Today we’d like to introduce you to Josquin Des Pres.
Josquin , we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
Born in France, Josquin Des Pres got an early start in music. By the mid-1970s, he was playing bass with the French progressive jazz-fusion band Edition Spéciale, which signed with United Artists and RCA Records. He later joined a band with renowned violinist Didier Lockwood before moving to the United States, where he began working with a number of top studio musicians.
By the 1980s, Josquin was immersed in the Southern California music scene, surrounded by top L.A. studio musicians, songwriters, and producers. Even though he had started on bass, Josquin became just as interested in what happened behind the scenes, expanding his interests into production, songwriting, publishing, and technology.
In 1990, he signed a songwriter deal with Warner Chappell Music after co-writing more than a dozen songs with Bernie Taupin, Elton John’s longtime lyricist. In the mid-1990s, he settled in San Diego and began producing local artists as well as numerous artists for Cargo Music. For those productions, he tapped into some of the world-class musicians he had worked with over the years, connecting them with emerging Southern California artists. San Diego became home and an important part of his creative life.
At the same time, his career continued expanding beyond traditional recording and production. Long before “sync licensing” became a common industry term, he was building a catalog for television, film, and multimedia. Through Track Star Entertainment, more than 2,000 of his tracks have appeared across more than 40 networks and television productions, including Deadliest Catch, The Bachelor, Ellen, Oprah, and American Idol, with nearly 500 tracks placed in MTV programming alone.
Technology became another major part of that evolution. Josquin became involved in launching Nomad Factory audio plug-ins and developed Instant Popstar in association with Cakewalk, exploring new ways technology could give musicians and producers creative tools for their own studios. He also produced extensive music and sound libraries for Big Fish Audio and Shutterstock Music, including projects with musicians such as Tower of Power’s legendary drummer David Garibaldi.
Along the way, he wrote 18 books on music, the music industry, and bass-guitar study, published by Hal Leonard and Warner Books. His most popular title, Bass Fitness, has sold hundreds of thousands of copies and is available through the Berklee College of Music bookstore. In the late 90s Josquin Des Pres created BassBooks.com, which at its peak offered hundreds of titles focused on bass study and transcriptions. Those projects brought together Josquin’s interests in music, education, technology, and the business behind it
Over the course of his career, Josquin has worked as a musician, songwriter, producer, publisher, author, and entrepreneur, continually expanding the ways in which he works with music and the people who create it.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
it has been a calculated journey of reinvention but also Its the music industry every obstacle is a lesson.
I wouldn’t call it a smooth road, but I would call it a calculated journey of reinvention. It’s the music industry — there are always obstacles, and I’ve learned to look at most of them as lessons.
The biggest challenge has been learning how to evolve without losing sight of why I got into music in the first place. The business I entered in the 1970s is almost unrecognizable today. Record companies changed, technology transformed the way music was made and distributed, formats disappeared, and entirely new ways of earning a living from music emerged.
Rather than fight those changes, I tried to understand them and adapt. I moved from being primarily a bass player into songwriting and production, and as the traditional recording business continued to evolve, I expanded into music libraries, television licensing, technology, education, publishing, and international collaborations.
There were times when something I had spent years building suddenly became less relevant because the industry had moved in another direction. Those moments can be frustrating, but they also force you to ask, “What’s next?”
Not every decision worked, and not every project succeeded. But the setbacks kept me learning and moving forward, and many of them ultimately helped shape the next chapter of my career.
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
The simplest answer is that I help connect artists, songs, musicians, technology, and opportunities.
I started as a bass player, but over the years my work expanded into songwriting, record production, publishing, music licensing, education, music technology, and artist development. I’ve never thought of those as completely separate careers. To me, they are all different parts of the same creative process.
As a producer, my philosophy is very simple: the artist and the song always come first. I never wanted to put my fingerprints all over somebody else’s identity. My job is to listen, understand what makes an artist unique, and help bring the strongest version of that artist to the surface.
That philosophy has also led me throughout my career to champion women artists and help create opportunities for female talent. In San Diego, that has meant working with and connecting with artists such as Lisa Sanders, Sara Petite, Thea, Nisha Catron, Anna Danes, and others. Those relationships have been an important part of my connection to the San Diego music community.
The same interest in bringing people together eventually led me to co-found Utonium Music – Songs Without Borders with Roxanne Stone and JoNa Music Group with Michael Natter. A major focus of both companies has been creating collaborations between artists, writers, and producers from different countries and musical cultures.
One of those projects began when I discovered Filipina singer and YouTuber Renée Dominique and helped bring her together with Jason Mraz for a duet released by Virgin Records (Universal) that went on to reach more than 200 million streams. That was followed by a collaboration between Jason and French pop singer Joyce Jonathan, which has also streamed in the millions.
More recently, I’ve been working on bringing together former Disney actress and recording artist Laura Marano and Brazilian artist Lucas Mamede for a new collaboration planned for release through Universal in early 2027. Together, they have a combined reach of more than 30 million followers.
I also appreciate how many different areas of music my career has allowed me to explore. More than 2,000 of my tracks have been used in television and media, I’ve written 18 books, and Bass Fitness has reached generations of bass players. I’ve also been fortunate to work with some extraordinary artists, writers, producers, and musicians along the way.
What may set me apart is that I’ve never been particularly interested in defining myself by one job title. I’m still a musician at heart, but I’m equally fascinated by songwriting, production, publishing, technology, international markets, and discovering new talent. For me, the most exciting question has always been: How can all of those things connect?
Risk taking is a topic that people have widely differing views on – we’d love to hear your thoughts.
I believe in calculated risk rather than reckless risk.
Probably the first major risk I took was leaving France and building a life and career in the United States. I was stepping away from something familiar and entering a very different musical culture without knowing exactly where it would lead.
Since then, many of the most important risks in my career have involved being willing to move beyond what was already comfortable. I could have remained primarily a bass player, but instead I followed opportunities into songwriting, production, publishing, television music, technology, books, digital content, and eventually international collaborations.
At the time, some of those choices probably looked like detours. Looking back, they became important parts of the path. I became involved in music for television and multimedia before sync licensing developed into the business it is today, and I embraced software and digital production tools while recording technology was changing dramatically. More recently, that same willingness to explore new territory helped lead to Utonium Music and its focus on bringing artists from different countries and cultures together through multilingual collaborations.
For me, risk has never been about making a move simply because it feels bold. I try to understand where things may be going, trust my instincts, surround myself with talented people, and then decide whether an opportunity is worth pursuing.Sometimes those decisions work and sometimes they don’t. But in a creative business that is constantly changing, I’ve always felt that becoming too comfortable with what worked yesterday can be a greater risk than trying something new.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.TrackStarEntertainment.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/josquindespres101/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/josquin.despres.5/
- Twitter: Josquin@TrackStarEntertainment.com
- Other: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josquin_Des_Pres_(American_musician)
