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

Elbert, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to hear about a project that you’ve worked on that’s meant a lot to you.

One of the most meaningful projects that I have is a song called A Pilgrim (Interspace Love). This song is basically about my late uncle who passed away in 2018 and it hit our family pretty hard. The lyrics itself was written by a cousin of mine who is the daughter of the uncle.

She took a point of view of today’s situation, where more and more people loses significant others and/or important things in their life. The feeling of being alienated, to the effort of making peace of these situations are the direction that she’s trying to go with on the song. She took the analogy of a paper plane as a life journey and memory that keeps on flowing to find love in life that vanishes. This means a lot to me, and not to mention that my cousin and I share the same pain of losing our loved one.

On top of that, from a musical career standpoint, we also got fortunate enough to have this song nominated in 2021 Anugerah Musik Indonesia (AMI) Awards for Best Electronic Artist (Solo/Group/Collaboration), which is a huge accomplishment for me personally as a musician. Therefore, this song means a lot to me, both from emotional and career standpoint.

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

Born and raised in Indonesia.

Grew up in a non-musical family. Parents work in law enforcement and the criminal justice system. So no musical genes whatsoever, but has been exposed to music since an early age.

Very first instrument, drums, started playing at four. Just a kid making loud noises on drums and didn’t really know what to do with the instrument since there’s no musical person around. But I did manage to make a little sense out of it and started taking lessons when I was nine.

Picked a couple of other instruments up along the way as well. Mom made me take keyboard lessons when I was six, but didn’t really make a lot of sense to me.

Had some chance to perform as a kid at a couple of family gatherings. Sang a song with my cousins in front of a couple hundred people when I was five, played a couple of songs on drums when I was 11 in a hotel ballroom.

Until finally, at nine years old, got introduced to playing guitar. From all the instruments I picked up, this is the one that made the more sense and had the greatest progress on learning the instrument as opposed to the other ones.

Had an opportunity to play with the school’s ensemble on guitar.

Didn’t necessarily take lessons, but just listening to music and watching YouTube videos were enough for me to actually made sense out of the instrument.

Got my first salary teaching a friend how to play guitar

Had a very heavy metal and rock influence throughout middle school and high school, both on drums and guitar, but mainly focused on guitar.

Created a band both during middle school and highschool covering some Avenged Sevenfold, Guns n Roses, and other metal/heavy influences.

Came out of high school, and moved abroad to U.S. when I was 18. Initially started out in the Bay Area, attending college. There, I started exploring playing acoustic guitar and singing, like Ed Sheeran stuff as opposed to rock/metal stuff. Did a couple of gigs doing that, and worked out even better for me.

Had some experience busking in downtown San Francisco as well during the summer of 2018.

Also got a chance to be recruited by my guitar teacher at my college to play in his 70’s 80’s rock cover band and played my first ever bar show here in the States.

After three semesters there, transferred to the Musicians Institute in Los Angeles to pursue a degree in Guitar Performance, and things, musically, are just getting even more real.

Started to be exposed to actual music understanding, theory, ear training, technique, and all.

All the stuff that I’ve learned on my own prior to coming to music school is now making even better sense. Hence, my tools and musical understanding really grew and improved. My genre as a guitar player is also broaden, not limited to only rock/metal/ or acoustic guitar.

Started to get offers to play in bands. Initially, it was only for a school project but gradually, it grows to the point where I’m playing local festivals, bars, events, etc.

These days, everything pays off, and I’m making a living out of playing music. Started to give out lessons to people, having a residency with a band in one of the renowned bar/music venues on Hollywood Boulevard.

I’ve been interested in writing my original music too right now. I’ve been writing, but nothing is out yet for now, but I’m aiming to have sometimes soon. My artist’s name: El Michael.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

There a couple of aspects that was really challenging for me in pursuing music in a foreign country that I had to overcome in order for me to be able to survive out here as a musician.

Language barrier, culture shock, basically the whole adapting to a new country by yourself is just generally very difficult. Especially in music, where networking is essential for you to “get more jobs”.

Comfort. I think this is one of the biggest enemies that people in the creative industry have. There are some phases in my journey where I feel like just being lazy, being on the bed doing nothing, and spending time scrolling on my phone is really enjoyable. And that is dangerous.

Covid Time. I am sure that this hard time affects everybody on so many aspects. But for me, at least, covid time took a toll on me. Alongside the fact that live shows were not possible during that time, this is also the phase where I developed “comfort” or “laziness”. The fact that there’s a good 6-8 months where I didn’t have gigs, projects or school, I found comfort in being lazy due to lack of “motivation” during that time. It was a real struggle to get out of that hazardous behavior as it was started to become my comfort zone. I did manage to get out of it, but I think that quality will always be inside me, and I need to be able to “control” myself

Jealousy. When you have a circle of fellow musicians, some of the guys are going to do really well, career-wise. When I’m in that position where my other friends are doing better, it started to make me question and doubt myself. Sometimes, I feel like we are all on the same level, but why do they do better, even with the same amount of effort invested. And that really affects my mental health as a musician. I started overthinking and doubting myself a lot. But now I started to realize that everyone has their own timing and blessing, and how well people are doing should not be a measurement tool for me to compare myself to them.

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

Honestly, it’s probably as simple as asking other people to help or collaborate. As a musician, when I was starting out, I was a shy guy and I did not see the point of asking other people to help on my creative journey.

I remember back then when I just started writing and producing songs, it was a major struggle for me. Meaning that, I came across tons of dead end, but I was selfish and wanted to do everything myself. Not gonna lie but doing creative process that way was not enjoyable for me and I ended up trying to “avoid” that aspect in music.

Until I started to open myself up to people and I felt like it was the way to approach my creative journey. I feel like all the process goes more smoothly, and the ideas presented on the table is more “rich” since it’s coming from more than one head. And not to mention that the output of working together with people, as opposed of doing everything myself, is more satisfying. I always thought that the maximum satisfaction that you can get in creative process is when you can finish everything yourself. Boy was I wrong.

So the bottom line is, asking people for help is probably a small thing. But I had no idea how big of an impact it could cause. I really wish that I realize this earlier in my career.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://open.spotify.com/artist/0zaGFZuyRciaCL3GQWApUS?si=TZeeEEWlSl24iP3o6m7BVQ
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mikeshoe98/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/elbert-christian-157812263/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkL69GC-i9zbnVuDzQboBFQ

Image Credits
Sherman Chen Hasan Kamil Nick Müller