Page 22 - EQ Magazine Issue #3
P. 22
COVER STORY (CONT’D)
In 2010, at age 15, as a high school freshman, his first humbling experience. It gave us the realization we had
album “25 Seconds From Success” was born. A friend to work ten times harder.”
who had a recording studio in his home, invited him to
record the lyrics. He uploaded his album onto Sound While the original six Havok Klan members have
Cloud, a free platform that allowed him to begin changed, the family esthetic remains the same. Jeremy
building a fan base. In addition, he generated 300 CDs vividly recalls, “I wasn’t the only artist in the school or
which he sold to Etiwanda High School students at $3 a area, but I was the underdog and I related to other
piece. He leveraged his marketing plan in a unique way. underdogs.” His definition of underdog, “no one gave
His sales pitch was “I gotta feed my daughter. Of me an opportunity, so I made my own.” Jeremy wrote
course, this was an icebreaker. They would ask: ‘For real, about relevant topics to kids of his age. Basically,
do you really have a daughter?’ No, but now you feel humming along thru high school.
more comfortable to get to know me personally and my
music. I saw my favorite artists all had kids, and having From 2010 – 2019 Jeremy’s Havok Klan, now known as
kids really relate to the people. From then on, every year KOVAH Records (Keeping Our Values At Hand)
on my birthday, September 25th I would release a new maintained its social status because group members
album, to this day.” were of different ages. The last member graduated high
school this year. In the
Jeremy did his research meantime, Jeremy segued and
and with careful planning grew his following in college.
his first venture generated Since its inception, Havok Klan
1,000 followers on Sound has 32,000 Instagram
Cloud. Sound Cloud was followers, 10,000 Twitter
the most accessible followers, and I was shocked to
platform, at the time. hear he deleted his 5,000
Spotify didn’t exist and Facebook following. His
iTunes was exclusive and followers are from all over the
difficult to get into plus he world. He is striving to make it
made just shy of $1,000 to the Billboard Hot 100.
from his CD sales. He Jeremy has produced 9 albums
shares, “At that time all I and curated 3 albums.
wanted was to build an
audience and get my Their journey continues to
name out there.” His best evolve. Joel shares, “I learned
strategy was word of how to record vocals, how
mouth. As his fans rhymes are put together and,
continued to buy his how you could tell a story on
music, they would your life. The reaction that I got
recommend him to others. from people helped me move
He also utilized pay to forward. I never really
participate events. You pay experienced the nega-tive
the organizer of an event to play and in turn you have criticism about the music.” Joel took his newfound
an audience of about 75-100 attendees. confidence into the video game live streaming space.
“Being around a microphone, I felt confident on how I
By Sept. 18, 2013 he decided to create Havok Klan. sounded. A lot of people don’t like their voice, but I
Havok Klan consisted of 6 members: Gio, David, Tony, know what I sound like. I thought to myself, I really
Kimmy, Chris and Jeremy. A week after officially creating don’t have a problem with how I sound, if I like my
the group, they were booked for a pay to perform show. voice, others won’t mind my voice either. I was already
Jeremy recalls, “We performed terribly. We were hot playing video games while creating music. The people I
garbage, but on stage I felt above the world. Upon would play would ask me if I live streamed. The majority
seeing the footage, the proof was not in the pudding.” of good players, live stream. They have their hand in
That footage is on YouTube which according to Jeremy some type of recording of the games they play and put
“is floating on the internet if you want to watch it on social media. Life streaming would eventually drive
garbage. You have to have a sense of humor if you’re people to watch and helps me create a relationship
going to last in any business. It was a learning and between me and my viewers. Without the viewers
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