Check Out Brandon Smith’s Story

Today we’d like to introduce you to Brandon Smith.

Hi Brandon, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I started playing guitar when I was ten years old, mainly playing surf riffs as that was the music my dad played in the house. I quickly became more interested in machine based music, playing with drum machines, synths and digital recorders. The layering of organic and electronic musical instruments became my biggest fascination, and trying to find ways to make those two different worlds feel as though they were from the same. My influences were always within the darker musical styles, artists like The Cure, NIN, Depeche Mode, Failure, Smashing Pumpkins, Nirvana heavily shaped my musical influences. I began playing local shows anywhere that would let me, dive bars, battle of the bands contests, etc until I could build up enough leverage to get into the LA club scene.

Once I made it to LA, several labels started taking notice, which ultimately lead to me getting hired by the labels as a touring musician for their bigger pop acts. I used that experience to learn the business, meet producers, managers, agents, to bring back home to use in my own project. It took about ten years of grinding before I made my first big step forward, which was a tour throughout Europe, then landing the main theme song to a DC Comics video game which had a national TV campaign attached. More grinding, more dead ends, more small wins and big fails took me to a flat spot where I considered giving up. I took about two years off, then was approached by a new record label who specialized in my style of music. They asked me to do a remix, which led to a single album deal. That album became very successful in re-establishing The Anix and led to several more album deals, including an album specifically designed for movie and video game trailers. My streaming numbers began to double, then triple, until reaching around 2 million streams per month- all without touring. We used a new strategy based around consistency and technology, rather than old school ideals of grinding it out on the road (which often leads to burnout). I can honestly say, 20 years later, I am now at the peak, but only feels like the beginning.

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
I have experienced horrific ups and downs throughout this journey. Equipment being stolen in Europe, passports and laptops stolen, countless computer failures mid-performance, showing up to venues and being told we aren’t on the bill, managers who have stolen entire albums, horrific record deals making it impossible to make a single penny, and much more along these lines. Every low point gave a new chance to come back up though, and I think the resilience is what my biggest asset has been.

Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I essentially lead three lives simultaneously. I manage communication design and partnerships/collaborations for a company, I do my own graphic design and apparel consulting, and I do The Anix, which pretty much combines all of these worlds, plus the addition of producing my own music, creating remixes, producing other artists, creating music videos, album art, ad campaigns and merchandise. The thing that might be slightly different about what I do is my influences in darker music, and having been touring and doing music professionally for so long, gives me a totally different perspective when approaching corporate jobs. I am definitely the black sheep, but this has been a good thing in my opinion. I am also fully self-taught in all of the above, compared to 99% of the people I work with who are all school trained in their fields. Learning everything on my own has generated a much wider net of possibilities since the journey of learning naturally leads you to failing until you find a solution, but oftentimes within the failed route, you find something unique and interested that you would have not found had you taken the straight path to success.

Can you share something surprising about yourself?
I have a huge sneaker collection and have been a die-hard sneaker enthusiast since I was five years old. I wanted to be a shoe designer until I was about 16, which is when the drive to do music took over.

Contact Info:

• Email: brandonanix@gmail.com
• Website: theanix.com
• Instagram: @theanix
• Facebook: facebook.com/theanix
• Twitter: @theanix
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/theanix
• SoundCloud: soundcloud.com/theanix