Steve Brudzewski is one of the co-founders of Electric Family, which is a streetwear apparel and merchandise brand, alongside Drew Nilon and Matt Dronkers. What once started as a bracelet to help fund charity organizations, has now evolved into a brand that is loved and cherished by music fans and the charities that are serviced by this company. I met Steve at Decadence music festival, and we talked for a bit about his company and their awesome bracelet designs/merchandise. Check out this interview below!
What was the journey as you started this company and the idea behind it?
We started as a grassroots company with a few friends after we had conversation down in Miami during Miami Music Week. We all wanted to be involved in the music industry, and dance music was exploding. It was what we loved. We saw that there was a void, and the void was that there wasn’t a brand of clothing that you could wear outside of the festival. There are the companies out there making shirts that say “eat, sleep, rave, repeat," although great, we didn’t want to do that. We wanted to make clothing that you could wear on a normal basis and not be frowned upon like you’re “some sort of raver” or outcast. We started with a bracelet, and we were all working other jobs and doing this in our spare time that we had. So a lot of us came together and said “look, we need to give this a full time commitment." We quit our full time jobs and put all of our heart and effort in to this. Here we are three-four years later as a pretty reputable brand in music. Not just electronic music, but music in general. We have people from all different music genres that are wearing our clothing and sporting our brand. We have collaborations in pop music that are coming very soon. We are going to evolve into a brand that is just associated with trend setting musicians not just dance music anymore, so we’ve come a long way!
What are your day to day tasks, and what do you regularly do?
We just got back from a trip that took us to an event called Zumiez 100K, where they invite all of the founders of brands that have products in Zumiez for this two-day event. For the day to day operations, I do artist relations and sales, and so I do a really intense account management type of job for us because we have several hundred accounts that sell our product on a wholesale basis. Then I do all the recruiting for our artist collaborations. We have over 60 artists involved. We keep them continuously involved and updated on how their bracelet campaign is doing for charity, and we’ve raised almost $400,000 dollars so far! It is an ongoing conversation and super high communications type of role.
Do you choose which artists you want to collaborate? How is that done?
We obviously solicit some artists that we think would be a good fit and if they think it’s a good fit for them then we work together. If they don’t think it’s a good fit then we move on to the next, but we continue to try to do at least one new artist release a month.
It is very interesting that you work closely with charities, how does that work? Does the artist get to choose which one they would like to sponsor?
Yes, it’s 100% all on the artist for the charity selection, so when we do the process we select the colors, design the bracelets, and then they take some time and really put some thought in to it as far as what charities they want to support because it’s important to them to communicate a message to their fans that resonates with them. So, they try to do something that they are passionate about, for example, some of them may have family members that were effected by cancer and that really touches their heart. Some of them have a love for animals etc but really it’s totally up to them to make that selection, so they really get behind some of these campaigns.
Did you decide with the bracelets initially over another type of product?
We started with one style of bracelet and we had six different colors you could choose from and a portion of the proceeds went to charity called "Feeding America." Then it evolved, after a year we decided to come up with something new that would really resonate with fans and it was the artist bracelets. So we solicited our first person that we thought would be a good fit and that was Leighton from Adventure Club. We discussed the opportunity with him and he was really excited about it and got behind it. They [Adventure Club] were our first artist bracelet and it was such a homerun. It was such a great thing that their fans got behind and with the success of that bracelet we quickly landed our second bracelet, Krewella, and then we got Fedde Le Grand. From that point on we continued to gain momentum and had several other artists join our movement and we are still going strong with over 60 artists on our roster now.
What was the first festival you attended? What was your start with EDM?
My first festival was EDC Las Vegas 2011 (fact check), the first year it was in Vegas. I’ve always been a fan of electronic music since I was younger and growing up in Detroit, I would cross over the border and go into Windsor (Canada) to listen to Dance Music. I was 19 and you could get into the clubs when you were 19 and the bars there had a pretty predominant electronic scene already. I was already listening to ATB and a bunch of others were my gateway to EDM and I got in to that whole world of going to nightclubs. I continued my hockey career, I played division one hockey at Bowling Green State University and played professionally, and so when I was listening to music to pump me up before games it started off as AC/DC, Metallica, and stuff like that, but then as I got older I started listening to the electronic music and that was kind of my energy. I then moved to Vegas in 2006 and was able to live through an amazing transition period. This is when electronic music started to take over the nightclub scene and took all of the spotlight away from hip hop. I still remember when Skrillex was playing here and he brought dubstep to the forefront of the city, the country, and then the world. Creativity just started to explode amongst artists and I mean now we just have so many genres of EDM that was kind of really where it all fell into place.
Do you plan on expanding in to the near future?
Oh yeah, we are a completely evolved brand that started with a bracelet and now have a very amazing offering for men and women. Definitely check out Electric Family website for quality streetwear and accessories that are inspired by music and positivity. We also just dropped a premium stainless steel bracelet line that is very dope (that you can check out right here). As our company evolves and the fans of dance music get older we want to continue to grow with them. Our clothing and accessories are maturing and we are constantly striving for improvement and quality across all of our product lines.
New Bracelet below:
How many employees do you have?
Right now we have a team of ten people.
I’m sure you enjoy being a vendor at festivals, which ones are your favorite, how many did you attend last year, and how many are you going to this year?
Last year, personally, I attended 12 festivals. My favorite events are Burning Man, Electric Forest, Coachella, and EDC Las Vegas. As a company, we are very selective about where we vend.
How are you selective about choosing where to vend?
It is a financial decision first because some people charge a lot of money to show up and vend at their festivals. We have to be able to afford the booth and then we also have to remember some of the products we sell benefit charities so we have to make smart decisions. It’s a team decision and we ask ourselves a lot of questions. Do we have the resources to be able to afford to have a booth set up there? Is it cost effective? Does it make sense? Can we get a spot there? A lot goes in to it and we try to pick and choose whats best for us at that time. We have a good relationship with a few festivals like Decadence in Colorado (link), Moonrise has been absolutely incredible for us, and we are working with a lot more this year. So there’s a few that we go to every year because we’ve had good luck, but we are also trying out others as well.
What do you enjoy most about your company?
I think the best thing about our company is that the people that work at our company are very passionate about our brand and what we do. We get to work with amazing artists and they are like minded people that want to give back. That’s my #1 thing is being able to work with artists and to give back. I never thought that in my wildest dreams I would be able to say we’ve donated almost $400,000 to multiple charities we have partnerships with over 60 amazing musicians. Give us a follow on @ElectricFamily (Twitter/Instagram) so you keep in the loop what we have going on, its going to be an exciting year!
Be sure to check out the rest of their bracelet collections and clothing line at ElectricFamily.com
Bonus: My collection
