Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Jorge Arenas. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Hi Jorge, thanks for joining us today. Are you happier as a creative? Do you sometimes think about what it would be like to just have a regular job? Can you talk to us about how you think through these emotions?
Up until recently I considered my creative career as something I needed to do to be happy, I imagined that having any other job would make me miserable. But lately I’ve started questioning that, and realizing that as I grow older my happiness is less dependent on anything that happens in my life, and more tied to the appreciation of simply being alive. So I am starting to feel like I could be happy doing something else.
But that raises the question of: if I am not creating to be happy, then why? And I’ve been finding an answer that to me feels deeper than the search for happiness, and it’s just simply that I have to be creative. Being a musician is just what I do, it feels like my place in this world, at least for right now. It just simply makes sense and feels right, it’s my purpose.
Jorge, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
I am a music producer, songwriter, piano player/drummer, mixing/mastering engineer and music teacher. I am originally from Madrid, Spain, and moved to the US to go to music college. When I graduated in 2017 I moved to LA and got a work visa, and I’ve just mostly been here ever since.
My work is mostly divided between creating music for TV and film and writing and producing for artists in a wide variety of styles, from hip-hop to electronic, rock and RnB. If I had to put a label on it I would say most of what I produce falls under the umbrella of “alternative pop”.
I also really love teaching piano and music production, to me it feels a little bit like producing an artist as for both of those things the goal is to help someone achieve their creative vision. I love the feeling of forgetting your own individual goals and just putting yourself at the service of the music, just trying to create the best thing that can be created in that moment regardless of any egos.
One of my main goals (same as a lot of artists) is the pursuit of something original, new, unique. I like to think of music as almost like a science, and we musicians are all scientists doing research to find what can be discovered next. Similar to science, music seems to follow a natural progression.
In your view, what can society to do to best support artists, creatives and a thriving creative ecosystem?
To put it simply, there needs to be a whole remodeling of how wealth is being distributed in the music industry. Spotify and other streaming services generate an enormous amount of money, but it is barely distributed to the creators. Similarly to what happened in the film and TV industry, streaming has taken over in the last decade but the industry model and the way wealth is distributed have remained the same, which benefits the business people of the creative industries and prevents creators from getting paid for their work. And also similarly to the film and TV industry I believe the only way to fix this is for musicians to unionize and work together to defend our interests.
However under current US law most music creators are considered independent contractors, which makes it both very difficult to organize and also illegal to band together to negotiate a better pay from streaming services. It is a very anachronistic system that streaming companies and major record labels want to keep in place.
What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?
I think the rush you feel when you first create something that you love might be my favorite feeling. When it’s really good it’s like a warm feeling that you carry with you for a while, like having discovered something amazing that no one else knows.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.jorgearenasmusic.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/musicbyarenas
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jorge-arenas-490727290
- Other: https://www.superprof.com/producer-grammy-award-winning-artist-with-over-years-professional-experience-and-graduate-from-berklee-college-music.html
Image Credits
Quetzel Herzig