We were lucky to catch up with Michael Locatelli recently and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Michael thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. We’d love to hear about when you first realized that you wanted to pursue a creative path professionally.

I knew that I wanted to pursue music professionally during my freshmen year of college. I was a student-athlete on the hockey team at Plymouth State University and in the first game of the season I sustained a major injury which ended my hockey career. While I was in the hospital recovering from compartment syndrome in my right thigh, and a myriad of surgeries, my childhood friend Patrick Bodi came to visit me. He said if I wasn’t going to be able to play hockey anymore I should come to his studio and make a song with him. We used to freestyle to his beats in high school on drives home from get togethers; because of that Patrick thought I should give it a shot. So during the recovery process, I began to make music with guidance from him and his frequent collaborator/manager Liam Jessup. Patrick is now a multiplatinum, Latin Grammy Nominated songwriter and producer. Together they taught me how to record my first songs and showed me what a career in music could look like. From that point on I knew there was no other option for me, I was intoxicated by the the idea that I could create music and build that into a full time career so I pursed it relentlessly. Without Patrick Bodi and Liam Jessup I would’ve never known that a career in music was an option for me, I owe so much to those guys, I love them with all my heart.

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 started making music right before my 22nd birthday, and it was God that led me to it. I had never made music prior to picking it up in my early 20’s. I had no formal training, and no clue how to write, produce, sing, record, or play an instrument of any kind. I was a hockey player from Toronto, Canada so music was never really a part of my life. It was only after a severe injury during my first college hockey game that God led me toward creating music.

My entry into music took place between 2019 and 2021. After my injury had derailed my plans in hockey, COVID-19 took over the world. While it was a major catastrophe and an extremely devastating time for many, it provided me time and space to hone my craft and learn more about music than I would’ve normally had time for. Over the course of these couple of years I wrote tons of songs, most of them very subpar and learned about the process of building a music career.

During the summer of 2021 me and two of my good friends, Josh Lekas, and Matt Rudzinski, decided to drive from our college town in the north woods of New Hampshire, to Los Angeles and live there for the summer. I had secured an unpaid gig at a small independent record label called Curation Records, owned and operated by an incredible man named Brent Rademaker and his business partner Matt. Upon arriving in LA I began to help Brent with day to day tasks at the label, as they had no employees, it was just me and him whenever I was there. Eventually he heard my music and asked me to write for his band GospelbeacH. Over the course of the next few months we wrote tons of songs, with six of them eventually being released. That was my first experience writing songs for other people, and I loved it. That was when I decided to transition into the songwriting and production side of music full time, and never looked back.

After my experience in LA, I moved back to NH to finish my senior year of college, and then eventually to the Berklee College of Music in New York City to complete a Masters degree in songwriting and music production. It was here where I met Jared Benjamin, one of my best friends on earth, and one of my closest professional collaborators. We spent many early Saturday mornings going into school to work on music together, and through the process of working together, we created a song called “Flatline”, the song which changed both of our lives. Jared had written most of the song and it had started to generate a buzz on TikTok. He came to me with the parts he had written, and together with our friend Matias were able to quickly finish and release the song.

After all of these experiences that God has blessed me with, I am now a full time songwriter and music producer, specializing in Pop, Folk, Country, and Hip-Hop Music. To date – I am most proud of our team’s people first value system. Jared and I share a manager, his name is Mike Flom, and the three of us have fostered a dynamic that focuses on kindness, gratitude, and discipline. One that is built on fairness, inclusion and respect of the art, and the people creating, and assisting the art. Big numbers on Spotify are cool, but treating people well is so much cooler, and I am most proud of our team’s unwavering commitment to being good in the world.

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 life happens to you, I learned that it happens for you. Everything in life comes from within, it’s all about perspective and choices. The only person there is to compete with is oneself, and the way the world exists in ones eyes is merely how one chooses to see it. While I was recovering from my injury I spent the better part of 2 months in a hospital, with 6 of those weeks being in a burn unit, I had 11 procedures on my right thigh to deal with the swelling from my compartment syndrome, hundreds of stitches and staples, an eventual skin graft to close my leg as the swelling was too large to close me up after my initial surgery, infection, and having to re-learn how to use my right leg twice; amongst many other things. Initially I felt horrible for myself, and I had a victim’s mentality, as if something had been done to me. However, during my experience living in a burn unit, I saw people with much more devastating injuries than I, and I began to realize how much of a blessing this experience truly was. I began to see my circumstance as an opportunity to reinvent my self and choose love, kindness, and gratitude. I decided to focus on how I could change my situation, and not how I thought the world around me should react to my circumstance. It seems harsh, but I learned that the world doesn’t give a shit about what’s going on in your life, it’s still gonna turn and people are gonna take care of what they need to take care of so I better get off my ass and do the same. Feeling sorry for myself and thinking that life happened to me wasn’t getting me anywhere. Everything is an opportunity from God, life is happening FOR me, and this experience taught me that.

Any resources you can share with us that might be helpful to other creatives?

I wish I knew how valuable YouTube could be when I was finding my way in the beginning. YouTube has so much information from the most successful people in the music business that is readily available all day. Podcasts like “ProducerGrind”, “And The Writer Is”, “Behind The Wall”, “The Zach Sang Show”, and so many more provide tons of valuable information to anyone looking to build a career in music. There are tons of other amazing creators and channels like Rick Beato, Marty Schwartz, Mix With the Masters, and Love Science Music amongst many others that can be so helpful to anyone looking to learn more about making music. YouTube is the best.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0t3EEqkexWRGeWpd9sFeTe?si=7a023d10e00b4e6a
• Instagram: michaellocatelli7

Image Credits

Alissa Beth Rosenberg
Michael Moore
Tiffany Chen