Content featuring Mesmi:
Falling Too Far  |  Drawing Creative Wisdom From History

Mesmi is an indie singer-songwriter, and producer based in the Los Angeles area.

Website  |  Instagram  |  Facebook  |  Sound Offf
Consulting  |  YouTube  |  SoundCloud  |   Music  |  Spotify

Mesmi, thank you for joining us today at VQS. Take us back in time to how you first fell in love with music.

I’ve always loved music pretty instinctively, but it also had a strange place in my life; it’s had a really healing, emotive, life-giving power but also been tangled with ideas of identity, attention and practicalities. I don’t know if there is really a distinct, single memory of falling in love with it… I remember car rides and moving across the country as a kid though, and it would be things like a song playing on repeat that would help me sleep at night.

What 3 core values do you believe are necessary for success?

Difficult question! I think this really depends on how you define success, and in what field. Given that, maybe clarity, perseverance, and teamwork.

Who have been some of your favorite people/projects to work with?

It’s always refreshing to work with people, and an experience I highly value and learn so much from. I actually haven’t gotten as much of a chance to do that recently, other than with Albert Chiang (who is great), who was involved for part of Slow Bloom, and some projects for voice over I’ve contributed to which can be really fun.

I love playing with musicians live though, and I really value the music/arts education I’ve been able to get from my local city college, PCC — the offerings, instructors and fellow musicians there are largely wonderful.

My own “side projects” are SOUND OFFF, a site for spotlighting Asian Americans in music (http://soundofff.com); just released the first audio interview with artist Melissa Polinar, so there’s a podcast component now, which is exciting! And I’ve been developing VATOCA Studios (http://vatocastudios.com), where I offer consulting and multimedia services.

What future opportunities would you like to be involved with?

There are so many things! Basically everything I love – songwriting, general music-making, art, community, sustainability, helping people with the best of what I can contribute. It would be really lovely to have more live opportunities, get something in sync, and randomly, I’ve also always had this dream of a notion of contributing background/featured vocals for people’s recordings.

Latest News: Slow Bloom is my newest project, and I’m in the middle of releasing it right now! It’s a baby LP, something between an album and an EP, and so far I’ve released a few singles. In a month or so, the whole thing will come out together with all its fitted bits and pieces.

Articles by Mesmi: Drawing Creative Wisdom From History

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