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

Zak, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today What was the most important lesson/experience you had in a job that has helped you in your creative career?

There are many stories that come to mind that I could tell but this one in particular stopped me in my tracks while it was happening. It taught me a lot about the importance of how powerful an attitude can be, how it affects others, and how it can slowly destroy the whole dream and goal of what you wanted to pursue in the first place.

Well over a decade ago I worked in a, to keep it vague, an, :”event production” company for a summer. I got to work with a ton of fun people and the pay was good for the time but the company leadership were just awful. When things weren’t exactly right or weren’t going exactly to plan the big boss man would throw and break things, cuss out and belittle employees in front of other people, and generally punish hardworking people for no reason at all. It was mind blowing to see grown men almost old enough to be my grandfather behave like this.

The last event I worked before I quit was a wedding dinner. Very posh and very expensive. After the cocktail hour the party moved into another ballroom while the team I was on went in and cleared everything out and set up the tables for dinner. Fancy silverware, decor, that kind of stuff. While we raced to get everything turned over one of the new guys had laid out a bunch of silverware in an incorrect layout. No one noticed until the big boss came in. He noticed right off the bat and he immediately started screaming at the top of his lungs. I mean his face literally went red. We had all stopped and we were frozen in terror haha.

This guy then proceeded to take a fully dressed wedding table big enough for 10 people to sit at and he flipped it upside down as hard as he possibly could. It was an enormous crash of sound that I imagine everyone in the attending party could hear from the room over. It was so absurd I had to stop myself from giggling. It was like out of a movie! It’s silverware for godsakes! This is a mistake that can be rectified in a couple minutes at most. The man was absolutely unhinged in so many ways.

Then and there I said to myself that I’d never, ever be someone like that. Taking out your negative emotions on other people and creating a stressful and abusive working/creative environment is pathetic behavior. Hell nah, life is waaaaaaay to short to do dumb stuff like this! It literally destroys the quality of life for other people. I try to remind myself frequently that a lot of what we stress about day to day, specifically in the “professional” world doesn’t really matter. We often break our backs to make a ton of money for people that couldn’t care less about anyone other than themselves. They’re willing to destroy the environment, cut wages, exploit loyalty, flip dinner tables at a wedding etc. I don’t wanna be a sucker like that.

Point I am making is that my approach to Safehouse Audio and my artistic endeavors is to provide positive meaning and joy whenever I can. I can’t imagine having a reason to do something like that wackass boss from my youthful past. Your behavior around collaborators becomes the legacy you are remembered by.

Zak, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I am a semi-self trained musician of 20 years. After moving to Portland from Eastern Washington in 2013, I quickly dove into the music community and began playing in various bands. This allowed me to slowly make enough connections to get into commercial and film composing work.

About a year before the pandemic, I read an interview with Susan Rogers, who was Prince’s staff engineer during the height of his popularity in the 1980s. She made a very specific comment that changed things for me, she discussed that if you do want a long-term reliable career in the music industry, get into the technical side of things. Repairs, design, technician work. At the time I was very burnt out on the live music aspect of things and being back and forth to so many places and there was a lot of stability missing in my life.

I was always, always breaking guitar pedals and other pieces of gear and there was always a strong interest on how to repair them but I didn’t think I’d have the brain power or the time to do so. As soon as COVID-19 happened I assumed live music and touring would became an obsolete part of music. With that free time I dove into the vast world of music gear online forums and DIY kits that you buy and solder and assemble pedals.

I finished my 1st one April of 2020, and I was hooked. For the last four years I’ve build hundreds of handmade guitar pedals of various types and complexities. I’ve done work for some really big names in the industry and for artists that are enormous inspirations for me as an artist. A few of these folks are now my good friends.

The music industry, and it comes as no surprise, a generally horrible and exploitive industry. I’ve managed to develop an environment where I get to avoid almost all of it. Because of this I try hard to focus on the roots of joy that it provides me and that I should stop doing it if I ever become miserable.

Any thoughts, advice, or strategies you can share for fostering brand loyalty?

Making guitar pedals as an active local musician in Portland Oregon is really one of the best advantages I have with my “business”. I play electric guitar in a band in Portland called Aan and with Instagram and a close knit local music community, it’s very easy to get to know other musicians, fans, and hopeful clients. A lot of them are already my friends or quickly become just that. I also compose my own work under the moniker, “Champagne Perfume” and that also helps bring some general awareness about Safehouse Audio. I recently wrote music for the web series, “Hasaan Hates Portland” and it significantly boosted my profile.

All of this is incredibly organic. There’s very little, “traditional” marketing with my work. Very much a DIY Instagram feed of audio and video clips of my devices. Easily shared and it kind of takes care of itself, most of the time. The pedals I make are unique, one off, experimental, weird, and fun. These attributes are exactly what artists want. It’s so cool to fulfill that need.

How did you put together the initial capital you needed to start your business?

Safehouse Audio is an equal art project as it is a, “business”. Getting into making guitar pedals was pure curiosity and it never was an attempt to start a business. I didn’t even consider it. Electronics and soldering is…very difficult lol. I don’t have a degree or anything and realistically the lack of stuff to do during COVID quarantine brought all of this into fruition.

As bandmates, friends, and then slowly strangers and internet folks found me and started buying things I fiiiinaalllly was like, “oh maybe I can make money doing this and I can just use that money to buy more parts so I can build more experiments and keep this love rolling”. There was no time where I took out a giant loan or took on a series of professional investors.

I basically funded this by myself during the first year or two. I mean, I worked full-time elsewhere and did whatever I could find lol. One example- I worked in the basement of a now-defunct chocolate factory full-time for three months, and no it wasn’t fun like Willy Wonka, it was laughably depressing. But I did it for the love.

My amazing fianceé and a very close friend who I met in 2014 during my record spinning days arrived in 2022 as my financial supporters. When the budget is tight or the sales are slow, they got my back. They mean the absolute world to me and their love and graciousness has helped me live my dream. It’s wild.

The other BIG piece of this pie that I have to mention is that through my brand awareness in the city I was able to get a full time pedal building job in 2022 at Catalinbread Effects here in Portland. If you aren’t familiar, Catalinbread Effects has been in the game for a long time and have consistently created some of the cooler devices around. There’s a solid chance your favorite band uses them in the studio or on stage. You’ve likely heard them on your favorite album. They’ve always had my back and love seeing me make wild pedals that make wild sounds because that’s the point of it all. I am very, very lucky to have all of this as a full time job.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.safehouseaudio.com
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/safehouseaudio
• Other: Band- Aan

Image Credits

Dan Haugen