Today we’d like to introduce you to Kyle Brian.
Kyle, we’d love to hear your story and how you got to where you are today both personally and as an artist.
My story is completely intertwined with music as I was born into a musical family. My dad is a professional country/southern rock guitarist and bassist in Virginia. I was thrown right into it right away – the legend has it that my parents went to a Van Halen concert while my mom was pregnant and I was kicking in time and began banging rhythms on tables as early as a couple of months old. I was supposed to be a guitarist like my dad, and while I did eventually pick up the guitar around the age of 10, when they saw my natural inclination to a rhythm – they decided the drums was more fitting.
While music was definitely something I was very into, I was torn between sports and music until around 11 or 12 when I got an MP3 player with the Toxicity album by System of a Down on it. At that point, I downloaded every other SOAD album and would come home from school and try to play all five albums in a row every day as well as learning all their songs on guitar. It was about this time I began starting and joining bands as well as recording all of them. It didn’t take me long to begin recording videos of me playing along to songs and posting them on YouTube as well. I was in this band based out of Virginia that had an opportunity through the family to move to Los Angeles, and I jumped on that as soon as possible,
It took about two years from deciding to move to Los Angeles to actually getting to do that. In that time, I met and married my wife at 20 and had a major surgery as well. While my goal when moving to Los Angeles was to pursue music with the band I moved out with, I knew my ultimate goal was to become a professional musician in Los Angeles regardless. I started joining a bunch of bands and making connections and decided that I was going to make my entire living off of music. After almost three years in Los Angeles, I can finally say that almost all of my income comes from session work, live gigs, and production work. I have three albums to record right now with many more on the list and much more growth to come.
We’d love to hear more about your art. What do you do and why and what do you hope others will take away from your work?
Music didn’t begin as an outlet for me – it was all I knew. It has definitely shifted into an outlet for me to put my emotions and feelings now, but I have always been more of a studious technique oriented person.
When almost all musicians start to create their own art, you try to replicate the work of others that you admire – but the more you create and find your own voice – the more important it is to be original.
Putting my own emotions, thoughts, and feelings into my art has helped create that voice. Sometimes it manifests itself through pop lyrics when I’m writing with my friends in Darling, other times it is the time I spend over analyzing every single snare hit when I record other bands, and other times it is when I record a cover on YouTube of a nostalgic song to me. My ultimate goal as a performer and artist, though, is to entertain. I want to bring light to other people’s day.
Artists face many challenges, but what do you feel is the most pressing among them?
In the music industry, the biggest challenge is learning how to make a living off of a system where there is almost no money going in. While the convenience of streaming has lead to a certain increase in the availability of music – it has driven physical media sales almost completely out of the picture… and while there are some streaming revenues, the amount of money artists make has to come from increasingly creative ways.
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?
My primary presence is certainly online in various places such as YouTube (www.youtube.com/KyleAbbottMusic), or my website KyleBrian.com, and I have an album that I wrote, performed, and mixed myself at kyleabbott.bandcamp.com
I play out live in Los Angeles as well fairly often, though I am not that great at advertising when and where.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.KyleBrian.com
- Phone: 757-876-8504
- Email: [email protected]
- Instagram: instagram.com/kylebrianabbott
- Facebook: facebook.com/kylebrianabbott
- Twitter: twitter.com/kylebrianabbott
- Other: www.kyleabbott.bandcamp.com
Image Credit:
Mason Murawski (Above drone shot, and personal photo)
Getting in touch: VoyageLA 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.
