We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Victor Lopez a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Victor, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Are you happier as a creative? Do you sometimes think about what it would be like to just have a regular job? Can you talk to us about how you think through these emotions?
I pursued my dream as an artist since 2017 and I’ve never been happier. The biggest challenge about it was finishing school and working at the same time. I don’t regret putting whatever time I had remaining in the day towards working on Ableton since the skill of producing adds up overtime. I had thought about a regular job when right before I transferred from Community College into San Jose State University (SJSU). For motivation, I made a deal with myself that if DJing and Producing didn’t work out at SJSU, then I would go all in on Psychology and work as a Behavior Technician. I got quickly became involved with clubs and the campus community there and met an amazing group whom I started my record label with. Bad Apple Records was formed with my best friends: Rylan Ladion, Peter Park, Ethan Sandoval during my first semester at SJSU. I graduated from SJSU this year and I figured Psychology will always be there, so I went right into working my dream job as not only an artist, but now an A&R for my own company. I’m so happy everything worked out and I fulfilled the deal I made to myself back in 2020.
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’m Victor Jair Lopez Silva, born and raised in San Jose, CA. I’ve been DJing & Producing since 2017 and had my start in the industry as an A&R for Bad Apple Records since 2021. Bad Apple Records was created during my time in San Jose State University with my best friends: Rylan Ladion, Ethan Sandoval, and Peter Park. The biggest thing we all have in common is that we have a dream to play the biggest EDM stages in the world; for me it’s EDC. We threw raves and invited our all our friends to come out to support. We started creating a community from the ground-up which introduced us to so many new people around the Bay Area and LA. The Instagram Reels & TikTok’s helped us reach a new audience and got the attention of some artists we look up to such as: Josh Pan, GG Magree & more. The community building is my favorite part of the company; it’s also what I’m most proud of. Our mission from Day 1 was to put on the best rising local talent, make the attendees feel welcome, and create an underground movement. We live for the culture.
How did you build your audience on social media?
You have to get used to posting on social media. Instagram Reels and TikTok’s are so important to building a following, especially since it prioritizes reaching new accounts. If you use the right hashtags, build the right 8-14 second video, you can have major traction. The biggest thing is that you have to post on a daily basis, otherwise the traction goes down. It’s also important to make sure the content resonates with the audience somehow. We started building our audience by piecing together clips of our shows via TikTok. We absolutely love the raw videos that are roughly edited together. It focuses more on the energy of the event itself and those videos really made people want to come out to our raves. Our followers skyrocketed during the promotion of our two warehouse raves at the time, Blacklist & Mile High Club. We’re still in shock on the fact that those two videos reached up to 1 million views; we’re extremely grateful for the doors it opened up.
Is there mission driving your creative journey?
As an artist, my goal is to play EDC 2028. I’m really happy I’m to be able to learn and talk with artists with similar goals which gives me a community to rely on. To get there, I know I need to grow as a Producer and get my portfolio of original music out there. I get so happy when someone comments to me about a track I put out on Soundcloud or Spotify; it motivates me to keep working, knowing that there are people listening.
As an A&R, I want the DJs who play a Bad Apple Records show to be themselves. I want them to be proud of the music they are making and play a show with nothing holding them back.
Contact Info:
- Website: badapple.live
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/i_am_maneki/
- Twitter: twitter.com/i_am_maneki
- SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/iammaneki
- Other: www.tiktok.com/@iammaneki
Image Credits
Lyric Kochendorfer Terry Mirande Niko Ramirez Justin Heinrich