Peter Merlo is a Chicago-area musician, songwriter, and marketing specialist. Learning from the inspiring line of entrepreneurs in his family, Peter has worked hard toward his passions with an impressive internship with Grammy-winning producer Seth Mosley and collaborations with artists like Rockie Fresh, OG Maco, and BWA Ron. Today Peter is a Marketing Manager at RestoreWorks, a commercial masonry restoration in Chicago. Hearing about his Sicilian-Immigrant family’s hardworking roots makes his current and future successes inevitable.
Can you give some background about you and your family?
Yeah, so my grandparents immigrated from Sicily. I don’t know the specific year, but they went from Sicily to New York. Then my Nonno (grandfather) went to South Holland and is currently in Sherrillville. He started a drywall company there with general contracting on the side which my dad eventually took on the same field of work. I didn’t decide to do that. I decided to do the exact opposite and go the corporate route, but the Italian roots are there. I was just at my grandparent’s the other day and they always have a story to tell about Italy and what the United States was like when they first got her versus what it is now since a lot has changed. The American dream doesn’t feel like the American dream anymore, with the house and white picket fence. Now people can barely afford a house.
You have a lot of entrepreneurs in your family, who is the biggest inspiration to you?
From a work ethic standpoint, my Nonno. He came here from Sicily, not even knowing the language, and figured out how to run a company with 50 employees. My dad doesn’t even have 50 employees today. He stresses the point that he would only have time on Sundays or evening dinners where he would spend time with family because otherwise, my dad wouldn’t see him throughout the day. My Nonno would always be in his office doing everything drywall related so I have a respect for a good work ethic.
How do you see inspiration from your Nonno in what you are doing now?
I want to start my own business or side hustle. I released a project for music in May and as soon as I released it, I took a mental break since putting together this music while working a full-time job is hard. Lately, I’ve been itching to pursue something else and I have to listen to that. I feel like part of it comes from my dad always being on top of me trying to get me to do stuff even when I was younger. Like in high school if I didn’t want to go to the gym one day, he’d say no, you should go anyways. So he has always been pushing me to do things even when I didn’t want to do them. So with starting a side hustle, it’s not that I don’t want to do it but the work is anxiety-inducing sometimes when you go into something you’re not familiar with. I just try to tell myself, it’ll eventually get easier as I become more familiar with the process.
So you started in music, but how did you get into it as a kid?
Guitar Hero. It was Guitar Hero 3 and I was in third grade. I’m pretty sure Post Malone said the same thing that he played Guitar Hero and that’s how he got influenced to start making music. I just thought it was so interesting and then in late grade school I would download apps where you could record yourself and put a beat rack down with maybe two stems to record vocals and that was it. I was always interested in the radio and hearing how the vocals were being layered, the harmonies, and the special effects. I wanted to hear myself composing music too which led me to my first couple of internships which were tied into advertising and marketing, but they were also heavily influenced by the music industry.
By 2020, I was in Beverly Hills interning under a producer by the name of King Grant. I was running his socials, primarily Twitter since he had a six-figure following on there. The internship I liked was the one a year after for a recording publishing company called Full Circle Music in Nashville. It was founded by a Grammy award-winning producer by the name of Seth Mosley and another producer named X O’Connor. They try to tie everything music related into their work as a former record label and now offering educational courses. They teach a concept called baby steps into the music industry, small steps and keeping yourself on track to navigate yourself through the industry. I helped them start their social media app called Song Chasers which is like a Facebook marketplace concentrated on artists, producers, and audio alike. It was a really good networking platform for people to collaborate and make connections.
Did you study marketing in your undergrad?
I completed a communications degree with a concentration in advertising but I feel like I didn’t really learn much about advertising. It was more communication theory that I picked up. I got a lot of good marketing knowledge through working with Full Circle Music as I mentioned and then I did another internship after that with the Times of Northwest Indiana which is the second biggest newspaper publication in Indiana. All of those experiences help with my current job. I’m working under a fractional CMO right now and I’m not exaggerating, he’s like the Michael Jordan of marketing. If I ask him a question, he is so thorough and is truly an expert in his work. This definitely comes with experience which is something he stresses.
In the future do you want to focus more on music marketing or a mix of both?
I want to be capable of doing any type of marketing, but I figured since I have a background in music and collaborated with artists already, it would be a good way to tie in both. I think other artists would see the authenticity of my artist persona and could reach out for help whether it’s trying get more visibility on social media or creating content.
I would imagine the competition has increased too now that anyone can make music with AI or other technology.
Oh, 100%. You don’t need to go to a studio or spend money on an hourly studio session. For me, I bought my own mic and interface. I use GarageBand as my DAW still but I didn’t invest in Logic or Ableton. Everyone is just trying to find the convenience of being able to do it from home and spend consciously.
What do you think makes people get seen now in this different playing field?
Personally, I’m not a fan of it but I think TikTok has played a huge influence on the music industry and people are now making less authentic content. I feel like the music industry is oversaturated with similar sounding content. There’s a lot of outsider influence now since you can go down a rabbit hole scrolling on social media. If music is a genre that you’re normally searching on social media, you’re bound to see a lot of different artist content. Then you might start formulating your content around stuff that you hear a lot and it turns out a lot of other people are seeing the same content which is why the styles are similar. It’s still good to have an influence as an artist, but you want to still make your style your own. The thing about social media is people are not going to post their bad stuff on there. Social media is always going to be people’s best moment and content so then it is easy to go on social media and feel down about yourself but the reality is you don’t know someone’s situation outside of that picture or video.
When did you start writing your own songs?
I’d say when I was a sophomore in high school. I used to have a SoundCloud where me and my friends would just joke around and put out random content. I’m pretty sure the first song I put up was a Bobby Shmurda remix to random vocals that me and my friends put over it. So it started as a joke and then I got really interested into writing and recording my own vocals. Freshman year of college was when I started investing in beats and working with an actual audio engineer.
What advice would you have for artists or just people in general looking to differentiate themselves online?
I think you should have an honest conversation with yourself. Sit down and write the goals that you have. If you put it on paper, you’re so much more likely to follow that plan. You can say “Oh someday I want to do this” but someday doesn’t exist. You have to plan that out and be specific on how you are going to measure your progress. If you just set an hour aside you can come out with a small understanding of what you want to do and at least two potential routes on how to accomplish that. I think also just being authentic on social media is important. Whether you’re scared or not to post, you have to create content and be consistent with it. You yourself as a content creator might say this is just a six out of ten post but someone else might think that its amazing and want to see more. You’re always going to be harder on yourself as the creator, but you just have to keep in mind that everyone has to do it to get somewhere. You can’t be scared of what people think, everyone is going to have an opinion and no one’s ever had a 100% good opinion of their content, so just do it anyways. Again, stay consistent, don’t put your focus anywhere except to where you want to be.
