We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Justin Loretangeli. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Justin below.
Justin, appreciate you making time for us and sharing your wisdom with the community. So many of us go through similar pain points throughout our journeys and so hearing about how others overcame obstacles can be helpful. One of those struggles is keeping creativity alive despite all the stresses, challenges and problems we might be dealing with. How do you keep your creativity alive?
It’s easy for me! I have so much respect for what singers and songwriters do. I’ve tended to put them on a pedestal because of how much I admire the way that my favorite songs have made me feel. As I’ve transitioned into being “music media,” I’ve always taken the responsibility of sharing an artist’s music and story very seriously. I never saw it as a path I could take. Even today, I still get butterflies before every interview I do. I don’t take anything that’s happened with Pro Country over the last six years for granted. In fact, my love for music has only intensified over the years, and it’s that love that keeps my creative flame burning and keeps me on the hunt for great music and stories to share!
Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?
Sure! I’m a country music journalist based in New Jersey. I’ve run my website, Pro Country, for about six years now. It started as a semester-long project during my senior year of college. In my college years, I had written two feature-style stories: one with the band Heartland and their song “I Loved Her First,” and the other on 90s country singer David Kersh. When each of the respective classes I wrote those stories for ended, I simply had those stories sitting on my computer, and I really didn’t have any plans on doing anything with them.
When the semester that I ran Pro Country ended, I didn’t have any plans to do anything with it, either. One day, I uploaded both of those stories and sent them over to the artists as a thank you for their time. Over the next few days, both stories earned thousands of views from people all over the world, and long story short, I decided to give the whole “music journalist” thing a shot, and I’ve been proud to shine a light on artists that have kept a more traditional country sound!
Now, six years later, I’ve interviewed well over 400 artists, including several personal heroes, and the site has been nominated for a few awards. It’s been an amazing ride so far!
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?
This is a good one! I can pinpoint three moments in my journalistic journey that were pivotal for me getting to where I am today.
The first was when I shared that Heartland story with my Portfolio Prep professor, Professor Rodolico, in college. I didn’t expect him to do this, but he told the whole class that he felt like he had just read something that belonged in Rolling Stone. That was literally the first piece of journalism I had ever done in my life, so to hear that was pretty jarring, but at the same time, it gave me the confidence that maybe there was something there.
The second was when another journalism professor, Professor Garyantes, suggested I publish my work. The David Kersh feature was written for her class, and when she handed it back to me, she told me I should publish it somewhere. That had never even crossed my mind, and I really didn’t know where to begin, but it got the wheels rolling.
The last moment was probably the most important, and again, it was a professor at my school. Pro Country was started in Professor Quinn’s Online Journalism class. On the first day of class, she had the letters “J.F.D.I.” written on the whiteboard. As soon as class started, she asked the class if they knew what it meant. When nobody spoke up, she said, almost verbatim, “It stands for ‘Just Fucking Do It,’ If you want to be a journalist, you don’t need a master’s degree or tons of experience, you have to just fucking do it.” That really connected with me, and when the Heartland and David Kersh stories started finding their audience, I remembered that mantra, and I began reaching out to artists.
I would tell people at the early stages of their journey to just keep on keeping on. That’s the only way you’re going to get better! I look back at some of the original things I’ve written and I can see how much better of a writer I’ve gotten over the years. That growth has come through hundreds upon hundreds of interviews and honing in on what it is that I do best as a writer. I’m so proud of that growth and that I’ve stuck with this for so long. I didn’t major in journalism, and so far, I’ve never been to Nashville, but all of the great things that have happened with Pro Country go to show that if you have the passion and the will to keep getting better, you’ll be surprised at the places you can go!
Any advice for folks feeling overwhelmed?
Burnout is REAL. I dealt with it pretty heavily in 2022, and I didn’t handle it very well. Like I said before, I take the responsibility of sharing an artist’s music very seriously; so seriously that sometimes I bite off more than I can chew. I treasure the fact that Pro Country is a “one man band,” in that I’ve written every single question, article and story that you see on the site, but at the same time, with that being the case, it’s important to manage your workload. As much as I’d like to do every interview I get pitched, I had to get to a point where I realized that isn’t possible. In so doing, everything you see on Pro Country is the truest representation of the kind of country music I love, and all of the songs and artists you see inspire me to keep going. I learned that if I manage my workload, and maybe write interviews and articles four or five days a week instead of six or seven, it keeps things fresh for me. That’s been the gameplay this year, and so far, so good! I’ve done the biggest interviews I’ve ever done, the site has been nominated for two awards and I’m having more fun than ever!
Contact Info:
- Website: procountrymusic.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/procountrymusic/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/procountrymusic/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/justin-loretangeli-b4a23713a/
