Meet Bryan Stage | Producer, Composer & Songwriter

We had the good fortune of connecting with Bryan Stage and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Bryan, how do you think about risk?
I don’t believe that you can be a musician without being pretty comfortable with risk. Being delusional enough to think that people need to hear the silly noises you can make is just the first dip into the treacherous waters the musician calls home. My first time ever singing in front of strangers, I was so nervous I could barely get the words out and I’m quite certain nobody actually heard me. The first time I played guitar to an audience I couldn’t even tell you how many mistakes I made. It’s terribly embarrassing to be a musician and put yourself on the line like that, but the thing about risk is that when you wake up the next day and realize that you didn’t die from off notes or a bad performance it begins to build a confidence and the second time is never as scary as the first. Your skills improve and the risks you continue to encounter have less and less power over you.

For me the ultimate risk I’ve taken was really throwing myself into music as my career. I spent a lot of my adult life treating it like my career in my head, but I wasn’t finding the monetary success that would allow me to finally say with confidence to small talking strangers at a party that I am in fact a working musician. It was always hard for those words to come out of my mouth. In my mind I was a guy who played in bands. My band My Satellite had gained a bit of a following which was amazing, I had been paid for my music many times, but I was still unconvinced that I was truly a musician. Though I wish it could be, fake it till you make it isn’t really my deal and I couldn’t be that guy.

I had started to put some focus on film scoring because music and film are pretty much my two favorite things and had landed a couple scoring projects while also working a 40-hour-a-week day job, but I could see that working like that is untenable. There just wasn’t enough time in the day for that. I would never get to any serious work if I spent 10 hours of each day devoted to some other line of work that meant nothing to me. There was no real path for me to get to where I wanted to be unless I jumped into the scariest of risky waters and just believed in myself. It really is that simple. I had heard it over and over again, but one day it finally sank in that if I don’t believe in myself enough to bet on my talents putting food in my mouth, then I have to resign myself to a life of never really trying to turn my dreams into reality. Putting life in those terms really made it very clear. The much riskier bet was for me to never really try.

So I quit my job. I didn’t have much of a plan. As many Americans do when they need a change, I went to Europe and travelled for a summer. Easily the best summer I ever had. Everything felt new. The fog had lifted on my life. I was a brand new person. I couldn’t have been happier frolicking around the European continent fueled by cigarettes, alcohol and drugs. I was living my goddamn best life and just really trying to be in the moment and accept myself in this new life as a carefree creative. But I am never someone to forget the harsh stomp of reality. I can only play pretend for so long until the truth seeps in. I can’t just keep spending money in foreign lands forever. I was nearing the end of my travels and wandering around Berlin when it started to happen. I got a significant film scoring offer for a small indie movie which I would have never been able to accept if I was still at the job I had just quit a month prior. The world is funny. It doesn’t accept you as something until you accept yourself as that thing. It was that moment when I realized that this was all going to work out. The road since hasn’t been simple, but it’s the road that risk paved and I don’t regret it for a moment. It was the best decision I ever made.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
My goal as a music artist, both as a songwriter for My Satellite and as a producer for others, is to create a place of emotional depth. The music that sticks with me always has an emotional center that can be felt viscerally. It’s palpable. I easily lose myself in the pathos of harmonic textures when I’m listening to and writing music and I’m continually striving to create those awe-inspiring moments when a song just gets under your skin and raises the hair on your arms. I will forever be in love with that moment. It’s what I live for. Whether it’s kick-you-in-the-teeth attitude, a cathartic chord change, or a dope bass groove that gives you unrelenting stank face when you hear it, it’s all about that magical emotional shift you get when a song hits you just right. With every composition I create there is a very real feeling at its core. Those songs are always true to me. They’re a part of me put to track. It can be a little impressionistic or even abstractly psychedelic at times, but if you blur your eyes a little and just absorb it, the emotional intent becomes very clear.

It’s never easy finding your path as a creative person. You start off liking something, you learn how to imitate what you like, and then somehow, through some nebulous alchemy, you’re just supposed to find your artistic identity. To the new artist it can brutal and confusing to find that identity. It’s filled with missteps and far more questions than answers, all to merely figure out what’s inside of you. It sounds so simple yet is incredibly difficult sometimes. It took many years for me to finally understand what makes me unique as an artist and a producer. As trite as it sounds, it really boils down to being true to yourself. All you know is you, and when you really let yourself come through in your art it’s the most beautiful thing there is. On the writing side, when Andy and I set out to make the new My Satellite album our goal was to make it the psychedelic album that we both have been wanting to hear. By staying true to that ideal and the raw emotions the songs convey, we have been creating an album we are both going to be very proud of for the rest of our lives. Our blood is in those songs and it’s such an amalgamation of the two of us that we often can’t even remember which one of us played certain parts.

On the studio side, when I produced the debut Lea Bromper record, I was able to drop in the me that loves punk and post-punk into Lea’s vision and helped them create a uniquely dark, but raw and in-your-face album. When I worked with Cassandra Salas for her upcoming EP, I was able to put a little of my love of Stevie Wonder into her album to bring out the beauty in her song structure and lyrics. Ultimately it took finding my voice and knowing the importance that emotion plays in my songwriting to help the music of others achieve their potential

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
I’m the worst tour guide in the game. Plan? What plan? I may hit up some LA gems like Grand Central Market, Huntington Gardens or some general bar hopping around Highland Park, but usually out of the sheer overwhelming and stupid desire not to have to think about it, I will inevitably also suggest fealty to Capitalism Daddy with a trip to Melrose or, if I’m really desperate, The Grove. Ultimately LA is a city that offers up as many options as you’re willing to dive into so I like to try to stay in the moment, not plan too hard, and hopefully never end up on the Westside. As long as we get in some nice views of the city, a few bars that are way too cool for their own good, and plenty of tacos, I count that as a success.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
Far too many people deserve a shoutout and credit for the help and influence they’ve had on my life, but I think the most important relationship I have had is with my bandmate Andy Marshall. In the nearly 12 years that we’ve been playing music together we’ve had such a special creative bond where we push each other’s ideas to new places. Over the past five years we’ve been consumed with finishing the new My Satellite album and although it’s a frustratingly long time to spend on an album, we’ve broken into completely new ground as musicians, as producers and mixers and we wouldn’t trade a moment of it. We had huge revelations about creating an immersive sonic world in the mixing process. We learned never to be afraid to tear a song down to its bones and build it back up to make it better. We spent countless nights until sunrise coming up with ideas to get that bass line just right so the groove of the song can shine. Neither of us will settle for a song to sound any less than what we know it should sound like. That dedication (or perhaps complete insanity) has truly changed how we both approach music and I don’t think I could possibly be where I am at today without that partnership.

Website: https://www.bryanstage.com/

Instagram: @mysatelliteband

Twitter: @mysatelliteband

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MySatellite

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/mysatellitemusic

Other: https://www.mysatellitemusic.com/

Image Credits
Cosme Hernandez @golldsmithphotog Timothy Norris @timothynorris Alex Beaven @alex_keight Ryan Ward @the.mission.room