Matt Connarton Unleashed: Isaac Sierra of Manifest Media

0:00 Speaker 1: Okay. That is bar None. That is our friend Isaac Sierra, who should be on the line with us. Isaac, are you there?

0:08 Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm here. How you doing good? How are you? Man?

0:11 Speaker 1: Good? Welcome, welcome back. It's been a long time.

0:14 Speaker 2: Yeah, man, I'm happy to be back on the show.

0:17 Speaker 1: Is that your now? That's your newest right? Is that your your newest track? Bar None?

0:22 Speaker 2: That's the newest music video that we have just released.

0:27 Speaker 1: Oh okay, okay. Has that been out for a while?

0:32 Speaker 2: The song has been out for a couple of years and we just released the music video for it. We've been developing a media company and that's the first full production as far as music videos that we've done.

0:45 Speaker 1: Oh okay, that makes sense. Yeah, it's very well done. So yeah, so tell us about that, tell us about the media company. This is a new development.

0:55 Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely. The media company is called Manifest Media. So we are aiming to do music, television, film, even developing video games and eventually we will be wanting to rep talent. So some of the newer music that I've been doing, as far as the vocalists, we've been exploring other genres outside of hip hop music. A lot of different rock genres new metal, punk rock. We've been doing a little bit of more traditional metal as well, which has been exciting.

1:38 Speaker 1: Oh interesting, Now, has this always kind of been the goal long term or is this something you decided on recently, because you know, in the past when we've talked, you know, you're pretty focused on on your hip hop career and the music that you were making. But it sounds like you've really taken a big step into expanding what you do. Have you always wanted to kind of branch out like that?

2:01 Speaker 2: Yeah, Actually, it's very interesting that I ended up becoming a rap artist. When I was younger, I always felt like I would be in bands, and I tried to put those projects together. It was just a lot harder to maintain all of those moving parts. It's like being in a big marriage with like five different people. And so I ended up becoming a rap artist because not only did I develop the passion for like hip hop music as far as the culture and am seeing, but it was just easier to manage myself as a solo artist that way.

2:41 Speaker 2: And nowadays you have producers that are putting out fully constructed rock music the same way that you might find like a rap instrumental, sure, and so I just kind of got inspired to expand my songwriting capabilities. And if you were gonna you were gonna ask me when I was a kid what I really wanted to do, I would have told I would have told you I wanted to be like a movie producer. And that's what's kind of developed this this release. As far as like visually, we really went for it and said cinematically, what can we do?

3:20 Speaker 2: And I had a lot of help from my team. I want to give a big shout out to UH to UH Rocky, which was the cinematographer for the video. You can find the video on YouTube the song of bar None. We're still using the hashtag m KOT,

3:44 Speaker 2: but we do have a new channel for the company, which is Manifest Media. Oh okay, be releasing all of the other rock music on all the major string platforms soon, but you can find us on SoundCloud under Manifest Media as well.

4:02 Speaker 1: Okay, oh excellent, excellent. Yeah, So this is a big this is a big change for you. This is a big switch now. And it's interesting too what you said about the way that you became a rapper because somebody else on the show, I wish I could remember who it was, but somebody else on the show had said something about being in a band is like like, if you're in a band with four other people, it's like being in a relationship with four other people who are also in a relationship with four other people. And what you said reminds me of that, and that happens with a lot of For example, some of the singer songwriters that we've had on the show over the years sort of a similar trajectory and that, you know, they were in a band and then it got to be too much and they said, you know, I want to do something on my own because I just think it will be you know, kind of streamlined and easier to manage and schedule around and everything if I'm just doing my own thing.

4:53 Speaker 1: So it's interesting that you took that path, but of course now you're now you're taking a whole bunch of stuff on it once.

5:01 Speaker 2: Yeah, it's funny because when you were working in a big production in general, it takes teamwork, and so I guess as far as that's the thing that interests me the most about I've never been part of a film crew, but I do have people that have been in the film industry and worked alongside you know, numbers of different productions and it does take a village to get those things taken care of. And so yeah, it's it's like being in a band, but in this situation, not everybody plays an instrument. You know, some folks are doing a little bit more administrative work or you know, handling different things as far as you know.

5:51 Speaker 2: I also edited the video myself, which is something that I've grew a passion for recently. You know, we vlog everything as far as when we're traveling, and I try to document like all the making of the music and everything that we're doing now. And so, you know, I could only afford so much through the music production as far as like the beats and publishing and all these different things, and so I started to like take a crack at editing myself. And so this was a challenge as far as like editing, trying to figure out how to get the mining and the performance shots to match the lyrics in the song.

6:37 Speaker 2: And it was a fun process. We got to partner up with the Breaking Bad Store, which is like a novelty gift shop here that's all themed around the Breaking Bad television show and they allowed us to come and film in their museum. They have a bunch of different memorabilia and things from the like the filming of the TV show and some photo op opportunities, and so if you get a chance to watch the video, you'll see like some backdrop from the Too Armanos like restaurant from the TV show. And that was really exciting for us to be able to partner with them.

7:17 Speaker 1: Yeah, well, that's that's huge, right, I mean, that's that's that's fantastic. So do you have are are there specific artists on the roster that you're that you're working with now or is that still sort of developing.

7:31 Speaker 2: That's definitely developing. We don't have anybody signed with our company yet, but I am I have my eye on a few different artists. I've been in the Midwest a lot this year, and there's a few artists out there that I've had my eye on. One in particular, his name is rock Hey. I've been working with another artist that's really solid. His name is The Revel. And then another friend of mine that I've made in the last year, his name is Baggs. He's an incredible artist. We have a single that will be coming out later this year, and so I've been just kind of keeping my ear out.

8:20 Speaker 2: We also did host some showcases, some unofficial showcases in Austin, Texas earlier this year during the south By Southwest Festival, and we discovered some incredible bands. One is like a pop punk band by the name of calmer Seas and they really kind of have the same message as far as like speaking about the mental health and different things like that. They stood out to me a lot. There was another band that my sister's really good friend is in called the ETCeteras Okay, and they're amazing as well.

9:11 Speaker 2: So many different artists.

9:14 Speaker 1: What do you what do you look for in terms of who you're interested in working with? What do they have to have? Because, as you know, there's so much talent out there, you know, like like people ask us, uh, people ask Jenny because she does the booking on the show, how do you find these how do you find all these great artists? And it's like, well, there's so much talent there everywhere, Like, so what do you look for? Like, like you must have somewhat of a criteria in mind, because not everyone you encounter is necessarily someone that you can work with.

9:41 Speaker 2: Right right. So the thing that I work that I look for first off is I guess you know, I have a very eclectic taste, and so I want to like the music first off. And then as far as wanting to do business with folks, you know, I'm not really I don't really have a preference and genre per se. But when you start to do business with folks, I I the way that we're trying to approach things is eventually, we would love to be able to provide the same opportunities that a major label would be able to provide bands, but also without changing people.

10:25 Speaker 2: And so like we would like to have like the type of company that's providing the vackuing that a major label would provide to you, to any type of artists or if they want to go di y and they just need a little help and assistance in some areas, we allow you to do that. And so what I do is I usually sit down and say, you know, what is your end goal? Whereas the the top for you, you know, and so if we sit there and we decide, you know, let's play with these different strategies as far as marketing or promotion, and they're not filling some of the suggestions, they are merely a suggestion, because I think that where some companies fail is they see something work for somebody and then they automatically want it to be the blueprint.

11:25 Speaker 2: And I don't want to take away from an artist or a band's artistry. I want them to develop naturally. And so that's like basically the purpose of Manifest Media is because we're not only doing like music, We're also we have like a division that does like marketing and advertisement. So when I take on a client, I'm saying, you know, what do you want? What is your vision? And how do we help materialize that?

11:55 Speaker 1: Okay, okay, no, that makes sense. Yeah. Do you ever have anyone approach you who you have to kind of say, hey, I'm sorry, but I don't I don't think you're ready yet, like you've got you know, because we all know with major labels, for example, and it's been this way for a couple of decades at least, right there's there really is no There really is no A and R anymore, there's no development. Major labels want. They want people who are already all ready to go, who've already done all the work, which which people criticize Major labels for but I actually think it kind of makes sense.

12:27 Speaker 1: But from a business standpoint, and then of course independent labels, you know there are generally a lot more interested in, you know, kind of putting in the work of the development of the artists and whatnot. But but but do you ever have anyone come to you who you have to say you need to do a little more on your own before we can help you to get to where you want to go because you're not ready yet to take that step to try to get to where you want to go? Does that ever happen?

12:54 Speaker 2: Yeah, Actually, that's a great question. I have a answer found myself in that situation where I've kind of just tried to give advice to a developing artist. But artists development is very important, and I don't feel like all artists should be left on their own to learn it, because it can be very discouraging to just be told no. And so I was actually just recently on a podcast that a friend of mine in Supeaka, Kansas, puts on with a They have like a recording facility out there called sound Peak Studios, and so they have a podcast called sound Peak after Dark and you can find their channel on YouTube while was just on an episode on the twenty first of December, And so what they do is they allow artists to perform and they give them feedback from a few different perspectives.

13:50 Speaker 2: And what I'm trying to do personally is I'm trying to develop programs to educate an artists where they can learn not only artists development, but business development as well, because I feel like it's one thing for an artist to be able to present themselves as far as their craft, but it's another thing to navigate through the business world of music or other platforms. And so that's what we're also trying to do, which is kind of going into what we've spoken about before, which is my kind of therapy community is I'm not sure if we're going to name it my kind of therapy.

14:42 Speaker 2: I think we're trying to develop the programs and name them Stroke of Genius, which was also coined by Roquel, our cinematographer, Okay, and those programs would be available to anybody, not just folks that are within our company or signed to our our label, but the general public would be able to come and be involved in those programs and developed not only they're musical crafts, but visual art crafts because I also do visual art acrylic on canvas in different multimedia types of art forms like that, and so we're trying to do that from like the nonprofit perspective of things.

15:31 Speaker 2: And so yeah, you know, I as far as a short answer, I haven't countered artists like that. And I do agree with you that the major labels aren't really put in a lot of time. I don't know if that the indie labels are either, but it can be from a business standpoint, time consuming, and it can take a lot of money to develop an artist, yes, And so that's why we've said, you know, how could we approach this from a standpoint of business where it makes sense and we're not necessarily trying to line our pockets.

16:08 Speaker 2: But you know, we're still trying to decide whether we're going to accept grants to these programs or if we're going to be independently.

16:15 Speaker 1: Funded, right right, Yeah, And I think I think too it's more important than ever too. Well, let me put it this way. I think there's there's now more than ever a need to, you know, to have resources where people can kind of learn.

16:33 Speaker 3: You know.

16:33 Speaker 1: It's not like I mean, I'm old enough to remember when you know, we didn't mind. I'm gen X, so my generation was really the last generation to grow up without the internet, so you know, I can I still remember when you you put out, you know, you try to get signed. You're in a band, or you're doing a solo thing, whatever it is, and you're you're trying to get signed to a label, and then you get signed, and then the label releases your album and hopefully they're able to get you on the radio and hopefully they're able to sell some records for you.

17:00 Speaker 1: But today there's so much more to do, which is good in the sense that with social media and everything, there's so many ways to get your music out there and to really market yourself, not just market your music, but really market yourself as a brand.

17:18 Speaker 2: And yeah, I agree with that.

17:21 Speaker 1: So there's so much more opportunity there. But it's also because there's so much more opportunity that's a double edged sword, because there's also so much more that you have to learn, and some people don't like to do that part. I'm I'm unusual in that I'm someone who, right from the beginning of my career in the music industry, I've always been fascinated by all of it. You know, I've played in a bunch of bands, but I also the business of music has always been really interesting to me. But most musicians don't want to have to deal with that, or they don't, you know.

17:52 Speaker 1: I hear people complain about, well, I don't want to have to try to become a TikTok star. I just want to make my music. And it's like, Okay, the music is the main thing, sure, but these are just things that you need to do to market yourself, you know, unless you have the luxury of having a major label do it all for you. So so I think that for what you're doing, or other organizations that we know, like you're in New Hampshire, there's up in Nashua, our friends Eleanor and Andre, they run something called New Hampshire Underground, which you know, provides education for artists and help for artists.

18:23 Speaker 1: But I think that's I think that's more important than it's ever been.

18:27 Speaker 2: I agree. I will admit that I was not focused on the business portion when I was a young artist myself, and even I was actually very stubborn as far as my uncle was already a very experienced musician and was trying to give me a lot of perspective when I was just becoming an artist and he saw talent in me, and he tried to give me some advice that I did not want to hear because I was like, I've got a message, like you know, he would he would try to give me tips on like, you know, develop your appearance or you know, how you want to present yourself, and I did not want to hear it.

19:17 Speaker 2: When I was younger, it wasn't intel. I had basically turned down all the majors and in the label offers that I had on the table, and kind of it felt like I had nowhere else to go. And a friend of mine basically was like, what are you going to do? You know, become a manager at a fast food chain. Not that there's anything wrong with that. Anybody that does that, I respect anybody who you know does anything in in any workforce. But what I said to myself was, well, if I go take on a different type of career path, I'm gonna have to learn skills anyway, and so why not learn the skills that it takes me to be involved in the business that I want to be in, which then has developed all of these different new avenues for us to now have founded, not only manifest Media, but these other to Lanthropic you know, things that we're trying to do through the nonprofits and stuff.

20:23 Speaker 2: You know.

20:25 Speaker 1: Yeah, you should talk a little bit more about that too, especially for people who have not heard our previous conversations on the show about about what you've done and what you've been doing in terms of uh, mental health and awareness. I know that, uh, you know, you had had a friend who had committed suicide and you did a song about that and whatnot, But yeah, can you talk a little bit more about that, about about what you've been doing in that zone and how that relates to the to your music.

20:52 Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely so, yeah, I do remember that is how we met is. I had put out a song about five years ago called how could You about two different friends of mine that had passed away. One of them was confirmed a suicide and the other we assume that it was a self inflicted overdose, but it was never confirmed, and that had began the expansion of I Guess what is now our mental health advocacy brand and community, the hashtag MKOT, and this last year in twenty twenty three, I guess I just said, advocating isn't enough.

21:52 Speaker 2: Not that I have any issue with anybody that purely advocates, but I said, you know, let's see how much we can do or how much more we can do. And so I didn't really know where we were fitting into the nonprofit world at that moment in time, and my first idea was, well, I have a lot of background an event organization. Let's see if we can create an annual mental health awareness events. And so we do a mental health awareness festival every May, and we've been doing that for two years now. It's called the Mcott Bash.

22:37 Speaker 2: Okay. So what we usually do is we'll pick an already existing nonprofit and we'll raise money for them. And we've been very successful in being able to put on these productions in the last couple of years, and we hope to continue to shed light on even centralized topics. Folks have asked us if we would be willing to do events that were more focused around particular brain functionality that folks are dealing with, like schizophrenia or you know, any other different particular I don't like to use the word mental illness or disorder.

23:30 Speaker 2: I particularly like to use the phrase brain function. I feel like everybody has brain functionality, and we particularly are trying to develop programs to help folks that are dealing with traumatic brain injury as well. I know that it's very hard to continue with employment after you sustain the brain injury, and so we're trying to develop programs to help folks with employment and like employment protection as well. But for right now, we just said, can we help some other programs that already exist, and so we raised money for a couple of different local nonprofits.

24:17 Speaker 2: And as these events developed, we are hoping to not only just spread awareness through the music, but we would, you know, hope to have seminars where folks are giving testimony and we have professionals coming and talking about, you know, how they might be able to, you know, give some insight on just different forms of brain function and where they might be able to find an outlet to help, you know, find services and aid if they're dealing with certain things. And so that's all a developing process, but we're just happy to be able to have done what little we could do in the last couple of years.

25:04 Speaker 1: Yeah, No, I think that's uh. I think that's great, very very positive stuff and and what about as far as your own uh material, as far as your your hip hop have you been uh, have you been touring at all in the past couple of years? I think the lot.

25:21 Speaker 2: Actually, we have a tour it's going to be coming up this next year in probably the middle of February till about the end of March and April. We're hoping to get out to your neck of the woods, and if we do, I would love to come and visit you in person on the show. But we're going to be continuing to push the bar Nun song and music video and also promoting some new hip hop records that we have out. We uh, we are always producing rap music. That's so funny actually, is that I started doing so much rock music, people are like, do you rap anymore?

26:07 Speaker 2: And so we are trying to create a balance as far as putting out more hip hop and rap records as well as uh, you know, developing developing these other genres. As far as myself as a vocalists, I have a lot more in the vault that we'll be releasing this year.

26:27 Speaker 1: Oh excellent, excellent. Where do you record? Do you do everything? Do you do everything yourself? Or do you have a studio that you work out of.

26:35 Speaker 2: I have a couple of different facilities. One facility that I use in Albuquerque is called On the Moon Studios. Nick Johnson is the founder of On the Moon Studios and the engineer that I work with over there, and he's an incredible, incredible individual and I've been working with him for probably about four years now. As far as being on the road, I do use sound peak as far as when I'm in Topeka, Kansas or you know, if somebody has a studio and we can just hop in there. Because I try to stay as productive as possible when I'm on the road, I don't really party like I used to.

27:20 Speaker 2: I used to be kind of a you know, a party animal, but now I just try to make sure that if we're gonna be away from home, we're working right. Yeah, And so to say that is also I said all that to say the reason why I started doing the rock music is because I did have a home studio available to me at that moment in time, which was something new. I never really wanted to do that. I liked a little bit of a a creative exchange. You know. People will always ask me, like, do you make your own beats, or do you record yourself?

28:01 Speaker 2: And those were things that I kind of wanted to leave up to folks that specialize in those areas. But when I had the availability to record myself, I would just knock out two or three songs in a night, and my roommate was was like always pretty surprised because he would be just like, Wow, you can just do any genre, because I'd be like, look, look at this song that I did, or look at that, and he would be just kind of excited that there was just like always something creative happening around. Because he was making records with me, rap records.

28:41 Speaker 2: He had been in like different hardcore bands as a vocalist and dabbled in rap music himself. He was the one with the recording setup, and since it was around, I was like, let's let's see how this works. And so I started to get a little bit more experienced and like mix mixing and mastering and different things like that and editing, and which gave me an even more deeper respect for folks that have to do all of the recording and the post production, because it's not easy to do any of these things and to create a final product.

29:18 Speaker 2: So that was very exciting for me to be able to get my feet wet in that area. Yeah.

29:23 Speaker 1: Absolutely, No, that's great. That's great. Well, Isaac, You've you've got a lot going on. So let's before we before we close out the segment, and I'm gonna I think I'm gonna end with light work, the track that you did with Jewels Santana. The collab from this is this is from a few years ago, right, I think we had we had played this on the show before and I was like, really pretty blown away by it.

29:47 Speaker 2: Yeah, that is a really cool collaboration that I was able to do a few years ago. I think that is the last time that I was on the show. I don't want to uh have that large of a gap uh for the next one. So oh, I agree out to you and I should have actually probably sent you one of the rock records. I don't think that you even knew that we were doing that. But even just for your listening pleasure, I'll send you some stuff. Oh yeah, you can check out the other thing we're doing.

30:18 Speaker 1: Send us, uh, yeah, send us anything you want and and uh and if it if it's something that hasn't been played on the radio before, make sure make sure you let us know that because we can do. We like to do world radio premieres where we're the first radio station in the US to play something. That's a thing that we do. So if you've got if you've got anything like that, I mean, send us anything. But if you've got anything like that too that hasn't been played anywhere, let us know. Or if it's been played on a podcast or something, fine, but if it hasn't been played on the radio yet, let us know.

30:47 Speaker 2: And uh, actually one of I love premiering the records on your show, and I really appreciate and I'm very honored that you had allowed me to do that for a few of these releases.

31:03 Speaker 1: Yeah, excellent, excellent.

31:05 Speaker 3: Jenny, did you have you know you're you're you're one of my personal favorites.

31:10 Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I just remember it almost forgot Yeah. Yeah the hoodies so Isaac, we still wear those hoodies that you sent us. And yeah, and you see the picture I tagged you in, Yeah.

31:23 Speaker 2: I did get that picture.

31:24 Speaker 1: Was that was a news story?

31:27 Speaker 2: Surprise?

31:29 Speaker 1: Yeah that that.

31:30 Speaker 3: I did not know they were going to pull that photo either, And I'm really glad that they did. I love that photo. It's you and I are are brother and sister when it comes to that issue and trying to help people and you now, as you know, I have CRPS. So it's a real important part of my heart that you do that work, and I really appreciate it.

31:50 Speaker 1: And I'm honored to wear that shirt. I love that sweather. Yeah, absolutely, very.

31:55 Speaker 2: Honored to have you. You know, it's it's a big issue that always needs to be addressed. Yeah, and so I'm very honored that you've supported over the years and still have the the headies. We're trying to produce more and we're trying to at some point give a portion of the proceeds from the sales of that merchandise to different programs for suicide prevention as well.

32:24 Speaker 1: Excellent. Yeah, that's outstanding, very good, very good, Isaac. So before we let you go, like I said, we're gonna play light work. But what should people know about where to find you online, how to find manifest media, anything that you want our listeners to make sure that they know so they can keep up on everything that you're doing or you know, and there might be somebody listening who wants to work with you too.

32:45 Speaker 2: Yeah, So right now, Manifest Media does have an Instagram page Manifest Many, and we also have a Facebook page which is Manifest Media. The YouTube and uh SoundCloud if you want to hear some of the music right now, is also under Manifest Media, and you can also contact me personally if anybody ever wanted to reach out through any of the Instagram. We also have an Instagram for my kind of Therapy now which is uh m k O T underscore dot org and uh, you know, I manage all of those accounts, so if anybody ever wanted to find me, uh, that's that's how they would be able to get a hold of me.

33:39 Speaker 2: Also through Isaac Sierra is my personal page on Facebook that's attached to all So the the Truth Facebook page and True to the Rhymes t r U E the number two d A r H y m E s all one word on instagrams outstanding.

34:01 Speaker 1: All right, Isaac, So we'll let you go so we can hit this track, but yes, let's do this again soon. You've got a lot going on. Send us any music you want to send us. We love it, we love premiering new music. And we'll let you go for now, and and I'm sure we'll talk to you soon, but thank you so much for calling us today.

34:16 Speaker 2: Thanks for having me on the show again.

34:18 Speaker 1: You got it all right, all right, you got it.

34:21 Speaker 2: Take care, good morning, Bye bye, bye bye