DARK HEART - From Agent to Artist: Leaving The Safe Route to Chase Your Dream

Dark Heart is a melodic techno producer who used to be a Hollywood talent agent but left his career to pursue his dream of becoming an artist. Today's he getting millions of plays on his music, playing shows around the country and achieving all the goals he set out to do.

In this episode we talk about his story of coming to Hollywood, life as a talent, his mindset around success and chasing his dreams, plus the landscape of Spotify and how he's been able to get so many plays on the platform.

Follow Dark Heart here:
https://www.instagram.com/dddarkheart
https://www.tiktok.com/@dddarkheart

And visit my site to join the mailing list, book a free coaching call or get in touch:
www.nikcherwink.com

Transcript

Track 1: 0:28

Hmm. Yeah. What's up everybody? Welcome to the Headliner Mindset podcast. Today's guest has been exploding in the progressive and techno scene over the past few years. Racking up tens of millions of plays on his Spotify and playing shows all over the country. He left behind a promising career at one of the biggest talent agencies in the world, choosing to pursue his own dreams instead. And that choice has definitely been paying off. This is dark heart. What's up, brother? Oh man, I've been, uh, I've been good. I've been really good lately. I'm in a good fucking zone, bro. Really good, really good energy. Just, uh, yeah, in a great place, man. How about you? How have you been? Yeah, I, yeah, I, I appreciate that. I do most of the time, and I've also learned that. I don't have to be positive all the time, and sometimes I'm in a shit fucking mood and I've learned to like own that way better. like if I'm not doing good, I'm not gonna pretend like, like I'm not, you know, but I'm, I'm in a good zone right now and I appreciate that man. We do go way back. it 2015? Is that what we were saying before we got on here? Was that when we met? Cool. That's almost like a fucking decade. That's eight. Eight years. So it's quite a while ago. A lot has happened in eight years. Yeah. we, we have doctorates now in fucking music industry. Uh, I am excited to dive in with you because I haven't really seen you much since then. And there've been a few artists. I really love this when this happens, when I'm like, I. I see you at the beginning of your career, and then it's almost like I blink and I just look at a find, you know, I'm on Instagram one day and then I just see somebody playing in front of a huge crowd and I look at their Spotify and they're like blowing up and I'm like, oh shit, okay. they've been working, they've been getting after it. And I feel like you're one of those people. I just kinda looked up, I'm like, oh yeah, he's killing it, man. So, uh, for me, I'm really excited to just catch up because it's been a long time. But also I'm really excited for you to share your story because when I met you, you had just left this really amazing. Successful career at William Morris, the one of the biggest, you're at WWE right at William Morris. Right? One of, one of the biggest talent agencies in the world. And you were like, you know what? Fuck this awesome job. I'm gonna go pursue my dream and my passion. And uh, that just takes a lot of balls. And so I'm excited to hear about that. And I'd love to start our conversation there. Tell us about your job at William Morris, what you were doing there, and how you finagled your way into Hollywood. Yeah. Yeah. Oh yeah. It's like, no, no u no YouTube channels that were just explaining how to do everything right. Yeah. No Headliner Mindset podcast. I. Yeah. Yeah. Not at all. So these are like movie producers, not music producers. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yep. Hmm. Yeah. And and at this time, did you, there's was still a part of you that was interested in music or was this like not really even an idea yet? Yeah, yeah. It's a lifestyle. No, you don't. You don't, yeah. You don't have a life Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. You gotta be all in. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. You got thick skin. Yeah. Yeah. And I, I wanna, I wanna pause you right there because there's already so much great stuff in this story about having a goal, having a big, scary goal. Especially when, you know, you're coming from a town and a culture where people are just kind of working the nine to five and maybe not, you know, necessarily pursuing these big dreams. I'm curious, like, what was driving you, what was it about you and what was going on in your mind where you were just like, yo, I'm gonna fucking pack my bags and move to LA and, know, put everything on the line, Hmm. So, so for you it. Mm. Yeah. Yeah. it, it, yeah. Yeah. It's just part of you. Yeah. I love that. You always, I love that, man. Good shit. Okay, so now you're, you get the job you're at WME. You made it. How long were you there? Totally. Yeah. So as a, as an agent, what kind of people were you representing when you got to the agent role? Yeah. Yeah, of course. Yeah. And then at what point did you decide you didn't wanna do it anymore? Obviously you, you decided to pursue this music thing, I'm curious if that voice was just getting louder, like, what inspired you to get into music and leave that behind Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's cutthroat. Yeah. Yeah. Mm-Hmm. Yeah. Yeah. So take me back to when you actually made that decision. What pushed you over the line? What got you to actually make that call? Yeah. Yep. Oh yeah. Yeah. A thousand percent. Man, I talk about that a lot. It's like, I personally feel like I've always been very connected to my intuition. Some people might call that God or the universe or some higher power. I'm at a stage in my life where I'm sort of stepping into that belief a little bit more. That there is some universal force out there that is speaking to you and it's showing you where to go and it, and it's giving you these little universe taps on your shoulder saying, Hey, go, go over here. Go check this thing out. And you know, either, either you listen to it or you don't. And I've been, I think, very fortunate to have listened to it pretty well along the way. And like you said too, also not listened to it. And then you real, you learn from those moments too, probably just as much. so I'm, yeah, man, I'm, I'm, I definitely resonate with that. I'm glad that you, that you listened to it, you know? And so, Let's talk about your journey as an artist.'cause I, I met you when you were, you were probably fairly early on in that journey, I think you're like, yeah. Yeah. Mm-Hmm. Yeah. were at Icon just for what? A couple quarters though? What, two quarters or, yeah, I remember that. It was like seven up. Did that. Yeah. Oh, that's right. Yeah. Okay. I'm a, I'm a dj. I'm a dj. Yeah. Yep. I. Yeah. Oh, wow. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. But, but at the same time, it's like, I don't know, man, it, there's something to be said about what I call, like building the plane while you fly it. Like, I love, I just love that you just threw yourself, you just threw yourself in the deep end. You're like, I'm gonna just start entering DJ contest and remix contest. And like, I don't have a brand, I don't have any idea what I'm doing. And it's almost like this naive, just dive into the deep end and you figure it out. I think it's cool. Yeah. Yeah. So what would you have done differently? would've chosen a different brand. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's like, and it would be, it would be nice if everything just was clean and it just went in a straight line and we knew what the fuck we were doing and we just like did everything right. You know? And for some people there, there's something to be said for that. Like, okay, cool, there's the sound is dialed in, the strategy is dialed in, the brand is dialed in. And like, obviously I think when we are treating this like a business, it's like, okay, cool, that's going to help the business. I just think there is something so beautiful about the messy artist's journey of finding yourself and figuring, figuring yourself out. Like I think it's cool that you have all of these songs out and it's like, damn, look at, look at this guy discovering himself and I. You had to go through that experience to get to where you are today, to really have it more dialed in, you know? But I think, nobody's path is the same. And it's like, I, I would love to look back on my life and be like, damn, I wish I didn't do a lot of the shit that I did, and did things differently and like, didn't make some of these mistakes and like, didn't like go to that one party where that thing happened. You know? It's like, yeah, if I could, but at the same time, all those fucking things make me who I am. You know what I mean? So there's so something beautiful about that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, Yeah. Huh? Yeah. Did you consider, now you have a very clear vision of your sound and the direction. When, when did that start shaping up for you? When you're like, this is my lane, this is really what I want to, you know, the sound. I want to go for the lane I want to be in. I. Hmm. Damn. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. How has, how did having a son change things for you? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Totally, man. Cool. Well, congratulations stepping into fatherhood. Very exciting. I know you're gonna kill it. I'm sure you already are. Um, yeah. Yeah. So you've gotten really clear on the sound, the brand. You, you, you're talking about really hitting the stride in your production. Tell me more about that. Like, it sounds like you're just in the fucking zone right now. Hmm. Hmm. Yeah. How, how do you let go of that pressure and that expectation or that tendency to maybe like, you know, follow the trends or try to make something for like a specific label? Like how do you actually really let go of everything to stay truly authentic to what you think is cool? Yeah. Yeah. Hmm mm-Hmm. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Mm-Hmm. Yeah. Yeah. And so you've done really well on Spotify and I'm always curious to, ask people like how they've gotten such huge numbers.'cause that's this sort of enigma, I think that a lot of. Artists out there are trying to figure out, you know, everyone's trying to like, get on the Spotify playlist and, you know, get actual listens, you know, actual people to actually listen to their music. It seems like such a hard thing to do. Uh, it's such an oversaturated fucking market. I heard a statistic that like a hundred thousand songs get uploaded to the internet every single day. I don't know how accurate that is, but it's, it's pretty insane. so of strategy wise, like how have you been able to get some eyes and ears on your music? Hmm. Like workout playlist. Yeah. Yeah, I remember that. Mm-Hmm. is that like by country or is that even like down to states and like parts of countries like Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Hmm. Yeah. Well, so how did you, how did, how did you get on those playlists in the first place? Yeah. I see. Yeah. And are these, uh, like the labels that are kind of sending them into these or are you doing that kind of submission process yourself? Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Yeah. totally. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I, I love that you bring up. Beatport and 1,001 track list.'cause I feel like everyone is obviously so focused on social media'cause we're really focused on building our fan base psych. Those are the people that are gonna come to the show and buy the tickets and those are the ones we're engaging with and interacting with. And it's important to not forget that, that DJ support side, like I feel like you're actually the first person that I've interviewed that's really bringing this up. And that's such an important piece of the marketing equation, as you said, the silos, right. That are, I think, really, really important to look at. When you said running a, a beat port or a trackless campaign, would that look like for you? Mm-Hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, that's, that's, that's great. I, I didn't know that, uh, thousand one was linked to, to beatport, so that's, that's really, yeah. So you can, they just make it easy to buy. Yeah. Very cool. Well, that's great, man. It's such a, it's just such a good reminder, to really remember to have marketing to DJs as part of your marketing campaign, right? It's not just about pushing this track out and just trying to get your Spotify plays up, but you want to get other people rinse in your tracks, right? You gotta get them, get that DJ support, um, and building those relationships too. I think that's such an important part of it, right? Like once somebody's already supporting your music, they're way more likely to support your music again. So thank them for supporting your music. Like, you know, make that connection, get into dms, have a little conversation. their music as well. If, you know, if it, if it fits for your sets too. But those, uh, this is a relationship driven business and like what better way to develop those relationships than through the supportive music? So I love that you, I love that you bring that up. Hmm Hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Hell yeah, man. Well, dude, thank you so much for sharing the insights, the tips, and, and really, man, just your fucking story. It is so inspiring to me. It gets me so pumped up just to see people that have really had the courage to like really chase their dream to go after it. You know, especially when you already got something cool going on, you know, you're already, you're already doing something pretty rad and you just knew deep in your heart, deep in your dark heart that you had to fucking go for it. And I'm really happy to see that things are paying off for you, man. So great job. Yeah. We're still out here, baby. We out here ain't going nowhere. Yeah, man. Well, I can't wait to, uh, run into you in person someday, and thanks again for hopping on.