Today we’d like to introduce you to Justin Kollars.
Justin, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
I’m a music producer, mixer, singer songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and all things post production audio. I moved to Nashville in 2020 from Gettysburg Pennsylvania. I started writing songs when I was 13 and recorded and released my first original song when I was 14 years old. I started out by pursing the artist path, playing open mics and small local acoustic gigs around Gettysburg. By age 15 I started to really take an interest in the recording and producing side of things because I liked how I didn’t need a band to create the music I was wanting to make, thanks to recording software and multi-tracking. My main instrument is acoustic guitar, but as I recorded my songs in my bedroom studio at age 15, I then learned how to play the drums and the bass so that I could add those to my recordings. As I continued to record my own music at home, I was always seeking ways to get better sounding recordings. At the time I only had a 2 input, M-Audio recording interface and a USB microphone recording into Audacity. Over time I continued to learn new recording and production techniques, always improving my skills and knowledge in production and as a multi-instrumentalist.
When I turned 18, I moved to Los Angeles California to live with my older brother, so that I could experience the world outside of my small town. I worked at a movie studio in Hollywood as a production assistant and learned many lessons on how to navigate life on my own in a big city as an 18 year old. I was unsure what I wanted to do with my life but I knew I wanted it to somehow be related to audio and music. I didn’t have any friends or family that were making a living in music or audio and so I did not think that was even an option to choose as a career path. But when the lease was up at my brothers LA apartment, he moved back to PA and I went with him because I did not want to stay in LA any longer. When I moved back to Pennsylvania, I attended a 6 month audio program at an audio engineering trade school near my home town. This was very exciting to do as an 18 year old since I never knew that schools like that existed. I completed the program in the spring of 2016, and as a soon to be 19 year old, I decided I wanted to try and really pursue a career in audio production, and so I cold emailed studios in Nashville asking if they offered internships and then I ended up landed an internship at a studio and I was set to move there within a month. I did not have a plan for where I’d live or work when I accepted the internship but I knew I’d figure it out because I was determined to do whatever it took to find a way to do what I was passionate about. My sister ended up connecting me with an old family friend that she knew lived in Nashville and they were so kind to let me live at their house when I moved to Nashville for the internship. I worked lots of odd jobs while attending the unpaid internship. After 2 months of moving to Nashville as a 19 year old, I then changed my entire career path and life goals because of a girl I was dating at the time. She did not believe that the career path I was pursing would work and in order to marry her one day I needed to change my career path to something more secure and predictable. So I moved back to Pennsylvania after being in Nashville for only 2 months at that point and it was a shock to everyone that I switched my plans so suddenly and left the intership. I told my self it was what I wanted but deep down I was miserable trying to change my entire life in order to make the relationship work. Once I moved back to Pennsylvania, I attended the Gettysburg community college in pursuit of getting a degree as an electrician, while working full time at a grocery store deli, and I was at an all time low. Unhappy with the direction my life was headed, the relationship with that girl ended and now I was stuck back in PA, working at a deli, going to community college to become an electrician. I had given up my dream of pursing a career in music and audio in Nashville.
Eventually I started to take back control of my own life and after one semester at the community college, I did not enroll in the upcoming fall semester, and I quit my job at the deli and went and started my own music studio as a freelancer. I worked construction building log homes to help support myself while I tried to get the studio business going. I opened a music studio in a 17′ X 2o’ shed on my brothers property, and I made half of my income that year from recording and mixing bands, and the other half of my income was building log homes. I was fully freelance during all of this for the first time in my life and learned a lot of hard lessons about freelancing since I did not have any guidance on how to do it. But this was the first time in my life where I experienced making money doing something that I loved.
From when I opened the music studio in Gettysburg Pennsylvania in the winter of 2017 as 22 year old, not knowing anything about how to start a business or get clients it fortunately worked out fairly well. Throughout that year I started making trips to Nashville to make connections and foster relationships there knowing that one day I would move back.
In the spring of 202o right as covid started to spread in the US, the log home I was helping build had just finished, and the lease at my apartment was about to end, and so I had just decided that now was the time to just go for it and officially move back to Nashville. So with only $1,000 to my name, in the middle of a global pandemic, I packed up a U-Haul and moved my whole life to Nashville, knowing this time I would not let anyone discourage me from my career endeavors. When I made the decision to move to Nashville this time around, I was able to have a month where I could live with the family friend that I had previously lived with back in 2016, so I had a place to live for a month while I got settled in to town and find a job. 6 months after moving to Nashville in 2020, I met my wife and got married in the spring of 2021. She has been my biggest supporter and encourager of me and my career endeavors and so I worked lots of jobs while living in Nashville all the while, continuing to build connections in the industry and taking on recording projects when I had time. I worked in a woodshop building box beams, worked as an in home caregiver, then as a project manger at my father in laws construction company, managing custom home builds in luxurious Nashville neighborhoods. In 2024 I made the big jump to going full time as a freelancer again, knowing that I was ready to give it another shot of devoting all my time and energy to getting to work full time in the career field I longed to be in since I was 18 years old. I worked for production companies as a freelancer throughout 2024, installing speakers and video walls in churches and setting up audio and video equipment for live concerts.
Now at 30 years old, I work full time as a Sound Designer for Hallow, all the while continuing to work with singer songwriters in town recording and mixing music and I even have ventured into the film community here, adding original music scores and sound effects to short films.
My work days consists of creating things in my studio each day and I am so very thrilled with the way my career has shaped out. I have spent 15 years learning my craft as an audio engineer and songwriter, I’ve made endless sacrifices and took many risks all in pursuit of making a living doing what I was passionate about. There is so much more to the story and I could go on and on about the work it took to get to where I’m at today, But I hope that you have enjoyed the parts of the story I just shared and I hope it encourages you to never give up on your goals, your hopes, and your dreams.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
The career path for most creative industries in music and entertainment is like the Wild West. Everyone is blazing their own path because there is no road map for how to make a living in these types of career fields. My journey has consisted of an enormous amount of obstacles and challenges. Ones that have left me broke time and time again, over worked and under paid, and the way I got through all of those hardships was having belief in myself, not being afraid to put myself out there and meet people in the industry, constantly self educating, and spending most of my waking hours working on my craft.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I do a large variety of things all related to music production and post production audio. For the music side of things, I am best known for working with artists in my home studio, building out songs from scratch and giving the artist a final product that they can release. This work consistent of song writing, playing instruments on the tracks, programming MIDI, mixing and mastering.
As for the post production audio side of things, I have years of experience as a sound designer, and podcast/audio book editor.
The music work I’m most proud of are the songs I self produce and release for my own music as an artists as well as each time I get to play a part in the production process for a musical artist/band that hires me to help on their music.
The post production audio work that I’m most proud of is that last year I got to work as a sound designer for a Super Bowl commercial that was for a PSA commercial in the state of New York. I am also very proud of the work I do as a sound designer for the audio drama show “Saints Alive” thats on the app Hallow.
Can you talk to us about how you think about risk?
I am all about taking risks. I think that is the only way you can make it in this career type of career field. But not only from a career perspective, I believe that to truly love and experience life in its fullest, it requires sacrifice, and risk.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://justinkollars.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/justinkollars
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/justin-kollars-30253310b/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkQaNJZztAmM105zcNyb2KQ
- Other: https://open.spotify.com/artist/4t3Fk4Jga3IfQuuNAbCr09?si=UX_9h1baTja5ZOE1cudD_g
