Today we’d like to introduce you to Holden Le Dinh.
Hi Holden, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
My mom got my first name, Holden, after Holden Caulfield from the book Catcher in the Rye. Have I personally read the book? No, maybe 50 or so pages when I was in 3rd grade and I decided the content was a bit out of my reach, life experience-wise. My last name is French Vietnamese because you know the French colonized Vietnam at one point. I assume the Le part is French and the Dinh part is Vietnamese, but that just sounds too simple to be true. Who knows. Here’s what I do know –
I was born in Cocoa Beach, FL and lived in various neighboring beach towns throughout my first ten or so years of life. In about third grade, my mom ordered my step-dad one of those cheesy infomercial Esteban acoustic-electric guitars. Esteban was that guitarist guy with the long fingernails, beefy side-burns, and fedora-ish hat. Come to think of it, that’s a lot of weird guitar guys’ vibes, except this guy was commercially successful “weird guitar guy” who had his own line of guitars and infomercials selling them on TV. Anyway, my mom ordered one of this guy’s sketchy guitars and my stepdad never really ended up playing it ever. After seeing School of Rock and some Led Zeppelin live performances on DVD, I knew I most definitely had to in some manner shred on a guitar. Well, Esteban’s infomercial guitar had descended from the heavenly gates around this same time frame and seeing as the vessel was unspoken for, I began messing around on it in my free time. I remember learning simple stuff everybody first learns, like Smoke on the Water and basic chords. I still remember the day my mom showed me a G chord. That was epic. It’s the little things. My mom was a guitarist in a band back in the day. She showed me all kinds of incredible music, from classic rock like Led Zeppelin to hip hop like Nelly, RnB like D’angelo, and lots of Reggae too like Buju Banton (my stepdad is from Barbados). All kinds of stuff. I always remember from the beginning, music set my heart on fire. Nothing could make me feel as happy and triumphant as good music did. I knew it had to have some part in my life.
In 4th Grade, my family and I left Cocoa Beach and went to live in Barbados with my stepdad’s family. I remember being sad leaving all of my friends in Florida. But Barbados was an incredible place to spend part of my childhood. I took in a lot of the culture whether I was realizing it or not. The reggae music and its many relatives were something I came to love. We moved back to the US a year later, right as I was getting comfortable and making friends in Barbados. Having to travel light, I didn’t have a guitar in Barbados, but when I got back to the US, one of the first things I copped was a budget stratocaster. At this point, we were living in Fayetteville, a suburb of Atlanta. I remember Crank That Soulja Boy was popping off with all the kids at my school there. I was like, what are Bathin’ Apes? But I got sucked into all that too and was soon wearing denim shorts and taking a liking to the AF1 silhouette.
After a bit more life complications and moving around, I finally landed in Blue Ridge, Georgia. When we got there, it was in the middle of my 8th Grade. I was reluctant to start at a new school after moving around so much, so I tried homeschool for the rest of 8th Grade. Eventually, I gave up on that and started at the local high school in 9th Grade. Fannin County High. I started out slowly making friends and by the time I graduated, I was homecoming king. My mom told me I was good at making friends. Towards the end of my 1st year of high school, my friends convinced me to do the talent show and sing “What Makes You Beautiful” by One Direction as a sarcastic joke. I saw it as a funny opportunity to showcase my very mild singing and guitar skills. I was really into America’s Best Dance Crew, Quest Crew to be specific, at the time, and ended up incorporating a bunch of mediocre breakdancing and tutting alongside my singing/guitar thing. Looking back, this performance just had way too much going on for it to make sense to me now, but I guess it was just me unknowingly experimenting with different art forms I was interested in. Despite the whackiness of my performance, the whole school went nuts. It was actually pretty sweet. I remember people coming up to me in the halls for the next week throwing me mad street cred. I couldn’t believe what started as an inside joke amongst my nerdy friends was now bringing me (what seemed like at the time) hella clout. I already had a lot of fun playing my guitar, singing, and doing my little dance moves by myself at home. This extra publicity was just the cherry on top and one of my first realizations that something you do or create can be like a floating advertisement above your head that follows you always. You didn’t have to say anything or brag to anyone to get your status across. Your work can speak for you. In this talent show instance, it was a good thing. I was hooked.
I kept doing the talent shows every year, trying to one up the last. It became my thing, or at least in my head it did. How am I going to rock their socks off this year? Then I went to college at the University of Georgia. Obviously, I brought my guitar with me. There were a lot of non-music related distractions but I did meet some amazing musicians/friends along the way. And my new college friends showed me an actual plethora of new music. This, along with my intense relationship with Spotify, had me expanding my musical realm a lot from age 18-22. At the end of my sophomore year at UGA, I remember realizing that absolutely none of the majors offered at my school could help me do the one thing I know I had to do. I had to at least try making a career in music. If I didn’t, I knew for a fact I would look back and wonder what if? So I didn’t register for any classes the next semester and went 100% in on music.
I knew to be a musician I had to have two things. My own songs available to stream, and live shows, to rock people’s faces off. I started learning how to use Logic, a recording software and put out original songs on Soundcloud, Spotify, Apple Music, etc. The early stuff was rough, but I still think to this day has a lot of creative merit. I got together my musician friends, formed a rag tag band, and started playing all over Athens, Georgia. Bars, small concert venues, music festivals, Fraternity/Sorority Events, Tailgates, a bit of everything. I’d say I got everything you’d hope for out of this type of gigging. Friends, fun, drinks, and a little spending money to enjoy the town. To me, the music we were playing live felt a bit sloppy at times, but there were moments that showed me I had potential. I had anxiety about quitting traditional schooling. But I soon realized the happiness and authentic fulfillment that I was getting from this new figurative school I had enrolled myself in, the school of m effin’ hard knox, was the right path for me. I stopped worrying about college and fully embraced my journey as a musician.
One of my first releases, “Burning Up” got on one of Spotify’s biggest playlists, New Music Friday. To this day, it’s at almost 1.7 million streams. For a brand new indie artist living on my friends’ couches and recording in their closets, this was huge for me. If Spotify thinks my music is dope, I must be on to something. I pressed on.
When I was around 22 years old, my friends all graduated and we moved in together for a bit in the Alpharetta area. I continued making music in my home studio and steadily putting out songs online. With all of our friends spread out after college, our rag tag band was playing together less and less. Silver lining, this gave me more time to focus on my songwriting and production. I made several songs a day and locked myself in at home just to grind. I really wanted a decent catalogue of original songs on my Spotify that I was genuinely proud of. I had some cool little bops and a taste of commercial success with “Burning Up”, but I needed a bigger audience. I needed a bigger fan base so I could tour the country and have enough fans in each major city to put on a modest show. Half of my love for music is creating it, the other half is showing it to other people. I needed to hunker down, build my catalogue of songs, and the rest, God willing, should fall into place.
Fast forward to today, March 2022 is when I’m writing this. I’m 25 years old now. In the meantime, I did what I set out to by building up my catalogue of original songs, currently with 15 or so tracks of mine available for streaming everywhere. My songs have already amassed over 2 million streams; as a self-produced, independent artist, from my home studio. I’ve made strides in my production, songwriting, vocals, instrumentation, and pretty much every aspect of my craft. I play multiple shows a month, sometimes 3-4 per weekend. At the shows, I almost always meet amazingly kind/supportive people. I live solely on my income from music. Am I living like Drake? Hell Nah! But just the fact that I’m living off of what I love to do, and what started as a little inkling of a dream in my little boy head, is paying for my life, well for now that’s enough for me. It reassures me I chose the right path; my path. It gives me hope for the future of my career and lights a fire that keeps me working on new music everyday. I’m looking forward to continuing creating music and playing shows around the world. Bottom line, I’m having so much fun, and you should be too.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Looking back, I wouldn’t say the road has been smooth, but I also wouldn’t go back and change a single bump, twist, or turn I’ve crossed along the way. It may be cliché, but I needed the trials in my life to put me on this path I’m on now. I needed the tears to write these lyrics. And the angst to pluck these daggum strings. Not that you need hardship for content, just that you need variety and adventure. And with adventure comes epic highs and scary lows, but you can’t have one without the other. Balance, young grasshopper.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I’m a musician through and through. I write, perform, and produce all of my own music. I handle booking shows, my social media promotion, recording and editing music videos, etc. Almost every artist you know and love has someone else producing, writing, and engineering their music. Most artists you listen to have a whole team behind them, overseeing marketing, social media, wardrobe, PR, vocal coaches, tour managers, booking agents, the list goes on. Since I’ve started this journey, I’ve quickly realized there’s so much more that goes into music other than picking up your instrument and singing your lil’ ditty. As a musician, you’re a whole ass brand. As a completely independent, DIY artist, I do all of the aforementioned myself. I like it. It feels good to be in control of my career and not some distant executive at a record label. It’s really like building any other business from the ground up. Obviously, this is a lot to tackle for one person and there’s good reason why most commercially successful artists have people that specialize in each area of their career. But there is something very empowering about knowing every aspect of your livelihood like the back of your hand. All of this goes to say that my work is music. But this entails many other jobs in order to get the music heard. So basically, I’m a lot of things.
How do you define success?
My metric for success has changed drastically over the years. But nowadays, I see it pretty simply. Here’s some of my success prerequisites -do what you genuinely love to make money, if you’re not excited to get started on your job as soon as you wake up, keep searching
– Make enough money from your craft to live the lifestyle of your upper middle class friends.
– Hhave a rich social life with friends that lift you up, both professionally and spiritually.
– Find your person, the one you love nonsensically, but take your time with this.
– Give back to your community, be creative with this.
– Keep your mind and body healthy.
Pricing:
- Live Performance (guitar/vocals) – $75/hr
- Custom Beat/Instrumental – starting at $500
- Full Song – starting at $1000
Contact Info:
- Email: H.LeFoxe@gmail.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/holdenledinh/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/holdenledinh
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/holdenledinh
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2gKovIlA1le-tlxc5t7N7w
- SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/holden-ledinh
