Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to LeeSon Bryce. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Alright, LeeSon thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Can you talk to us about how you learned to do what you do?
How did you learn to do what you do?
So, this is a little backstory. Aside from being an on-and-off church drummer for over 15 years now, I have been doing recorded music for a little over 5 years (since 2017). And within the first 2 years of my recording progress, I can comfortably say I was more lost than ever. In those first 2 years of recording and putting music out, I was trying to learn absolutely everything about music in general (ie branding, marketing, the craft, where to allocate money, where to NOT allocate money, etc). Instead of studying the game and making a plan beforehand, I decided to just book studio time (with Chapman Recording Studios in Kansas City at the time of its existence), create an EP, and release it to the world. Through a mutual friend (as known as theTheFranswah Studio on Youtube), I met up with another aspiring artist (Buck) and producer (Oblivinatti) who gave me a couple of beats for use beforehand. I had absolutely no plan, just went in, recorded, and released my first project titled “The Proelium”. This is what taught me the process of getting a musical project together. Furthermore, this unintentionally taught me about branding, themes, marketing, and the craft as a whole. This EP also took me 2 months to make, and I found out early on that it’s a process. This was 2017.
Fast forward to 2018, I was still working a full-time job to earn money to make music and learn. plus networking. At the time, I got connected with a manager (MegatronmusikLLC) and an Entrepreneur (FirstLadyotheWestCoast) to help me get further connected in addition to providing advice on the next steps I should take. Through him, I would get connected with some incredible features and radio play. I also got connected with a local Kansas City music group titled Unscheduled Eclipse, whom I still work with today. Through them, I would perform at different venues, learn what a promoter does, learn even more about the craft, conquering stage fright, etc. In addition to this, I would perform every Tuesday night at the Uptown Arts Bar until 1 AM, despite working management the next morning at 6 AM.
In summary, this would further teach me to promote, marketing, book shows, and how to network with the right people.
2019 was my year for real growth. I made the conscious decision to pay for my own studio to save money in the long run from booking studio time. Thankfully to my original sound engineer (Matt Peters), I would look over his shoulder in the years prior to learning Pro Tools. And thankfully for Oblivinatti, he would help me to learn Ableton 10. I would spend all year of 2019 working to pay for the studio. And I am forever thankful to the ones who helped me to build it. During this time, I would start engineering my own music. However, the sound quality of the music would be terrible this year. But to me, it didn’t matter. I was learning a profitable trade, which was far more valuable to me than releasing subpar music at the time. In addition to that, I was finding out what and whatnot I was good at. This included the musical craft, mixing, producing, mastering, etc. I would spend all of 2019 building and learning.
2020 – 2021. During this time period, I would enroll in more than a couple of courses. Some included a couple of Shopify courses (to teach me to run ads and stay profitable), a couple of music marketing courses (Adam Ivy and Rob Level to name a few, and taught me effective ways to market), And I would invest into a couple of engineering courses (which taught me how to mix and master my own music.). Furthermore, during this time period, I would proceed to release a new song monthly and work on my production, which slowly but surely got better over time. I would connect with another producer named Pink Molly and mainly use his beats in addition to my own beats for the songs I would release. During 2020, I would apply what I learned and get connected with more music individuals to provide me with guidance. I ran ads, I built separate email lists, I honed up my work schedule to be more effective with time, and ultimately, I took more risks. In 2021, things would stay more or less the same, but now I had a rhythm. I became more disciplined, and always tried to get the task at hand done, rather it is releasing more music, producing, learning more about running ads, etc. Towards the end of 2021, I would proceed to produce 700+ lofi beats for a company as well, furthering sharpening my skills of production and beat mastering.
2022. Now, as of this year, I know everything I can to learn about what comes with music. I put it to the test daily, and I learn and try new ventures regarding music monthly. As of this year, I started releasing a new song a week. Not solely because I wanted to grow, but to hold myself accountable. In 2021, I wanted to release 52 songs in a year. As of this year in 2022, I will hit that goal. Because of what I learned from the years prior, I am able to produce, write, record, mix, master, create artwork, and release a song within a full day. Not only that, but I now know different ways I can market and brand the song immediately after release too. Back in 2019, this would take me months alone to do this. Skill comes from effective repetition. And I am living proof of that. I just hope it can inspire others to keep pursuing their own crafts. The next step to learn now is full video production, as I plan to ramp up the frequency of content in the year 2023.
Knowing what you know now, what could you have done to speed up your learning process?
Honestly, I wish I knew early on what pitfalls to avoid. For example, I could’ve saved quite a bit of money from the get-go by purchasing a recording studio for myself early on, the first thing even. However, if I hadn’t done this, I wouldn’t have met the people I needed to, so I can’t completely write it off. Also, I wish I knew early on about the musical scams. To every aspiring artist out there, watch out. The scams are more prevalent than ever. During the first 2 years of my musical journey, I was gullible. I spent too much money on false promises, with little to nothing to show for it. I won’t get into too many details, but quite a bit of money was lost. Today, I’m not skeptical, but I do an insane amount of research. For example, if there aren’t legitimate testimonials for a company, I’m not doing business with them, period. That is the bare minimum. There are other factors, but if a company doesn’t have that, then they will never get a purchase from me. I also wish I could’ve purchased a music course early on too. If I had planned, strategized, figured out my branding, figured out my image, figured out ads early on, and determined what effective momentum was; then maybe I would be a lot further than I am now. Learning through a course and mentorship could have propelled me for 3 years. And instead of doing the things I’m doing now as of 2022, I could’ve been doing them back in 2019. But, we live and learn. That’s life I suppose. Again, I just hope whoever sees this can learn from my mistakes.
What skills do you think were most essential?
The absolute MOST essential skills to learn with music (in my opinion) are engineering your own content, producing your own, video production, branding, and marketing. Those are crucial as of 2022. The game has changed. We’re in a unique generation now where you could make a song tonight, go viral tomorrow, have a career within the next couple of months, and make a million dollars; if you do things right of course. There are no limits, and the barriers to entry are incredibly lowered. Anybody can have a career in music today, but learning the bare basics on your own is vital. If an A-list musical celebrity tells you that they need your verse for a song within an hour, and you don’t have the skillset, nor the means to get it created professionally, what would you do? In my experience of doing this for a while, people have their own schedules, including me. We’re all busy, so getting a recording session that quick is going to be tough. That’s just one example too. Another aspect I see most musicians falling short on is marketing. Again, including me. Before going weekly, I would release a new song every month. I would put all the resources I had into that one song for the month, and as a result, there was a massive difference in feedback, play count, shares, saves, etc. When I converted to weekly releases, the numbers would drastically decrease on the initial release, but would gradually increase over time. Because I am releasing a new song a week, I have to change my marketing. The keyword here is “have to” because I am still learning this new marketing landscape I have chosen to go. Even when I planned this early on, I still didn’t know how it would go. If I had taken additional time to learn this marketing strategy instead of just blatanly doing it, maybe I would maneuver it better, give myself additional time to think in between releases and give me more time to budget. Learn all forms of marketing, including learning all you can, including the crucials. Odds are; the things you are trying to do now, someone had already succeeded with it before. Take time to learn on your own, plan accordingly, and apply what you learned.
What obstacles stood in the way of learning more?
I used to say my main obstacle was money and time constraint. My reasoning was that if you wanted something of value, you were going to have to pay for it, whether it be in time or money. In my experience, there has never been something for nothing. Every mentorship costs, every guru costs, every course costs, every beat costs, and even time costs. Working at a job can cost you the time of getting your own ventures done, but ironically, you need the money to pay your bills and invest in your business. Mentorship can cost you quite a bit upfront, a couple of grand actually. But it could save you 3-5 years of headaches and unnecessary expenses down the road. Courses too will cost, but you will learn the skills you need to progress more quickly. I used to say money and time constraints were an issue for all of this. And for alot of people, would say the same thing.
However, over the course of my years of doing this, I would make quite a bit of money, and I would lose quite a bit of money. Money comes and goes, always. Money, at the time, was an issue because I allowed it to be. I learned over the years I could make quite a bit in a short time only if I was serious and worked for it. I remember one time, I had a payment to make, and I had absolutely nothing in the bank account. The payment was due in 3 days, and I absolutely needed to make it, otherwise, I would’ve been in a predicament. So, I headed on the road. I did every Roadie job, Amazon Flex Job, Uber eats, etc that I could. I even DM’d rappers on Soundcloud and Instagram asking if they needed mix and master services. Not only did I make enough to make my payment, but I made significantly more. I realized then at that moment that money wasn’t my issue, my mindset was. I forgot who said it, but it holds true. Don’t say I can’t afford it, but rather say “How can I afford it?” Time and time again I saw others, including my musical friends, make ends meet out of what seemed like a really bad odd. Once I learned this, my mind was the main obstacle.
As for time constraints, I used to complain about why it felt I never had time to do music. From 2017 – 2019, I was working 3 jobs, tried to balance a relationship in between, and hung out with friends almost every weekend. I would play video games, work out, and watch TV in my spare time. I would do all this and ponder why I never had time to make music. After some serious soul searching, I would eventually focus on just having one job, cut off video games and tv completely, and hang out with friends or going out once every month on the weekends or so. Now, I suddenly have time to make as much music as I can. Everybody’s situation is different of course, but figure out the time slots you can cut out to focus on what you want to do
Furthermore, opportunities will always come, it’s inevitable. Just because you miss out on something now, doesn’t mean it’s the end. Something bigger and better may be waiting around the corner for you, as long as you keep searching. Stay up, and thank you for the interview!
LeeSon, 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?
For anyone who is interested in knowing me, I am LeeSon Bryce. I have been in music for over 15 years as a church drummer, and for 5 as a recording artist. I am the youngest of 5 boys in a two-parent household. I come from a very religious family; my dad and 2 of my brothers are pastors. I am from Kansas City, MO, and from the metropolitan area. I have been there my whole life.
In terms of my basic needs, my life prior to college was fascinating, My parents provided us with everything we needed and more, which I why I love them so much. However, my emotional and mental life prior wasn’t really that fascinating. In school, I was one of the very black kids in school, out of all predominantly white students. I would get called the hard R n-word almost daily, and got bullied and picked on often. I was a shy kid, rather an outcast than anything. I had a very small friend group, and I am still great friends with some of them to this day. I was (in terms of how I thought of myself), a loser, and I was suffering from serious internal depression as a result. When I was 18, I wanted death. I was antisocial, even to my own family. I wanted to leave this Earth because I really felt I had no purpose in it. I felt that I only had a face that my mom could love, and I wasn’t worthy of love from anyone. I never said or talked to anyone about it, I just kept it to myself. As a result, I never properly learned how to resolve my emotions. I don’t drink or smoke, so before music, I would play video games and stay isolated. I still isolate myself on occasion to this day. Even when I am in serious committed relationships. I isolate. I lost plenty of girlfriends because of this, making it the reason why I am considered by many emotionally unavailable. And when I do become emotional, it’s always on 100, making it seem I am unstable. However, I am fixing this. I’ve also lost friendships; I was forced to cut off others due to toxic behaviors and attitudes. I figured that if I felt more terrible around them, I would need to limit myself from them, and move on to greener pastures. This is the first time I spoke about this, ever. But I wanted to go ahead and say it because it is not who I am trying to be anymore, and I provide my full transparent backstory
Today, I laugh and try to inspire others in public, but I isolate and regress in private. I resort to music as an emotional outlet, which is the main reason why I have as many songs as I do, and I am always personal in them.
I got into music at a very young age (I had a baby drum set since I was 5 years old). And I have been on the drums on and off again for my dad’s church over the years. For recording music, I started as soon as I graduated from college. I had no plan, no gimmick, no course of marketing. I just booked studio time, went in, recorded an EP (which took 2 months), and have been going hard ever since. I never cared what people thought, I never cared what people would say, I didn’t even care if people liked the music. At the time, I just wanted to get it done and get it out there, and then figure it out afterward. I wanted to waste no time. It was my passion, my ultimate goal. I rushed and graduated as early as I could from college to do this. Some would argue that I could’ve just skipped college and gone straight to music at the time. But I wasn’t confident enough to do it. At least not until my junior year when I started to get visions of my future (recurring dreams over and over again of me performing on massive stages to a hyped crowd). At that point, a unique drive came in. I wanted to hurry and graduated, I was well in and too invested in college to drop out. I finished my last year with all As, stopped procrastinating, and just went for it. That is exactly how I got into the industry.
With my LLC, the process was more the same as with my aspiring music career. I just wanted to say I had an LLC. So, I went to Incfile, paid to get one, and boom, I had an LLC. I just wanted that stamp of credibility and approval for my brand name. I blatantly just did it.
For discipline, this took me years to master. From 2017-2021, my discipline was not as strong as I wanted it to be. I would always use the time where I should be honing my craft to play video games, watch tv, go out, and try to live that “lifestyle”. However, I realized later on that it wasn’t bringing me any real value. So I stopped. In late 2021, I started to get super serious about my discipline. I realized that if it couldn’t hone my discipline, then everything else would falter (ie. my mental health, my finances, my general health, etc). So I took extra time to hone my discipline to the best that I could.
My craft would slowly get better over time. I realized the more songs I made, the better. I would slowly get better per song. For the songs I release, I would take all feedback that I would get, and then put it into my next release. this included flow suggestions, mixing and mastering techniques, production ideas, etc. I took all this feedback into account and applied it today. I use this method even today.
I usually don’t provide too many services nowadays due to how much time I have to allocate towards my own music, but I used to offer mix/mastering services. When I was doing it, I would have a turnaround of 24 hours, depending on how many songs I am doing. Furthermore, I provide beats to anyone who would like to check them out. Of course, I don’t put much focus on them currently due to my new music release strategy.
I would say the only thing that separates me from most others is the quick turnaround time on the mix/mastering, and the frequency of my musical releases. I also try not to cuss in any of my songs, I try to keep it clean as much as I possibly can.
So far, I am most proud of the number of songs I have put out to date. I am almost at 100 total now, and I want to get to 300 by the end of next year (2023), along with getting some other goals done. I want to create as much content as I can and put it out to the world; whether that be podcasts, music, beats, youtube videos, duets, etc. I realize the more content I have out, the happier I am. Especially when it could inspire someone to achieve the outer limits in their own lives
And to the fans or even the casual browser, I try to provide as much value as I can. I don’t sugarcoat anything, and I tell it how it is. I am very motivational, and I try to stay as positive as I can, even when some songs I release are in the opposite tone. I rap about past experiences, what I want out of life, what I don’t want out of life, loss, sorrow, happiness, relationship issues, girl issues, being broke, getting money, being in debt, working for people I don’t like, getting screwed over, depression, anxiety, problems, state of the world, politics, etc. I am what they call an intimate artist, with an occasional song solely for jokes.
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
I once got scammed out of thousands of dollars from industry sharks, fake promo companies, and fake A&Rs early on. I also put myself into massive debt (which thankfully, I’m close to getting out of) trying to get my music jumpstarted, to little avail. I also got cold shoulders and talked over when performing, had multiple nights where I was performing for only 2 people in the crowd, had no one show up at all, got joked on for performing what they thought were “trash” songs, and got passed up every time for opportunities that could’ve helped propel me.
At the end of the day, persistence and dedication wins, no matter what. I lost relationships, I lost quite a bit of money, I put myself in debt, etc. I figured that its the process. I needed it to happen so I can have a story to tell when I come out of it
We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?
I had to unlearn that I can do it all by myself. In reality, I cannot do it all by myself. Someone had to teach me to market, someone had to teach me to produce, someone had to teach me to write, someone had to teach me to play drums, someone had to help me get connected, etc.
This is a revolving door of someone helping someone, it’s just what it is. And even when you think you can do it all yourself, you really can’t. Fans and paying customers alone need to help you propel to the next level, or the levels you’re trying to get at.
That is the one thing I needed to unlearn immediately. I can’t do it all myself. You can do the cores by yourself (ie mix, master, market, brand, etc) when you really need to, but in reality, you will need others (ie. fans, tour managers, business managers, accountants, promoters, etc) to build a career.
This is a business. This is a team build
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.leesonbrycemusic.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/itsleesonbryce
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/itsleesonbryce
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/leeson-bryce-38259918b
- Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/itsleesonbryce
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCT2e4GQkEk19s5_4h27QFnQ
Image Credits
Brennon Gifford