Check Out Michael Mastronardi’s Story

Today we’d like to introduce you to Michael Mastronardi.

Michael, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
I always knew I liked to create. My family would film cute little movies on a video camera and screen our masterpieces at family get-togethers. The movies were met with thunderous standing ovations that would give Cannes a run for its money (slight exaggeration). We were poor when I was young, but my dad worked his way up the corporate ladder as a film salesman at Kodak to the lower ebb of the upper middle class.

My mother went from picking up odd jobs to owning and operating an interior painting business. In retrospect, I was positioned to get a taste of the entertainment industry, the demise of film as a medium, and business being created from the ground up. This dichotomy taught me two values; the ability to overcome failure is a key to success, and nothing is too big to fail. I began my journey when I was 12, buying an audio recorder and learning songwriting with the internet as my mentor. I poured my heart into that but always felt like music was a hobby. I went to Temple University for film and utilized the equipment/insurance to start a music video business.

My first clients were a few drug dealers on the streets of north Philly, most of them would flaunt hundreds of dollars and point loaded guns at my camera while filming, but when it came to paying, that was almost always an issue. I slowly built my clientele to a more professional roster until I was creating all sorts of content. I bought a laptop and camera, built a reel, shot a narrative short (on 35mm film) that won the Temple award for best Senior Project, graduated, and hightailed it off to Huston to shoot a documentary about the educational Achievement Gap. I spent a few months there until funding ran out, and put together a short video for a Teach for America contest that would also eventually win. I felt unstoppable, then someone broke into my house and stole all of my equipment for my business.

I was devastated, but it was a blessing in disguise. It forced me to re-evaluate my life and helped me understand that I was devoting myself to others’ creativity but completely ignoring my path. Eventually, I ended up shooting a doc about a guy who sells merchandise at music festivals (Jelloman) and followed him around the US. The first place we shot was in LA and I immediately fell in love. I left my east coast clients a year later and moved here in 2015 to pursue a life in film and music. I had no money and no prospects. It was an incredibly dumb thing to do. I was living on a friend’s couch attempting to finish the doc, but also living with a crippling fear of rejection. I decided to pivot, rediscovered music and began creating songs again, filming my music videos and posting them on social media.

I established a pretty modest following, but never had a massively viral video, until… one day, my girlfriend and I were driving down the street and noticed a cherry picker truck that had been struck by another truck while a man was up in the box, his life was supported by only a few pieces of twisted metal that now hung off the side of the box (okay he was only like 12 feet off the ground, but it was still a site to see). We quipped back and forth about it in the car as I filmed the action and I posted it on Tok thinking nothing of it, no hashtags, no locations, no trending audio. The next day the video had 100k views, and when all was said and done the video had over 600k views. I was dumbstruck, I had been creating videos of my music and other skits for years at this point, dedicating every ounce and hour of energy to my craft, and within 30 seconds my entire social media ideology was thrown on its head. I immediately began questioning myself, “If I could get this many hits from a video that had nothing to do with my art, does this mean my art sucks? Why haven’t I gotten this much attention before? What am I doing wrong? Am I not a good creator?” I lost all sense of validation and quit social media cold turkey for over a year, but then it hit me…that was the first video I had ever posted where I was truly myself.

I didn’t even expect to post it as I was filming it, maybe the problem isn’t my art, but the truth that I’m putting into my art. Am I doing it for the wrong reasons? Am I wearing a mask when posting on social media only to cover the face that everyone wants to see? Eventually, I came to terms with the fact that I never wanted notoriety in the first place. Celebrity was never the goal, the goal was always to create as much content as possible. There’s something magical about using your time to create something that didn’t exist when you woke up and will live on long after you die.

On Jan 1st, 2023, I began posting a song a day. The goal is to create on most days, and when I simply can’t get anything out of my head, force myself to release old content that otherwise would never see the light of day. I’m now focused on the creation process and being true to myself regardless of who’s watching. I’m at day 102 of posting a song every day in 2023 and have also started throwing a few comedy skits into the mix. I plan to continue for as long as it inspires me. We often confuse value with validation. Art isn’t about validation, it’s about overcoming challenges. There are only two types of people, you’re either an artist or the audience, we’re all creative, the only difference between the two is the artist creates.

We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
I’ve always had trouble as a creator trying to balance the ego and the art. I’ve never wanted to be famous but I’ve always wanted to entertain. I think every day as a creator is a challenge. Am I doing the wrong thing? Should I be focusing on something else? Should I listen to my audience, what’s popular, or my own personal beliefs? Those nagging questions are at the heart of every creator. I don’t think anything should operate smoothly, and if it does, you will never appreciate the journey. Life is about pivoting, plans are meant to be broken. The biggest lesson I’ve taken away from my creative journey is that you are only as successful as you want yourself to be. Fame and fortune are two completely separate things, you don’t have to be famous to be successful.

Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
What sets me apart from other creators is my humility. I think humor is deeply rooted in pessimism and self-doubt, there’s not enough of that in the music industry. I love the ability to sing a song with the pretense of “hey, I’m not a trained singer or musician, but here’s something you may like”. Art is not trained, they say great artists steal, I say great artists combine. Every great invention is a combination of two things, the same can be said about art. I make skits and music that I feel like is inherently me, a combination of two things that are in my life that don’t exist in the world already. That’s what I’m trying to do. We’re all more inspired by The Beatles later albums, you know the weird ones? The legend of Bob Dylan isn’t complete without his transition into electric guitar. David Bowie was making music that no one had ever heard, that’s what I want. I want to buff convention. No one wants to be a cliche, the only way to prevent that is to never succumb to social pressures and only create what hasn’t been created before. If the world doesn’t appreciate it, maybe you’re onto something.

What sort of changes are you expecting over the next 5-10 years?
I had a front-row seat during the last apocalypse of the entertainment industry. My father was a film salesman at Kodak since the mid ’90s. When things were good, they were really good. He would get perks that would make you feel like royalty. My brother once threw out the first pitch at an Atlanta Braves game because they were the sponsors. We once went to the premiere of A Night at the Museum, a star-studded event where we were encouraged to camp the night in the museum, I was a pig in shit, my dad was unphased by the celebrities until he saw Baba Booey from the Howard Stern show and completely LOST his shit. Shortly after that night, the tides of the industry started to shift. Around the early to mid-2000s, the digital world was beginning to overtake the analog world. This happened not only in the film industry but music, doctor’s offices, and right in your own pocket. Pretty soon, film and mag tape became a novelty. I think this is where we are headed. With the normalization of AI, it’s only natural to let computers take over more of the process, I believe human creation will be stifled as computers become better at carrying the load. I’m actually working on a script right now that deals with these themes. The human touch is something that can be learned, but the creativity of the human spirit will always be the most elusive force on the planet.

Pricing:

• Starter $5 (Social Shout-out!)
• Intermediate $20 (Social Shout-out & Monthly Exclusive Content)
• Executive $40 (Social Shout-out, Monthly Exclusive Content & Unlimited Digital Downloads)

If you’d like to support Mastro, you can sign up for a membership program on his website.

Contact Info:

• Website: Mastrotunes.com
• Instagram: Instagram.com/mastrotunes
• Youtube: https://youtube.com/@MastroTunes

Image Credits
Chris Swales Nicole Mastronardi Jordan Johnson