We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Frosti Jonsson. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Frosti below.
Frosti, first a big thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts and insights with us today. I’m sure many of our readers will benefit from your wisdom, and one of the areas where we think your insight might be most helpful is related to imposter syndrome. Imposter syndrome is holding so many people back from reaching their true and highest potential and so we’d love to hear about your journey and how you overcame imposter syndrome.
As a creative person we all have experienced that feeling of inadequacy, that what we do is not good enough and our time would be better spent on something else. Too often this feeling of inadequacy stems from some odd and unfair comparison with the outside world and how others define “success”. Success is not one thing, it is many things. Only you are to define what being successful really means to you. Once you get rid of that external pressure and realize how meaningless it truly is, it helps overcome that odd feeling of inadequacy. There is only one version of you, stick to it.
Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?
Music has always been part of my life but it took me a while to figure out my own path. I am super grateful for the opportunities I was given as a kid to learn to play an instrument and I owe a lot of gratitude to all the music teachers who put up with me early on. Even though I did not pursue a career as a professional instrumentalist, it laid a foundation for what I would do later in life as an artist and a producer who found home in electronic music after dropping out of classical piano lessons.
Co-writing and Co-producing with other artists as well as working for others as a producer is one of the most exciting things I am currently doing. I have met some awesome and super talented people and working with all of them has been such a pleasure and rewarding on all fronts. It has also opened up new opportunities and taken me down new paths I did not see coming. One of the most exciting things this year are live shows with a fellow musician Gasper Selko from Kamnik, Slovenia, starting in Reykjavik, April 17th (https://www.harpa.is/x.u.l-og-bistro-boy). Our collaboration started in 2021 and by the end of 2022 we released the album “tengsl”, which translates “connection” or “being connected”. We both wanted to take our collaboration to the stage and perform live and our first two shows will be in our home towns, Reykjavik, Iceland and Kamnik, Slovenia. It has been a while since I played for a live audience and I am super excited about the upcoming shows.
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?
If you’d asked me this question a couple of years ago I’d probably give you a different answer. I’m still learning things about myself and learning from others as I go. But I think one of the things that have helped me a lot is that mindset of never stop, just keep going, show up and be consistent. Try to do something every day, even if it’s just a tiny little bit instead of doing nothing. I try to approach every obstacle as an opportunity to learn something new and see it as a good thing. No matter how hard things sometimes get or how defeated you sometimes feel – if you see it as an opportunity to learn that is a good thing and it becomes motivation. And you will see progress, personal and professional growth as you go. If there is one thing I would say to my younger self that would be: show up and remember that there is no such thing as failure, just an opportunity to learn.
Alright so to wrap up, who deserves credit for helping you overcome challenges or build some of the essential skills you’ve needed?
It can sometimes be really hard to find that drive in yourself to keep going, improve your skills and be better at whatever it is you do, sometimes you feel defeated and you have to dig really deep to find that extra energy to keep going. I’m sure we have all been there. Surrounding yourself with like-minded people can work for you and do magic and surrounding yourself with the “wrong” people will work against you. Collaborating with people can help you overcome so challenges and better yourself. Opening up to other people who you like and love to work with has definitely helped me overcome creative obstacles and getting a honest and constructive feedback is something to celebrate and welcome and not to fight against. That also means letting go of your ego and open up to new ideas. I´ve been super fortunate to work with some awesome artist who have helped me grow and be better at what I do, not just technically but also creatively. It has taken some time to find those people and they don’t show up on your doorstep out of nowhere – you have to reach out to them, just as much as you like people reach out to you – and some collaborations will work great, others not and that is just ok! There is just one way to find out. If it works out well, thats awesome and even if you are not a match there is always a bunch of learning to take away from it. Just do it and find out!
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.bistroboy.net
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bistroboymusic/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bistroboymusic/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/bistroboymusic
- SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/bistroboy
- Other: https://bistroboy.bandcamp.com
Image Credits
Frosti Jonsson
