Finding Your Artist Pathway Feat Brianna Ruelas

In this episode Durell is joined by singer, and performing artist consultant Brianna Ruelas. Brianna and Durell begin the episode talking about how they got connected at the Springboard Music Festival and that from the moment they connected it's been so much fun to support each other. Brianna talks about her first introduction to music at the age of 9 where she performed in a talent show singing Debbie Gibson’s song “Out Of The Blue”. She remembers singing over the vocals because back then at that age she didn’t know how to remove the lead vocals and just sing over the backing track. She knew after that experience she wanted to continue to sing and perform and the path in which she took was musical theater, and ultimately decided to attend Pepperdine University to study musical theater. After graduation she started working at a restaurant in Malibu where she ultimately got connected with a voiceover artist and coach named Lauren Adams who helped her secure representation with an agency called Sutton, Barth, & Vernari Inc.

Brianna knew that her ultimate goal was to be a performing artist and make music. She made the choice to audition for Season 4 of American Idol. Brianna shared that she actually auditioned 3 times but ultimately didn’t make the final cut. She remembers that it was a very tough experience and even though she didn’t make it on the show she was thankful for her experience. Brianna thought that after her experience on American Idol her music dreams were over but she learned the importance of how to manage expectations. What she ultimately learned was that it wasn’t the end but really it was the beginning of a brand new journey. Durell asked her if the goal was to make a record after that but Brianna said that wasn’t even the case; she just wanted to sing.

Brianna and Durell talk about her meeting her husband Victor in Los Angeles and they knew they wanted to start a family. Brianna shares that she ultimately didn’t want to raise a family in Los Angeles for a variety of different reasons. She and her husband decided to make the move back to her hometown in Dallas, Texas. Moving back to Dallas was also big for her husband because his ultimate goal was to open a restaurant and the opportunity for that was much greater living in Dallas.

Brianna talks about the fact that she almost bought into the lie that just because she was a mom that she could no longer pursue her love for music. She shared that she didn’t do anything related to music for several years which led to her going through depression. After some encouragement from her husband she decided to start performing with a band and make connections around the music community in Dallas. She made the decision to pivot into consulting and coaching artists/creatives because she was now a mom of three and didn’t want to gig every weekend with her band. Brianna talks about being given the opportunity to work at a music school doing vocal and performance coaching after quitting her full-time job working in advertising sales. She talks about her husband receiving the keys to open the doors to a restaurant and them both suddenly becoming business owners and how scary that was while still having to provide for their young girls. She talked about all the business skills she had to learn to help support the opening of the restaurant being the foundation of what she does today as a strategist in helping indie artists with their careers in showing them how to take a small business approach to achieve success in their music career.

Durell asks Brianna how she feels about artists who only view success from the viewpoint of being one of the biggest acts in the world. Brianna says that she always likes to dig a bit deeper to find out why they view success that way and that she isn’t the right person to coach them because she doesn’t promise that’s what she can help them achieve. She shares that there are so many moving parts that have to come into play. Durell and Brianna talk about the work that will get creatives to the goal of being able to make a living doing what they love even if it doesn’t look like what they envisioned when they first dreamed of a music career.

Brianna talks about her first book she wrote entitled “Performing Artist Pathway: Navigating The Highs & Lows On Your Music Journey”. She speaks about the inspiration behind the book being that when she would do workshops and talk about what artists go through along the way she would get asked the same questions over and over and she felt like she should turn all of the information and advice she was often giving into a book. She shares that this book is a practical guide filled with tips and tricks that can really help performing artists. She talks about artists or people in making a decision to take action on the things they are passionate about and how it truly can be a game changer in pursuing their dreams and goals that make them happy which she calls freedom.

Brianna and Durell end the episode talking about the journey her husband and family have had being restaurant owners. She shares that for 7 years it truly had been a labor of love and that to see the restaurant be shutdown due to the pandemic was truly very hard. She does say that though because of the restaurant she now has been afforded such a unique entrepreneurial background that has truly been a blessing. She talks about a book she read called “Blue Ocean Strategy” which focuses on operating within a niche and how that provided such a vision for her to be able to establish herself in the marketplace helping indie artists/creatives.

Brianna talks about the creation of her reality show singing summit. She shares that the summit was inspired by the creation of her online course entitled “Make Reality TV Your Reality Online Experience. She shares that so many talented indie artists/creatives go on reality singing shows and are unprepared to capitalize and make the most out of their experience. She wanted to create a space to educate and enter these extremely empowered situations and do what needs to be done so they can make an impact and ignite the next phase of their music career.

For more info on Brianna Ruelas please visit her website:

https://www.briannaruelasmusic.com/