Today we’d like to introduce you to Arman Sedgwick-Billimoria
Hi Arman , thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
My name is Arman Sedgwick-Billimoria, I am an Emmy Nominated SFX/Foley Editor, Keyboardist, Composer and Sound Engineer. I was born and raised in Cardiff By The Sea a suburb of North County San Diego.
Music and Sound is my life!! I was exposed and discovered it at a very early age. One of my first memories was finding an old turn table in my parents garage and looking at all these pretty frisbee disc looking things, realizing these things played music and created sound! I was freakin mesmerized! Rumor has it, soon after I began harmonizing and singing in pitch/rhythm with everyday sounds which were not limited to the vacuum cleaner, trash truck, washing machine; alongside other things that created sound(s). Further, my parents recall the only way to get me to sleep as a child was to blast Pachelbel’s Canon in D on repeat until i’d fall asleep. I guess you can say music is literally consisted of my entire genetic DNA make up!
I started really getting serious with music at age four. My parents say that i was able to go to the piano and pick out melodies by ear note for note while listening to a record. It was at that moment, my love of music developed into a passion to become a professional musician. As my childhood continued to develop, my parents realized how serious i was about music and I began to take lessons, studying under the tutelage of San Diego Music legend Jack Hill, and classical pianist Jeanne Saier. Saier was insistent that i read music and play all the classics like Bach, Beethoven and Mozart (which i hated) and to this day, I regret not taking her lessons as serious as I should have. Further she taught me the foundations of classical music and theory. Jack Hill being an accomplished session musician and coming from the world of jazz, rock, RnB, soul and blues taught me all about improvisation, and jamming as well as theory to which I instantly gravitated towards more so. His approach to lessons and music was much more holisitic and personalized, catering to what I wanted to play which obviously was more rock n roll, jazz, blues, rock, pop stuff. I think our first lesson consisted of him teaching me Santana’s “Oye Como Va?” I was 11 or so. From there on he and I formed a fabulous relationship and I credit a lot of my music success to his teachings.
Soon after high school i attended San Francisco State University to study and pursue Cinema with an emphasis in Post Production Sound Editing, and Music Composition. While there, I was blessed to study with some of the film/music industries greats, Pat Jackson, Steve Horowitz, Pablo Lorenzo Riquelme and Dan Olmsted to name a few. When not attending classes and learning from these greats, i was asked to do audio for almost every student film, gaining valuable on set film experience as well honing my audio production skills and gaining experience into the entire audio processes ranging from Pre-Production, Production to Post Production as well as music composition, while somehow managing to continue to play music with some local bay area groups. Seeing how passionate I was in school, the school of cinema asked me to come teach and guest lecture audio classes and inspire the next generations of students to fall in love with audio and sound. These experiences and film school really helped direct my focus and reaffirmed that Sound/Music Editing alongside playing music professionally is what i wanted to do with my life.
Soon after graduation in the midst of the pandemic, I was asked to work for a local bay area independent audio organization to help finish some foley editing on a Netflix animated series GO! GO! Cory Carson. This work led our entire team to an Emmy Nomination. While we didn’t win, this experience was incredible as it allowed me to utilize all of my onset college experience in a real life professional working manner as well as gave our team bragging rights of being Emmy Nominated!
While working in Berkeley I was blessed to link up with legendary rock group from the late 80’s/early 90’s The Uninvited. They made some huge industry noise on Atlantic Records back in the 90’s with two top 40 Radio Chart hits “What God Said”, and “Too High For The Supermarket” After a 20 year hiatus from the music industry, they put up an add that was looking for a keyboardist who could fit their sound. I auditioned back in late october of 2022 and literally got the gig on the spot. “It was fate and destiny” as my band mate Steve Taylor puts it. Since then we’ve recorded an album entitled “Broken Promiseland’ and continue to record and tour to this day. Our most recent success’s includes writing an original track “Take Me As I Am” which was featured as a title ending sequence track for a PBS American Masters Documentary on film director “Blake Edwards A Love Story in 24 Frames” which was considered for a Grammy for 2024 Best Visual Media as well as our most recent single “The Moment That Matters” which is our highest grossing single of all time with over 30,00 streams after just two weeks of being released!
Here’s our bands website https://uninvited.com/home
My personal instagram @armanbillimoria
As of 2024, I currently reside back home in Cardiff By The Sea and travel to the Bay Area/Los Angeles, frequently to fulfill little four year old Arman’s prophecy of being a rockstar, studio musician, composer and SFX Editor. When I’m not on the road I work for a local San Diego Theatre as a Sound and Production Tech Coordinator/Sound Engineer, managing an audio team and coordinating events ranging from theatrical performances to key note speaker series to film festivals. I continue to freelance audio work for commercials, record bands, work as a studio musician and Sound Edit independent films on the side. Last week, I released my first self album under my stage name Armani B. entitled “Cardiff Sessions Vol 1” which is now streaming on all platforms. As always for all musicians, the road beckons, and I look forward to rising up to the occasion to fulfill my musical duties and am excited for what the journey has in store next.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
For any artistic field of work, the road is never easy. There are times where you are challenged personally, creatively, and industry wise. The main challenges being faced in an ever changing Music Industry is being able to stay constant with the trends and find a “secret sauce” that the algorithms like. The music industry is truly the wild west right now, in the sense that it’s so incredibly easy to create, share, write and showcase your music, but because of that, anything can literally happen, for good or for the worst; either your stuff flops, or you become an overnight internet sensation!
I think we are in a truly beautiful time to create art as its so easily available and theres such a vast amount of it as well as its so easily and readily available. As of now the music industry trends seem to be more independent focused which I personally think is great, but with that comes more responsibility and finding a strategy that works for your business. That idea of the “Secret Sauce” is finding that balance between creativity, and uniqueness while having a strategic brand to sell your product. One thing that school doesn’t teach you or prepare you for is the business side of the industry. If you are able to take any basic business class, I highly recommend it as it might make or break your approach to making it. Also network like theres no tomorrow! Create a website, business cards, have a mailing list. It’s really trial and error to find what works best for your “sauce”.
One of the biggest struggles that The Uninvited and I have found difficult is trying to understand and find that “Secret Sauce” to help you get more viewership and stay hip/cool with it while not selling your soul to a label or having your unique brand/idea/sound get compromised. While we have connections in the industry, they only get so far hence why you have to find that perfect combination to create the “Secret Sauce”
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I am most proud of being affiliated and associated with my band The Uninvited. Not only are they insanely talented dudes, they are also some of the nicest most real, authentic down to earth people people I know. Our most recent successes include recording an album entitled “Broken Promiseland’ writing an original track “Take Me As I Am” which was featured as a title ending sequence track for a PBS American Masters Documentary on film director “Blake Edwards A Love Story in 24 Frames” which was considered for a Grammy for 2024 Best Visual Media as well as releasing our most recent single “The Moment That Matters” which is our highest grossing single of all time with over 30,00 streams after just two weeks of being released! We continue to write and record to this day and have a bunch of cool stuff coming in 2025! Check out our website!
https://uninvited.com/home
I am also known to frequent and play alongside several San Diego groups. I primarily play with the Trey Miles Trio as well as record locally at Pacific Beat Studios as well as run a small studio operation out of my home in Cardiff.
I am also extremely proud of being nominated for an Emmy. Being a professional touring musician is my dream. While I’ve been blessed to have had some accolades and accomplishments both in the Sound Editing and Music world, I feel that there’s still a lot of work to do and that the dream is a world away, but with hard work, determination, perseverance, and dedication anything is possible. I’d love to win an Emmy and Grammy someday and hopefully win an Academy Award for best Original Score.
I also am a freelance film score/trailer composer, being able to utilize my piano playing and musical experiences to enhance film and other mediums has been a great asset for me. I love the ability music has to evoke emotion, convey character development, tell time as well as be just down right fun to create and hopefully inspire others!
My main purpose and goal with playing music and sound editing is to inspire others to find their true calling and spread love and joy through whatever they choose to do. I think that I am also proud of always believing in myself and serving my community through music while spreading joy and love in everything I do and doing everything with set intention.
Can you talk to us a bit about happiness and what makes you happy?
Besides being able to play and share the gift of music, I love being able to help and inspire others to find their true calling and always spread love and joy. Music for me is not only fun, but its my own personal therapy and my way of connecting to a higher power. Further, I find it to be my way of connecting to the world and spread universal healing. My philosophy in life and the question i pose is how am i able to achieve success in what i want to do while at the same time help others get to where they need to go? If you are able to achieve both, everyone wins, and at the end of the day, the victory is so much sweeter for all!
I also love to travel and find traveling to be one of the best forms of education. I’ve been blessed to have traveled to over 22 different countries and try to implement some form of societal construct from my travels into my personal life. Whether it be taking a Spanish siesta midday or taking sacred Hindu teaching/meditation practice from India i find implementing these ideals brings personal joy and allows me to channel a higher level of consciousness that then i can implement into music ultimately sharing with the world.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://armansedgwickbillimoria.us/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/armanbillimoria/?hl=en
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/arman-sedgwick-billimoria-86652b204
- Other: https://uninvited.com/home
