Meet E. Bradley Heyden

Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to E. Bradley Heyden. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

E. Bradley, 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?
Really it started at a very young age. I truly believe it had everything to do with sports, especially baseball. If you are learning anything and want to be good it take time, a of work, and patience. I am unsure if it was just the time I grew up in but, there was always people to work with or play some kind of pickup game. If no one was available you were throwing the tennis ball against the garage, Throwing a football at targets or even kicking a soccer ball into a trash can.

Once you start getting older and have developed a good skill base. thats when you find out the real work begins. You need to keep woking on those skills while also working on getting stronger and even more in depth with team chemistry. I was lucky enough to play base ball until college. it was JUCO but, I still got to play as long as possible. Even after I was done playing I got into coaching kids and that lead to coaching Varsity baseball. Which is a completely new challenge and work load.

Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?
Heyden Recording is a Music Production and post audio company that can take on any size of project. We primarily work out of two studios, one based in Medina, Ohio and the other Defunk Studios in Stow, Ohio. This gives us the unique ability to service all of your production and recording needs. While providing professional quality at an affordable price point, from the entry level musician and companies to national artists and corporations.

One of the most exciting things we have done is build Defunk Studios literally from the ground. The only thing that we didn’t do ourselves is pour the concrete and run the main duct lines. This gave us the ability to customize every inch of the studio. Giving it’s own unique style and sound.

Ever since we have been drawing even more high end clientele and larger projects. Which in return has really helped to fill up the schedule. For example I just finished working on post audio and mixing for a film by an amazing young film producer. While Mike was working on a project for The Real Heavy Bones featuring musicians Gary Hoey, the late Frankie Banali of Quiet Riot, Joel Ellis and Rex Tennyson.

Those are just a couple recent examples. We are not nearly where we want to be. Although things are really staring to take off over this last year.

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?
First and foremost I would have to say determination, persistence, and a ton of patience. You have to realize that nothing is impossible as long as you keep learning and moving forward. That fact is you are not going to win every client nor should this be the goal. There is a good amount of time that they wont be write for you or you wont be the right fit for them. People keep getting this false presentation of quick or over night success. The fact is this never happens. there is so much work and energy that has been put in over years. So, you just need to be patient.

The biggest thing though is you have to be a good person to be around. People skills are essential not only on the business side but, even more so when working with artists. Sometimes working with a band you needed to be a sounding boar for someones frustrations at times even almost act like a counselor. If you are the best at what you do but, people don’t like you. Good luck on getting any new clients. If you are good to be around and they enjoy your company, you could be average at your craft and stay booked all year.

What has been your biggest area of growth or improvement in the past 12 months?
Lets actually break that down for both. Wether you are a freelancer, creative, or small business owner they really are completely different questions. The biggest area of growth for me have been audio mixing, mastering, podcast editing, podcast mixing. With the ability for people to almost record anywhere and the mass amounts of people trying to and recording them selves has sky rocked. Everyone then wants the best possible finished product. So, highly professional editors, mixing engineer’s, and mastering engineer’s are in high demand.

Now the biggest area of improvement has to be putting automations together to lessen the work load on the business side. I Just recently started learning about marketing funnels and how to gear them towards our business. None of it is the most exciting thing about running a studio but, the more you learn you find out that not only does it all help your business. You can actually become more valuable to your clients.

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