Today we’d like to introduce you to Jason Becerra.
So, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
For as long as I can remember I’ve been a storyteller. I began writing songs in elementary school and by early high school found guitar to be my primary instrument. I played in various bands, some small some quite big, and as I got a little older I wanted to place more of my focus on recording. I purchased my first home, with my wife, in 2012 and one of the biggest selling features was a massive cathedral-like room that I immediately saw as the perfect studio environment.
A few years later I decided to self-publish and distribute my music rather than try to get “signed” as was the traditional model for so many years. In exploring my options, I decided I wanted a business name under which I could handle copyrights, publishing, etc. Thus, Cathedral Records was born…primarily as a passion/vanity project.
Soon after though I realized there was an opportunity to do more. As a life-long member of the Houston music community I have seen the best and the worst of what musicians, venues, managers, teachers, and promoters have to offer. As a young aspiring player, I often felt “left out” of the exclusive club. Club owners expected players to perform for free and in many cases to pay the club owner for the opportunity to perform.
Musicians and bands tended to compete rather than collaborate.
So, I set about the goal of trying to contribute to a better community. I want Cathedral Records to help give aspiring artists the tools they need to fulfill the measure of their ambitions. I want to foster a more enthusiastic, positive, and collaborative environment where all artists are sharing best practices, providing one another with support, where venues deal fairly with these artists. I want to help advocate and consult and provide networking opportunities.
This all takes various forms depending on the situation. Perhaps I help parents find a great teacher for their child, maybe I am that teacher.
Maybe there’s an artist who needs help finding a skilled engineer to work on their amplifier or instrument.
Bands may need help promoting an event or need help filling out the lineup for a given performance.
But primarily it’s through storytelling. I seek out musicians and artists and do profiles and bios and album reviews in hopes that by sharing their best and worst experiences that others will learn.
By sharing our individual and collective stories we can see what works, what doesn’t work, we can better understand that we are not alone. It’s a strange life we live as musicians, photographers, engineers…and I want to tell those stories.
I do offer publishing and distribution for those that would rather not deal with the tedious aspects getting their music out.
I also intend to offer a series of seminars at The Cathedral where I bring in artists and other community members to help tell their stories and offer guidance to aspiring musicians. I’d hoped to have already done a few but unfortunately Hurricane Harvey changed those plans, so these talks are right at the top of my list once things get back to something closer to normal in and around The Cathedral.
Some of the topics I intend to cover would be women in the community, making electronic music, amplifier and instrument care, maintenance, and basic care, selecting the right guitar for any stage in life or career, basic recording techniques, careers in music aside from the traditional notion of performing…redefining “success” and “making it” in a career in music.
Initially I thought Cathedral Records would be a “project studio” where aspiring songwriters could come and record demos but again, technology where it is today, there is less of a need for these basic recording facilities than ever before. A couple phone apps and a cable and you have almost unlimited recording capabilities. For more extensive and professional recording services, Houston has some of the best in the region.
As I was working towards an MBA at Southern New Hampshire University, I had a great deal of time to use Cathedral Records as part of my studies…exploring different business models, target audiences, etc. It gave me a great opportunity to really focus on what I was trying to do and who I was trying to do it for. Now, it’s just a matter of doing it….and maybe make a few bucks along the way. haha
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
Because I was starting this little project at the same time as I was in graduate school and as my wife and I became pregnant and while I’ve worked full time for a consulting firm, it’s unfortunately not been my primary focus.
Cathedral Records, like my own music, has sort of had to take a back seat…and I’ll never ever see that as a bad thing where my son is concerned. I’m the proudest, happiest, most humbled, silly-in-love, father you will ever meet. If I have five minutes and I need to decide whether to spend them on Cathedral Records or on my toddler, then the toddler wins every time.
That said, I do wish I was able to get out into the live music scene more often than I have the last few years. I do wish I had more time to distribute and publish finished versions of my songs. I graduated in May and the plan for 3 years had always been to spend the last few months of 2017 recording, publishing, and enjoying the live music scene. My son was turning 2, old enough that I didn’t feel too guilty about my staying out a few hours after our regular bed time. But, then Harvey arrived and really dashed those plans. Ours is one “those” stories…my parents’ home completely flooded. I had to find guys with boats to rescue them, our power was out for a week, sewer services out for 2 days…it was a nightmare. My parents are thankfully safe but living with my wife, son, and I and as such the Cathedral has sort of been packed away as we all figure out how best to share the house while they decide what they’re doing with their house and that obviously dictates a lot about what happens in mine.
Compound that with a bit of a hearing issue I’ve developed that involves tinnitus and migraines and it’s nearly impossible for me to make music much less get out to noisy crowded clubs to enjoy all the tremendous music being made.
SO – I spend a lot of my time doing everything I can in terms of promoting and sharing and storytelling. I also take every opportunity I can to work directly with kids because they really are my focus. As I said, I want to really help those young kids get into music, understand what is possible, what the hurdles and challenges are, the joy of songwriting, etc.
I recently had the honor of spending an evening with a Girl Scout troop here in Spring where I helped them earn their music badge. It was such an incredible experience. I love those types of opportunities.
As things normalize around my house and family, as this ear issue hopefully gets resolved, I do fully intend to get out there in person and do more networking and brand building and storytelling.
Please tell us about Cathedral Records.
As I’ve alluded to, Cathedral Records exists to cultivate a collaborative music community, to tell stories about the artists and the music they make, and to provide aspiring songwriters with the tools and guidance they need to fulfill the measure of their creative ambitions.
I specialize in storytelling and promotions. The thing I’m most proud of is that fact that, as much as I enjoy promoting and working with our community’s established artists like MIEARS or Jealous Creatures or guys like David Elbert, is that I like to gear everything towards those kids sitting in their bedrooms hitting rewind repeatedly trying to figure out how to play something. The kids listening to the Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds or the Beatles Rubber Soul or whatever for the first time and having their minds blown. Those kids who are just thinking about getting a guitar or a set of drums and wondering “what do I do? How do I do this? I don’t know what I’m supposed to do next, but I WANT to make music.”
Those kids, I was one of them, they need guidance from those of us who have been living this life for so long. By sharing our stories, we can let them know what it’s all like. Maybe their parents don’t know the first thing about music. Maybe their friends are all into other things. Maybe when they google music or whatever, they’re just overwhelmed by all of it.
I want those kids to have what I didn’t have…just a little guidance and encouragement. My dad raised me in music and I had a great deal of exposure but even with that, there are so many opportunities I didn’t understand or took for granted…and so many new opportunities that didn’t exist back then.
It’s not just about playing for “beer money”. Being a musician doesn’t even have to mean performing in public or trying to make money. It can. And if that’s what they want I want to guide them to the best ways to achieve that but maybe all they want to do is get some sort of feeling, something deep inside of themselves out into the world…even if they’re the only ones who hear it. Sometimes as songwriters we NEED to write even more than we WANT to write.
So that’s my focus and that’s what I’m most ambitious about, what I think sets me apart from a traditional record company or promotions company. I want to do more than just take a few bucks per album sale or take 10% of the gate for any concert I set up. It’s not about that for me. It’s about sharing our stories and helping the incoming generation of musicians.
One of the biggest things I try to keep very close at heart is that while all this incredible technology is awesome because we can share our music, record it at home, get ourselves out there via social media…we can use a mouse and keyboard to write piano concertos without even knowing how to play. That’s all fine and good but we must never lose sight of the fact that what makes something truly special and magical is our human spirits, which are not perfect. We don’t ever sing or play flawlessly. We don’t love without error. We don’t always sound pretty…certainly not when we cry and scream out from a place of pain or even of joy. Sometimes our heartiest laughs are snorty guffaws.
We cannot sacrifice that organic humanity in our endeavor to embrace all that technology has to offer.
So, my personal belief…my own “yin yang” is based around this in music terms: analog/mono and digital/stereo. The old and the new…technology and tradition. When you combine them, it’s magic?
If you had to go back in time and start over, would you have done anything differently?
I think I would have spent more time exploring the options around what type of company I was creating. I established Cathedral Records as an LLC. Again, I was just concerned with handling the business of my own songs.
As things progressed, as I thought about my life, my place as a musician in Houston, what I wanted for myself in that capacity, how I thought I could participate…it grew and evolved.
Perhaps I should have done, and may convert it still, to a non-profit.
I have a full-time career. I have an undergraduate degree from UH and a post graduate degree from SNHU. I’m in the process of trying to grow my professional career and improve my family’s life and all that stuff. I also manage jasonrbecerra.com which is a non-music business and personal blog focusing on trends in business communications, feature stories about small businesses, etc.
Given that, and the fact that as my philosophy relating to Cathedral Records has evolved and focused over the last 18 months or so, I really don’t see “profit” as a significant motivation. For me it’s about community, advocacy, artist rights, inspiration, and storytelling all focused on helping artists get what they want out of life.
Perhaps operating as a non-profit where I can host fundraisers for things like scholarships that kids could use to study music would give me the best opportunity and put in the best position to really achieve my goals.
Pricing:
- it all varies based on services request. If I provide lessons, I only do them for absolute beginners, primarily children for about 45-50 per hour, in their home with their parents supervision
- the only costs I would charge for doing things like publishing, copyrighting etc, would be the raw cost charged by the government or iTunes etc. Then we would negotiate whatever other compensation. I’ve very flexible and do not want to “own” anyone’s content.
- promoting or booking services also vary based on the venue and event type. Contact me so we can hash out details and define your needs and expectations and we’ll go from there.
- when the educational seminars begin I suspect they’ll be pot luck style with a small entrance fee to help cover the cost of bringing in the speaker but nothing outrageous…I can’t imagine charging anyone more than 10-20 dollars though I’m hoping all speakers will donate their time to avoid this fee. I think food is more than enough. 😉
Contact Info:
- Website: www.cathedralrecords.com
- Email: jbecerra@cathedralrecords.com
- Instagram: JasonRBecerra
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CathedralRecords/
- Twitter: JasonRBecerra
Image Credit:
all photos were taken by me or my wife, Leslie Becerra. If I’m in the photo then she took it…except the one with my son Oliver and I at the Astros game. That’s a “selfie” haha
Getting in touch: VoyageHouston is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.
