Life, Values & Legacy: Our Chat with Brent Harrell

We recently had the chance to connect with Brent Harrell and have shared our conversation below.

Brent, so good to connect and we’re excited to share your story and insights with our audience. There’s a ton to learn from your story, but let’s start with a warm up before we get into the heart of the interview. What’s more important to you—intelligence, energy, or integrity?
Hands Down – Integrity.
You can be intelligent – That will carry you far in this world
You can be Energetic – That will help you get a lot of stuff done in your life
But Integrity means you cannot be sold, you values will stay intact, Nobody can change who you are, but ultimately you are good for your word and trust cannot be bought

Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
Hello my friends – I am Brent.
Put quite simply I work with music. Obviously I live in Nashville which is an amazing city if you want to get involved in the music scene. To be more specific I work Commercial Dance and Top 40 Radio, I know that Nashville is the country music capital but the trend lately is country music merging with Dance and Top 40. I’ve always been a DJ since 2000 but it wasn’t until 2015 that I started working at the back end of the industry and learning what it’s all about. I started putting out hour long dance mixes on Mixcloud weekly and that’s what landed me my ticket to be a resident DJ at DanceMixUSA.. I then decided to step up to Marketing Director for the radio station which is really how I found out how the music industry works. After that the owner and myself created a new show called FutureHitz for the station where it was a mix of me talking and introducing the newest tracks. I found out then that I really enjoyed promoting tracks, artists, record pools and anybody else that was reputable and wanted my help. So that’s all in this past and how I got to where I am now. I love promoting music as well as record labels and their artists. I had a short DJ residency at Tribe but instead of DJ’ing again I’m more at the back end. I have artists that let me check out their records and work with them to help get them where they want to be and that’s my contribution to the industry and I love it!

Thanks for sharing that. Would love to go back in time and hear about how your past might have impacted who you are today. What was your earliest memory of feeling powerful?
Wow, this doesnt have anything to do with music but when I lived in Midland, TX I worked for Wells Fargo Bank. In the matter of 2 years I got 3 promotions that shot me up to Branch Manager in one of our local offices and I was only 24 at the time. That taught me a lot about leadership and aspects of running a company.

Was there ever a time you almost gave up?
I’ve had a past history of drugs, and alcohol. I thought that I never would get out of that cycle but I did get help and those demons are no longer in my life thank God.

Sure, so let’s go deeper into your values and how you think. Whom do you admire for their character, not their power?
This is an easy question – My DJ Mentor. This man has worked for the past 30 years in the dance music industry and made so much of a contribution to it, However, If there was something wrong with me – He would drop everything and do what he could to help me out. He’s a really good person and I love him for that.

Thank you so much for all of your openness so far. Maybe we can close with a future oriented question. What will you regret not doing? 
That’s the thing – I would regret not doing any opportunity that is presented to me, even if it’s out of my comfort zone. We only have one life and I don’t want to live it thinking “I wish I would have done that”

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Image Credits
Photos by Zach St. Cin – https://www.facebook.com/zach.cin

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