Meet Justin Loretangeli | Founder of Pro Country Music

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

Hi Justin, why did you decide to pursue a creative path?
I’ve always had more than just a casual interest in music, even before I really realized it. Even as a kid, I thought it was normal to read the CD booklets and the Wikipedia pages of the artists/bands I loved so I knew everything there was to know about them; the songwriters, producers, the label that was releasing the music, etc. There was never really a time during the day where I didn’t have music playing, and I wanted to know every single detail about the music I loved. Though I had that love for music, I also realized that I didn’t have the talent to make it on my own. I couldn’t sing, I couldn’t really write songs, and at best, I’m an average guitar player. But music was all I thought about, so I knew I had to find a way to make music a part of my life. When the video game Guitar Hero came out, it totally shifted my music taste towards classic rock, and as I dug deeper into that style of music and into more obscure bands, I connected with a record label in Nashville called FnA Records Records, and at 16 years-old, I started working with them to find and sign bands from that era, so as early as my sophomore/junior year of high school, I was a part of the music industry.
I remember sitting in my basement one day in college, and the sudden urge to listen to “There Goes My Life” by Kenny Chesney came over me. And that led to a long session of listening to a lot of the country songs that I remembered loving, and before long, I was exclusively listening to country music.
When I was in community college, I took an Intro to Journalism course, not knowing if I would like it or if I was even good at it. I took to it very quickly and realized that I loved writing. When I looked at the syllabus, I saw that the final project was a feature story on a topic of our choice, and that we had to do three interviews for it. I remember one of the first CDs I bought with my own money was Heartland’s ‘I Loved Her First,’ so on a whim, I decided to search up one of the band members on Facebook and ask if he’d be willing to be interviewed. Luckily, he pretty quickly said he was, and I was able to track down both of the “I Loved Her First” songwriters to ask them if they’d be willing to be interviewed as well. It all came together very quickly, and as I wrote the story, I was really enjoying the process of writing an in-depth piece on a song that I loved so much. I knew I had something.
By the time I got to University, I had added journalism as a minor and began taking more classes, There was another class where I had to write a feature story, and this time, I tracked down 90s country singer David Kersh, his manager and his producer, and put their story together. Once again, it came together very quickly, and my love for writing and interviewing the artists I loved kept growing.
During my last journalism course, we walked into class and the professor had the letters “JFDI” written on the whiteboard. She asked the class if anyone knew what that meant, and when nobody answered, she said, “It stands for ‘Just Fucking Do It,’ If you want to be a journalist, you don’t need a master’s degree or tons of experience, you have to just f*cking do it.” That really struck a chord with me. We were given a semester-long assignment to create a blog on a topic of our choice and cover it for the entire semester. I pretty quickly decided to cover the traditional country music scene, and I came up with the name “Pro Country,” which was a play on words of the “Bro Country” era of country music at the time.
When the semester ended, I decided to put the Heartland and David Kersh feature stories on the site, because I didn’t want to lose them, and I thought that there may be one person who may stumble upon them one day and enjoy reading about an artist or song they loved. I sent the stories to the subjects, and I thought that was the end of Pro Country. Pretty soon, I started getting notifications that “Pro Country’s stats are booming!” And they were. Thousands of people ended up reading the stories in the first few days of them being online. So that success, along with my professor’s “JFDI” message, made me believe that maybe I could run a country music website, so I decided to keep Pro Country alive and continued to conduct interviews.

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
There’s a ton of music websites out there, and I think that’s awesome! One thing that I think sets Pro Country apart is the amount of research I put in to each interview. I always say that I may not be the best writer and I may not use the biggest words, but I take pride in knowing that I will do as much, if not more, research as anyone on an artist or song to make sure my interview with them stands out. Like I said before, I take the responsibility of sharing the artists’ music seriously, so I would be shorting both the artists and myself if I didn’t do everything I could to share as much of their story as possible. As far as challenges go, being a “one man band” with Pro Country can be hard at times. I cherish the fact that I’ve written every single question that’s been asked and every single article that’s been written on the site, but there’s certainly times where I have a ton of email pitches from people wanting to work together, and I’ll start to fall behind or get burnt out. And as I do that, the number continues to grow, and I get in my own head and start to feel overwhelmed. Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love getting all those pitches, but I’ve learned that to combat that burnout, I can’t write interviews every night. Taking a day or two off during the week allows me to reset and keep things fresh. As much as I’d love to do it every night, I’ve realized that doing it 4-5 nights a week keeps things chugging along nicely and keeps it exciting for me!

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
I’ve traveled all over the tri-state area seeing live music, so I would certainly recommend venues like the Penn’s Peak, Starland Ballroom, Prospector’s, Jenks Club and Waterfront Music Pavilion for anyone seeking out live music! As far as things to do outside of music, Yankees and Devils games are always a great time! There’s so many teams in such close proximity that any sport you enjoy, there will definitely be something around.
There’s a small restaurant chain in the area called Chickies and Petes, and they have something called “Crab Fries,” which are essentially old bay crinkle fries, that are a staple in the area. If you’re ever in town, make sure to stop in!

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
My Grandmom passed away the night before I’m filling out this interview. More than anyone, she shaped my love of traditional country music, and it’s something we bonded over. I spent many days looking through her CD collection, and she allowed me to take as many as I wanted. I saw names I had never heard or explored before: Mark Chesnutt, Ricky Van Shelton, Doug Stone, etc., and I would take the CDs home, load them up on my phone, and spend hours listening. I fell in love with that classic country sound from the CDs she had. Every time I drove her home from my house, I had a short list of artists I would play on the radio, and whenever George Jones came on, she would always say “Oh, I love his voice,” or “That’s my man.” We spent the duration of a song or two bonding over our shared love of classic country music, and I know without her allowing me to continuously search through her CD collection, I may have never found my way into traditional country music, and Pro Country may have never happened. So I have to thank her for that. I’ve interviewed almost 350 artists at this point, so I certainly have to thank all of them, as well as the managers, PR reps, radio promoters, etc. who have reached out and wanted to put an interview together. I take the responsibility of sharing people’s music seriously, so it means the world to me that so many people want to work together.

Website: procountrymusic.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/procountrymusic/

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/justin-loretangeli-b4a23713a/

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

Other: – https://procountrymusic.com/2017/12/18/goodnight-sweetheart-the-david-kersh-story/ – https://procountrymusic.com/2017/12/18/the-story-of-i-loved-her-first/