wasting youth, staying cute and living in my truth.
Born and raised in South Florida, Brandon Agustus first became interested in the arts before he could even form sentences. He was raised around a lot of different styles of music that influenced his passion and began to show signs of songwriting as he grew to learn more and more new words and created melodies to help remember them. As a child, he participated in community theater, dance and choir but always felt shy about his talents. He often was teased about the things he loved and was interested in and credits the lack of friends growing up to the sustainability of his creativity and imagination.
The very first song he wrote in full led him to pursue picking up an instrument and at the age of 16, he began learning how to play guitar. From there he started to take songwriting more seriously and after high school moved to New York City. He stumbled upon The Songwriter Factory in Brooklyn, NY where he met and began working alongside Randy Bergida of Skidmore Fountain, The Letter Yellow and New Indiana. With Bergida, he learned about the art of songwriting and received vocal training at the age of 19.
Living in New York gave Brandon a new perspective on life and inspired him artistically in a whole new way. This inspiration influenced him to write more music than ever before and ultimately led to the inception of his EP, Underneath the (Man)nequin which he credits as the tipping point in his musical endeavors. He says, “I knew I had this talent for writing songs but when I was younger I felt so afraid to pursue it because of what other people might say. Something about the fearlessness of being around people in New York who were so hungry to achieve their dreams woke me up.” After the release of his EP in 2016, he began writing for his debut album, Days of Wasted Youth that was inspired by various life events and lessons he had learned through navigating the early days of adulthood. When discussing the album, he says, “I had to live a lot of life in order to write an album like this. I had to go even deeper than I did for my EP and I had to get the life experience necessary to authentically carry out the theme of what I truly wanted to say. There were loads of tears to cry, hard work in therapy and doubts along the way but I made it through stronger and braver than ever and I’m a better artist now than I was then.” His album, Days of Wasted Youth serves a departure from the darker sounds he explored with Underneath the (Man)nequin and opened the door to a new attitude and a new sound.
As a music fan, Brandon draws inspiration from a smorgasbord of artists and describes his sound as 80s/90s anthemic stadium pop with hip hop undertones. Speaking on his style evolution, he says, “I’ve always loved 80s and 90s music because there’s something about the way it makes you feel that’s infectious. I think artists like Prince, Janet Jackson and Whitney Houston inspire me so much because their songs always take you to a place and I’ve always wanted to be the kind of artist that creates his own world through music.” Brandon Agustus’ debut album, Days of Wasted Youth is now available on your favorite streaming platform.
