The music industry offers many career opportunities that go far beyond performing on stage: Careers spanning from songwriters and composers, production and sound engineering, music distribution and promotion, business and management, music publishing, music journalism, marketing and social media, to touring and beyond. These industry professionals are the backbone of the music world, ensuring the music we love thrives through their contributions to its creation, production and distribution.
Music producers are essential in shaping the sound and direction of a song or album. They help bring an artists vision to life by overseeing the final product, ensuring that it is polished and meets technical standards. A producers contributions significantly impact the overall quality and success of a musical project.
Bardo Novotny, a San Luis Obispo, California native, continues to be a rising force in the music industry. Not only is he the guitarist of rock band Beauty School Dropout, but he also makes waves as a skilled producer, working with artists like Dasha, jxdn, Lauren Sanderson, Quinton Griggs, Royal & the Serpent, Loren Gray, and his own band Beauty School Dropout — notably working on hits including “Austin (Boots Stop Workin’),” “Heartbreaker From Tennessee,” “Elevated Heartbreak,” “Starphucker,” “Bye Bye Bye,” and “Girl From The Internet.” The 27-year-old enjoys working with artists who embrace the creative process, letting ideas flow rather than putting themselves in a box — noting Griggs in particular.
“I like working with him because he really doesn’t give a fuck,” Novotny says. “He’s kind of like, ‘Yo, if its a vibe, its a vibe, let’s go.’ He doesn’t overthink it. There are a lot of artists who overthink themselves into a hole where they shut down and it’s hard for them to keep a song going. Its fun as a producer to be in that environment because you feel like you are on a Slip ‘N Slide of creativity.”
Novotny began messing around with Garage Band around the age of eight, sparking an interest in music production. By the age of 13, he began to take it more seriously, producing for the bands he was part of so that they could record the music they were writing.
“I got the basic recording software, had to figure it out, and got all the wrong stuff of course,” he says. “From there I learned to make beats and realized how fun it is to have a vision for a song and pull all the pieces together.” When he moved to Nashville, he started working as a producer professionally, stating, “It’s a journey and you have to start somewhere.”
The best way to get started as a producer is to simply dive in and experiment — you can only learn by doing. “Start and tinker and fail quickly,” Novotny says. “You have to try and make hundreds of songs to figure out how you like to make songs and what songs you like to make, it’s trial and error…DM artists, talk to people, send beats around. Eventually things will click.”
Working in music production brings a new rhythm to each day — some days may be a catch up day where you are working on finishing up projects, answering emails and chasing new ideas, or you may be in the studio for a session with an artist.
“I may have this quick 16-bar loop, I don’t know what it is, but its cool and I show it to someone and they are like, “Yo I have an idea for this,’ they put lyrics on it, whatever. Other days I have a session, they come in, we sit down and start making ideas all together in a room and then it becomes a song. Who knows if that song comes out or not, but ideally it does,” Novotny explains.
A tool that has become essential for Novotny when crafting beats and arranging tracks is Ableton Live, a software that he considers to be the best in the game. More recently, he has begun incorporating AI into the beats that he creates.
There have been some pretty cool moments in Novotny’s career, including opening for Blink-182 at Madison Square Garden, but perhaps the most unique opportunity would be visiting the Czech Republic with Beauty School Dropout.
“The only time I have been there technically was in my moms stomach when she was pregnant with me,” he says. “There were like 2000 kids in this festival tent and they knew the words to our songs. I was just like, ‘You barely speak English, but you know these lyrics. This is so sick.'”
Novotny adds, “It was weird to think about my grandpa, who immigrated from the Czech Republic, to then come back here [to preform] for a full circle kind of moment. He passed away, but it was crazy that I got to go back to do that. That one was really special to me, maybe even more special than playing Madison Square Garden.”
Novotny’s band, Beauty School Dropout, has been racking up the hours in the studio, getting ready to release new music as they prepare to hit the road in July for the Summer School 2025 Tour.
Keep up with Bardo Novotny: Instagram // X // TikTok
Keep up with Beauty School Dropout: Website // Instagram // X // TikTok
