Meet Pink Nois | Recording Artist, Producer, Director and Videographer

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

Hi Pink, how has your perspective on work-life balance evolved over time?
Work-life balance has been something I’ve been really struggling with as of late. Maybe a bit more than “as of late,” to be completely honest.

Since I learned how to play with legos as a young boy, I was in my room creating experiences and building worlds. That’s really how my whole journey began. I would stay in my room most days building a set, then play with the minifigures; I would hum theme music for them, close one eye and move my head in different positions, kind of like a camera getting a different angle in a movie scene.

13 years later, I’m a recording artist, director and videographer, recording and producing music, shooting quality videos and doing it all at a professional level. Still creating experiences and building worlds. Yet, in those 13 years, I would be lying if I said hustle culture didn’t take away a large chunk of the passion that came with it all since my days of just being in my room, dreaming about being where I am now. I’d be lying if I said the feeling of “play” wasn’t gone. I’m still cooped up in my room creating, but now, I’m doing these things to make my rent on time.

I guess it’s difficult to find work-life balance when your life has always been creation and then that becomes your profession. At that point, life and work merge together in one amorphous, unidentifiable object that you don’t know whether to love or hate.

I feel like the balance is made possible by love and trust. Loving the craft and trusting that it will always be there to make you happy, even if it sucks. It’s really all about perspective. It’s about feeling like your work is meant to fill your soul, not fill your wallet. At least, when you know it makes you happy and you can trust in its constant efficacy, you can put it down for a moment, go see a loved one or do something nice for yourself that you’ve been craving doing for a hot minute and then come back to it with no problem. That’s easier to do when you aren’t worried about it being your next paycheck.

Don’t get me wrong: I’m immensely grateful to be given this opportunity to do what I love and what I’m naturally good at for a living and get paid off it, but I miss the times where I did it when I needed it. When it wasn’t this constant overarching, looming black hole with the gravity of other people’s hopes, dreams and visions attached to it. I definitely enjoyed it more when it was mine and only mine and only someone else’s when they felt they could connect with whatever I created on a personal level.

Maybe I’m waxing a bit too poetic. I tend to do that. But also… maybe there is someone who reads this and sees that they feel this way too. To the reader reading this right now: if you feel the way I feel, do yourself and I a huge favor and take the step that I feel I can’t take right now. Stop. Find a way to take a break with no “work” involved and recenter yourself. Realign with your core values. Your sense of play. Take more of what will fill you and release what’s weighing you down.

That’s the only way one achieves balance.

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
My art is intensely personal and my brand is just me being myself in all my different forms. Scott Free is my inner child. Silver Sabre is who I hope to be and who many others think I really am: a trust-fund baby with everything *relatively* figured out, various enterprises at his disposal and enough intellect and power to defeat even the most indomitable foes. Basically Batman. Pink Nois is the part of me that knows nothing matters and just wants to burn everything down to the ground. The Author is the guy who writes out all their stories and feels all their feelings but doesn’t know which route to take.

I know that I’m talented and conflicted enough to cut through the noise and maintain a story that keeps people interested in what I have to say. A lot of people have that, but no one has lived the lives I’ve lived, in the exact same ways I’ve lived them and I believe that is what makes me special. My philosophy of life, my struggles, my passions, my joys and pains… all of these are on display when I create. I feel like people don’t create like that anymore: giving all of themselves regardless of what may come with them at a given moment.

I’ve definitely put in my 10,000 hours in all my crafts, from music to acting to directing and shooting film. It wasn’t easy all the time, but it was always fun to create. I feel like I’ve completed more projects in music than any other facet of my creative career. Thus, I would say I’m the most “professional” in music.

I’ve been playing multiple instruments since 8 years old. Composing since I was 10. Started producing and making beats at 14. Went to college for music at 18. I’ve made so many songs in my 15-year-long music career that it would make your head spin and do flips. I think being a professional is just about the amount of experience you have with your craft. I also think a part of being professional is knowing that you always have more to learn from anything and everything.

A lot of things that are becoming increasingly popular now were once considered “unprofessional” and “juvenile.”
Granted, I never cared for the concept of professionalism in the first place. Professionalism is just a fake concept created by rich white people to keep a certain aesthetic in the realm of things that are successful and profitable that supports their worldview, which is pretty disparaging of anything outside of it that they can’t commodify.

But I digress. Putting in the long years of time to learn my craft and using that experience to implement new knowledge into what you already know is what makes me professional. Or, I guess, seem professional to most people. I’d rather just remain a student. You never get bored when you don’t know everything.

I think I want the world to know that my brand is my story and that my story matters simply because I exist. I want them to know that because if that’s the case, that means their story matters too, and maybe that will push them to tell theirs. I know that I’ve touched a lot of lives with my work, and with my life and worldview in general. I don’t know where my “work-life balance” portion of this spread will be, but you’ll see from that that my work and my life have no real difference. I think the same can be said for every soul on this planet. Good, bad, or ugly, we all have something to say that will inspire, relieve, free, heal and change someone. It doesn’t need to be billions of people, either. Even if one were to touch one person alone, and then leave this earth, their work would have been done.

Not me though. I’ll take the billions or die trying.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
This is going to be hard for me considering I’m perpetually indoors. Since it’s supposed to be a little itinerary, I’m gonna do a bullet list because I’m neurotic as hell (even though it rarely ever helps me accomplish anything.)

Day 1: Go to literally ANY Waffle House; they’re all good but the one on Howell Mill Road is my favorite. Then go to Atlantic Station. Have a little shopping spree (or browsing spree depending on how your wallet is looking.) Maybe see a movie at the Regal Cinema there.

Day 2: Go to Stone Mountain and hike it from bottom to top and back to the bottom again. That’ll run you about 4-5 hours, give or take. After that, go to Trend Urban Cafe, a vegan spot off of Stone Mountain Highway with the BEST vegan boneless wings to ever exist. Literally, thinking about that place is making my mouth water right now.

Day 3: Check out the Beltline. Ride motorized scooters around the whole thing. Nothing like a motorized scooter ride with the breeze blowing on you while you look at nature and other people riding on scooters.

Okay, I can’t think of any other places right now because I only really get out for work. But yeah, 3 days. Not too bad.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
If I shouted out everyone I wanted to shoutout in my life, y’all would be reading forever. So many people have aided in my pursuit of vision and helped me hone my craft.

Even so, right now, I’m at a certain juncture in my life where I feel like I don’t really get to be around anyone unless it’s for work, so its hard to feel like I’m not the only one pushing myself right now. So I guess I want to shoutout myself and God for pushing me through. My partner as well. They have been a source of love and light for me in times where I was truly low. I’m forever grateful.

Baby, if you’re reading this, I hope you know I’m so grateful and I can’t wait to look out into the distance from the top with you.

Website: pinknois.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pinknois/?hl=en

Twitter: https://twitter.com/therealpinknois?lang=en

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/people/Pink-Nois/100063653224026/

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@pinknois8829

Image Credits
Photos by: – Tyvonne Butler (IG: @thvidal.wav) – Amanda Jogie (IG: @itsjustjogie) – Taisjoun Higgins (IG: @badwmoney) – Kartel Photography (IG: @kartel_photography) – Nick Santos (IG: @nicksantosphoto)