There’s no magic formula for a music career, but there’s one powerful ingredient: teamwork. In this episode, Bree Noble sits down with Lilia Bogoeva and Bruno Parente, the dynamic duo known as Lilia & Bruno. Lilia and Bruno share their inspiring journey in the music industry, from their early days in bands to their current endeavors as musicians and entrepreneurs. They share their experiences in teaching music and dance, the challenges and rewards of running a music school, and their strategies for promoting their brand in the digital age. With their passion for music and their entrepreneurial spirit, Lilia and Bruno offer valuable insights for aspiring musicians and entrepreneurs alike.

—

Watch the episode here

 

Listen to the podcast here

Music Career Teamwork: Leveraging Diverse Skills For Accelerated Success With Lilia & Bruno

Getting Into Music

I’m excited to be here with a duo. We’ve got Lilia Bogoeva and Bruno Parente. We’re going to be talking about running a multi-income stream music business with a team. Honestly, I could never do all that I do by myself. I have to have a team, and I get a lot of questions about that. We’re going to talk about how they’re doing it all and how it works so well doing it together, along with all the different income streams that they are running. Before we get into that, I’d love to know from both of you, how did you get into music, and how did that progress as you got into your adult life, and got to where you are?

I personally got into music pretty gradually. I actually started out with dance, that was my first interest in music, dancing to the music. I got more interested in actually playing the music in high school. I started piano and singing when I was fourteen, that’s in early high school. Then, in late high school, I started electric guitar to play metal music, and that was at seventeen.

I knew that I really wanted to pursue a career in the creative arts. I didn’t want to do something else and just make music on the side sometimes. I wanted to focus on that. When I went to college, my focus was on music performance and composition. I did that, and I’m really glad that I did. That’s always helped me to feel more cohesive about my identity as a professional musician. We started the band Karkaza in late 2016, that’s when Bruno and I met. He plays drums, and I play guitar.

Between the two of us, we have the main rhythm sections of a metal band covered, and we’ve been doing that ever since. We have three albums out with Karkaza. We have one mini album, an EP, out with our acoustic duo project, which is simply called Lilia and Bruno, and that’s where we play folky acoustic songs. We like doing it all.

For me, I started joining bands or forming my own bands at a very early age, 14 or 15. I started drums and guitar at the same time. I play guitar too and piano, and I teach piano as well. I learned that. In the beginning, guitar and drums, with no music background. None of my parents play anything, nor does my sister or anybody in my family. I’m the only musician in my family.

The only one. I’m the only one. Then I started these bands. I moved to the U.S. in 2016, and then we met. We used to talk a bit via Facebook a little bit before that. When I moved to start a career in California, LA, we met at the Guitar Center Hollywood. Guitar Center Hollywood was where this band actually physically started. It was our first meeting there.

We started having rehearsals for songs, and that was it. She knew this guy, Brian, who could play the bass, and the band was formed right there. The year after, we released the first EP, a three-song EP. After that, the first full-length album, second album, and third album. I started in music playing this kind of music already, thrash metal, metal in general. My first bands were thrash metal bands. I started in the business of playing music, playing the music that I play.

When you first met, when you were building up your band, making your EPs and stuff, what were you guys doing to support yourselves at that time? Were you working other jobs or working music jobs?

Teaching music.

Good question. I started teaching music and dance, actually during my college years, because I would teach part-time music, dance, and writing when I was in college. Even before that, in high school, I taught dance and gymnastics. I’ve always been teaching performing arts, pretty much. After college, I focused largely on teaching music. That’s how we supported ourselves financially.

Me too.

Also, that’s how we got our rehearsal space to be able to write the songs. The music lesson studio I worked at was very essential to this band being able to form because ever since we’ve been in this house in Alabama, we’ve had our own studio. It’s the lower level of the house. Before then, back in our California days, we were in North Los Angeles County, California, where everyone lived in apartments. We would not have been able to have anywhere to rehearse if it hadn’t been for me working at a music lesson studio. That was a really big blessing to us.

For me too. My first jobs here were related to music as well, teaching lessons. At the time, we used to teach for the studios. There’s a music school we used to teach their students lessons. For one or two years, we started the music school that we have. To this day, we have this school of music. The first year, a year and a half, was teaching lessons to these studios in the Valley, L.A. too, Beverly Hills.

Back then, when we were in Los Angeles County, California, we didn’t get to start out right away as independent musical entrepreneurs. We started out as contract teachers for other companies. At some point, we were balancing working through 5 or 6 different companies at the same time, teaching a few students for this one and a few students for that one. In L.A., a lot of parents want you to drive to their house because there’s so much traffic. We were the ones struggling through traffic, and it’s like, “Oh, sorry, I’m late. There were a lot of accidents,” whatever.

One of those studios was the studio where we had the rehearsals, one of those music schools. It was the place where we had our first rehearsals. Actually, until the day we moved to Alabama, it was still our rehearsal space.

We used that place for rehearsal and teaching.

We used that space for other things too. We have a music video that was shot there. We have some interviews, like this one, that we filmed there. We used that space for multiple things.

It was really valuable to us before we were able to get our own personal studio. Since we moved to Alabama in late 2020, for that reason of being able to have our own property and become fully independent entrepreneurs, since we’ve moved to this state, we have not worked as employees for anyone else. That was a huge life goal that I had. Ever since I was in high school, I knew I wanted to be a fully independent, work-for-myself entrepreneur. It’s been such a blessing that we’re able to do that here in Central Alabama. We have our home studio where we do all those same things, we do the lessons, we do our rehearsals, our songwriting sessions, and some music videos and photos.

We have two music videos on our channel that were shot downstairs here at our studio. The only thing we don’t do here is record. For that, we go to another recording studio, and our music is mixed and mastered in Europe. Here, we have all the rehearsals, the pre-production of the album is here. We just don’t record here.

When you worked for those other music studios, and that sounded crazy, working for 5 or 6 different ones, you were all over the place.

In California, especially L.A., there are so many music lesson programs, and there’s so much competition that through one studio, realistically, you’d get a few students, but nowhere near enough to make a living off of them. So then you have to supplement with another studio and another. We were also starting our own independent music lessons program called Suncho School of Music. We had to do that concurrently while working through the other studios and then balance because some of our employers were getting weirdly jealous of it, so we had to navigate it.

School of Rock, you’ve probably heard about that. We had lessons with School of Rock too. All those famous schools of music in L.A., in California, we were there, including School of Rock.

School of Rock, then some independent ones. Honestly, the space that allowed us to rehearse, as we were talking about, was actually an independent studio. It was a local business, it was not a chain, because usually those big chains are a lot more restrictive. That was a really big blessing. I’m so glad I found that place.

When we moved.

It’s better here.

The school is what we have. We don’t teach lessons to anybody else. We have our school, and that’s it. We teach lessons here at home.

Was it scary to go out on your own when you had to get all your own students?

No, it’s not nearly as much as you’d think, because we happened to transition during the pandemic. I felt that was the best time to transition. I had been waiting for the right time to make those changes. I’d been thinking about moving to another state ever since college. I was like, do I really want to stay here in Southern California with their ridiculously high prices? I was looking for the right time to make that move to where I wouldn’t have to lose too much in the process.

When that pandemic started, it actually gave us a lot of opportunities because one of the first things I did was resign from some of the other studios where I worked for the company. During the pandemic, it was the easiest time to do that because it was just only natural, they were closing up the space anyway. That made that transition easier, and then some of the students we had taught through there wanted to keep learning with us online.

When we moved, we managed to keep a good amount of students that we had in California online. We moved with all the students that we had living here. The first three months were from California, online. Gradually, we started getting local students, and we have a bit of both. We have a bunch of local students, 40-plus local students from here. We still have online students from other states, including California.

Actually, the pandemic gave us the opportunity to make that transition. The fact that everyone was learning online anyway made it so that even when we were on the road, we drove in a U-Haul from California to Alabama with our cat and our dog in it. Sometimes we were teaching lessons at the end of the day after driving, in fact, in the hotel. Not in the U-Haul, in the hotel.

The hotel room. We used to get less stops in this city to rest the next day. We used to teach lessons in the hotel room, like one in the corner, the other in the other corner of the room.

When we moved to Alabama, at first we were in an apartment while we were renting, exploring the area and getting to know it. At that time, it was still late 2020. It was all online lessons in there. When we found a house where we could set up our own studio, we started inviting students to come in person when, in general, things were reopening to in-person interactions. It worked really well for us here, super, super well. I feel like we are offering the community something that’s not offered a lot, which is musical education.

Here, in this whole area that we live in, in this county, there are like 2 or 3 other schools. All the competition we had in California, here we don’t have. It’s us, another school, and another school, and that’s it. Not you against 300 schools. We’re doing well because of this. We were feeling this demand that existed here for music lessons in a place where there were no music schools or one or two at most.

It’s awesome that you can do that. Honestly, the pandemic was a lucky break for you guys because it made it easier for you to break away. It made it easier for you.

The pandemic was good for us.

It’s almost like a bit of survivor’s guilt in a way because we know it was such a tragic situation for the world, but we were fortunate enough to not get sick during that time. It allowed us the opportunity to make these transitions that we had been wanting to make. We’re just trying to find our window to walk through. It actually worked out well for us.

Getting New Students

I think that was true for a lot of people that did well in the pandemic, for sure. I’m curious, you’re in a new area, how do you go about getting new students?

Through our lesson studio, something that’s been really useful is Google My Business listings. I worked a lot on SEO, the search engine optimization, for people who don’t know the term SEO, to get our website to rank well for our local area. Google My Business has been really helpful. I ask for reviews because I know that Google loves pages with reviews. Whenever I can, I ask my students to leave a review, and we have plenty of them.

We also joined local Facebook groups, and those have been really helpful, as well as word of mouth because our local area really likes setting up arts-related events like street fairs and art walks. We set up booths there to physically meet people face-to-face and give them information about our music education offerings. All of that combined has been really useful.

One thing that helps us is local events. There are art walks here. In the beginning, when we moved in the first year, we participated in all the art walks that were here, like the whole year, almost every month. Local events. We don’t go for the art walks anymore. We do the parades, the 4th of July parade, and the Mardi Gras parade. We go there with a decorated car, and we throw cards on both sides, candies with cards. We do these parades.

Also, like she said, the local groups on Facebook, and private groups on Facebook related to the city. This Blah Blah Blah City Watch, this other Blah Blah Blah City Watch, these groups have an average of 16,000 to 60,000 people. They’re all locals, all people from here. These groups help a lot. When you join these groups and post about your school and whatever you do, you get business from there. One thing I recommend is the local private groups of the city that you’re living in, that you’re working in. I joined like six groups, all the cities around here.

Every week, I post about the school there and on the consultations we have here before the student signs up and everything. A good number of them come from this group, “I saw your post in the group.”

Between the two of us, I’d say we’re in a lot of local community-oriented Facebook groups, probably 12 or 15 groups.

Facebook for business is still working well. If you are looking for more local business, Facebook still works.

I’ve found that Facebook is helpful for local businesses. I know for online business, there’s just so much competition. If you’re trying to sell digital products, because we also make digital products, and we also post about them on Facebook, but it appears that there are just so many links to digital products over and over and over on Facebook.

If you’re looking for local customers, if you offer some service like us, Music Lessons, the private groups are still very helpful.

That’s a really great tip.

I would recommend that.

Still, for this purpose, it’s still good.

Let’s say Google My Business listings, it’s definitely worth taking the time to optimize your Google page if you’re looking for in-person business because, as the majority of students find us either through Google search, it seems to be the top one, and then Facebook seems to be in second place.

The local events, participate, join on local events as much as you can.

Parades, especially, they’re fun.

Parades, art walks, local events that the locals come to, show up, do that. That will help you a lot.

Digital Products

Those are some really great tips. I’m curious about your digital products because you’ve talked about having your band, your music school, and your digital products. You have a lot of different streams of income. What digital products do you guys sell?

The number one, as far as digital product offerings, I’ve had to go through some trial and error to find out something that actually works. What’s worked the best, I offer this in print and digital, but I have comic books called Lilia the Inner Demon Crusher: Workaholism vs. Food Porn, but on the cover, it has me with my electric guitar going, “Crush inner demons, live in freedom.” Actually, a cartoonized version of myself is on the cover of it. That comic book is basically a parody of an artist’s inner healing journey from battling the inner demons that restrict them from the success they’re after, into crushing them and finding that personal freedom to be the artist that you want to be. It’s like a silly, parodied way of showing it.

That and the band’s music. The band’s music on the streaming platform, Spotify, iTunes, all the streaming platforms you can think of, we are there. That also generates revenue with the distribution company. That helps, every week, they deposit something that they do their math to send you. Every week, we get a deposit from the distribution company.

Something we’ve offered through the music studios, I’ve had to make a lot of practice videos for my students because, like, “Oh, I have trouble remembering that song or that chord,” especially for voice lessons. They say, “Sometimes I have trouble knowing how to practice because in the lesson, I just follow what you do, but at home, I can’t really do that. I don’t have a keyboard I can match pitch to or anyone to sing along to.” I started filming practice videos for them. At first, I would just film the video myself and just do it. Then I started getting more intentional about, “Oh, I’m going to make this high quality and actually post these for other people.”

I started posting them on a Patreon page. It started out with just the practice videos I’d have to give to my students to help them, but if it was something where I felt like other people would want to learn this too, then I would go ahead and post it there. That’s fairly new, but I am starting to promote that more. Every time that I have a student who says, “Man, I would love to start, but my schedule and my budget are an issue,” I direct them to our Patreon page to learn from there, especially if they’re interested in voice lessons because that’s most of what I’ve had to film for students.

Therefore, that’s mostly what I put there. I found that singing seems to be harder for people to practice on their own. Also, when I have a student who says, “Okay, I have to pause lessons for a while because I’ve got busy and my work has slowed,” again, every time they say that their budget or schedule is a concern, I go ahead and direct them there. I’m really glad that I did that because I also refer my current students to it. That’s why I started filming practice videos in the first place, because I did have students who said that they have trouble remembering exactly how to practice, and they find that really useful too.

I would imagine that is really useful, and again, another stream of income from something that you’re already doing. That’s super smart.

I think that is the best way to find different streams of income because there are a lot of artists and entrepreneurs out there who are like, “Oh, if only I can think of some doohickey to sell to people that they’d want to buy.” When you’re looking for some doohickey that people want to buy, think about the things that you naturally have to make. What are people saying? “Oh, I have trouble remembering what to practice,” or “These lesson books are really boring. I wish that there was a better lesson book to learn piano,” stuff like that.

When you're looking for some doohickey that people want to buy, think about the things that you naturally have to make. Share on X

With the band, we have our music on the streaming platforms, all of them. We also sell merchandise online on our website. Go to our website, you’re going to see our merchandise, shirts, water bottles, and CDs. We have the physical copies of the CDs in the store. We sell all that at the shows around the merchandise table there. We also sell that online.

Working Together

That’s definitely another great stream of income. I’m curious, how do you guys divide and conquer? How do you work together to build your income?

That’s a really good question. What we do first off is think about where our interests and specialties lie, first off in the instruments that we play and teach. In the band Karzasa, I do voice and guitar, and then Bruno does drums. When teaching our lessons, I play guitar, piano, and singing. Bruno plays guitar, piano, and drums. We also assess our levels of expertise.

For example, I very much enjoy playing technical classical piano music in my free time, so when there’s a student who says, “Well, I’ve been playing piano for a while, and I want to get into more technically challenging classical music,” I go ahead and take that student for myself. Whereas when there’s a student who says, “I’m a beginner at the piano, and I want to play more popular music, the modern hits,” Bruno likes to take those students.

When people ask, “Tell me the secret of you guys,” we get that question all the time from interviewers and from people in general. They look at us, they see success in us, and they ask all the time. We always reply with two words, teamwork.

Teamwork makes the dream work.

There’s no secret or recipe, teamwork. I do this, you do that. I go to the right, you go to the left.

That’s what I’d say.

There’s no other.

We each do some booking of events. I book promotional events and student appointments.

I book the band’s shows.

Bruno likes to book the band’s shows.

We have five things going on, the school, the band, the acoustic project, which is a totally different thing, and we also do pet sitting.

Yes, because we just love animals. Why not?

We have a pet-sitting service and Lilia’s brand.

My personal brand.

Lilia Demon Crusher is another brand with comics, events, and all that. What we do is teamwork on all that. We both work on all these five things with separate tasks. You do this, I do that. You do this, you do that.

For example, when we make promotional videos for our music lessons and also for my Inner Demon Crusher brand, I take the time to decide what to say in the video and film and edit it because I like doing the technical editing part, like fade in, fade out, flying captions, stuff like that. Bruno likes to take them and see what other groups he can share them with.

I help with the promo, things that I’m not in charge of, the artistic part, let’s say. I do the promotion and vice versa. We both help each other all the time. If there’s something I can do, she can do it. If there’s something I cannot do, she can. We both work.

We both scout for events all the time, places where we can present or perform something. When I’m scouting for events, this is what happened to book our Halloween party event, I was looking for possible events to do to promote my personal brand, the Inner Demon Crusher brand, and I stumbled upon a local show producer who was putting on a Halloween event at a venue that we really like a lot. I was like, “Okay, that also seems like a good opportunity for our band, Karkasa,” because she was saying, “I want to book rock, metal, and gothic music over here,” and so then I reached out to her to book that.

That event, for example.

We have our eyes open.

It turned out to be a band show, but also she’s going to perform at that same show with her brand.

What I do is promote my personal Inner Demon Crusher brand. The types of performances that I do are like solo dance and musical theater style, like Broadway type, sing, dance, and act it out. More like solo stuff, and so that’s another route that we’re pursuing, shows where we can do both a band and a solo.

In other words, to live as a musician, you cannot just be a performer or a producer or a musician. You need a multiverse. This thing of multiverse, you see on Marvel, that’s the future of everything. You cannot live by doing one thing. “I’m a musician. I play guitar, period.” You’re not going to make it. The multiverse is the future.

You need to be a multi-faced musician. You play, you record, you teach guitar, drums, whatever instrument you play. You need this multiverse of things to be successful. If you just want to play music and that’s it, you’re probably not going to make it. You need a multiverse around yourself, a multiverse of things.

I agree. That is also part of having a complete brand. You’re not just one thing, you are a whole brand and a whole self.

A multiverse, yes.

That word brand is very essential because so many musicians think about their music. They think that they are their music. “What I got to do is promote and perform and write my music.” They don’t really think that much about the whole brand around it, but essentially, you’re a brand where music is one of the things that you do. To put on a good musical show, just focusing on live performance, you also have to think about things like your wardrobe, your stage presence, what you’re going to say into the microphone, and what kind of footage you want from it, how you’re going to edit it. That alone, there are so many other factors besides just that one thing of music.

I noticed on the other bands we play with. We just came back from Tampa, Florida, last week. One thing I noticed about the other bands we play with, the musicians, is that they have a hard time with that. They put everything on the manager and say, “Oh, you will take care of everything. We just go on stage, plug and play.” Not even that, they don’t want a manager. They have a hard time with everything else.

Either they have a manager who takes care of everything, and most of the time, you heard about managers in music, they do their thing. Either that, or a band with no manager, where the band members try to figure these things out, and they can’t.

It takes time to figure out, for sure. It takes some trial and error. I’d say that every time we have a gig, we learn at least one new thing. We learn at least one new thing. We’re like, “Okay, that could go a little bit better next time.”

 

One thing you have to keep in mind is you need to improve your operation. At all times, every day, or at least every time you go perform or you go record a new album, you need this mentality. You need this on your mind all the time “I need to improve my operation.” I need to improve because a band is an operation that is ongoing. You do multiple things. There’s an operation. You need to have that in mind.

I need to improve this. Every show, we have to pay attention to all the elements that are going on around you and see how you can improve that for your band. Pay attention to the mistakes of the other bands too. See that guy, he’s trying to carry his thing and do something else. That kind of thing. You need to improve your operation. That should be your target.

Connecting With Lilia & Bruno

I love that. That is absolutely true. You can always just get a little bit better every day. It’s amazing how fast you’re a lot better if you’re just getting a little bit better every day. This has been really great. It’s been great to hear how you guys work together, how you took advantage of the hard parts of the pandemic and worked it in your favor, and how you’ve been able to build a completely new situation in your new location. Very impressed with you guys. I would love to know how our listeners and people who are watching can connect with you online, all the different parts of your brand.

There are several places.

Starting with the band, if you google Karkaza, the first thing that’s going to pop up is our website. On our website, Karkaza.com, at the bottom of the page, you have all of our social media. On all of the social media that we are on, we are under that name, Karkaza. If you search for that on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and TikTok, we’re on TikTok too, you’re going to find us there. On the streaming platforms, Spotify and iTunes are the most famous platforms for music. We are there, but we are on another 50 platforms.

Yes, we are.

Anywhere, pretty much, you type Karkaza, you’re going to find us there. It’s the band’s logo. It’s a black background with this.

A scorpion logo.

With this. This is the band’s logo.

It’s a little white scorpion on a black background. Karkaza.

It’s very easy to find.

Actually, we were talking about Suncho School of Music, our education program, and we were talking about how we’re a local business in Central Alabama, but I do want viewers to know that they can actually learn with us online too because we still have online students from all around the country.

We have students in California. We have students in Connecticut.

Sometimes even Canada too. Very much anywhere.

Online, you still can learn music with us.

That is at SunchoMusic.com. My personal brand, Lilia the Inner Demon Crusher, is how I do mental health advocacy, raising awareness for the mental health of mainly artists and entrepreneurs, but it appeals to anyone who feels like they have inner conflicts that they need to resolve. You can find that at LiliaDemonCrusher.com. We also have our acoustic music.

If you’re not into heavy metal or this kind of rock music, we also have an acoustic project, just me and Lilia, called Lilia and Bruno. If you type Lilia and Bruno anywhere on Google, it’s going to give you our website, LiliaAndBruno.com. If you type that on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter, we are there as well. On the streaming platforms as well. What we have released so far with this new project is a three-song EP. It came out in Christmas 2023. It’s something brand new. It just came out.

Wow. You guys are, I don’t know how you keep up with all these socials for all these different things, but I’m very impressed, and like I said in the beginning, it can only be done through teamwork.

Teamwork.

For sure. We learned how to prioritize what kind of content we make through all the practicing because we post on social media every week. Over time, we’ve learned what kind of content is the right balance of being simple to make, yet also effective. There have been times when I tried to film a video that took way longer than I expected it to, and on top of that, it didn’t even perform that well. It’s like so much effort underperformed. There are also times when I made something simple that performed well, and everything in between. It’s about optimizing what you do and how.

Plus, something that will help you keep track of all that is a schedule. You need your posts to be on a certain schedule. For example, for the band, it’s every Friday, for her brand, it’s Monday. Along with the school, you need a schedule, not like, “I feel like posting today. I don’t know, maybe.” No, you need this day for this, this day for that.

I like checklists a lot too. Whenever you’re overwhelmed by tasks, I feel like just writing it all out in a checklist and just checking. It was very visually satisfying to go when I crossed something off. It’s just that little moment. It’s one thing to know I did this, but it’s another to actually see it checked.

I always say, with organization, everything is possible. We could even have more brands. We could have ten brands instead of five. With organization, it is possible. With organization, a schedule, and a day and time for everything, you can do many things.

With organization, everything is possible. Share on X

Yes, you can. That’s a great ending to this episode. Thank you so much for all these tips. I’m sure they’ve been super helpful to everybody, and congratulations on all that you guys have achieved. I can’t wait to see where you guys are even in a few years. Thank you so much for everything you shared.

Thank you very much.

Thank you. It’s been a pleasure talking to you on this show too.

 

Important Links

• Lilia the Inner Demon Crusher: Workaholism vs. Food Porn
• Karkaza
• Suncho Music
• Lilia Demon Crusher
• Lilia and Bruno
• Facebook – Lilia and Bruno
• Instagram – Lilia and Bruno
• TikTok – Lilia and Bruno
• Twitter – Lilia and Bruno
• Lilia Bogoeva’s Instagram

 

About Lilia and Bruno

Lilia Bogoeva and Bruno Parente are a dynamic duo who makes their musical dreams come to life through strategic teamwork and wise management of time and resources. This team has mastered their “musical multiverse” by blending together a music education business, a thriving metal band, and mental health advocacy for artists. In this episode, they will discuss effective strategies that artist-entrepreneurs can employ to maintain a stable cash flow with various income streams while working toward their musical dreams.