Forrest Perkins is a third-year marketing student at the University of Maine. Alongside his full-time student workload, Perkins runs his own online music business, known as Bazek Productions, in which he produces and sells instrumentals for aspiring musicians.
Perkins hails from Machias in Downeast Maine and grew in interest in producing and music early on. After having installed various music applications on his laptop, he started off by downloading songs and remixing them to his liking.
By his junior year of high school, Perkins was already doing professional work in the music industry. Acquiring a merit scholarship, Perkins attended the University of Maine in Orono with an undergraduate degree in marketing. He believed that the degree would be a good fit for his growing business, which had fully come together around his freshman year of college.
Bazek Productions primarily focuses on producing and selling beats, ranging in genres from pop and EDM to hip hop and R&B. These beats are purchasable on the Bazek Music official website. Through his company, Perkins has been able to provide instrumentals and take commissions from up-and-coming artists.
“I’ve traveled a lot to like California to work on stuff in L.A. with artists, but most of what I do is make instrumentals and I sell them on my website,” said Perkins, “the second half of the business is working directly with artists who want to do more than just purchasing instrumental and sing on their own. They’ll send me all their vocals, and I’ll create a whole instrumental around their song, and I’ll mix their vocals, master the final track, and I’ll help them with any kind of release.”
When it comes to balancing a business with school life, being able to develop skills that overlap in multiple areas is highly important. Perkins has had the opportunity to take courses in service marketing and accounting that have helped in maintaining and expanding an ever growing business operation.
Maintaining any form of business, especially as a student, takes both a large amount of commitment and skill. Especially in the case of producing and selling beats online, the expenses for quality equipment can be incredibly daunting for anyone who wants to dive into the world of music production.
Perkins believes that a large part of starting a successful music business as a student not only comes from serious commitment but having a genuine passion for producing will allow for everything else to come naturally.
“A lot of people will start businesses based on their own interests, but they don’t really spin it for what other people will get out of it. Specifically for music, I would say make sure that you have all of the necessary gear and you have all the basic skills, and a lot of that just comes from working and enjoying music” said Perkins. “If you enjoy music, you’re going to develop all the skills you need to market yourself and work professionally.”
Through making connections with clients, operating an online business as well as managing additional content through social media, Perkins has made connections all across the country. Upon his graduation, he aims to move back out to L.A. in order to pursue a full time career in producing music, as well as work closer with friends and colleagues. Having already flown out to the area multiple times, Perkins plans on making more frequent trips and efforts to improve the quality of his business.
While maintaining your own business sounds appealing at first glance, trying to do so while maintaining full-time employment, as well as a student workload, can be quite difficult, and is especially challenging without the necessary equipment or skills needed to do so. In the case of Bazek Productions, Perkins has been able to not only maintain a business to create what he loves, but has also been able to make meaningful connections with clients.
“The best advice I was ever given was ‘Why wait until after college?’ If you know, you want to start a business. Work on it now, because this will be the most downtime you will ever have. Once you graduate, you’ll probably have a full-time job already. This is the best time to start, to get those skills, to get comfortable with your business, and then you’ll have a plan to grow it after college if you choose to continue,” said Perkins.
