Meet Janet Mona

Today we’d like to introduce you to Janet Mona.

Hi Janet, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself. 
I’m Janet Mona, I’m an Iranian-American singer/songwriter and a lifelong student of dance. I was born and raised in Las Vegas but graduated high school a year early and moved to California at 16 years old. I went to college and graduated from CSUN with an accounting degree, but my true career goal was always entertainment: to sing and write. I always joke about the Disney movie Coco being parallel to me in the sense that music and dance were looked down upon in my childhood home. My escape was choir at school: it gave me a musical outlet and my mom an extra hour and twenty minutes to not have to come pick me up. I grew close to my teachers, who encouraged me where blood family did not, and when I was around 7, my music teacher gave me my first solo. I remember being so excited but so terrified! The feeling I had from the audience in that tiny school auditorium that first time was enough to get me hooked forever. I loved being able to learn to read sheet music, explore instruments like piano and guitar, and feel my feelings head on with other peoples’ lyrics. I wanted to grow up to do that, too. 

In 2010, when I graduated high school, before I moved to California, I set up my accounts, and began my journey to making music for a lifetime, my own original songs with my stories. I joined an acapella group at UCSB the first year I attended college, moved to LA my second year, and started attending Millennium Dance Complex, spent years uploading covers to YouTube, singles I didn’t have proper rights to that were not-for-profit only, until I graduated college and was ready to dedicate my time 100% to it. Now I’ve got my music commercially distributed, likely everywhere possible (with more on the way!!), and I’m just so excited to keep going and releasing my writing to the world. I love to sing, and I want to write music that other people can feel their feelings to, how music was therapy for me all those years growing up. I also really pride myself in the fact that the entire process is done in my home studio: I find the beat, I write the song, I record it all myself, I mix and master the record, and then I have an at-home photo studio and distribute independently on my own. It’s daunting, but it’s the most rewarding thing in the UNIVERSE for me to create a song from start to finish and know how much hard work was put into it because I FELT the struggle. 

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 unfortunately had a rocky childhood and had to grow up pretty fast, so I had to emancipate myself at 16 to move to California. It wasn’t your typical “teen runaway” story (although my Persian parents LOVE to push that narrative), I was taking AP classes, getting straight A’s, but they were growing increasingly frustrated that I was becoming an adult, and capable of making my own decisions. I started working around the age of 14 to start saving for my escape, and by the time I was out, the new struggle was financially surviving in California. At first, I had a lot of federal student loan help due to me being 16 and (after a lengthy process) emancipated. I then moved to LA and had to drop out of college for a semester to save money and figure out housing/employment. I worked as a tutor and full-time nanny, enrolled at SMC, and decided continuing college was the best way to keep me afloat. I used to call myself a nomad; I would float between some friends’ couches, lean on a lot of new people I didn’t even know for that long, find families willing to give a kid a chance, and rent a room out to me when I had no credit. I cried tears of joy when I FINALLY got an apartment! 

But all of those struggles were so worth going through, and if I had one takeaway from it ALL, it’s to persist. Build your thick skin and be resilient. On TOP of my financial and housing struggles, I was balancing a college degree I wasn’t so keen on and trying to make it in the industry. After calling and sending my music to everyone I could, I worked with a few A&R reps and had a meeting with a big major label after a year and a half of development, only for them to drop the ball on me. That night, I was crying but saw a YouTube video of Tinashe showing her home studio and how she used a MIDI to make beats. I saw a music video she had filmed with friends off Pico/Union and realized she was making the most with what she had, and I could, too. I picked myself up the next day and bought a MIDI keyboard used. I spent years growing to be where I am now. I’ve performed in Vegas, West Hollywood… I get to do interviews! I feel like, slowly but surely, I am finding my place, and people are finally *seeing* me. And all because I persisted. The people who quit will NEVER make it, so make space in the industry for yourself. If you don’t feel like you fit or belong in a room with certain people? Those are NOT your people. 

Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
People have told me I’m a very DIY musician, and that’s very true. As a pop singer, I don’t see many big names being the SOLE songwriters for their hits or even touching the mixing and mastering of the tracks. When I do, I really listen to their advice and study their careers. I do the entire process myself and the producers I end up working with for the instrumentals I meet over the Internet. Collabs, I have done have been through the internet, too. I’m known for being a one-woman show. I take my live shows seriously, I warm up, and I make sure to give my all. I want everyone who listens to the music to know that it’s an EXPERIENCE together, and the point for ME is not so much “all eyes on me” but more so for someone to resonate. Whenever someone says “I really love this song because”…it makes me feel like I did my job, I made my mark. I try to release a song every month, and when I’m on top of things, every two weeks! I’ve released an EP and an album, but I love experimenting and writing for different pop-adjacent genres too. 

Being so DIY has led to a lot of frustrating days…I once could NOT figure out why ProTools was constantly crashing, and their support wasn’t getting back to me, so I reinstalled my entire operating system in the recording studio (I backed everything up of course), and in between HEAVY SOBS reinstalled everything… TA DA it worked! But that entire process was about 13 hours. I wouldn’t trade it all for the world, though. My lifelong goal is to do this forever until I’m old and gray, so I can show people out there that you don’t need to be an “industry plant” or a nepo-baby to gain success. Success is how you define it, anyway! As long as you are safe, healthy, with shelter, pursue the things that make you happy. Pursue the goals that light your soul on fire. 

We’d love to hear about any fond memories you have from when you were growing up.
It would have to be when I was 7, and my music teacher decided we would all be doing the Sound of Music. I hadn’t been exposed to it at all prior, so learning the music was so much fun! It came time to audition for “Edelweiss,” and he made EVERYONE try out. I was a very shy kid and had never tried out for a solo. I felt very much like I didn’t belong anywhere (my home included), but I respected authority like none other. He would walk around, facing sideways, so his ear was up to each kid, and close his eyes as we all sang it over and over again. If he thought you didn’t fit, he tapped your shoulder to sit down. I kept singing, and I remember thinking, “Why hasn’t he tapped my shoulder?” so I peeped open my right eyelid to see there was only me and one other girl left standing. And suddenly, he makes her sit. I got the solo. My FIRST solo. The kids all glared at me (I was bullied relentlessly, mostly for being Middle Eastern in this post-9/11 world), but it didn’t matter this time because an adult who specialized in music just VALIDATED my vocals. The RUSH of blood that surged through my body was one I will NEVER forget. My family hated attending those recitals, but the feeling of the applause and other parents and the way my teacher grinned when I hit the high notes with my baby soprano voice…I felt invincible. Unstoppable. Like my purpose was just presented to me from the universe. It taught me what happiness was, it encouraged me to find any way to practice music I could. 

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.janetmona.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/janetmona/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/janetmona
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/janetmona
• SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/janetmona
• Other: https://open.spotify.com/artist/3jUFueTKWU0b4PfG75zULh?si=48johEocQUeUp6D27oaWQQ

Image Credits
Janet Mona