Meet Jesse Zuretti

Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Jesse Zuretti. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Jesse, 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?

I wasn’t born with an “off” switch when it comes to music and my pursuit of it as a career. From the moment I bought my first CD as a kid in the early 90s, to the first soundtrack I ever heard, I’ve never been able to take my eyes and ears off of music. And the first time I could communicate with an instrument (guitar at age 16), I knew that this was what I was born to do. Everything about music has been a trial and tribulation for me until I found my home in the composer world. I started making music in arguably the most widely unacceptable genre at the time, metal music. Everyone who cared about me didn’t see what I saw in my potential to make music my career. So without that support system came a lot of self-driven will. If I wanted it that badly, I had to do it for me and only me.

Metal was not a lucrative music career choice – to this day it really isn’t for most artists. You do it because you love it. That builds a resilience inside of you that not many people outside of the genre will understand. We focus so much on community in metal that it can feel alien to meet people who don’t share that perspective. And if you run with the right people, you will find inspiration to push forward and persevere through the hardest times imaginable. This built the resilience I have today.

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’m a music composer, musician, and producer – currently composing music for Riot Games upcoming 2v2 fighter 2XKO (formerly known as Project L), which I started back in May of 2023 and will continue to do into the future. I started my composing career with Marvel in 2018, where I was fortunate enough to win some awards and make a ton of music for the last half of a decade. During and before all of this, I started making heavy metal music in 2002 when I was a sophomore in high school. I started performing, recording, and touring when I was just a kid in high school. When I’m not composing music for games or film, I also contribute orchestra & synth production for bands & producers, such as Intervals (memory palace), Brand of Sacrifice (Purge), Monuments (Nefarious), and my band Daath (Daath’s recent album The Deceivers features DOOM Eternal composer Mick Gordon).

My superpowers with music probably lies within my ability to say “Yes!” to anything put in front of me and being able to return with either exactly what was needed or something more than expected. I’ve spent my entire life exploring and searching for new music, dating back to my early years saving up my allowance in the early 90s to buy albums and soundtracks that covered the entire music spectrum. To this day, I spend a great deal of my out-of-studio time hunting for deep cuts or new releases at local record stores (or whatever city I visit).

One of my greatest strengths is most certainly (but not limited to) heavy music – whether it’s for a band, a film, or a video game – I have created & lived in the metal music world for more than half of my life. Metal music, believe it or not, is what brought me to a career in composing with Marvel, and also pulled me into the video game world. But I make it a personal objective to be able to extend way beyond the barriers of heavy music, handling every genre I’m asked to write for with deep care.

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?

I’ll break this down into three sections: passion, dedication, and networking.

Passion is something you can rarely teach (especially in music) – you have to be born with it, and it may take a while to find what your passion is. But once you do, it should never shut off, not for even a second. Passion is where you have a chance to set yourself apart from other people in your field. The more passion you have, the more that power radiates from you, the more you have a chance to create excitement in those who will hire you to make music for them. Passion should fuel everything about your pursuit of your artform, from the discovery, exploration, and research of your artform and its world, to the exercising and sharpening of your skill sets within the field, to the efforts you put into achieving the goals you have.

Dedication is the dealbreaker most people can’t see written on the walls. Without dedication, you run the risk of failing to achieve everything you want with your artform. All of the greatest people in history who have achieved the most impressive accomplishments have been wholly dedicated to their craft. And they likely didn’t need to be told to be dedicated, they just did it – because the dna of their success was built into every fiber of who they are. And their passion fuels that dedication every day.

Networking is the most common ingredient in the success of anyone pursuing anything. My uncle Steve once infamously said, “If you’re not networking, you’re NOT working.” Catchy, right? But also 110% accurate. Without building a community, connections, friendships, rapport – you can’t be discovered, hired, or even thought of. I believe very strongly that we don’t know who the greatest talents are in our world in every field – they’re probably terrible at networking, and we’ll never know who they are.

My advice for anyone aspiring to be a part of the music world in any way is to read the above and apply with pressure.

To close, maybe we can chat about your parents and what they did that was particularly impactful for you?

My parents both impacted me differently, because they’re such different people. Not only that, but they were divorced from before my earliest memory – but I have always been close with them both. Especially my mom who raised me as a kid into my mid-teenage years. Nevertheless, they both had huge impacts on me for different reasons.

My mom has and always will be my biggest fan. She’s encouraged me and cheered me on with everything I’ve ever done. She’s allowed me to be exactly who I am without forcing anything on me. Some of this is without a doubt in my mind the cause of some of my greatest flaws, but also the cause of some of my greatest skill sets. I’ve been able to be myself and explore what that means since I was able to think. My palette for art, film, music, etc is all built from individuality grown from my mother’s openness to me being who I am.

On the other hand, my father was a very tough critic and massive authority figure in my life. If I learned anything from my dad as a kid it’s that I have to do what I love because it’s what I want, never for the approval of others. And ever since I was a kid, that’s been who I am and how I live my life. He also taught me to aspire to be great at what I do, dedicated to it, and always looking for more inspiration.

I believe that having that balance of my parents and their different perspectives of life has given me my greatest foundation for succeeding with my artforms.

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