We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Patrick Cortes. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Patrick below.

Patrick, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Can you talk to us about a project that’s meant a lot to you?

My work on the Undisclosed podcast is unquestionably the most meaningful thing I’ve been a part of. As some reading this may be aware, Undisclosed was a podcast that began as a follow-up to the first season of Serial, which was about the murder of Hae Min Lee for which Adnan Syed was convicted as a teenager. While Serial brought the case to widespread attention and fascination, it didn’t tell the whole story, and it was Undisclosed – a podcast hosted by Rabia Chaudry, who was responsible for bringing the case to Serial’s Sarah Koenig in the first place – that filled in the critical gaps pointing to Adnan’s innocence.

I joined the project about ten episodes in and have continued to work with Rabia and company at various points since.

To have been a very small part of a team that did so much tangible good, helping to exonerate multiple people (including Adnan Syed) who were wrongfully convicted and serving what would have been life sentences, is just profoundly rewarding.

Patrick, 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 began making electronic music in 2010, after having spent the preceding years playing acoustic/singer-songwriter coffee house gigs and playing with a few failed bands on and off.

Starting off by saying I make electronic music always comes with a pretty immediate qualifier as to what kind it is. A lot of people unfamiliar with the genre will hear the word “electronic” and immediately think club music – EDM, dubstep, house, something like that.

There’s a healthy scene for that kind of music in Raleigh, but mine is more of a hybrid of electro pop, ambient, and a little bit of more bombastic stuff. There aren’t a whole lot of artists in my particular brand of electronic music here in Raleigh, so I’ve had a little bit of an uphill struggle and had to kind of carve my own niche here, being too laptop-driven to fit in with bands at times, but not being “clubby” enough to fit in with DJ’s.

It hasn’t always been fun, but it can be really rewarding.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

Suffering for art is the most important habit I had to kick. Making music, or any kind of art, should be FUN, or at least not drive you crazy. I spent too many nights beating myself up over tiny details, hyperfocusing on whether or not I was doing something right, and it took all the fun out of it. After my album Tyrannosaurus pretty much wrecked me, I finally learned to stop sweating everything so much and just trust and enjoy the process, and I think I’m happier with the results. It doesn’t always have to be THAT serious.

Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

Making the most honest music I can is the most important thing to me. Putting on a show and projecting a persona in music can be fun, and isn’t necessarily any less artistic, but people are always going to connect more to music that they feel is sincere. I hate roughly a third or more of the music I make at some point, but regardless of how I feel about it later, I can always say that at the time I wrote it, it was an honest snapshot of where my head or my heart was, and I also wouldn’t put it out if I didn’t stand by it. I also don’t make any music to please anyone else – you’re not going to catch me phoning something in because it feels trendy or because I think it’s what people want to hear, at least not on projects like my albums or EP’s. I just make the best, most honest music I’m capable of and hope it resonates with people.

Contact Info:

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Image Credits
Alina Patel