Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Mike Retland. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Mike, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. If you could go back in time do you wish you had started your creative career sooner or later?

I wish I could go a back and start my music career sooner. Growing up I was always in a house where someone was involved in music. All my brothers and sisters played an instrument and or song, was in plays, or in choir but I was to deep into sports that I always thought I couldn’t start. I loved listening to music but I was always into beat and the production of singles and albums. I would always get clowned on for listen to beats more than the actual songs but I loved beats and 808’s.

After graduating college and finally got settled back into Colorado I got plugged back into my home church and started serving on the media team where I worked camera, production, mixing, and producing for about a year. During that time is when I meet my great friend Don P, who was the sole person that jump started my journey into music.

We would stay after church, come in during week days, and stay overnight to just listen to beats, his old music and work on a podcast we started called “lets dine no swine”. During the podcast we started talking about intro music and what we should do so we could have something original and not just another beat off YouTube. I quickly found out that he used to sing (still does) and that he plays trumpet. After showing me how to use Pro Tools to track vocals, instruments, etc for our first track I then thought it would be a cool idea to take a beat off YouTube and create our first intro song together called “No I don’t swine and dine”.

During our time at the church we created many podcast videos, songs, talked music business, and released our first collar album called “For Lease”. During the time we were together I would always let him know that we need to enjoy this process as much as possible because these nights, these feelings, and experiences we will never get back and boy I’m so glad that I did. I just wished he had showed me sooner.

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

I am a Colorado native that graduated from Aurora Central High School, went on to play football at South DakotaSchool of Mines, and graduated with a degree in business management in technology. Now I hold multiple job titles but during my free time I love to create music and help educate my peers in the realm of music, business, and family. I am a music producer who is always learning how to create better music from the ground up and a student of my peers in the game.

I help aleviate the problem of production for artist who don’t know how to work a Daw, mixing or mastering, while bringing out the best of artist with coaching and collaborating.

I always enjoy when a musical idea comes together and I played a role in the background where people don’t get see and hear what you do, just the final product. The hours of mixing, listening, editing, then mastering are what drive me to pull out the high quality of a song as much as possible.

To the people who listen to my music, THANK YOU! I hate “selling” people to listen to my music because they just might not like it. But for the people who do listen, just know I put some much time and so much of me in the music because its better to be authentic than to just be another artist. I hope my songs point us back to our creator and not just myself or the riches in this world.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

A lesson that I have to unlearn is being the loudest in the room doesn’t make me a leader, important, or listen well to others, but, I should be the meekest.

Being meek doesn’t mean that you are weak but it means that you have your strength under control. I learned this being married, but this has be something that I’ve carried into my professional career . In order for me to lead my wife, family, business, peers, students, anyone in life I can’t be a tyrant or someone who isn’t willing to listen. I listen way more than I speak – EVEN if I have the right answer or think I do, I can always learn something from somebody, and I can’t listen if I’m the only one doing the talking.

There are right moment for everything but now I choose to listen faster then I choose to speak. Who knows what I can be missing out on if I’m the “smartest” in the room, or think that I am.

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

The library has SO many resources that are free for people for people who are looking to get started with creating ANYTHING honestly. Some have cameras, studios, free color printing, and more that I don’t even know about but go and see what the library’s have to offer near you.

They also have free tickets for museums, zoos, and more. Books on getting better with music. They even have free events that bring other collectives together, you just have to check out a see what they have.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://linktr.ee/1998lotto
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lotto1998
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mike.retland
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-retlandii/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@Lotto1998
• Other: Beats channel- https://www.youtube.com/@ProdByLotto

Image Credits

https://www.instagram.com/whimsyclaudia/ – For one of my pictures