Meet Mark Gustafson

We recently connected with Mark Gustafson and have shared our conversation below.

Mark, so excited to have you with us today. So much we can chat about, but one of the questions we are most interested in is how you have managed to keep your creativity alive.
In order to keep my creativity alive I constantly have to take in new experiences and entertainment. I have found that if I try to just grind, grind, grind, my moments of inspiration will become fewer and farther between. Going to see other artists perform as well as playing movies, video games, and engaging in lively conversations about things I’m passionate about will always put new ideas in my head. I think the saying “you have to be entertained to be entertaining” is very true for me.

Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?
As Awesome Up I make electronic dance music and DJ at shows throughout Colorado. Recently I’ve been experimenting with dark bass combined with dance beats and hip Hop and I’ve been really happy with how people are responding to it. When you make something new you never know how it’s going to be received, you just have an imagination of what the dance floor will look like when it plays. The response has been more than I ever could have imagined so I’m incredibly grateful that people are vibing so much with something I created.

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?
I played instruments for years before I really decided to focus on music production, so I brought in a plethora of skills from that world. I like to think my drumming taught me about how to write beats, guitar taught me how to use all sorts of effects, and piano taught me how to write chords and progressions. A good music producer needs to be fluent in all of these to be able to write a competent track.

Okay, so before we go we always love to ask if you are looking for folks to partner or collaborate with?
I’m always looking for people to collaborate with. Some of the things that I look for most in collaborators are people who have a very high level skill set in an area that I don’t. For example if somebody is a great Lyricist or saxophone player, I can’t really do those things very well so it makes a great fit for putting together an interesting track.

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