About Me

Welcome to my online portfolio! Here you’ll find various works of mine such as interviews and music reviews published through New Noise Magazine (current writer), album reviews published through Pinnacle Music Group/Overdrive Music Magazine (Australia, former writer), and video interviews with musicians for YouTube channel: Full Metal Media.

I received my associate degree in liberal arts from Oakton Community College and my BA in communications, media & theater, with a minor in journalism, from Northeastern Illinois University. I currently live in the Chicagoland area and work as a Specialty Order Writer (Beer Buyer) for Whole Foods Market. One of my favorite things about being Beer Buyer for WFM, is using the Whole Foods platform to promote the sales and growth of smaller, independently owned breweries. Generally speaking, one of the greatest things about working at Whole Foods, is having the opportunity to connect with people on a daily basis-I love building relationships with both customers and co-workers.

I started writing remotely for New Noise Magazine in November of 2019. New Noise Magazine focuses on promoting news happening within the musical world of punk, hardcore, emo, and metal, as well as publishing interviews with artists that range from up-and-coming to bigger, more known. I feel that New Noise upholds a high level of journalistic integrity and provides a wide spectrum of musical coverage, and I’m extremely happy to be a part of that. My week-to-week work consists of posting quick-turnaround music news for the website based on press releases from labels and other PR firms. With New Noise putting out a print issue every few months, I get the opportunity to interview multiple artists per issue. Speaking with artists/industry figures and crafting articles that tell detailed stories is where I experience the most joy. Aside from each print issue, I post interviews and album reviews to the web too.

Two of my favorite things to do include going to concerts and traveling with my lovely girlfriend. My favorite music venue is Reggies Rock Club on the south side of Chicago and the most amazing place I’ve ever been to is Iceland. Anything involving music, specifically heavy metal, is where I find my joy. I’ve played drums now for over 20 years and have been a music collector since I was a kid. I’ve participated in plenty of street team work Sumerian Records (Los Angeles) which allowed me to promote bands that inspire my passions in life and connect with other concert-goers. The journalism work that I do with New Noise Magazine has climbed to the top of my priority list. Engaging with artists, discovering more bout them, crafting articles and promoting them to the public, is what I love to do more than anything else.

Music is, and always has been, my greatest passion in life. I attribute that to my mother, who introduced me to Black Sabbath, Anthrax, Megadeth, etc…at a very young age. Something clicked and flourished into a passion that drives me to keep reaching goals and go outside of my comfort zone on a daily basis, not to mention all of the amazing connections I have made throughout the years of working with musicians and record labels that I have been supporting since I was a kid. My main goals are always to continue to grow, make connections with people, and help people out in anyway that I can. It is my pleasure to utilize my hard work ethic, strong communication, writing skills, and social media networking, to contribute to the overall promotion of musical artists who open themselves up to the world through their music-inspiring me daily. With that said, I began Full Metal Media as an outlet to interview musicians that I really enjoy.

Full metal media

Back when I was writing cd/ep reviews for local Chicago podcast station The Metal Experience in early 2016, I was really developing my passion to do more active journalism within the metal community. My mother raised me on metal music and that has been my one true constant since I was a child. That has not changed to this day. There is nothing I love more than listening to music, mainly metal (old school/modern), discovering new artists, reading up on the history of metal, going to live shows, buying CD’s, etc...On February 8th of 2017, I saw an opportunity to take my journalism to the next level. This opportunity involved my friend, cinematographer, photographer, and Full Metal Media partner, Spencer Lestina. We had previous meetings to do some sort of video project involving music reviews, but doing a video interview with a band is what popped into my head on this day. I reached out to Denver thrash metal band Havok to grab a video interview at Reggie’s Rock Club and ended up speaking with their publicist. Once all the details were set with the band, I met with Spencer to go over how we would make this happen. With an extensive background in video, Spencer has worked filming videos for his University and filming weddings. He also has had some experience filming music videos for close friends. I prepared my questions, we got our camera equipment together, and set out to meet with Nick Schendzielos (bass) and Reece Scruggs (guitar/backing vocals) of Havok. There was a real beauty to the adrenaline rush we experienced in being on a time crunch, finding the right location to set-up, and preparing to meet with people we’ve never met before. The outcome from this experience left us with having a very nice discussion with the guys in the band and some of our favorite live band footage to date. We also discovered our own personal and custom interviewing style, which we have developed since our first video and will continue to develop with each video. Since that day we have had the pleasure to work with artists such as Born of Osiris, Allegaeon, Rivers of Nihil, Thy Art is Murder, Fit For An Autopsy, The Faceless, etc...Our main goal is to spread the ideas and words of artists to the public and make sure we do our part in promoting the bands that inspire us to do this in the first place. We want to capture a moment in time and discuss various topics with artists that we appreciate and have a good conversation, whether we gain insight to what has inspired them, current events, promoting a new album, anything and everything. We want to grow and corner the market on Chicago metal media, being the go-to-guys for any photography, music video, and interviews necessary.

Sean McLennan-Interview/Communications (Cinematography/editing for latest interviews)

Spencer Lestina-Cinematography/Photography