ALEX ARNOLD, PHILADELPHIA, PA

Sometimes, you have to close one door before another one opens. And sometimes the connections you make now will come back to help you in the future! Recording Connection graduate Alex Arnold learned this firsthand when his former Recording Connection mentor called him up a year later with a job offer—a job that enabled Alex to launch his career as an audio engineer.

When long-time Recording Connection mentor Joey Heier of Crystal Clear Studios in Philadelphia, PA got word that a popular band called Burnt Sienna needed a lead audio tech for their live shows, he thought of one of his former students, Alex Arnold. He decided to give Alex a call.

On the other side of the line, Alex hadn’t actually been doing much in professional audio since graduating the program a year earlier. In fact, he’d been working a string of dead-end jobs, and the very day he got the call from his former mentor, Alex had come to the conclusion that his job at a local sandwich shop wasn’t getting him anywhere, and had just quit.

When Joey Heier called to set him up with Burnt Sienna, Alex was ready to jump in with both feet. Although he was a bit nervous at first, his training at the Recording Connection kicked in quickly, and it wasn’t long before he found his bearings at the helm of Burnt Sienna’s soundboard as their FOH lead tech—and before he knew it, he was running live sound before crowds of thousands of people, including a crowd of 6000+ at the New Jersey Freedom Fest!

Apprenticing on-the-job not only gives you the skills you need in order to make it in the music industry—it also helps you make powerful connections that can reward you long after those connections are made. In the case of Alex Arnold, that key connection was his mentor, Joey Heier, who had been impressed with Alex’s skills as a student—and at the right time, that connection turned into a career.