When we first heard Mimi Page sing we were captivated. Her voice is soft and ethereal - much like her presence - yet smoky and layered with wisdom. One listen to her song "Obsession" and became, well, obsessed; it is all of those beautiful attributes we just described and more. What makes this singer/songwriter stand apart from her peers is that she's building a career based on more than just good looks and look-at-me antics, instead she's composing music, scoring films and getting airplay on major networks like NBC and HBO.
Continue reading to learn aboutMimi Page and her Daring Creativity.
Who is Mimi Page?
I’m a dreamer who paints pictures with sound. If life is my canvas, my music is the paint that expresses everything within and around me. My personal mission in life is to create and share as much peace and beauty as I can.
When did you decide to pursue your current career path?
The first time I touched a piano I was 3 years old. The sensation was amazing, it felt like I had found an old long lost friend. I started taking lessons but experimented with writing my own instrumental songs during my private practices. In kindergarten my mother helped me notate two of my original songs on manuscript paper and submitted them to my school talent contest. I ended up winning and repeating this process every year until I moved out of state and changed schools. I transferred to a specialized music conservatory in high school to focus on the piano but fell in love with their electronic music program instead. In that program, I learned how to digitally record my songs and manipulate my voice in a way that inspired me to sing since I had never really liked the sound of my voice or considered myself a singer. I ended up recording two EPs there, sharing a few of those songs on Myspace. At the end of senior year, I knew this was what I was meant to do and that I would do whatever it took to turn it into a career.
How did you go from idea to execution?
I spent my freshman year of college at the University of Santa Cruz, as a psychology major and electronic music minor. I was persuaded by my family to pursue a backup plan in case my dreams of becoming a professional musician didn't work out. I was working two part-time jobs on top of a massive amount of homework and didn’t have any time or resources to record music, and it drove me crazy. I spent every off day I had either playing piano in the dining hall or locked away in the piano lab composing and recording on my phone. The calling within me was too strong and I knew I had to follow my heart and leave. I took a risk, packed up everything I owned and moved to Hollywood. I found a vocational school that specialized in recording engineering and moved into a small studio apartment a block away from my school. I got a part-time job at The Gap to continue affording my rent and tuition and accepted every credit card and student loan I was offered (not the best idea). I bought as much recording equipment and virtual instrument libraries as I could afford and finally set up my home studio. I was the only girl in my class, and graduated early with multiple job offers in engineering and post production.
I ended up interning for a film composer and after scoring a scene in one of his films, landed a regular job scoring ambient music for an adult film site. I started showcasing my own songs through social media again and pitched my songs to every radio station I could. After hundreds of emails, one finally wrote back and a radio station in San Francisco called Soma FM put me in rotation. From there, a few indie blogs featured me and I started getting remix requests from various DJs/producers. I collaborated with a lot of the DJ/producers who were remixing me and started performing live with them. A few of my songs and collaborations found their way to some music supervisors and soundtracked [sic] some really awesome TV shows. At the same time, a few directors reached out to me and I started scoring independent films. The rest is a history still in the making, but I'm really proud of my new album "The Ethereal Blues" which I self-produced and self-released on my own label. It’s truly a blessing what we’re able to accomplish as independent artists these days as I launched my entire career from my bedroom with very little money or resources.
How does the city you live in influence your creativity?
I have a bittersweet relationship with Los Angeles, which influences both the serenity and darker aspects of my music. The ocean is like my second home; the majority of my youth was spent on the beaches of Santa Monica and Venice. I spend a lot of time hiking in the hills and our sunsets take my breath away. The other half of me is haunted by the mass amount of homelessness, mental illness and addiction that plague so many of the people here. We have tens of thousands of people living and dying in tents on Skid Row while there’s luxury apartments with astronomical rents being built a block away. It’s a very complex issue, but there’s a massive imbalance that exists and it disturbs me that the city isn’t doing more to help these people.
In your words, what does it mean to be a “creative?"
A creative is an individual who is fearlessly sensitive with a higher vision and purpose. Someone who is able to deeply explore and fully express themselves and the world around them, in their own unique way.
Has rejection ever affected your creative process?
One of the hardest parts about being an artist is that you bear your soul for people who then have the opportunity to judge you and devalue you at your most raw and sensitive state. I’ve been rejected so many times I can’t even count them anymore. I think rejection is a very difficult but necessary method of showing us who we aren’t so that we can truly know who we are. In the early stages of my career I was destroyed and even bedridden when I built myself up for something that ended up being a huge disappointment. In time, I’ve realized other doors were already opening and waiting for me to find them, just not on my own timetable. Knowing this brings me an element of peace whenever I’m faced with putting myself on the front lines of someone else’s decision making.
In thinking about the things that you have created, is there something that you hated but the public may have loved - and perhaps purchased?
I had a collaboration with a DJ (who I won’t name) that was shelved for about two years because we couldn’t agree on the final mix of the song. Without me knowing, he released it on the internet as a free download with blog support and I woke up to it being everywhere. The damage was irreversible and I was completely humiliated. To this day I still can’t listen to that song, but I’m at peace with it because the majority of the comments were positive. Internet trolls can be evil, so if you get even one positive comment on something you don’t stand behind then I think that’s the best case scenario for that situation.
What advice would you give to someone who wanted to pursue the same career as you?
My advice is to be yourself, that’s the only permanent thing you actually have in life. If you don’t know who that is, find out who that is and learn how to love who that is. Take constructive criticism and learn from it, but follow your heart and do what feels authentic to you. Most importantly, there is no destination to success, it’s all one big journey with landmarks along the way so you have to enjoy every single day for what it is.
Who is someone famous that you think is killing it at the moment? In other words, is there someone whose career you admire.
Grimes is killing it on so many levels. I feel like she’s helping guide us back to an era like the 90's when emotional, avant-garde music used to classify as mainstream pop. She’s also helping spread light on female producers/engineers and the struggle we face in having to prove our talent and capabilities in a primarily male dominated industry.
Finish this sentence:
I want people to remember me as: a loving and genuine person who helped make the world a better place.
If I only had 24 more hours to live, I would: eat a huge feast of sushi and take a trip to the ocean and watch the sunset with my dogs and my closest friends
If I had to choose a theme song to represent me it would be: Enya – Storms of Africa
For more on Mimi Page, visit her website: www.mimipage.com
Photos by Catie Laffoon