Meet Bret/zachary Cowan/mendoza

We recently connected with Bret/zachary Cowan/mendoza and have shared our conversation below.

Bret/Zachary, we’re thrilled to have you on our platform and we think there is so much folks can learn from you and your story. Something that matters deeply to us is living a life and leading a career filled with purpose and so let’s start by chatting about how you found your purpose.

Bret- I vividly remember being in the third grade, sitting on the gymnasium floor, watching the fifth-grade band perform. It was magical to me—watching the conductor’s baton drop before being hit with a wall of sound. It was precisely at that point that I decided I wanted to be a musician. When I got a bit older, I discovered that I could make music that sounded however I wanted, and that really solidified my life path.

Zach- For me it started when I was, I think about 8 or 9 years old. I used to go to a pretty small church out in Gervais growing up and we had a few people in the congregation who played music for the church. Being completely Hispanic the music never really caught my eye, but I loved watching the slightly older kid play the drums. It always just looked like so much fun. Since I was younger the church wouldn’t let me play for service so I kind of forget about it. When I turned 10, I got the opportunity to sign up for the music program at my elementary school. I played the saxophone from 5th grade to around 11th grade and somewhere in-between I found out about ac/dc. As soon as I saw Angus running around on-stage I knew exactly that I wanted to try to do the same thing.

Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?

We’re in a prog rock band that plays shows all across the PNW area with the hopes of expanding our reach, touring the US, and ideally (someday) the world. We absolutely love creating songs that excite us (and thankfully continue to excite us), push our own musical abilities, and deliver a sound that we’re proud of.

Our musical influences range from metal, R&B, rock, and even jazz, and it has all culminated into a sound that we believe is something truly special. Most folks have a hard time pinning us down, and no two people have said that we sound like any one band in particular, which we consider to be a good sign.

As far as what we have coming up, we have tons of shows booked for 2025 in the Portland Metro Area, and we have our second full-length album releasing later this year! It is an ambitious project for the two of us, spanning around 15 tracks. It will be based around an original concept and will be accompanied by a novel as well.

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?

1. Be okay with being uncomfortable.
Playing music alone probably amounts to about maybe 30% of what it means to be in a successful band. The rest includes things like communicating with promoters/venues/other artists, social media, marketing, attending other artists’ shows to support the scene, etc. Every one of these things started outside of our comfort zone and if we weren’t willing branch out, we would still be at square one.

What really helps with this is acknowledging that you’re new to something, giving yourself grace, and accepting that you will probably make mistakes while you’re learning. There have been several instances where we might not have done things in the most optimal way, or an email didn’t read as nicely as we would like. But these are all normal growing pains! Future you is relying on you, so don’t give up!

2. Let yourself be creative!
The first draft of anything isn’t what gets published. But there wouldn’t be a second, third, fourth, or final draft, if there wasn’t the first one. It can be so easy to get hung up on the details when you’re coming up with an idea, whether it’s a song or a social media plan or something else but remember that you can refine these ideas and revisit them before putting them out. Sometimes momentum is really important and it’s easy lose enthusiasm during option paralysis.

Just like learning a musical instrument, everyone starts as a beginner. Being creative is a skill like anything else, and only gets easier the more you do it.

3. Play RPGs
Well not just RPGs, but allow yourself to be inspired by things that exist outside of your medium. We love playing video games, Lord of the Rings, Final Fantasy—in other words, we are nerds. These fantasy worlds have stoked our imaginations for decades and believe it or not, a lot of the creativity we see in these works inspire what we do. Creativity is usually transferable like that. You see the feelings someone else can evoke on a blank canvas, the characters, the stories. You pick up on the themes that they capture and eventually realize you might be able to do the same thing. Books, movies, video games, they’re a great way to keep us inspired while also giving us a break from all the band work.

Bonus: Take breaks. Remember why it is you do what you do, For us, being in a band is supposed to be fulfilling and fun. Not always fun, but mostly fun. If we just wanted to make money with it, we would just work a second job.

We’ve all got limited resources, time, energy, focus etc – so if you had to choose between going all in on your strengths or working on areas where you aren’t as strong, what would you choose?

Both of us – In our experience, being well rounded is incredibly important. It doesn’t matter how good you are at your instrument if nobody hears you play it, and the only way for your work to see the light of day is if you put in the effort to show it to the world. This includes skills that aren’t necessarily what you signed on for but are integral to your success.

Bret – I remember feeling burnt out on social media, emailing, and merch organizing—all that “not fun” stuff that comes with being in an independent band. It still happends! But I keep going because I realized that all this music that I’m proud of making, all these shows that we practice hard for, none of that will ever be heard if I don’t work for it. If creatives want the world to see them, they owe it to themselves to put in the effort for it to be seen. If someone just wants to do their art for fun, that’s great! It’s awesome to do what you love with no expectations. But if you want to share it with others then it’s your sole responsibility to get it out there. And the only way to do that is by learning new skills like networking, marketing, and other things that you might not have been good at already.

Zach – Definitely more well rounded. With being a musician and trying to share our art, we have to do stuff that we didn’t sign up to do. We signed on to do music and when I feel like I don’t want to do all that extra stuff anymore, I remember this interview with Misha Mansoor, the guitarist/founder of the Metal band, Periphery: He said that if he could go back in time, he wouldn’t have chosen bandmates solely based on their musicianship or technical ability, he would have rather had a graphic designer, someone skilled in finance, etc. Given the choice, he would have had a band full of people with diverse skillsets to help push the band, or push the business. Anybody can learn an instrument given enough time, but instead of people who spent all their time practicing, he would have chosen people with other talents to bring to the table.

Contact Info:

Image Credits

Jackson Hagin
Jonathan Ruiz
Richard O’Dell

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