We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Sebastian a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Sebastian, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today It’s always helpful to hear about times when someone’s had to take a risk – how did they think through the decision, why did they take the risk, and what ended up happening. We’d love to hear about a risk you’ve taken.

Moving to Los Angeles to pursue a career in the music industry has been the biggest risk that I have ever taken. At the time, I had just completed my Bachelor’s degree in Electronics and Communication. I was pretty much on track to pursue a creer in IT or electronics. But I looked around, saw all of my friends working their 9 to 5 jobs and I just decided that it wasn’t for me.

I decided to enroll in Musician’s Institute to learn Audio Engineering. While I was there, I played in a variety of bands as a drummer. Going to Musician’s Institute shaped my career, even to this day I get gigs purely because of the people I met at the school. Going to MI allowed me to play with artist such as Kitsune, Kazuki Tokaji and David Orien.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I am an audio engineer and drummer. I play full time with my band “David Orien” and I also session with various other artists.

You can find our music below:

https://linktr.ee/davidorien

As a drummer, my main expertise lies with genres such as progressive metal, post hardcore, pop punk etc. I love working with artists and help develop their sound in a way that makes them stand out from the crowd and also to help their live shows be unforgettable.

As an audio engineer, I’ve worked with live sound, mixing and post production. I’ve done both Front of House and Monitors for various artists. I’ve always tried to help artist recreate their sound in the studio with their live performances. What I love the most about live sound is solving problems. There’s always something new to learn or a new challenge to get over and I love that process!

I also love working in post production, especially as a Foley artist. That role has allowed me to be infinitely creative.

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

When it comes to social media, you have to identify something that you love doing that can be showcased to the world. For me, it was drumming. So I started doing covers of artists that I love and posting them online.

I treat my social media like a resume. That allows me to create content that I think the general public as well as the artist community will love. I’ve had artists reach out to me to work with them purely based on what they saw on my social media.

I addition to that, you have to know when and how to market yourself. A basic understanding od meta and tiktok ads is important. You have to analyze your analytics, identify what kind of content appeals to which demographics and use that information to create more content and target your ads accordingly.

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

I’d say one of the most rewarding aspects would be the appreciation and praise of my peers. I’m always more motivated when someone comes up to me and tells me how much they love my work, especially if it inspired them to try something new with theirs.

Apart from that, I’d say the other most rewarding aspect is looking back at myself and seeing how far I’ve come. Every step forward no matter how small makes a difference and they add up eventually. Looking back also helps me ground myself and reminds me that I have so much more to look forward to and so much more to achieve.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/seb_varg/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@sebastiankonnackel
• Other: https://open.spotify.com/artist/3eIw4BJLS8ZW6YqYOnuumg

Image Credits

Devam Shah
Randy Edwards
Jessica Lee
Kazuki Tokaji