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The Unstarving Musician


The Unstarving Musician’s Podcast features interviews with indie music artists an industry pros who share their experience and expertise on songwriting, recording, touring, getting gigs, marketing, and much more. It’s all intended to help indie artists to more of what they love–make music.

Nov 22, 2019

Marc Phoenix received a master’s degree in classical guitar and pedagogy from the University of Zurich. He also studied Jazz & songwriting at Berklee College of Music. Marc also spent a couple of decades as a producer in Los Angeles with compositions that would do well on radio and which were featured on Blood Diamond, Little Miss Sunshine, Sex & The City, Charmed, Scrubs, among others. He has produced a number of noteworthy artists including Celine Dion, Alice Cooper, Nelly Furtado, Enya and Peter Gabriel.

Marc has decided to focus on his own music and performing, which happened upon on YouTube. I believe that was a recording of the same track we’ll feature in this episode, which is from his debut solo release This is the Sound. He currently resides in Malta. A fellow expat.

We talk about one of the opportunities in today’s new music business, going from a studio based career to one of being an independent artist, and celebrating not only the small wins, but the struggles as well. I learn he got the nickname Mawk through friends who made fun of his accent  and more.

Mawk’s fascinating music journey begins in Switzerland.

Episode Highlights

We start by talking about what took Marc to Malta and go on to discuss:

  • How Marc got into house concerts in L.A.
  • Moving into electronic music and remixes of popular songs
  • Learning to make the challenges enjoyable
  • Dissecting the energy of desire
  • YouTube videos to educate your audience

Key Points

  • Focus on micro-milestones and successes along the way.
  • Mindset is everything - learn how to adapt it as needed.

Quotable

“Build up slowly, be patient, celebrate little successes daily. It doesn’t matter where you are, even if you have number one hits, because you have to build up again and again.”
—Mawk Phoenix

“You get better out of necessity.”
—Mawk Phoenix