Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Optimus Grind. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Hi Optimus, thanks for joining us today. Are you able to earn a full-time living from your creative work? If so, can you walk us through your journey and how you made it happen?
I have been lucky to be able to make a living as a DJ for the last 18 years. Working mostly weekends has afforded me time to work on my song writing and audio production. When I first got to L.A., it was definitely a lot of hard work and being broke. I worked delivering pizza on melrose for 2 years, which was actually really fun. When I wasn’t delivering pizza I was working as a runner at West Lake audio for free. I’d spend the day doing food runs, cleaning studios and doing whatever the clients might need. I got lucky after a few months when one of the assistants left for another studio, I was moved into their position. I worked there for about 6 months before I realized it wasn’t really what I wanted to be doing. I decided to focus on writing and playing bass in a band. I had to move out of my apartment because my roommate wanted to live with his girlfriend, I then found myself living on my friends couch really needed something to come through. The friend I was living with introduced me to a company that was looking to train DJ’s for events. I got in for an interview, fast forward 18 years and I have been DJing events almost every weekend. It’s turned into a great and fun career. In between gigs on the weekends I have had several stints in the audio world. At the DJ company I made a lot of friends, one of which knew the sound designer for The Simpsons. I ended up doing a 6 month internship with him, learning sound design and getting to work on The Simpsons and Futurama. We worked from his home studio and it really gave me a good foundation as a sound designer. After that I moved on to some voice over studios, recording many different commercials and other random things. In 2015 a friend I had gone to audio production school with connected me with a studio that worked primarily on video games. While with them I got to work on quite a few games, Call of duty Black ops 2, Saints row, Titan Fall and a load of Chinese games. I am now working for another Voice over studio that does english over dubs for mostly Chinese and Japanese video games. I am engineering remote and in person sessions weekly.
Optimus, 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 song writer and producer on top of the DJing and audio production. Right now, I am working on building my music catalog under OptimusGrind. I also spend a lot of time writing with my friends and band mates in Marvelous XE. Myself and the band are working on separate albums. We are just trying to enjoy the creative process and write music that we really dig.
In your view, what can society to do to best support artists, creatives and a thriving creative ecosystem?
I think the best way to support friends and creatives is to help give them inspiration and motivation. If you see them working on projects as little as telling them “thats dope” or “heck ya, get it son” can give someone that might be strugling to keep the dream alive the motivation that they need to continue on. Also supporting them with sharing the art, buying the art, helping to find gigs or connections that might be good for them. My favorite thing that helps me keep going is seeing someone really enjoy something I have created.
What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?
In 2018 I got to do a world tour with a band as a drum tech. It was a great experience, I got to see a lot of the world really quick and be a part of some great shows. My goal for a long time has been being in a band that got to tour and play big shows. Getting to be a tech and see how the whole process went gave me motivation to take the next steps in doing it for myself. I love performing and getting to work that tour made it feel much more in reach. My goal right now is getting a lot of music written and putting out records that will propel myself and friends onto the road.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://optimusgrind.bandcamp.com
- Instagram: instagram.com/OptimusGrind333
- Other: linktr.ee/OptimusGrind