We recently connected with German Briseño and have shared our conversation below.
German, appreciate you joining us today. We’d love to hear about when you first realized that you wanted to pursue a creative path professionally.
I was in my last year of high school in Mexico when I decided I wanted to go to music school and pursue a career in music. Some relatives and friends were not quite supportive of the idea. Then came the opportunity to perform with some friends at a school play. The performance was a total train wreck, awful everything, quite embarrassing. I got really discouraged and decided to listen to the “voices of reason” and enrolled in college to study marketing or something like that. After a year of college I dropped out and started playing with a band. However, a friend that had moved to the US with his family came back to visit and convinced me and another friend to move to the US, so I did. Still not sure what was to become of my life, at 19 I landed in Seattle and started getting whatever job I could with no direction other than paying the bills and figuring out how to be independent. After a year I met a friend who introduced me to my first experience with LSD. That changed everything. The main lesson I got from that trip was that I was truly free to do anything. I lost all fear and hesitations, got a cheap bass and joined a local band, fully intending to make music my career and way of life. It took many years and learning how to be versatile and expand my skill set and knowledge within the music industry, a process that continues to this day. Never losing intention, but always accepting that you might have to change or completely let go of expectations.
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, composer, musician, and artist. Besides making music for myself, I put my talent and knowledge to the service of others that are looking for ways to express themselves musically, or that need music or music related services for their projects. That means producing music for artists, companies, sync and licensing, offering recording, composition and engineering services, instrumental and vocal performance, education and mentoring, and pretty much anything music related. I truly enjoy working in all styles of music and continuously try to learn and better my craft in all areas. As a musician I’ve gotten the opportunity to perform and tour all over the US, Canada, Mexico, and Europe. Some of my compositions have been used on several tv shows, films, ads, etc. As a producer I’ve had the opportunity to work with many local and international artists.
Have you ever had to pivot?
The pandemic changed a lot of things for everyone. Before that most of my activities revolved around live performance and session work. Luckily for me and without knowing what was coming, I started working on setting up my own recording studio and also started learning more about creating music for tv and film. When all live performances stopped I had a bit of a head start with the tools and knowledge that really helped me pivot during that time. Now live music is back and while I still perform live a lot, a big chunk of my work comes from the production and sync areas, something I never thought I’d be doing back in 2019
Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?
I’d like to be able completely remove myself (or whatever it is I think I am) from the creative process. Just be a conduct, a transmitter. Somebody once told me “the moment you stop thinking you are who you think you are, you are going to make great art”. But letting go of the story my mind tells me everyday is hard. Letting go of pre conceived purpose is hard. I believe there is no purpose. Consciousness creates beauty and the artist just happens to be there.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.germanbriseno.com/
- Instagram: https://www.germanbriseno.com/
- Facebook: https://www.germanbriseno.com/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/germanbriseno
- Other: https://open.spotify.com/artist/6QUlOJ1aQvVPoymKJL4Op1?si=kt2m25fzS7e-8_OaucbI2g
Image Credits
Arturo Bengoa, Fran Ocegueda, Ernesto Tellez