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Meet Steven Alvarez of Spiffy Man in Temecula

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Today we’d like to introduce you to Steven Alvarez.

Steven, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
I got my start as an official music producer in 2010, self-releasing a single at the start of my senior year in high school as Sp33fy M@n. After graduation in the summer of 2011, I established an independent label by the name of Bl@ck Tie Records and released my first full-length album, ‘Headlights,’ a purely Progressive House sound permeating the entire work. I wanted to get my music heard by as many people as possible and did everything I could to send it out. The streaming service, Pandora, only excepted physical CD demos at the time and I sent in one of the few physical copies I ever made of my album. They loved it and added it to their Music Genome Project. That album still remains as my most popular piece of work to date.

Throughout college, I continued to hone my craft, learning music production from free YouTube tutorials but also from friends I made while at school who all wanted to make something unique. I did this while still studying to obtain my Bachelor’s in History, so my time was heavily split between studying, producing, and socializing. I guess you could say I never had time for a break!

I produced four album’s between 2012-2014, two of which are now long lost to the internet. But the latter two reflected my attempts at genres other than Progressive House and thus, I underwent a slight name change to Spiffy Man. They were small hits, my big break coming with my fifth album, Parallels, the third official album under my new moniker.

It was the latter half of 2015 and I had sent the project to EDM.com for promotion. In turn, they liked it so much, they wanted to release it under their imprint Artist Intelligence Agency, now present day Azureon. Things really picked up for me after that with me releasing two more albums and numerous singles for the following three years after.

After my final album, I decided to give my record label a facelift. Renaming it Spiffy Recordings, I hoped to find new artists who had unique sounds and could tell stories with their music, much like how each of my albums tells it’s own story. I scored a partnership with Proton Music, running the label through their distribution service, and began signing fresh artists, as well as a seasoned one whom I knew in my time at school.

Now I produce short EPs, each telling stories that interconnect to one another. My label’s roster itself consists of 9 individuals such as Sauniks, Malagón, Skyline Drive, etc. I run a music producer podcast through the label, known as Where’s The Hook, I perform through live-stream due to the current COVID restrictions but look forward to start touring the east coast once the country settles back into normalcy.

Has it been a smooth road?
It has definitely been a challenging one to say the least. I had little income while in college so my access to unique digital plug-ins and physical producer tools was in short supply. I didn’t have much encouragement when I had first started, most people thinking it was silly or just a hobby that would die out over time. Lucky for me, my parents and closest friends always said positive things about my music whenever I showed them and that pushed me to keep improving.

In 2018 I went through a fairly rough divorce and that put me in a dark place. I almost gave up making music altogether at that time, unable to focus on anything entertaining and light-hearted. But with the help of my student/producing partner, Malagón, I was able to pull myself together and rebrand my label. And here I am today, still improving but making a beautiful blend of Orchestra and Electronic Music.

Can you give our readers some background on your music?
So I’m known as Spiffy Man, and I’m also known as the head of Spiffy Recordings. As an artist, I produce Progressive House, a sub-genre with the grouping of Electronic Dance Music. Lately, I have been experimenting with Synthwave, Trance, and Midtempo Bass, all of which I look for in new artists who I sign to my label.

What makes me the most proud of my music and my record label is the stories being told. I make it a point to write stories to include in the liner notes of my releases so that people can get a sense of what I see in my mind as I make a song. You could think of my music as a soundtrack to a movie, and I’ve included the script in the liner notes. The artists I sign also include stories with their tracks, even if they’re shortly worded.

People message me quite often about how they’ve been inspired by my work, as well as the work of my label mates, and even will go as to explain to me how the music helped them through dark times in their lives. I love those stories, those personal message, as it lets me know my music is touching their hearts and helping them get through life with just a smidge less amount of stress.

How do you think the industry will change over the next decade?
Things can only go up from here. I’ve hit some dark lows in the past and have bounced back hard. Although restricted by the current pandemic that’s affecting the world, I look to start doing more live performances once the country reaches some normalcy. I want to set a new standard for electronic music, I want people to strive to inspire rather than just make music for money. A paradigm shift is coming in the world of EDM, and I want to contribute to that shift as much as possible. I see myself working with some top names within the next ten years, whether it’s with currently established spearheads of the industry or rising to the top with new artists.

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Image Credit:
Paulina Flores Sanchez

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