Today we’d like to introduce you to Holden Brown.
Holden, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
I’ve always been musically inclined as well as entrepreneurially minded. Growing up, I took piano lessons, picked up the guitar at the age of 12, and took both choir and music theory in high school. Going to school (2014-2019) in the smaller but growing market that Fort Worth provided Texas Christian University created a lot of opportunities for me to experiment with my interests and get early experience within the nightlife, events, and media industries.
While the ability to maintain a rock band like the one I began in high school was. less practical, I quickly developed an interest in DJing through peers I looked up to at the time. If you DJed at a popular bar or college party, it instantly put you in front of hundreds of people with the responsibility of driving the energy of the night. I attacked every opportunity I had to be involved whether it was through photo/videography for businesses and events to network and save raise money for equipment, finding gigs through my growing resume of performance experience, or helping out the people putting on events.
By my junior year of college, I was the one putting on both club and college events which led me to work with the biggest venues in town and world-class touring artists. In some cases, I’d organize the event (everything from the budget, to transportation, staffing, venue to booking talent through agencies), promote it on social media, open as a DJ for the headliner, and shoot the recap video for marketing. This attracted a lot of attention- both good and bad.
I was approached by a lot of people. Club owners, promoters, peers looking to get involved in the things I was doing. A lot of them just saw an opportunity to use my passion to their benefit (there are people like this in all walks of life), but many of the relationships I built during this time have panned into some of the best friendships and most unlikely partnerships I have to this day. I attribute a lot of my success in being able to do what I love to the support and synergy provided through cultivating those relationships, and it gives me the confidence I need to keep working toward my dream every day.
In 2017, toward the end of my time at school, I began my own events company with my current business partner at Fancy Pants Presents, Brian Cook (aka Cookie Doe). He’s another talented Texas producer and DJ- and he had already run a successful events company during his time at Stephen F. Austin University in Nacogdoches where he completed his master’s in business. After opening for me at one of my residencies, he initiated the friendship by hiring my media company (Apalla Media LLC) to come to shoot content for his team at one of their club nights.
He also asked me to DJ. Today he is among my closest friends, and 4 years later, the Fancy Pants team has expanded internationally. Between club sets, college events (now booked by my agent at Eclectic Artists Agency), and Fancy Pants shows, the two of us stay busy working nearly every weekend of the year. Today, my focus has shifted toward the production side of music and pushing the “Kydro” project over monetizing events.
Fancy Pants is a project started by two up-and-coming musicians that seek to provide a platform for underexposed artists and to educate audiences in underexposed styles of music (specifically within the electronic space). A platform by artists- for artists.
I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle-free, but so far would you say the journey has been a fairly smooth road?
Nothing worth having ever comes easy. A lot of people in this industry feel that they need a certain degree of money, fame, or scale to consider themselves successful. My definition is a bit more simple. What is success if not having the freedom to pursue your passions every day and live the way you like? There are levels to that like anything else, but each comes with its own price tag.
One of the biggest struggles I’ve dealt with is figuring out which things are important to my success and which aren’t. Easier said than done, particularly in an industry where there are few defined pipelines and you’re often on your own in figuring out how things are done. This applies to the music and events industries as a whole, but especially when you’re an independent entrepreneur- be it an artist, promoter, manager, content creator, or otherwise.
One of the hardest decisions I had to make was to leave my last college residency. The hourly demand was relatively low on paper; Thursday through Saturday. 9 PM-2 AM (in theory). However, the cost of stress and work outside of the onsite hours was huge, and those weekend hours are invaluable. I was getting paid $1000 a week as a college student (part-time) just to DJ and promote at a local club while taking a full course load and trying to build both my artist brand and my media business. Imagine a college student walking away from $52K a year for 15 hours of work a week.
But I realized two very important things. Firstly, the money wasn’t the most important thing to me at the time; my school was paid for, and until I graduated most of my expenses were covered, so everything I made monetarily was put into savings or reinvested. Graduating had to be the priority. Secondly, if I stayed at this residency, my options for growing as an artist were severely limited. I had capped out in my small market as a DJ, and being stuck at a residency meant I had no availability to travel outside of my market to network or play larger shows.
I left my residency at the end of that year and faced a daunting blank calendar at the beginning of the spring. With no dates booked at the start of January, the future of my career as a DJ looked very uncertain. After a few weeks, however, I found myself without a single free weekend. I was getting booked to travel out of town and play shows in other cities and states. It was the direct result of my shift in focus toward my music and artist brand paired with my network and availability.
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?
My background in music has strongly influenced my strengths today. Growing up, I used to exclusively listen to hard rock or metal. If it didn’t have a killer guitar solo, I thought the band sucked. The first concert I ever went to was The Fray. I was dragged there by my family and spent the whole. show listening to Metallica on my iPod. The second was. Crue Fest in 2008: Motley Crue, Buckcherry, Papa Roach, Trapt, and Sixx: AM.
It was super closed-minded thinking that was a symptom of my angsty preteen depression. Today, I listen to just about everything. As a bass producer, I typically imagine that people think I must listen to only the heaviest trap and electronic music all the time, but I could be listening to Jazz, Reggae, Hip-Hop, Metal, or everything in between. According to my 2020 Spotify Wrapped, my top genres were LoFi instrumental beats and “chill” drum & bass.
Having such a diverse taste in music paired with a history of instrument practice led me to a fluent ear for the melodic aspects of music. When I played guitar in a band, I was bad. with chords and rhythm. I was more of a lead player: Give me a key and I can improvise freely over it. While noodling on a guitar and songwriting are drastically different things, my ear for melody and approach to my instrument has a profound impact on the way I write and perform music today.
While my live performance is composed mostly of a DJ set, I will often integrate live guitar into the performance. Sometimes, I play along to the song, and sometimes I improvise in the key over high-energy sections and breaks. It’s a learning experience that I’m constantly trying to improve on. There aren’t more than a handful of DJs who feature live instruments in their sets, let alone play themselves while DJing and commanding a crowd. It helps to have a couple of role models like Zhu, Dabin, Sullivan King, Illenium, or Odesza to provide examples of the epic heights the combination of electronic and analog sounds can reach. It’s something I want to integrate both into my live set and my original music.
As a DJ, I’m generally known for a high-energy set with a lot of basses. I play a lot of Trap. and Future Bass, but I’m a huge house head and will usually sneak. some in. Catch me on the right night and you may see an all-house music set. My background as an open-format DJ has set me apart in my ability to play to any occasion, mixing in any niche of electronic music with the hits that everyone knows the words to.
Can you talk to us about how you think about risk?
I’d definitely place myself on the risk-taking end of the spectrum. To even stand a chance in this industry you have to be. I remember something the founders of Space Yacht said in an interview that really stuck with me. When asked if they had any advice for people looking to make money in the live-events space, they simply said, “Don’t.” There are countless easier, safer ways to make good money. Live Events are high risk (especially in a Covid-era world), and most businesses in creative spaces require a lot of upfront investment and sweat equity before seeing any kind of return.
I do what I do because I followed my passions and worked every single day to find a way closer to my goals. I weigh the opportunity cost of every decision I make in terms of whether it will bring me closer to my goals or not. There are no guarantees, but if you’re in it for the right reasons, you’ll have a much better chance of being successful in this game. Getting in it for the wrong reasons is a surefire way to burn out because you’d have to be insane to pursue it if you don’t love it. You have to need to do it.
That being said, I think of myself as a calculated risk-taker. I never jump into anything blind. I like to know as much as I can before making any important decision. The risk is only worthwhile if the potential reward outweighs the downside.
A good example of a risk I took was when I left my residency. I gave up guaranteed income on the financial stability that it offered and the comfort of having the legitimacy of a residency. I didn’t know exactly how I was going to move on from that point and had no guarantees that it would work out, but I trusted my gut and in the process. You need to go with what feels right, especially if it’s a risky decision.
Discomfort or unhappiness is usually a good indicator that it’s time for a change. It always feels safer and more comfortable to stay in the same place, but it’s easy to become complacent and stop growing.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.kydromusic.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kydro/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/KyDroPonics
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/Kydroponics
- SoundCloud: https://twitter.com/Kydroponics
- Other: https://open.spotify.com/artist/2xzHYyCMgX5fHZm9fygSiL?si=jbRAaFb-Q7ymxf6oUM2BZA
Image Credits
Steve Souza, Mario Garza, Alexis Sturm, Dayton Scott, and Joey Clark
