Meet Josh Wolfer | Location Sound Mixer, Musician, and over-all decent human being.

We had the good fortune of connecting with Josh Wolfer and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Josh, can you walk us through the thought-process of starting your business?
Like many people I’m sure, I was told at a young age that you should figure out what you love to do – and then you should figure out a way to get paid to do it. So I didn’t really think “Hey I want to own my own business!”, but rather, “How can I get paid to do what I really love”. And that’s always been the core foundation of my thought process.

From there, I have never stopped learning, especially from people who have already gone through the journey. I’ve gone through many training courses to help me better myself and accomplish my goals. We could probably talk for hours about specific strategies.

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
It’s been a long road to get to where I am today. The earliest I can remember being in love with sound and music is about the age of 5. I would go to my grandmother’s apartment and play for hours and hours on her Casio piano and synthesizer. I was mesmerized by all the different sounds I could make. I wrote many “songs” by simply pressing different keys and remembering how they made me feel.

I played around with many different instruments throughout my life, but never really took it seriously until I was about 18. My best friend and roommate Matt bought himself a bass guitar and amplifier. He would play it sometimes, but I would play it all the time and I fell in love with bass guitar. It quickly became my primary instrument and I would invest endless hours learning various techniques and songs. At about the same time, I learned that it was possible to have a “home music studio”. Once I learned that Trent Reznor made all of his own music on his own computer, I was obsessed with creating my own industrial music on my own studio computer. I learned everything I could about music engineering and production. Many years later I went through the Berklee College of Music online program to complete a master certificate in music business and production.

I tried for many years to become a “rock star”. My bands achieved moderate success, opening for acts such as Journey, Def Leppard, Chris Cornell, UFO, Foreigner and many others, but we never made it to the big leagues. Building a successful band is incredibly difficult.

Fast forward to about three years ago, a friend of mine who is a Director of Photography in film asked me if I wanted to be a PA on a local film set. I agreed of course, because that just sounds awesome. While on the set, some of the grips found out that I owned my own music studio and asked me why I wasn’t doing sound on the movie. I said “Because I don’t know anything about film sound…”. They responded “You know the sound mixer is one of the best paid people on the set?”. And that was that. I decided from that point on, that I was going to learn film sound. I bought several books, watched endless hours of videos, joined multiple Facebook groups, and learned how to take my well developed skills in music production and apply them to film.

I will admit, that I was a little cocky going into it. I made the same mistake that many people make that don’t understand film sound do: I trivialized what was actually a very complex field of work. I thought “How hard could it be, you’re just holding a microphone on a stick?”. But it’s so, so much more than that. And I absolutely love every minute of it. And I love the Austin film sound community.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
I actually don’t really get out “that” much. but when out of town friends visit Austin, I love to hit up places like Cidercade, Stiles Switch BBQ, Torchy’s Tacos, Tatsuya Ramen, and Hop Doddy burger bar. These are some staples for me. And they’re also mostly food related, so you can see what I like to do in my spare time!

For music venues, my favorite place is Come and Take It Live! They have some of the best bands that come through Austin, and my band Runescarred plays there fairly regularly.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
There have been so many sources of inspiration and learning, it would be very difficult to name them all. Some of the bigger influences on me have been Victor Wooten & the folks at Wooten Woods and the Tom Hess Music Career Mentoring Program (MCMP). Also Dorian Britton who is an amazing composer, orchestrator, and has wealth of knowledge on running your own business. As well as Joe Cooke – an Austin-based location sound mixer who has really taken me under his wing and had a direct hand in growing my location sound career.

Website: https://www.wolfmansound.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wolf.man.sound/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/superjoshwolfer