Meet Brennan Aerts

We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Brennan Aerts. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Brennan below.

Brennan, we’re thrilled to have you sharing your thoughts and lessons with our community. So, for folks who are at a stage in their life or career where they are trying to be more resilient, can you share where you get your resilience from?
Being in the music industry, I accepted early on that my career would be a long game. Although the “war of attrition” mentality used to feel unique to seemingly impossible industries like music, acting, etc – we all know very well, now, that ALL great achievements take lots and lots of time. Resilience is, frankly, required of all humans. I came from a humble background, only one generation removed from severe poverty, my grandparents being the first Americans in our family, coming from an Irish immigrant background. They instilled in me the idea of hard work, and the duty in success. That success did not just mean money or provision or stature. It meant living a life of purpose, upstanding character, generosity, integrity AND success. Understanding well how challenging it is to actually fulfill all those commitments to yourself makes it easy to keep your head down and push through both good times and bad. Music has been a series of ups and downs for me, and I am certainly not unique in that. I did not make hardly a dime until I was in my late 20s, and even working a good 50+ hours a week, it took me till my 30s to land a publishing deal, and get my production company making enough money to support a middle class lifestyle and a family. However, it was only when my entire life changed when my son was diagnosed with autism that I understood TRULY what purpose and a duty for success really meant. Seeing him grow these last five years as we pushed through our own personal struggles – physical, emotional, financial – and then watching him thrive, now, as a 7 year old young boy is really what taught me the value of perseverance. Learning to devote time to something outside of myself and my career was, ironically, what truly taught me resilience. I would suggest to anybody that in all you do, no matter what it is, develop a strong mind and a purpose to achieve not only on behalf of yourself, but also for your community and family. Find purpose in giving and it will drive you to accomplish more than you would otherwise. Serving oneself only is so small and we are meant for more.

Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?
I am a record producer, musician, and songwriter. I currently have a company called Birdnest Int’l that produces masters for major label and independent artists. As a music house, we specialize in sync licensing for advertising, film, and television, as well as custom music for branded content. I have my own band Vinyl Pinups, as well as a new band called The Werewolves. This year, we are working on a new distribution partnership (still under wraps), and planning a lot of releases in 2024. We just renewed our publishing deal with Nettwerk Music and will continue to work with them on the sync and songwriting side. I am most excited about the marketing expansions we are working on with our new distribution partner, as well as the video content we are going to be producing while we work. I’m currently working on a streaming setup that will run through our brand new YouTube channel so that people can get some insight into our process and see what we are working on in real time.

In addition to Birdnest, I am launching a new nonprofit with my wife, Khara, for children on the spectrum called Ausome Life. We plan to organize immersive and engaging events for children on the spectrum such as music classes, equine therapy, art classes, and more.

If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
-patience: It cannot be stressed enough that great things take time. Life is like a road trip. Sometimes you’re climbing, sometimes you’re in traffic, sometimes you’re cruising, and sometimes you’re stopping to stretch your legs. I think it is important to maintain a calm patience in all you do so that you can truly get to where you’re going.

-Self Sufficiency: With our access to knowledge, nowadays, there is so much you can learn to do on your own. Always be learning. The more skills and knowledge you can acquire on your own, the more you can be of value to others, whether it be in work or life. In my own journey as a record producer, I was able to learn so much from the internet, that I could dive right in to pushing the ship in the direction I wanted to go. I did not wait for someone to allow me to produce records, or even to teach me. I just did it. And I was able to do that because of the amazing time we live in. When you can be a strong and skilled self starter, you are not relying on luck or permission to take you somewhere.

-Community: In your quest to grow, make sure you’re not becoming an island. Find mentors for guidance, and colleagues for support. Be honest about your strengths and weaknesses, and seek a community of people who will work symbiotically in your life. I have been personally very blessed to be surrounded by great musicians, producers, and engineers. They are the ones that make it possible to achieve great art and a thriving business. Whenever I have done everything myself, it is always “fine” but not always great. Find your tribe and you will build a full life that runs like a well oiled machine.

Is there a particular challenge you are currently facing?
Time management.

The challenge of a growing business, and a growing life is that it becomes very full. I have to be vigilant with my schedule which does not always jive with my wandering artistic personality. Juggling two children, one with special needs, administration of the business, and the natural time component that comes with making art is abundantly difficult.

Two key things I have been doing to manage this challenge:

1.) Maintaining patience and peaceful spirit is really something you have to make yourself do. Sometimes everything doesn’t get done. Some days, you don’t have much inspiration – and that’s okay. I know at the end of the day that I am putting everything I have into all the aspects of my life, and to that end, I have to accept the outcome.

2.) Delegation – I am continuing daily to expand my network and bring into my life good people to help share the load. I am at a bit of a capacity point many days, and it has definitely been a time of taking on less personally in the name of building something bigger. This is tough for me because, like many producers, it is hard to not want to roll your sleeves up and do every little thing on a record. However, ultimately, that does not yield the best result, nor the best lifestyle. Because I don’t want to be someone who relies on feeding my ego or the illusion of control, I have been adamant about bringing in great people on every project I do to share their gifts, spread the work around, and to hopefully be a part of a very successful project.

Contact Info:

Image Credits
Photos by: David Blumberg at Clarity Studio https://claritystudio.org/

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