Life & Work with Gregory Tan of Los Angeles / OC

Today we’d like to introduce you to Gregory Tan.

Hi Gregory, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
I started my career as a product analyst in a music tech company from 2016-2018. When the in-house audio team learnt of my ability to create music, we started working more closely together! As the company started acquiring more music products, I was tasked with composing the music to the ads they were launching. That gave me my first real-world experience into creating music for multimedia. I had done some work for indie games in the past, but nothing as extensive as working with higher budget campaigns.

When the team was made to downsize, I was one of those let go. This all happened around the start of 2019. In desperation, I literally googled “how to make money with music”. I found a course and a directory of music publishers and libraries that I was told could land my music in trailers, TV and games, and I reached out to every one of them after putting together a crappy portfolio of poorly produced instrumentals.

One said yes, and the other 90 or so ignored me or rejected me. I continued refining my skills with this library and subsequently reached out to bigger ones. Eventually, I started writing music for the majors as well as for specialised publishers that focused on trailers. In 2021, I had my first “break” with my first sync placement in one of the trailers of Fast & Furious 9. This was followed by another in Sing 2, a Lionsgate animation, and more.

Today, I’m fortunate to have had my music and sound design used in the trailers of Star Wars Andor Season 1, World of Warcraft, Diablo IV, Kungfu Panda 4, The Wild Robot and many more, as well as in loads of TV shows across the globe. In between I also started working with songwriters and arrangers to pitch music to artists and labels. All of this has enabled me to get a freelance artist visa to Japan, where I currently reside! Though I’m not in the US at the moment, a good portion of my work and collaborations still comes from LA!

I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
Not at all!

Being born and raised in a typical Asian household, the stereotypes of how Asian parents want their kids to either go to Law or Medical school certainly hold true! So there was a lot of doubt when I first started doing what I do, but thankfully my dad who is an entrepreneur sort of understood my game plan and where I was coming from. Today, he’s entirely supportive of my journey, but it wasn’t always the case.

I think I also struggled with a lot of self doubt and had to learn to deal with rejection in a healthy way. Having read up about the stories of some of my favourite musicians, I realised that everyone, no matter how amazing they are, always ends up getting rejected a ton first.

It still happens, honestly.

And of course, there’s always the struggle with finances. Before any of my royalties accumulated or sync money rolled in, I basically took on whatever audio/music-related jobs that paid me quick. I don’t miss those days, especially with the nature of some of the clients, but I learnt a lot about professionalism and overdelivering from those experiences.

Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I think I’d best describe myself as a composer and music producer that has some knowledge about the music business.

In terms of music, I specialize in crafting high quality tracks not just for sync licensing, but also for artists. There’s always a cinematic touch to everything I create, and that has inherently become part of my style, I suppose.

As a Singaporean Chinese that grew up in an East-Meets-West culture, I’ve also learnt to infuse ethnic Asian instrumentation seamlessly into some of my work whenever the situation calls for it.

With regards to music business knowledge, I didn’t have anyone to guide me and mentor me, while there’s a lot of (mis)information floating around online, so I made sure to do my own research and compare it with some of my past contracts, for example. I also learnt about the power of branding, and how to be on the same platforms as that of my potential clients such as Linkedin and whatnot, and to write posts that might grab their attention before building a relationship out of an online exchange.

I think I’m most proud of having music used in some of the campaigns and shows I grew up watching. It feels surreal. Warcraft and Diablo for example, are games I still enjoy till this date. It’s a little crazy to know that I’ve contributed sonically to some of their trailers.

I’m also eternally grateful to the music publishers that took a chance on my work. Without them, I seriously doubt that my music would have landed into the right hands or even gone anywhere for that matter.

Is there something surprising that you feel even people who know you might not know about?
I would love to get more involved with song pitching and writing with artists!

The sync stuff is great and will always be an anchor of mine in some sense, but I’d be really happy if I could find a songwriter community that actively pitches stuff to artists and labels. In a way, I’d just love to be in more creative circles outside of the sync universe.

I also do believe that someday soon perhaps, I’d go into the business end of the industry, not necessarily as a full-time corporate staff that works for a label for instance, but rather someone that could perhaps serve more as a consultant of sorts.

I’m not sure if it helps, but I also love coffee. It’s not something mind-blowing per se, but it’s something that the people that I’ve worked with may not be aware of haha.

Contact Info:

• Website: http://gregtanmusic.net/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gregtanmusic/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/gregorytanweizhe/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gregtanmusic/