Today we’d like to introduce you to Miles Cartier.
Miles, we’d love to hear your story and how you got to where you are today both personally and as an artist.
It’s 2009, I had just moved to San Diego in the Kearny Mesa area after my parents divorced. I was in a household of women with my mom, and I couldn’t take the environment of Long Beach, so I decided to follow my dad to a new city in San Diego. I was 14 years starting high school. We lived in this apartment complex where there was a big dumpster that everyone seemed to throw interesting items next to. My dad and I were crafty and resourceful, so whenever we’d take out the trash, we’d always sift through it to see if there was anything good. I’m taking out the trash one day, and I see this small black box with knobs. It’s an old Acesonic Karaoke mixer with RCA outputs and a quarter inch microphone input. It seemed like a godsend that this cheap recording device was just there waiting for me. My dad used to be a DJ and had a lot of old microphones and cables. After begging to sift through his equipment, I found an old mic and some cables that would let me hook up the mixer to my old black and gray dell dimension desktop. My dad at the time was married to a woman who used to sing professionally. I had made a beat on Fruity Loops that I really wanted to do something with. I made a song with her called Dreams inspired by Nas’ I Know I Can. I remember showing the song to my 9th-grade digital media teacher. He was so impressed he played it for every period on that day. And that day I felt like a superstar. Every kid was gassing me up telling me the song was dope, and they really liked it. I wish I could thank Mr. Weatherly for being that spark that helped guide me towards becoming a musical artist. The rest was history.
We’d love to hear more about your art. What do you do you do and why and what do you hope others will take away from your work?
I create music about real life experiences, emotions, ideas, and stories. I use my home studio in my barracks room to record on a program called Cockos Reaper. The message I try to communicate is just being a seemingly average guy with a lot of internal power and influence. I want those underdogs to feel empowered. I was in that middle group in high school where I wasn’t necessarily popular because I hung out with the “nerds,” but everyone in the school knew who I was. I realized I was trying to blur the lines between peoples idea about what is valuable and what is truly genuine. I think at some points I did that and have been doing that with my music. I just want to make real music for the people that feel overwhelmed with the realities of life. I’m going through a journey of my own, and it’s kind of like I’m counting on everything to work to validate what I’ve been telling people in my music. I have no doubts about it coming to fruition. You should know I make art to be enjoyed by anyone.
The stereotype of a starving artist scares away many potentially talented artists from pursuing art – any advice or thoughts about how to deal with the financial concerns an aspiring artist might be concerned about?
One of the hardest lessons I’ve learned through all my years of spending money towards my craft is no amount of money will ever be valued more than consistency. CONSISTENCY is the master of the art world. With so much saturation in the industry of people with home studios, most consumers are not really picking apart your quality so much as your dedication and content of your craft. The only way your content can improve is by consistently releasing music. That is something I am working on now, and hopefully, it shows by the time anyone reads this. You can buy a $10,000 mic with your life savings. But what good is it if you only upload 12 songs a year? The artist who is constantly releasing new, different, and unique type of content to stay a staple in someone’s mind can do all that on a $200 mic and the cheapest equipment they can afford. They will also be able to slowly upgrade their equipment while working. I always remember Eric Thomas saying “work while you wait.” For me, that translates to “work while you’re broke.” If you constantly use money as an excuse for not pursuing anything you will never chase it! You have to be hungry enough to sacrifice perfection. Develop, build, and become an artist with skill. That growth will be enough to fuel you to manufacture a way to come up with the equipment or funding you believe you need.
Do you have any events or exhibitions coming up? Where would one go to see more of your work? How can people support you and your artwork?
I currently post my work to my social media channels under the name Miles Cartier on YouTube, Facebook, SoundCloud, and Instagram. I am working on developing myself as a brand in order to gain a bigger following and support base.
Contact Info:
- Address: PO Box 1987
Oceanside, CA 92051 - Website: www.milescartier.com
- Email: milescartier@milesofrecords.com
- Instagram: http://Instagram.com/milescartier
- Facebook: http://Facebook.com/milescartiermusic
- Twitter: http://twitter.com/milescartier
Image Credit:
Edy Solano Ortiz
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