Make your own job. When I told my school’s career counselor that I wanted to combine art, music, and computers, he told me it wasn’t possible — “There’s no job for that.” So I made one. That single moment became the core of everything that followed. The world will always try to hand you a script. The trick is learning to rewrite it in your own language.
As a part of our series about “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me When I First Became An Artist” I had the pleasure of interviewing MUG5.
MUG5 is an artist, producer, and the visionary founder behind RIOT, a New York City creative agency redefining the intersection of art, music, and technology. Known for merging emotion with innovation, his work spans sonic experimentation and brand storytelling to architecture and digital culture. Through his projects Bleed Electric and AltSounds.TV, MUG5 continues to explore creativity as rebellion — building worlds that blur the line between human and machine.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Can you tell us the story of how you grew up?
I grew up in a small town that felt bigger on the inside than it ever looked from the outside. My world was sound — the hum of the streetlights at night, the mechanical click of my dad’s hi-fi waking up, the static between radio stations. That stereo was my spaceship.
It had a tape deck, a turntable, and a cheap plastic microphone that came free in the box, like destiny disguised as an accessory.
My dad’s record collection was the first museum I ever walked through — Beatles, Bowie, and a 7-inch of Paul Hardcastle’s “19.” Later, I spent my pocket money on Now That’s What I Call Music 12, where Salt-N-Pepa’s “Push It” and S’Express turned my bedroom into a club. I’d play them on CD, record to tape, and jump in with that plastic mic like I was hacking the song itself.
In the same room sat my dad’s guitar. I learned it one bass note at a time, then from the chords in a crumpled songbook — Wild Thing, Beatles tunes, even the Postman Pat theme. It didn’t matter. Every sound was a door. I didn’t know it then, but that’s where the idea of Bleed Electric began — that music, technology, and art weren’t separate languages; they were the same signal, just transmitted at different frequencies.
Can you share a story with us about what brought you to this specific career path?
It all started in a small, gray room labeled “Career Counseling.” There was a man behind a desk, and on the wall behind him — a poster of a mountain that said “Reach for Your Dreams.” I told him I wanted to combine my love for computers, art, and music — that I wanted to design worlds. He didn’t even look up. Just said, “There’s no job for that.”
That moment lit the fuse.
If there was no job, I’d build it. If there was no path, I’d set one ablaze.
That single conversation became the foundation of my life’s work. Everything I do — music, film, architecture, photography, brand work, whatever the medium — comes from that defiant moment.
The truth is, I was never trying to “pick” a path. I was trying to prove that creativity doesn’t have borders.
So if you ask me what brought me here?
A man told me it couldn’t be done.
Can you tell us the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?
It started with a phone call from my best friend. He was trying to show someone our band, Bleed Electric. But when he searched… nothing came up. No albums. No tracks. No trace.
He said, “Mate, your music’s gone.”
At first, I thought it was a joke. Then I checked. He was right. Every song, every release, wiped clean from the streaming world. It was like waking up to find your entire creative past had been erased.
For a moment, it felt like a loss. But then something shifted — that silence felt intentional, almost poetic. Like the universe had hit rewind. So we decided to embrace it.
We heard the universe, and we’re bringing everything back — in reverse order — starting with “This Is My Masterpiece,” dropping October 31st 2025, 13 years to the day after its first release.
Thirteen is a number that always seems to follow me. There’s magic in that symmetry, a sense of time folding in on itself.
Listening back, the music still sounds new and prophetic. It’s wild hearing ideas from 2012 resonate louder in 2025. What initially felt like disappearance ended up being reincarnation.
What are some of the most interesting or exciting projects you are working on now?
Right now, the air is electric again. After thirteen years of silence, Bleed Electric is being reborn — starting with “This Is My Masterpiece,” re-released on October 31st, exactly 13 years to the day since it first appeared.
The numerology feels intentional. The re-release isn’t just nostalgia, it’s a reversal, a digital resurrection. We’re releasing every EP backwards, retracing our creative DNA until we reach “The Butterfly Effect,” our unreleased concept album that was written like a cinematic musical.
That thread of rebirth runs through everything I’m creating — even at RIOT. In alignment with the Masterpiece drop, we unveiled another relevant collaboration last week — Tiffany & Co. x Frankenstein. It’s a collision of luxury and the macabre — a reanimation of art, myth, and identity. In many ways, it’s the physical embodiment of what Bleed Electric is doing: bringing the dead back to life through renewed creativity.
What excites me most is how in 2025 all these worlds talk to each other. It’s like they finally learned the same language my career advisor was so tone deaf to. And maybe, that’s the real Butterfly Effect?
Who are some of the most interesting people you have interacted with? What was that like? Do you have any stories?
I’ve met a lot of fascinating people along this journey; visionaries, dreamers, and the kind of rebels who build new worlds because the old ones don’t fit.
My brothers-in-arms in Bleed Electric, Silk and Siege. We come from completely different worlds, but when we create together, it’s like crossing the streams — chaos as harmony. There’s this unspoken code between us, a shared frequency that makes everything we touch feel inevitable. I hope we can re-enter orbit and make a sophomore album together one day. An evolution, not repetition.
Beyond the band, the most meaningful people in my life are my family — my partner, my kids, my parents, my brothers. And then there’s the creative circle at RIOT — some of the most talented misfits I’ve ever known that remind me that creativity is collaboration.
Where do you draw inspiration from? Can you share a story about that?
Inspiration, for me, isn’t something I chase, it’s something I tune into. The world hums with frequency. If you stand still long enough, you start to hear it — the static between stations, the whisper between brushstrokes, the echo between worlds. That’s where the signal lives.
I’ve always drawn from creators who lived like transmitters — Robert Del Naja, Basquiat, Banksy, Hayao Miyazaki, Louis Comfort Tiffany, Damon Albarn, David Lynch, David Bowie, Alexander McQueen, Rick Rubin, Frank Lloyd Wright, M.C. Escher, Alexander Girard, Jackson Pollock, Dylan Thomas, Alex Grey, Nikola Tesla, and so many others.
Sometimes I find that same hum in everyday life. My kids laughing in another room. A neon light flickering on the subway platform. The hiss of an old cable in the studio that became the backbone of a Bleed Electric track. Inspiration hides in imperfection, disguised as noise. Every spark I’ve ever followed came from the same source — curiosity, courage, and a kind of defiance against gravity.
How have you used your success to bring goodness to the world?
Goodness, to me, isn’t a side project. It’s built into the act of creation itself. Every song, every film, every design — everything that left the studio then, and everything that leaves our creative studios now — is made with the same purpose: to wake people up, to make them feel things in a world that’s numb from algorithms and repetition. It’s all driven by the same impulse — to inject beauty, rebellion, and humanity back into the signal.
Beyond the work, I try to pass that same current on to other artists, designers, and dreamers finding their voice. Sometimes that looks like mentorship; other times, it’s just belief. The world doesn’t need more noise — it needs more individuality and courage. Viral ≠ Vital.
My version of “goodness” is giving people permission to create without apology. To make the thing that scares them, to build the thing that doesn’t yet exist.
What are your “5 things I wish someone told me when I first started” and why. Please share a story or example for each.
1. Make your own job.
When I told my school’s career counselor that I wanted to combine art, music, and computers, he told me it wasn’t possible — “There’s no job for that.” So I made one.
That single moment became the core of everything that followed. The world will always try to hand you a script. The trick is learning to rewrite it in your own language.
2. Refuse control, even when it costs you everything.
When I was 15, my band Bluefur turned down a record deal because the label wanted to own the art. They wanted us to make ten versions of the same song — a loop of obedience. We chose freedom instead.
That moment taught me something I still live by: authenticity is non-negotiable. Whether it’s music, film, or brand work, once you let someone else dictate your truth, you stop being an artist and start being an echo.
3. Never pick one lane — build the whole highway.
People used to tell me I had to focus. “Pick one thing,” they said. But my creative compass doesn’t work like that. One day I’m writing music, the next I’m designing clothes, directing a film, or building a brand world. I realized early on that creativity isn’t about narrowing down — it’s about opening up.
Every medium speaks to the others; every skill mastered becomes an instrument.
When you stop seeing boundaries, you start creating symphonies.
4. Technology is your paintbrush, not your prison.
My first studio was my dad’s hi-fi — mic jack, tape deck, and a cheap plastic mic. That was the true birth of Bleed Electric. Now, a few studio iterations later I work with the world’s best brands, Cinema Robots, AI, 8K cameras, and sound tech that feels like alien technology.
Tools don’t make the art. Intention does.
Tech should amplify, not replace.
Everyone still needs a heartbeat to exist
5. Reverse time when you have to.
When Bleed Electric’s entire discography vanished from streaming, we thought it was over. But then we realized — maybe it wasn’t loss, but a rebirth.
We’re re-releasing everything in reverse order — turning time inside out until we reach the beginning. This concept reminds us that nothing is ever truly gone; it’s just waiting to be rediscovered.
Sometimes the best way forward is back.
You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂
I’ve already inspired a creative movement with my Creative Agency, RIOT.
We’re more than a brand or a slogan — we’re a mindset.
RIOT is about tuning into the creative wavelength that lives inside us all — the one that gets buried under fear, distraction, and expectation. It’s about realizing you don’t need permission to build something beautiful, or to burn something down and start again. Creation itself is the cure.
In our world, we’re constantly trying to amplify the idea that art isn’t decoration, it’s defiance. Every time you make something honest, you change the signal of the world around you.
With RIOT, we’ve already started a movement of Fearless Creators. People who refuse to sleepwalk through the static. People who wake up, plug in, and transmit their truth — raw, unfiltered, unafraid.
We have been blessed that some of the biggest names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she just might see this.
That’s a hard one, because the people I’d most love to meet are the ones who still chase ideas like they’re oxygen. But if I had to choose, I’d share a table with Rick Rubin.
He’s someone who understands silence, vibration, and instinct — all the things I believe creativity is really built on. He listens the way most people talk. There’s something deeply spiritual about how he approaches art. To Rick, art is both sacred and spontaneous at once.
But I’d also love to connect with anyone out there — in business, film, or music — who sees the world through that same lens. People who understand that creativity isn’t a department; it’s the bloodstream of everything. We live and breathe this at RIOT — building worlds where brands, artists, and technology can collide and still come out human. If you feel that frequency, my table’s always open.
What is the best way our readers can follow you on social media?
I don’t really do social media — at least not in the way it wants to be done.
If you’re looking for me, I’m not in your feed; I’m in the signal.
Find me where creation actually lives:
👉 riot.nyc
👉 bleedelectric.com
👉 altsounds.tv
Everything else is just 3ch0.
This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for joining us!
Thank you — the pleasure’s mine. Creation’s a conversation, after all. If even one person reading this feels the spark to start something of their own, then the signal’s done its job.
MUG5 & RIOT: 5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me When I First Became an Artist was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.