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

WAYNE, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Can you share an important lesson you learned in a prior job that’s helped you in your career afterwards?

Embarking on a PhD in atmospheric physics was a four-year commitment into the unknown. I’d wanted to try my hand at scientific research since I began studying physics at university, and now I’d finally reached the door to that goal, but I didn’t know what was waiting for me on the other side. I’d had glimpses through the windows of that door during my undergraduate and masters degrees, but this was a different level, this was the real deal. Fast-forwarding to the present, I’m now a couple of weeks away from handing in my final thesis, with the finish line to this academic journey in sight. Reflecting on the past four years, hindsight, as they say, is indeed 20-20. What was waiting for me on the other side of that door, it turned out, was a masterclass in humility and resilience, one that will serve me until the day I die.

A PhD is sometimes compared to a marathon, and having ran a marathon before, I can tell you that it’s a good comparison. Everything is great at the beginning, you feel excited and nervous for the journey ahead, and you’re fresh and motivated. The first phase of the journey is enjoyable and everything seems new and interesting. Then you pass the half distance mark and things start to get tougher. You’re at the boundary of knowledge in your topic and there’s no one out there that knows the answers to the questions that you’re asking, you have to keep moving forward and figure it out for yourself. As time continues to pass, your models aren’t working and you don’t know why, and despite being met with failure at every turn, you know you have to keep moving forward. As the journey continues, you start to question why you decided to start it in the first place, and nagging doubts about whether you’ll make it to the finish line creep in, but you have to keep the faith that you’ll figure it out in crunch time. Then in the final phase it all starts to come together with a slog to the finish. You begin piecing together the patchwork of research that you’ve carried out into a coherent thesis at the finish line, letting out a sigh of relief and a feeling of gratitude to yourself for seeing it through.

Perseverance in the face of constant failure is a key lesson for running a business.

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

WAYNE BRAIN is a Music Producer born and raised in the suburbs of southeast London. Music was a staple in my home growing up, from Reggae to Hip Hop to Indian Sitar, and the rich grime culture of London was in full flow during my high school years. Each lunch break without fail you’d find students gathered in an obscure corner, one person blasting grime instrumentals from their phone speaker, the rest taking turns to freestyle on the beat. I’d brushed shoulders with many talented musicians and explored music production for the first time at high school. All of this amalgamated into a lifelong love of music, and it seems like fate that each time I took a break from music, something always brought me back.

On a day-to-day I create instrumentals and send them out to artists to collaborate on songs. I also have a store from which any artist can purchase inexpensive leases of any of my instrumentals to create with themselves, Free downloads of instrumentals with tags on top are also available so that you can create before committing to a purchase. In addition, I run an internet radio station called WAYNE BRAIN Radio, hosted by the streaming service Pandora, that has 550,000 streams and 22,000 listeners a month as of November 2023, and is trending upwards every month. This is something that sets me apart from other music producers, as the artists I work with I promote on my radio and actually get their music heard.

My ethos from the start has been about building great relationships with the artists that I work with, and those that purchase from me, and providing them with value wherever I can. I’m a believer in the notion that there’s enough at the table for everyone to eat, so why not elevate together?

I’ve been working on music production part time since the summer of 2021, but I’m finally making the transition to working on it full time come 1st January 2024. As Kanye would say, it’s UP!

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

Freedom. The freedom to structure my own day, the freedom to create what I want and when I want, the freedom to explore my discipline, the freedom to learn what I choose to, and the freedom to make a mess of it all.

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

Building an audience on social media is about connecting with people you know and finding your community at the beginning. Seeking out content of like-minded individuals on a similar journey to you and supporting each other is key. Also taking advantage of in-person events to connect with people via social media to keep in touch and support each other’s journeys. The most important thing activity-wise is to stay consistent and post good content on a regular basis. No one will enjoy a timeline full of mediocre content, and no one will see you if you only post once a month. It’s important to find a good balance and make incremental improvements to your content, Rome wasn’t built in a day.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://linktr.ee/waynegimmebrain
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/waynegimmebrain/

Image Credits
@pav.de @modelsishoot