Today we’d like to introduce you to Michael Bridgett.
Hi Michael, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
For me, life started at age 14 when I wrote my first song in a Subway sandwich shop. It was this odd talent I suddenly had. My mother liked the song so much that she would ask me to sing it when family came over. I never wanted to, but forced myself to do it for her anyway. I was too embarrassed as a youth to take something like that seriously.
Afterward, I became the kid who was walking around with scraps of paper I’d write on. I downloaded lyrics from the internet and took them to school. I practiced rapping and singing in my room when I was by myself. I always had a very musical family. While they never took it seriously, my parents were writing songs together in the early 80s. My father was a terrible singer, but my mother was great. I learned a lot about songwriting from them. I don’t think they know that they taught me that. Sometimes, I’ll put together their old songs to music for them to listen to.
It was in college where the music bug gobbled up my fingers. Unfortunately, I never learned to play the guitar. I went to the University of Texas at Austin to be a doctor, but music hit me too hard. It started small. I would look for new players and sometimes find a couple I haven’t seen since. I hooked up with a kid called Johnny Casanova as we connected over a shared appreciation for producer Timbaland. I met my friends Rob Harla and Brian Villalobos, who asked me to sing in a band with them for a college coffee shop project. We only played two of the four songs we learned, but after that, it was band after band after band.
Lost in South Austin, to Rival City, to Benny Versus The Beast, and all the way to Cambodia to create Hypnotic Fist Technique and The 99 Boyz, who “only play music that came out before 1999… unless we don’t.” Being in a band is the best. You meet cool people, take insane risks, and work at perfecting your performance style. It wasn’t a job so much as a calling. I tried to deny it with every office job I took on. The office always lost. I needed to go solo with the name Mike Dynamo to make a musical dent in this industry.
Unlike what my parents wanted, I never became a doctor. I didn’t bother with legal work or engineering either. It was always about the band. It was always about writing new lyrics to insane grooves. Even when I didn’t want to work on music, I worked on music. The song needed to be plucked from the ether, and my fingers were the perfect ones to do it. I just keep doing that over and over again. Nothing feels as correct as making music and being a vocalist.
Even at my big age, where I’ve become “Unc” to current musicians, I am still doing it. I write songs, essays, and touch up screenplays. Currently, I’m finding a path in the Sync Industry. Sync is when your music becomes featured in anything from local advertisements to international movies. When it came to going into business for myself, that is how I chose to do it. Do writing projects, voice acting, create monthly song releases on my website, and take on acting jobs I get offered. That’s how I ended up in the play Hair with Brian Villalobos. I got to walk through a crowd scaring white people with 60s racism. There was nothing more fun than that!
This is who I am, and this is what I want to do.
So I do 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?
Smooth? I wouldn’t even call a showbiz nepobaby’s like “smooth.” It’s hard to “make it” a lot of the time. Still, I look at the rocks in the road the same way I do with karaoke when people say they can’t sing. They don’t need to sound like Mariah or Whitney; they can sound like Cake’s lead singer, John McCrea, Bob Dylan, or Kanye West. Singing is only hard when you pick the wrong person to sound like.
So there have definitely been struggles. There has been band money missing, a lack of show promotion, and confusion about the point of a project. There have been issues with skill levels, which leads to hatred between bandmates.
There have also been money problems. How can you pay your car note when you clearly need a microphone to record with? For many musicians, holding down a job is a problem unto itself. Carving out time to practice and play is hard enough. What if you add children to that mix? What if one of your bandmates does and makes it impossible to practice or play together?
What if your friend and co-emcee cuts you off for missing his birthday, which is the day before Christmas? Sounds absurd, but it’s happened.
What if your best producer friend dies from cancer?
These are most of the musical things I’ve dealt with over the years. Many of these problems would have been fixed had I gone the doctor route. Of course, I would have had the creativity sucked from my bones had I tried to do both.
Even when it’s hard, I try to tell myself to be more like Luffy from the anime One Piece and remember that freedom is the true goal. Take it now, take it later, or die having never taken freedom at all.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I am a funk singer and rapper who operates under the name Mike Dynamo. After dazzling people all over the world with my epic performance skills, brain cancer forced me to take a break from that life and look at things differently. Currently, I spend time writing essays and promoting music through my Substack. I’m also getting more involved with the sync industry, having signed a contract with an Italian company along with partner Harold “CIC Man” Condorelli. CIC and I are also working to build our own label called Keep It Shiny Records.
I’m most proud of what I write about in certain posts. I named it after a Tupac Shakur lyric, “The Realest $hit I Ever Wrote.” Thinking back about the most raw and incredible things I’ve churned from my mind over the last 25 years. There are lines and songs that speak to me, and hopefully to the people who heard them or listen to them now.
What separates me from everyone else is simple. Consistent effort! I love what I’m doing now with a writing focus on songs and essays. I look forward to being able to take it back to performing live again, but creating sync music with someone who gets it is amazing, too. That’s one of the best ways to make money in this cutthroat business; either that, or winning Eurovision.
Can you share something surprising about yourself?
I’m a pretty open guy artistically, but one thing I always thought was interesting is that my mother’s father was a real-life Mississippi blues man. He was born in 1900, so that was when being a bluesman really meant something.
He was in a band with his brother called Buddy and Bish. After a show, Bish got too friendly with another man’s woman and had his life taken by a blade that man carried. After that, my grandfather gave that blues life. He only played instruments in church, and would take up any gambling toys like dice or cards if his kids brought them into the house.
He passed away years before I was born, but I like to think my path is similar to parts of his. Not a chance I’m having 13 children though. (My mother is #11)
Pricing:
- $5.00: Rockstar (January Music Release) https://substack.com/@mikedynamo
- $30.50: Mike Dynamo Music Collection https://substack.com/@mikedynamo
- $5.00+ https://substack.com/@mikedynamo
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.mikedynamo.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mikedynamo
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DynamoVerse/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-bridgett-jr-b203061a0/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@MikeDynamoVerse
- Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/mikedynamo
- Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/mikedynamo.bsky.social
Image Credits
Steve Porte
Clelia Borget
Ingrid Uvarov
