We recently connected with Jordan Armijo and have shared our conversation below.

Jordan, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Did you always know you wanted to pursue a creative or artistic career? When did you first know?

When I was in high school I can remember most of my friends and classmates knowing what they wanted to be when they were older. For me, that question was way too general because I loved learning new things and was paralyzed with options.

When I was really young I would fantasize about playing drums in a band, or being an R&B singer as I would dance around to Usher, Aaliyah, and all the 90’s love songs. I also loved the pop punk era, and the late 90s hip hop, so I went through phases with all of it.

However into my teen years skateboarding took over my life, and ultimately was the reason I moved to Denver to pursue it as a career. When I moved up here I started to go to more shows around town at The Ogden, The Bluebird Theater, and many nights at Cervantes’ Other Side and the Masterpiece, sometimes multiple times a week.

Naturally, I sustained some pretty rough injuries skateboarding, particularly to my knees which led me to start reconsidering my career path. This led me to explore playing keyboard and getting better at guitar. I had no intention of playing live music until I started recording some tracks and learning to write songs, at which point some people at work listened and encouraged me to play a show.

I also was making music for a friend who invited me to play on stage which led me to build the courage to book my first show at Cervantes’ Other Side, and I was instantly hooked.

If I could trace it all the way back, the first time I imagined what it would be like to be a music artist, I was probably between 8-10 years old watching my grandpa sing to his records and dance around the house Louie Armstrong, Etta James and many others.

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

Well I got lucky that I was able to break into the industry as quick as I did. I happened to record my first solo album with a producer named EN Young who was touring with a band called Tribal Seeds at the time, and he was mixing and producing my music from the road. This album put me into the American Reggae/rock sphere. This album was how I was able to book my first show at my favorite venue because people there knew who produced it.

As far as what sets me apart? I feel that is tough to answer, but what I believe is that I work really hard and aim to apply myself to any situation whether I’m playing to 20 people or 2,000. I have had some experiences that very few ever get to experience, like playing a show in San Antonio opening for Bon Jovi at the AT&T Center in front of 19,000 people. This and some of the festival spots I’ve played to larger crowds, felt unreal to me at the time, but they helped shape me and get me ready to handle the grind of this industry, and gave me a target to aim for.

I guess those are also some of the things I’m most proud of, but I’d also have to include hitting the Top 20 album list on iTunes with our album “Pick Up The Pieces” back in 2017, and booking us on Reggae Rise Up Festival Utah in 2018 that had roughly 15,000 in attendance. The hard part as an artist is to be satisfied, because I always want to do better and be better at my craft. I feel that I am only now starting to grow into my true expression as an artist.

Today the thing I’m most excited to share is this new music that I am producing myself, and it’s been a learning process figuring out how to mix and produce music and make it sound professional without the help of a studio/engineer.

Some of the first few didn’t sound as well as I’d hoped, but now they are at that point where I’m very excited to share this with the world and to continue writing/producing new music for years to come.

Are there any books, videos, essays or other resources that have significantly impacted your management and entrepreneurial thinking and philosophy?

Yes, this one is easy for me. There is a book called “The 1 Page Marketing Plan” by Allan Dib, and it’s really helped me to understand how to simplify my approach to both making music and marketing my music.

I’ve realized that my people are out there, even if I don’t see the numbers I want right now, they exist in the world, and I just need to stay authentic, and they will find me in time.

As a business, music is a numbers game as with most any business, and if I want to find more listeners, sell more tickets, and get my music to more ears in the world, I just have to keep doing it, and keep refining it until it becomes undeniable.

In your view, what can society to do to best support artists, creatives and a thriving creative ecosystem?

I would say just let yourself be curious about new things. I can’t explain the number of times I have heard a song that I didn’t like the first time through, and then re-listened and found a small part that grabbed me, and inevitably it becomes a favorite.

Art can be so subjective that we sometimes don’t give it a fair chance if we immediately don’t like something. I promise you, if you just give new artists a second listen, you might find a new favorite band that is just starting out.

The biggest things you can do to help us small artists, is to support your local music scene as much as possible. If you enjoy a particular genre, find a local show in that genre at a place you haven’t been with bands you haven’t heard of, and just go support. Worst case scenario, you feel you wasted $5-$10 on a ticket if you don’t love all of the bands, but I think if you go with a good group of friends, you’ll still have fun and maybe end up enjoying a couple songs.

Best case scenario, you find a local band worth watching again and you help them grow by sharing their music with someone else.

Other small things would be finding a local band’s music online, and playing it a few times, then sharing it on social media, or making videos with their songs. Buying merch is always a big help and maybe the best way to show support these days since streaming is hard to make much from.

Even simply sharing a band’s posts on social media, liking their stuff, and commenting is a big help in a time when most of these companies try to suppress businesses in order to get them to pay for advertisements.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: www.instagram.com/redsagemusic
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/redsagemusic
• Youtube: www.youtube.com/c/redsage

Image Credits
Curt Dennis Covello Nash Images