There are so many artists doing their own DIY projects, and once the music gets a lot of attention it could attract so many other possibilities.
David Godinez is a freshman attending New Mexico State University. He is majoring in small business management and entrepreneurship. He is originally from San Francisco California and just moved to Las Cruces during his senior year of high school. Godinez is mainly known for his photography, which can be found on his Instagram page.
I spoke with Godinez, who just released a track he created himself. He released the track on Feb. 17 at midnight, at the start of his 19th birthday. And even though he was releasing it for his own self-fulfillment, he received a great deal of praise for it.
Godinez stated, “I was getting all these compliments about the song and also happy birthday comments. Which is a combination of finishes. It was amazing and a really good experience. It made me want to put out more music.”
Godinez’s piece, “Free Spirit”, is available on SoundCloud. It is his first track ever that he put together and wrote all on his own. He received a lot of attention from his Twitter followers and other social media outlets.
“When I saw how many people were listening to it, that kind of freaked me out because I knew there were a lot of my friends who were going to share it and get it out there. I was not expecting a certain number but I definitely was not expecting it to get as high as it was. Which I know it isn’t that high for most artists, especially for me when it is just a side project.” Godinez stated.
The track is about Godinez’s friends rather than himself, although he mentioned how he went through a similar situation. There were no hard feelings about the individuals on who he got his story inspired on, but he explained how the certain circumstance gave him something to write about.
“The track is mainly about two of my friends who went through a breakup. They keep trying to one up each other in accomplishments. Also that song connected with me because I was in the same predicament recently. But I found it ridiculous that my friends kept having this race of, ‘I have this opportunity’, or ‘Oh but I have this opportunity’, and I just thought it was stupid. So I made a song from the point of view from a bitter ex who sees that another ex is making accomplishments and that they are trying to shove their own accomplishments in their face,” says Godinez.
As I was speaking to Godinez, you could tell that he was influenced so much by the way he talked about all of the independent artists he’s met. All of these talented individuals have really given him the drive to want to try and accomplish something that other people may have thought was not possible.
“The thing that really gave me the final push was my friend Damian, from Hawaii; he had connections with this photographer named Brenden Lombrana. He introduced us and then I started meeting all of these talented El Paso artists, and I’m like this is so close to home [you] know? So I made all these friends and different connections. Just in the local area, even in [Las] Cruces. Just seeing that, being at that level and having that kind of passion just made me think, ‘what if I tried this?’. Then I started looking up music production tutorials and stuff like that. And I went ahead and made a song.”
Godinez stated how he was also influenced by the whole independent aspect of an artist he now listens to; the artist is an independent artist known as ‘Black Bear’.
“Recently this summer I was listening to this artist by the name of Black Bear with my friend Cassie when I was visiting her in Washington. And she played me his album, including his acoustic EP called ‘Dead’, and that’s what got me into the independent aspect of making music. And so I followed him for a while. The idea of the track of the music and the placements of the lyrics and cadence I used came from ‘Wanderlust’ by Blackbear,” says Godinez.
And music is something Godinez still sees himself continuing to take a part in. Godinez stated that he is planning a future project titled, ‘You Make Me Nervous’. He talked to me about the idea he had behind this new EP.
“I happened to be on my SoundCloud profile, I saw an image which is my header and it’s my friend Damian and my friend Valentina, there’s this overlook at El Paso High School. It’s a shot of them from behind, and the skyline in the background. And for some reason it reminded me of one of my other favorite albums, which was the Sleeping With Sirens acoustic album, even though I’m out of that phase now. The thing that came instantly to my mind was ‘You Make Me Nervous’, because [of a feeling you get] when dealing with an ex most of the time. Just whenever they would come up [to me] my heart would start beating and I just get nervous,” says Godinez.