 Hello, I'm Michael North for Think Tech Hawaii, and I want to introduce two very special guests who are going to sing a song for us, Pedal to the Metal. We have Spirit Artis and her brother, Victor Artis. So, Michael. Take it away. This is your original composition? Yes, the song I wrote. And so we not only have an extraordinary sister and brother combination, you have to picture a family of 11. Yeah, 11 kids. And you're all from the same womb, right? The same family. And you're from Haleiva, you grew up mostly in Haleiva, north shore of Oahu. For those who don't know, it's a very rural area, north shore, surfers, tourists, very laid back. Beautiful kids. I first met you guys, I looked it up, 15 years ago. So you were a cute little girl and you were a cute little boy at that time. But I have to say, even at that time, you had a mastery and a presence that was just electric, and you had a gravity and a talent. You're a percussionist as well as a tourist and so on. You had some amazing talent. He's also a killer bass player. To see the whole Artis family playing together with song and dance and costume and lights and action and so on, and with your great father, who was well known in the entertainment community as a composer and behind the scenes, and with some of the biggest acts of the 70s, 80s and 90s, to see him, you could hear classical music, you could hear folk, you could hear rock, you could hear rap, you could hear reggae, you could hear every variety of music. So I thought at the time, I thought, what is this, the Jacksons? Is this Sly and the Family Stone? And I realized it's actually so much greater than either of those. And the interesting thing is that your mother, your father passed away so sadly a few years back. But your mother kept you all together and raised you and kept you moving forward and Victoria Artis. Very awesome. Who is an awesome performer in her own right. Beautiful, beautiful boy. She could be an incredibly successful soloist in her own right if she wanted to be. But she chose to be with you and the family and build you up. And to keep you sheltered from the many, many temptations of the music universe that came across your... That came a lot from Pop. Yeah. The way he raised us and when he instilled us from his experience of what he went through in the industry. So he made sure we understood of what's out there. So not to be naive of it, but we understood what was there. So we did decide to go when we want to be like wide-eyed kids, like, oh, I want to be a star. I want to have a good understanding of the responsibilities that come with it, the temptations that are there, the different choices you can make, and the repercussions of those choices. So a lot of people came by and said, this is amazing. We'd love to sign these people. We want to tour them. Let's go to London or something. Your mom said, let's keep it together as a family unit. But here we now, this is a very exciting day, actually, right now. Because Victor, your older brother, Ron, and some other members of the family are now building your own solo careers, right? Or in combination with each other. And you're going out into the big world for the first time. And Victor just wanted to say, in a few days, you go to Los Angeles and you're going to turn that town on its ear. And I just want to hear what you're thinking, what you're feeling as you get ready to get on that rocket ship to the West Coast. Why are you doing it? What do you expect? Two reasons. From a business aspect, and also I feel calling there. There's a lot of broken people there and people in need. And I feel like the message I have to my music could help them. And then also, being here in Hawaii for as long as I have and being in the music industry, playing shows and everything, with my sound, I feel that just better opportunities for me in LA also. So better opportunities for me to make more for my music and also to grow more as an artist, reach more people, and just grow as a person also. Yeah. But the music industry is so different from the way it was 20 or even 10 years ago. It has changed a lot. And so what's the formula for success, do you think, now in today's modern fractionated music industry? There's no clear blueprint for it. It's kind of like you just got to have the right person hears your music, and they feel like they can get behind it. But a lot of it is doing things yourself. Like 30 years ago, you couldn't do what I did last month. Last month in my room, I wrote five songs myself. Mixed and mastered them. Release them on iTunes, Spotify, and got a lot of good reviews in place from them. And that was just me by myself. Now when I partnered up with someone in LA, they would have helped me to reach more of the masses. But now I don't have to be like artists were restricted in the past of needing someone else to do the releasing to them, contacting. They need a middleman for them to release their stuff, release an album. Even like we can burn a CD in our room now. But past, you couldn't do that. So Spirit, would you say that you need to be more multi-talented now? You can't just be an artist. You have to be an agent, and a promoter, and a record company. You can't put yourself in one box. You've got to do it all. You've got to have all the different hats to put on your head. That's the only way. For me, I do photography and music. And so constantly, I'm trying to balance them. Then I realize you can't constantly try to balance them. You've got to work on them both 100%. You can't sit one to the side and say, OK, I'll work on that one later. If you want to make a living out of these two, you've got to give it you 100%. If you're sitting on the couch, you're like, oh, one day I'm going to do this. And then you'll stay weeks and weeks go by. And then you're like, oh, shoot, I was supposed to do that. And then you're like, oh, maybe. So no, life is not like that. Life is never going to stop. So you've got to do it all. You've got to do the marketing. You've got to do constantly putting yourself out there. And like Victor is saying, sometimes you feel you have to leave to get better, like to build up a higher percentage of things. You've got to do it. So for me, I love Hawaii. Born and raised. I was born on the East side. It's an island girl. Island girl. I did not. The East side. It sounds so urban, right? I did not. I did not. I'll visit other places. I'll visit. I really want to go to Korea and take pictures there. And I really wish the people there were with my music and with my photography. And so that's one of the things in the future that I'm working on. But right now, in I think two weeks or a week or so. Oh, a week. No, the 20th. I'm going to, yeah. I'm going to California. Then I'll visit family out there, friends. And I'm going to do music and photography. So it's just like putting myself out there. So with Victor there, you'll have a couch you can sleep on. Well, my mom's family's really big in California. Like her dad came from 15 kids, all now. They've got a lot of couches there. Got family out there, like crazy. Do you combine your photography and your music? Yes. Yes, I do. And I'm working on making a music video with my photography, just to have the music. And then it's going to have all my photography do it. And stuff like that. So yeah, I love to combine it. And then with my photography, I also put the scriptures on it. They give people positive point of views for their days. Like if they're going to do something else. I post like a beautiful picture of Hawaii. And I have something like an encouraging phrase or something. So you're 24 and your brother's 29. You're staying here on the shore. And he's going to the Bright Lights big city. Why are you staying in Hawaii though? What do you see is coming? I think Hawaii has a lot for it. It's a special place. Like people, I mean, work their entire lives. They come to Hawaii. And they work their behinds off. So I'm like, OK, I'm here already. I know I can make you living off of it. Like photography and music easily. This is the most beautiful, one of the most beautiful places on earth. So you can easily make a living off photography. And music is just a melting pot of the world. So many people come here. And you can reach everyone who comes. You get people from all over the world. So I've learned multiple languages. Just able phrases to help out people. So I love this place. It's home. So you especially, well, all of you have a mission. You have a purpose. You have a message. And each one is different. Praise Jesus has her way. And you have your way. And Ron Jr. has his way. What is the message that you want to be anicate in your heart? It's beautifully kind of connected in a way, though. Like, our messages are different. But they're all, like, we're familiar with the Marvel movies. It's kind of like how we do our business with a family. There's all these single movies. And it builds up to the Avengers movie. You're a superhero. Yeah. That's how we do, like, we have our solo acts and the different things we do. Like, our messages will sound different. But then it all leads back to, like, we all come together. And you can hear, like, different voices speaking of the same message from different perspectives. And that's how we reach different audiences. Because, like, the whole world is, like, so vast. And personalities are different. So what is your message? My message, too. Use that to lead into your song, because we want to hear you sing. OK, well. Yes. OK. My message is, like, well, a lot of people are always, like, complaining that life is really, really hard. And I was, like, well, if life wasn't hard, would we be who we are today? Will we be the strong individuals? And when we're having tough times, it comes down to us to choose and make our day positive. And choosing to choose love instead of strife. So I wrote a song. I just released an album for it. And it's called Found the Day. And so this is it. Found a day without troubles and worries. I found a day with my dear. I found a day without troubles and worries. I found a day with my dear. So as you go, you'll see. So chill. Found a day with my dear. Found a day with my dear. Spirit and Victor. Coosers are set up all around. We're back with Spirit and Victor Artiste. And I have a question for you, Victor. There's a lot of people, young people, who may be watching this, who say, he's so great. I could never do that. I want to be creative. I know I have the spark in me, but I really, I better go be an accountant instead. What do you have to say to people who feel driven by a creative urge but don't have the confidence to maybe be able to step out the way that you are and just talk to them direct? Life's too short. Life's too short to be insincere. I mean, if you have a party of you that you feel needlessly to get out and you're thinking for security reasons or feeling more safer in this world that you want to hold it in, it's like killing a piece of yourself. So I would say life's too short, stay sincere. No matter how awkward it can get, embrace the awkwardness. Be you and be true. Have you felt any of that kind of inhibition or anybody? Yeah, I struggled with that. The hesitation. Being very different and like, as a musician, as an artist, seeing was successful and then hearing yourself and how you sound and how you present yourself. And at one time I thought I need to be what was acceptable. But thanks to my dad, he was like, I never told you that as a child, just be you and polish yourself the most you can and be the best you can be and work on that, shape it, polish it. And then my mom was that way. My voice is like, she loved the way that I would sing and I would try to imitate my brother or my mom is an amazing singer. Yeah. She was like, no, just use your voice and do you, the same voice you sing to your little sister with and you sing her to sleep to use that voice. And like, through that. Use the Victor voice. Yes, through that I've found the courage, you know, but it didn't get easy from there, still hard, but just being courageous and like, remember I had a reason. Everybody needs to find a deep reason that runs deep and that reason will keep you sincere. It will keep you true. Reminds me of a quote Picasso's mother was talking to him and she said, Pablo, who do you want to be when you grow up? And he said, Picasso. Awesome. That's awesome. Complete that thought from your point of view to all the young women out there who are also feeling like, we got family, we got career, we've got kids, we want to do all this, but I've got this creative thing. What do you say to them? For me, don't give up. Like, if you have that talent, you feel like it's burning inside. It's only gonna get brighter, it's only gonna get stronger. So the older you get, the stronger it gets and the more it eats you up from the inside that you didn't let it out. So for me, I was number six of 11 kids. So I was a middle child. I was always like the super shy one. Like, when people came into my family studio, I would always hide in the back. I would babysit the younger ones. And then one day my mom was just like, Spirit, you need to come from underneath that rock. Stop being selfish with your talent. Why are you letting them race? And I was like, Mom, I don't fit in. I'm super nervous, I'm weird. And I was just like, all these things about me and people aren't gonna like my voice. And she's like, what are you saying? She's like, she's my huge support system until this day. And when I perform, I shake, I'm nervous. I wrap my foot up in a stool, so it stops shaking. So the nervousness, the butterflies, they're never gonna stop. So just, just be you. Hard to believe it was the talent you have that you're nervous. I'm shaking right now. Stay humble, Spirit, stay humble. Well, props to Mom. Yeah, Mom's mom's amazing. I just wanna say, I wanna go into a song called Smile, which is a family song. I've heard you guys sing it, like six or eight of you all together. But I think it's your song to begin with, right? It's a song I wrote. Let's hear that song, Smile, and let's dedicate it to Mom. Yes. Okay, Victoria Artis, who helped these beautiful young people be here today. And we're so grateful. Love you, Mama. One final word from you two of you. You think of an artist who is an example and a mentor to you. Who is your? My mom and Stevie Wonder. Okay. The two of them together, I can see. Victoria. It's kind of cliche, but it's my dad. It's the only reason I play music because I was like running away from my musical talent and I refused to play music. I was gonna be like an extreme sports athlete and a comic book artist. And I was not gonna do any music, but my dad showed me what I had inside of me and that it was okay to be sincere. Okay to be sincere, even if you're like different sounding, even if you sound like kind of weird, but. Yeah, so all respect to your dad, too. Yeah, it's the only reason I play music. That's awesome. He helped me. So we'll let go for now, but I know we're gonna be here and from these young folks again. Yes, you will. Yes. I love him. I love how he's from Honolulu.