Meet Brandon Faris of Ohio

Today we’d like to introduce you to Brandon Faris.

Hi Brandon, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
I’ve always been a storyteller. The medium has just changed depending on where I was in my life.

Music was probably the first version of that for me. I grew up writing songs, playing in bands, recording, and imagining that music would somehow become my career. But I came of age right as the music industry was being completely disrupted. Napster arrived, the business changed almost overnight, and like a lot of people trying to figure out adulthood, I took a different road.

That road ended up being filmmaking and advertising. I became an editor, filmmaker and creative director, built a career telling stories for brands, and eventually worked on projects like Peacock’s *Kings From Queens: The Run-DMC Story*. I spent years helping other people figure out what they wanted to say and how to say it.

But I never really stopped writing songs.

Faris & Co. grew out of realizing that I didn’t need to choose between those different parts of myself anymore. The filmmaker, the writer, the creative director and the songwriter are all essentially doing the same thing: looking for something human and trying to tell the truth about it.

The songs tend to live in that space. Nostalgia, love, family, routine, technology, getting older, the strange things we do over and over again, and the questions that don’t necessarily have clean answers. I’m less interested in writing songs that tell people what to think than I am in writing songs that make somebody recognize something from their own life.

That’s really what Faris & Co. has become for me — a place to bring all of those things together. Music, film, storytelling and experimentation all live under the same roof. Even the “& Co.” is intentionally a little open-ended. It leaves room for collaborators, other artists, filmmakers, technology and whatever else a song might become once it leaves my hands.

After spending much of my career helping tell other people’s stories, I think I finally reached a point where I wanted to make room for my own again.

So in some ways, Faris & Co. feels new. In other ways, it feels like I just took a very long way around to get back to where I started.

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Definitely not a smooth road, but I’m not sure I would change much of it.

When I was younger, I thought music was going to be the road. I was writing songs, playing in bands and pursuing what I thought a career in music was supposed to look like. Then the industry started changing dramatically. Napster showed up, record labels were scrambling, and suddenly the path I thought I was following didn’t really exist in the same way anymore.

At the time, that felt like a door closing. Looking back, it was probably just a door sending me somewhere else.

I moved deeper into filmmaking, editing and advertising and eventually built a career that I’m incredibly proud of. But the struggle was figuring out what to do with this other creative part of myself that never really went away. I would still write songs. I would still record. I just wasn’t necessarily putting them into the world.

And I think there’s something difficult about returning to something you loved when you were younger. You have to get past the idea that you missed your window. The music industry is obsessed with youth, and there’s a temptation to think, “Well, if I didn’t do this at 25, why am I doing it now?”

Eventually I realized that was the wrong question.

I have more to write about now.

I’ve had a career. I’ve raised a family. I’ve succeeded at things and failed at things. I’ve watched technology completely reshape multiple industries. I’ve gotten older, changed my mind about things, lost people, loved people and accumulated a lot more life.

All of that gives you something to say.

So the biggest struggle may have simply been giving myself permission to take songwriting seriously again—not because I expect it to lead somewhere specific, but because making the work matters to me.

I’ve learned that creative careers rarely move in straight lines. Sometimes something goes exactly where you hoped it would go.

And sometimes it goes somewhere else.

As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
I don’t know that I’m “known for” any one thing, at least not in the traditional sense. I don’t have that kind of pedigree. I’ve touched a lot of different projects throughout my career, and I’ve always been more interested in the next interesting thing than building a reputation around one particular type of work.

What probably sets me apart professionally is that my core discipline is filmmaking. Most Creative Directors traditionally come up through either writing or design. I came up through cameras, editing rooms and storytelling through motion and sound. I think that has shaped the way I approach almost everything.

Filmmaking teaches you to look for the story underneath the story. You can have a beautiful shot, a great performance or an interesting idea, but eventually you have to sit in an edit and ask: What is this actually about? What matters? What can we take away? What are we trying too hard to explain?

That process has become pretty fundamental to how I think.

I like peeling back the layers of an idea until I can see what it really is. Sometimes that means simplifying something. Sometimes it means challenging the original premise entirely. I’m probably at my best when there’s a complicated problem, a bunch of possibilities on the table, and we need to find the thing at the center that actually matters.

I also think people who have worked with me would probably say I bring a lot of enthusiasm and energy to a project. I get genuinely excited about ideas. When I see something in an idea, I want to chase it. I want to make it. I want to see how far we can push it. That energy has probably been as important to my career as any particular technical skill.

What I’m most proud of isn’t really a single project or accolade. It’s that I’ve managed to stay curious. My career has moved through filmmaking, editing, advertising, music and emerging technology, and I still get excited when someone walks into a room with the beginning of a good idea.

I just want to get to the heart of it and make something that matters.

So, before we go, how can our readers or others connect or collaborate with you? How can they support you?
For commercial and professional work, the easiest way to connect with me is through LEAP Matter.

But creatively, I’m always looking for people to make things with—especially musicians. Collaboration is a big part of what Faris & Co. is supposed to be. I love bringing other artists onto my records, whether that’s playing, singing, writing or just adding something unexpected that takes a song somewhere I wouldn’t have taken it myself.

So if you’re a musician and something I’m making connects with you, reach out. I’m pretty approachable. Find me on Instagram at @bfaris and say hello.

And if you simply want to support what I’m doing, listen to the music, follow Faris & Co., share a song with somebody who might connect with it, or come along for the ride. That genuinely helps.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.brandonfaris.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bfaris
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@FarisandCo
• Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/3nFskdyzUt7iZj5eppWJKv