We were lucky to catch up with Matt Sofo recently and have shared our conversation below.

Matt, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. 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.

From an outside perspective, my entire career in the music industry has been a series of risks. From quitting my first job to pursue music, to sending my music to record labels and composers.

I never believed that I could have a full time career in music, In fact coming out of high school the only path I was given was to go to University, study music and eventually need to be a teacher. But this was not a path I wanted to take. I knew i wanted to be a writer and producer.

In my young 20’s I had began work for a food technology company, it was a great job and i enjoyed it, there was a career path laid out for me and a future. But it wasn’t a future I was truly excited about.
I would spend all day dreaming about music, playing, writing, producing and day dreaming about what I could achieve.
So I QUIT!

And did it pay off? Yes.. I landed my first production job the same week working on the music for a car advertisement.
But guess what happened after? You guessed it.. didn’t get any work at all!

So with my tail between my legs, I got a part time retail job and put my head down and worked tirelessly on music.
It wasn’t until 2 years later that I had my first “break” I released 2 songs that ended up top 10 in the Aria Charts and being licensed for 2 adidas commercials, google commercial and used in a HBO show and 2 Australian Stan shows (Bump/Year of)

All of this kick started my journey into producing a large catalog of music, around 70 or 80 releases making it into the Aria Club Charts and Composing for TV shows for Paramount Plus and Channel 10 (Australia)

The risk? That it would all fail and fall apart.. but what was the worst that could happen?
We often get caught up in making decisions, or doubting our choices, but the best thing we can do it make a choice and let it play out instead of getting stuck in the indecision.

The riskiest thing you can ever do is decide not to try.

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 got into the industry by being so passionately obsessed with music that I felt like I couldn’t function without it.
I taught myself to write and produce music and consumed every online resource possible.

What sets me apart is that I don’t have a traditional education in music and don’t write the same way as other composers do.
Story, feeling and emotional are more important as opposed to technicality.

Mostly proud of my resilience in the industry and desire to keep going. There was a long time when no one believed in me and quite frankly would speak down to me. But I wasn’t deterred, i outworked everyone else i knew and kept my head down.
This eventually paid off when I started getting opportunities to Compose for TV shows.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

One thing you do need in the music industry is resilience. We get a large amount of set backs, failure and constant No’s.
There have been so many times I’ve had no income, no prospects and no interest in what i was doing. But I persevered.
It required me to adapt and change strategy in approaching labels and composers.

Looking back, are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?

For me its Therapy!
Its an emotional journey that we go on, constant rejection and sets backs it can negatively impact our mental health.
So have a therapist of some sort of emotional support is pivitol to a long and lasting career in the music industry and any creative endevour

Contact Info:

• Instagram: mattsofo

Image Credits

Hugh Stewart