We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Frankie Siragusa a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Frankie, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Risk taking is something we’re really interested in and we’d love to hear the story of a risk you’ve taken.

I’ve been music obsessed before I even spoke my first word. My mother would play music in the house and anytime she did I would stop crying and immediately stare in the direction these sounds were coming from totally transfixed. And though I came from a family of musicians, I didn’t know anyone in the music business growing up at all. I moved to LA by myself after going to school for recording/engineering and started from scratch integrating myself into this very crowded industry of professionals. To me that was a big risk. LA is expensive and though the infrastructure is here for the music business, it was a very vague and unclear path ahead of me. In a lot of ways that hasn’t changed. But I think my passion and unwavering dedication didn’t bother with self doubt or fear for how or when I could get myself plugged in. I just knew I’d figure it out. And that’s the thing about taking risks of this kind. Yes I put everything on the line to be in the music business somehow, but I knew my best shot at having the life I wanted had to be pursued with an unrestricted confidence that I would learn how to navigate from moment to moment, be able to bounce backs from mistakes with lessons learned, and most of all, that I was genuine in my interest to build strong relationships through a strong work ethic and a positive and excited attitude. Even through the hard times that come and go, remaining pure with my intentions and goals, I avoided the usual pitfalls of becoming jaded and rather used those moments to fuel a continued exploration of a varied set of ways I could shift and participate in this industry. And at times, the hardships would prompt me to hone new skills, wear new and different hats, which only furthered my viability for the various networks I wanted to involve myself in. It’s a never ending pursuit and for that reason, I could never grow tired of doing this!

Frankie, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I’ve been a multi-instrumentalist since I was 4 years old. My family aided me in developing skills early, always having various instruments laying around. Drums, bass, and guitar. My brother who’s roughly 10 years older was into recording and so I’d use his 4 track as an early teen to explore multi-tracking my own songs. That lead to going to school for recording/engineering as I thought that’d be a good skill to have in growing a network of musicians to build professional relationships with. And I was right! Moved to LA in 2005, played I. A few bands and then opened my first of many recording studios in 2009. Since then it’s afforded me many collaborations that have really helped me grow as a musician, arranger, and an all around music business person. Since opening my studio I’ve worked with a variety of great artist in a variety of ways from The Posies to Reggie Watts, Silversun Pickups, Justice, among many others. Next year I’ll be putting out a variety of projects I’ve been working on over the years that I’m really proud of.

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 had to learn to be better at saying “no”. In the beginning I developed the habit of saying yes to everything. Which at the beginning is usually a good thing. But there comes a time, for your own development, to become focused on curating your career in a certain way so you eventually reach your goals. Because opportunities came from so many different areas in the music business, though I’m eternally grateful for everything that has come my way, I began to operate in a scattered and unprioritized manner. This eventually led me down a path of having a lot of activity, but not a lot of direction. I eventually learned that as much as I am motivated to say yes to all opportunities — I recognized that I was spending less and less time on my own projects. Though I learned this lesson a little late, I’m happy to have to learned it all and regaining the focus needed to steer this ship more towards participating in a career that’s more in alignment with my ultimate goals.

Okay – so how did you figure out the manufacturing part? Did you have prior experience?

Really early on, due to the always frustrating budget constraints of being an independent artist or freelance musician/producer, I found a need to learn how to pretty much handle all aspects of an artist’s release from start to finish. This meant learning how to master (as well as perform, record, and mix), create and format various needed artwork, handle duplication (in the days where CD manufacturing was necessary), understanding DSP’s and the required release cadence for releases on these platforms, to then taking that produced material to the stage. I even dabbled in management, PR, and live booking/tour managing. Learning the ropes of these various important pieces not only allowed me to help myself and others independently release music, but it gave me a first hand view of each stage so I can participate in this process with other professionals involved in a meaningful and informed way.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.frankiesiragusa.com/
• Instagram: http://instagram.com/frankieaudio
• Facebook: facebook.com/frankieaudio
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/frankieaudio
• Twitter: http://twitter.com/frankieaudio

Image Credits
Main photo (red background): Erica Burgess Piano photo: Caleb White Acoustic photo: Self 2 pink/purple bass photos: Lupe Bustos 2 side drum photos: Kristina Dawn Studio / Guitar photo: Erica Burgess Tall side drum photo: Erica Burgess