Meet Russ Mazion

We recently connected with Russ Mazion and have shared our conversation below.

Russ, looking forward to learning from your journey. You’ve got an amazing story and before we dive into that, let’s start with an important building block. Where do you get your work ethic from?

I was raised by a single mother with three sisters and one of the things I’ll always remember observing my mother growing up was that she worked very, very hard every day, no matter what was going on in her life, no matter how she felt how sick she was or depressed. She worked very hard to make sure we had Food on the table and a roof over our heads.

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?

I’ve worked within the beauty industry as a business development manager for both large companies, independent stylist and students for the past 20+ years I find it extremely gratifying to help Coach and guide hairstylist through their career. At the same time, I’ve been a musician, singer, songwriter, guitar player, and producer since high school starting out in the Twin Cities in Minnesota and continuing in the Pacific Northwest.
When I relocated to the northwest, I continued my music career as a solo artist under the name tin man which eventually evolved into a band we released two independence CDs that found disbanded in 2016. I continued on as a solo artist performing acoustically, but always felt that need to get back to having a band in 2022. I met my current partner and formed an acoustic duo named Sunrust. We played throughout the northwest to great success and in 2024 we expanded our lineup to a full band with bass and drums.
We’ve released two singles and two videos, one of which won the award for video of the year at the Washington independent music awards and on May 24, 2025 we release our third single and video for the song crack the code

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?

First off, I would say the work ethic that I gained from my mother is something that is always stuck with me and always made me continue to strive for success and never rest on my laurels.
Second, I would say is my tenacity in the face of adversity to continue to strive to be better at what I do whether it’s work writing songs or playing live.
And lastly, I would say it’s most important that you stay genuine and authentic to who you are and want to be because that’s what people are attracted to in the arts and that’s the only thing you’ll have to hang your hat on at the end of the day is that you were always yourself and being genuine I think that goes hand-in-hand with my advice to anybody in their career or in the arts is to be authentic and genuine, and of course honest

Alright, so before we go we want to ask you to take a moment to reflect and share what you think you would do if you somehow knew you only had a decade of life left?

Wow, great question. I guess I would say I would spend my time traveling with my family and playing music as much as possible and enjoying what little time I had left.

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