’s birthdays. I live on the edge of a cliff pretty much all of the time. That said, I don’t regret any of it. My daughter is the best thing that ever happened to me. These challenges have helped me grow so much as an artist and as a person. I know I am onto something big and fully believe, if I continue to be relentless with my pursuits, it’s going to work out. Time will tell on that I guess. Either way, everything in life is a risk. Nothing is guaranteed. In my view, you should take that risk and fight for the life that you really want. I’ll let you know how it plays out.

Dylan , 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?

Hey, I’m Dylan. I’m an independent artist and a songwriter and producer for other artists. I’ve had songs of mine featured everywhere from Billboard to Spotify’s New Music Friday. I’m based in NY and spend part of the year in LA writing and producing for other people. Pretty much all I do is make music in my free time. I’m obsessed with the craft.

In sessions I can be a bit of a chameleon which definitely sets me apart. If there’s no producer, I’m the producer. If a writer is needed, that’s the hat I’ll wear that day. I love it. It always keeps things interesting. When it comes to collaboration, my goal is always to help make the artist feel comfortable enough to dig deep and write something really honest. I joke with my songwriter friends all the time about how we get in a room with strangers and vent our entire life stories. That really is a beautiful thing about collaboration though. Capturing those feelings or a moment in time that other people can then feel and relate to on the listening end.

I’m really proud of the body of work I’ve made for my artist project. Recently, I released a song about body dysmorphia called “Don’t Love Myself.” I made a lot of really raw content to go with it that even two years ago, I would have been terrified to put out in the world. I have been pushing myself to own my voice and who I really am as an artist and as a person in my songs. I’m also super grateful for every person that ever told me my music helped or affected them in some way. It motivates me a lot to keep this going.

Any resources you can share with us that might be helpful to other creatives?

I wish I had realized how important making content would be in today’s musical landscape. I’m now working really hard to develop my skills in this area. I was kind of naive and assumed I should focus all of my time into making better music. Looking back, I would have started learning marketing and making content a top priority as well.

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

One thing that helped me early on in building my fan base was making my music copyright free. This basically allows people to use my songs in the background of their youtube videos in exchange for crediting me in the description. Certain songs of mine were featured in videos that got millions of views and in turn, sent thousands of people to my Spotify page. As with any tactic in the music industry, this one has become less effective as of late for a few different reasons. The landscape is constantly shifting.

I still wanted to highlight it though because my advice for artists beginning now is to look for strategies that are different than what everyone else is doing. Barely anyone knew about this when I was doing it. Not only that, most of the artists who did know about this tactic were all EDM artists. I was one of the only pop artists releasing my songs this way, which gave me niche and really helped spread my songs.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.DylanEmmet.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dylanemmet
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dylanemmetmusic
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/dylanemmet
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/DylanEmmet
• Other: Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/2y7zrj4rkRIwScuQTUZhsG