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

John, appreciate you joining 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.

Thank you for having me on today. Some risk can be seen as reckless, scary, and unnecessarily dangerous with negative outcomes or consequences. Other risk are seen as challenging, rewarding, and an enduring experience with not only a positive outcome but also being able to learn and hon new skills and a new way of thinking. These risk can be calculated by planning out the steps, mitigating the hazards, and mastering the basic and necessary skills to accomplish the task.

Having took my arts of music production and photography and going professional within these last few years is a continuously learning experience from the technical dynamics, to the financing and budgeting, to time management, and studying trends of the industries. It’s been an extraordinary learning experience and I am forever grateful with gratitude for my path that I have chosen and made for myself. Soon I plan on entering a new trade to pursue and go independent and work for myself and to be able to go and come as I please while still pursuing my arts and getting better each time with everything I want to do and continue to learn and always be a student of the game in anything I do.

I feel that there is so much to do and see in this world that I believe you can be and do more than just one or a few things. Going independent in working myself is a great risk that I am willing and wanting to take. Everything I’ve wanted to do whether pursuing my arts professionally or learning a new trade and skill, I’ve always planned out the steps, mitigated the hazards, and practice mastering the basic and necessary skills as I had mentioned earlier. There are no guarantees that success is promised in anything you do but taking the necessary steps and always going in with wanting to learn, create, and having faith within, you can help you take those risk and turn them into great rewards of success.

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?

Since speaking with Austin Voyage a year ago in 2022, I had just released my second album “Dos” a few months prior back and had returned from working in the Middle East and going back to work in the oilfields of West Texas. I have since left the oilfields again and I have returned working aboard in Europe as a civilian contractor again for the DoD (Department of Defense).

My first touch with making music occurred at the age of 12 when I took piano lessons for a whole school year and again in 2014 and 2015 on my days off from working in the oilfields. I’ve always had an apperception and have been fascinated with “behind the scenes” of music and movie productions. I started professionally pursing my arts of music production back in the summer of 2018. Since that time I have released three albums. My first two albums were released in 2021 and 2022 while working in the Middle East and my third album was released in March of this year in 2023 while working in Europe. My music is available on all streaming platforms worldwide under “J Quinonez”. My work is strictly music production and creativity. I am not a lyricist or singer. My music is all instrumentals. I lot of my music is inspired from music producers Metro Boomin, Wheezy Outta Here, and Pi’erre Bourne. I want to pay tribute to producers who made a lot of hit records I listened to growing up and who still continue in producing music are T Mix, Scott Storch, Mike Dean, Mouse on Tha Track, Bangladesh, Timbaland and Rawsmoov to name a few. I also want to recognize Andre Mariette (@mariettemusic) who is my executive post production engineer. Andre has been working with me since the beginning of my first album “Letters From…” back in 2020. A strong three years and three albums later Andre has continued in cleaning, polishing, and adding small details that make the tracks stand out, come together, and give life in playback quality. I’m thankful to Andre for helping me in everything he’s done. He has given me inspiration, helped guide me, and given me constructive supportive criticism. Andre is not only a great a partner in doing music and business with but he is also a great friend.

As for photography I took lessons at the age of 14 in learning how to shoot and develop black and white film and again at the age of 17 while in high school. Developing film in a dark room is one of my greatest experiences and is unique in itself. Although now I shoot in digital I still treat digital photography as film meaning “I have one shot to capture this image and I can’t get a redo”. I feel it helps and trains me in being more proficient and precise in knowing my camera and as a photographer. As well it helps me have a steady hand. I’m a freelance photographer when I’m home, in between jobs while working domestic and aboard, on my days off, or in between contracts. A majority of my photography is based on landscapes and settings that I personally find aesthetically pleasing. Soon I will be venturing into photographing self portraits and more live shows and concerts and really get more personal (literally) with my photography.

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

The most rewarding aspect for me in being an artist is being able to hear or see the final product and to be able to enjoy my creation. It truly feels like a sense of accomplishment and the final product is very rewarding. My art speaks for itself through sound and vision. My art is meant to be enjoyed by everyone and that in itself is rewarding in knowing that anyone can experience my creations and have a different perspective and meaning in how they perceive it.

Growing as an artist is also a rewarding experience. Looking back where I started from to where I am today and continuing to learn and gain different experiences is a blessing. The only way is up and to keep progressing and always looking forward in wanting to learn more and do more. Gratitude all the way.

Have any books or other resources had a big impact on you?

For me it wasn’t books, videos, or essays, but a teacher of mine from when I was in high school and a professor from a tech music course I took right after high school that significantly impacted my entrepreneurial thinking and philosophy.

Through all out 4 years of high school Mr. Moore who taught both theater arts and technical theater combined into one class was an experienced man in life who taught more than just the art, technicalities, and acting of theater. He would teach and talk about his experiences in life from working in the oilfields of Louisiana to traveling throughout Europe for work and studying aboard in his younger days. He would talk about current events that were going on at the time of war, politics, natural resources, agricultural, and religion, and to really think about what it was all for. He taught us to think ahead and prepare for the future in both realistic positive and negative aspects. He had done and experienced so much that even at that time for me being in high school I realized that I was lucky and grateful to have him as my teacher.

After high school I took a tech music course that was a year long. The last quarter of the school year my final course was live sound audio engineering who was taught by a professor who went by Mac. If you didn’t know Mac he looked and sounded intimidating. Who wasn’t disrespectful by any means. He was hard, stern, honest, but fair and full of knowledge and experiences. He was excellent in everything he taught and would not spare a detail on anything to make sure that you would understand. He would share his life experiences in his various lines of work from working in the mines of Wyoming to preforming live sound engineering across various venues and with various artist around the globe. He would always talk about how there are multiple jobs within the industry and to always try to see things more than one way. He would tell us to make sure and do some soul searching once in awhile and to really look in the mirror and look deep within your eyes.

What those two men have in common for me is that they have experienced and continue to experience life in different lines of work, hobbies, interest, and to be able to want and learn more than just one thing and taking those skills and being able to apply them somewhere else, sharing and making memories, and that just having the experience alone is worthwhile. I pay homage and gratitude to them for helping me see beyond and in knowing you can do and be more.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://linktr.ee/j_equinonez
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/j_equinonez/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/j_equinonez/
• Youtube: https://music.youtube.com/channel/UClM_xOOCpo3kOF9_ZR5i7nw

Image Credits
Photographs by John Quinonez (Instagram/Twitter @j_equinonez).