In our "Building The Community" series we aim to shine a spotlight on the incredibly talented brands, companies and individuals who make the music industry such a vibrant and creative space. Sam Aldrich and Cody Lunsford have combined their creative visions and abilities to "leave the industry better than they found it.” A true dynamic duo who, from top to bottom, are truly passionate and genuine about providing affordable, quality, and an efficient atmosphere for artists, labels, independent artists, and anyone they work with. Getting to know both Cody and Sam, it's refreshing to see their perspective on the industry and what they are building, making it about the experience and quality relationships over just the clout and money this industry can drive peoples’ motives toward. BLNK SPCE Media is a Nashville based creative company that is truly a one stop shop for the world of music and film as they provide services in the areas of music videos, lyric videos, BTS videos, visualizers, acoustic performance videos, live recordings, EPKs, mini-docs, cover art, Spotify canvases, photoshoots, websites, and apps...these guys are the REAL DEAL.

BLNK SPCE Media has quite the track record and is already a household name in the music industry, as they have offered their services to artists such as Riley Green, Parmalee, Chris Lane, Sam Barber, Chayce Beckham, Avery Anna, LECADE, Filmore, Dillon Carmichael, Dylan Schneider, Frank Ray, Greylan James, Noah Hicks, and many more! Check out thier app portfolio at: https://app.weareblnkspce.com/dl/6471c6

BLNK SPCE is on the rise, and with their vision and mindset are building a company that will always have longevity and substance. It's always nice to see the good guys win. Sam and Cody are guys you want to root for and see succeed, and most importantly for anyone in the music industry, you NEED to work with these visionaries!

I sat down with Sam Aldrich and Cody Lunsford and talked about how they met and instantly shared a powerful vision, why it's important to try everything and put ego aside to find success and their mission to leave the music industry better than they found it.

Get To Know Sam

"I was born and raised in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin. Country Music has always played a huge part in my family. My old man and my mom, we all listened to country music daily. I grew up listening to Toby Keith, Trace Adkins, Garth Brooks, and if it wasn't Mötley Crüe, it was either rock or country in my house. Growing up, I did the whole "small town" kid thing I hunted, fished, and went to high school. Shortly after high school, I went to college to be a law enforcement officer and moved to Minneapolis and worked in a jail for five years. I was a correctional officer and got to meet a lot of cool people and learned a lot of life lessons. Learning communication skills was very important when I was working there. I was body building at the time so I would do shows across the midwest and I started my own supplement company. I was in 8 different stores across the midwest and I realized I had to market my products, so I picked up a camera and started filming people working out. I figured out I loved video more than I did bodybuilding and working in a jail. I started filming workouts for people and got into the whole fitness space. My one buddy was a Gary Vee fan and he was selling marketing and asked if I wanted to be his "DRock.” For those who don't know, DRock is Gary Vaynerchuk's video guy and follows him around and filmed everything that they did. From business meetings to roaming the streets of New York, DRock was the guy. I basically became his DRock and filmed all of his digital marketing meetings, and fell in love with being someone's content guy.

Then I found a guy on YouTube by the name of Rory Kramer who toured with The Chainsmokers. That made me want to get in with doing tours and festivals. I reached out to some local festivals, and at the time, I was dating my now wife and I knew she had done stuff with cameras before so we could go and film these festivals. I signed us up for free to go film two festivals - Rock Fest and Country Fest. We did that for a year and I knew I had to get on the road with someone. I was still working at the jail during this time. I messaged 150 artists and only 1 got back to me…it was Jimmie Allen. He said he was coming to Minnesota and asked me to come film his show. I called in sick to work and went to the Minnesota state fair to shoot the show for him 2 days in a row. My wife worked his merch booth, trying to figure this out. Jimmie called me up a week later and said he was in Indiana and needed me down there tomorrow. I called in sick again, drove to Indiana, shot the show, and drove back to Minneapolis. It was about an 8 hour trip down, and 8 hours back. Jimmie loved that show and then asked me to shoot his release week tour. I had to call in sick for three days and I had to switch two shifts... I almost lost my job. They said if I did it again they'd fire me. I shot the release week tour and it went well, but I hadn't heard from him two weeks after so I thought I did something or he thought I was weird. Two weeks after that he called me up saying he was going on tour with Kane Brown and told me "Either move to Nashville or I'm finding someone else.”I was getting married the week before that and I had a conversation with Ally and was like, "alright we are going to get married and then we are going to move to Nashville to figure this out.”. I quit my job at the jail and gave them a two day notice. They were cool about it and pretended I gave a two week notice. We literally got married and a week later moved to Nashville. I toured with Jimmie Allen for 3 years all across the world. I've been to Japan, Germany, Europe...all over. It was one of the best and worst experiences of my life. We did 300 days a year on the road. It was fun and I learned a lot, but it was tough on the marriage, moving to a in new spot and me being gone so much. COVID hit, and I transitioned from road work to production. I met a guy who became a friend and we started filming music videos - low end production work which transitioned us to what he was directing at the time. I was the director of photography. I got to DP and got to work with guys like Bailey Zimmerman and Nate Smith. I DP'd "Rock and a Hard Place,” "Where It Ends,” "Never Leave," and every Bailey Zimmerman video up until this year. Same with Nate Smith. I got the opportunity to work with some cool artists and film for them.

Cody and I met two years ago. I started to stop doing the DP thing and more of the directing thing. Cody reached out to me and he was managing an artist at the time. I went out and filmed for LECADE and Cody was there. Cody and I just connected and the energy was there. Shortly after, Cody was like, "I think we need to start something," and we just started doing video shoots together and then started Kick Ass Creative. We learned not all artists vibed with that name. Cody came up with BLNK SPCE and I loved it. Ever since then we have been breaking barriers in the music world.”

Get To Know Cody

"The biggest thing that comes to mind when looking back, was when I was younger my mom drove a school bus and she would drop me off at the library when she would complete her route. I would be there from 3pm - 5:30pm, and when I was there I would watch music videos the whole time. I would get on Yahoo! because they had music videos at the time. I would watch music videos because I wanted to be in a band, and I remember just sitting watching these music videos of Fall Out Boy, 30 Seconds To Mars, AFI, and the feeling I would get…I was just in awe. I wanted to be the artist and be in a rock band. In 7th grade, I got my first guitar. I was in bands all throughout high school. I did the typical "come to my show" and there would be 5 people in the crowd. I wanted to be a rockstar, but our band broke up and it seemed impossible to make it happen. I was from a small town in Jackson, Missouri. I grew up in a rough spot financially. So I didn't have a lot of money to travel and play or go to the recording studio. So I gave up the idea of being a musician full time and I went into business and marketing. I met my mentor Jason Wray and he was the first person who showed me what marketing and videography is.Seeing him run a successful company firsthand really inspired me. In college, when I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do, I just knew it was something related to business and marketing because of my experience with Jason. I dropped out of college two years in because I still didn't know what I wanted to do. I moved to New York and I met these DJs. At the time they didn't have anyone helping them with content, and I had taken a digital media class in high school that taught me the basics of a camera. I shot some stuff for them at one of their shows and their manager ended up really liking it and hit me up and asked me to do it a lot more. I was getting paid a couple hundred bucks here and there to shoot content and design for the DJs. I was talking to these managers who were feeding me these gigs. I asked him about management and everything he was saying. It was a skill set I had learned throughout digital media and marketing. I put becoming a manager on pause and moved back to Missouri. I got a job at a marketing agency, because I needed to learn some real life experience and education. I went back home to where Jason Wray had his company Creative Edge. I worked there and worked my way up from a social media manager to director of digital strategy. I was there for 4 years and I was helping companies grow their brand with digital advertising and things like that.

I met this local artist. I had some burnout at Creative Edge, and wanted to get back into what I was passionate about, and that was music and management. I took a management course that I found online and decided I wanted to start managing this kid that lived 30 minutes from my hometown. Fast forward, I ended up moving to Nashville, and I had my own marketing company on the side that was helping pay the bills. My goal moving to Nashville was to work somewhere in music, I just didn't know where yet. Whether that was management or being an intern somewhere and working my way up. I found this guy named LECADE who was making TikToks in his bedroom and I reached out saying, "I'm trying to start managing artists and I think you have what it takes. Would you be interested in coming out to Nashville?”. So he started coming to Nashville for a while and we were going back and forth. I had no connections in Nashville, but somehow I got Luke Combs' manager, Chris Kappy’s, number through an email. I thought it was the coolest thing. I never reached out because I was too nervous. It was basically the "fake it until you make it" type of thing.

Then I met Sam, because we needed a music video for LECADE. I was scrolling through Instagram and found him, and I thought his stuff was so good. I sent him a DM and didn't think he would work with us, but I said, "I have $500 for this artist, it's his first music video.” Sam agreed and we hit it off on set and it was the "When I'm Gone" video that, on YouTube, has like 4 million views now. That was the first video, and that was an eye opening experience for me. It was really cool to see that come to fruition, and now we have a business from me just being open enough to try and make connections."

via @blnkspcemedia, @sam_thecameraman and @codyklunsford on Instagram

Q & A with Sam Aldrich & Cody Lunsford

Q: How did you come up with the idea for BLNK SPCE Media and how did this journey start?

Cody: "I was trying to manage an artist, and I was definitely still learning. So I would say I was trying to manage LECADE. That first music video shoot went awesome, we were blown away. I was just always in that mindset of trying to grow and build something, and Sam had the same mentality. Instead of being like "I'm doing my own thing," he also wanted to team up and build something, so that was a big thing. BLNK SPCE happened naturally to be honest."

Sam: "First we had Kick Ass Creative. A lot of people loved it, but there was one instance where people couldn't tag it on socials. We had a shift and Cody wanted to change it so we could be on everything. Cody is really good at branding and taking something small and making it big. It worked perfectly, I just wanted to shoot a video and Cody was like, “We have to figure out how we can shoot lots of videos."

Cody: "A lot of how the industry works is freelance work. Not many people build their own company, they just want to do freelance work and there's nothing wrong with that. But we know we want to build something that has longevity."

Sam: "I love having someone else. Sometimes it feels like you have to do it by yourself. I don't want to say it feels dark and lonely, but like having Cody I can call him and be like, "What are we going to do this month? We only have one shoot.”Like being able to go through hard times with someone else and being able to bounce ideas off each other often, and two people reaching out to artists and companies is better than one. I don't think doing it alone is the answer anymore. You have to have a team."

Q:What is your vision for BLNK SPCE Media?

Cody: "We want to become a powerhouse in the creative industry, but don't want to get too big where we can't adapt in an ever changing industry. Music videos have changed. You can ask Sam how different they are and what labels and artists are looking for now is different. Budgets are a lot different. One day you have music videos the next day you have clients going somewhere else for cheaper. You have to be able to adapt."

Sam: "For me, my long term vision, and I've always said, I want to leave this industry better than when we came into it. That could be from a crew standpoint, or an artist standpoint. Overall, I want to be able to provide the most value for our artists - independent artists and label artists. I want to provide good atmospheres for everyone. Keeping our sets the way they are, grow the company, and Cody will probably speak on this too, but not only doing one off jobs, but retainer based. Create a one-stop-shop for labels where they can come to us and we can do website design, app design, and do visualizers, music videos, TikToks, things that every artist needs. Helping creatives out of college, just starting off. That was a big issue for me when I moved. I could hardly afford to be able to live in Nashville being a video creative. I want to bridge that gap for creatives and artists."

Cody: "I feel like we are moving in the right direction, 100% right now and we just want to expand on what we are doing. We want to partner with other music related companies, whether it's boutique labels, major labels, management companies, talent managers - anything related to music. More than just music videos. We can do a lot of things that artists need, like graphic designs, websites, and apps."

Q: Most memorable moments so far with BLNK SPCE?

Sam: "For me, being able to direct and film the Parmalee "I'm Gonna Love You" music video. Just because it was based on their true story and everything they went through. They got robbed at gunpoint, and got shot, and Scott died twice on the flight over to the hospital. Being able to tell that story is a huge moment for them and is special for them to trust us."

Cody: "It's one thing to shoot a music video that's your idea, but to shoot a video that someone lived through and is a traumatic experience, is a lot more pressure on us to pull it off. Definitely a memorable moment."

Sam: "100% and the fact it got nominated, was pretty cool too. That was probably the biggest moment in my career, probably both of our careers. It was a huge moment for me. And then recently, I'm a huge fan of Sam Barber and I got to shoot some TikToks for him."

Cody: "Definitely the Parmalee music video. Another one, I had never been to Colorado and I've always wanted to go. Getting to go out with Riley Green and getting to shoot his sold out show at Red Rocks."

Q: What advice do you have for anyone who's trying to become an entrepreneur and start their own podcast, business, service, etc.?

Sam: "I would say, try everything. There are so many avenues to go down in this industry. Whether you love editing or color grading. Like I love color grading and I would have never known that if I didn't try it. Do some free work, it sucks, but do it and build that portfolio. Be a good person, keep your ego in line,take advice, and learn from every experience. I tried to shake as many hands as I could and always say yes to as many people as I can. Find out what you're truly passionate about."

Cody: "Being real with yourself. A lot of people... just because you want to do something, doesn't mean you're the best at it. For example, I'm not the best with the camera. I understand that, and that's why I went out to find someone who is. If you are passionate about something, pursue it, but identify your weaknesses. If you find someone to fill that gap, it's not going to hurt you. A lot of times people refuse to do that because their ego is involved. You have to understand what you're good at and what you're not. When you find something you're good at, like Sam said, put yourself out there and add value. Don't just be looking for payment or handouts. Put yourself out there and provide value."

If you are just discovering BLNK SPCE Media check out their website at: https://www.weareblnkspce.com/ follow them at Instagram, Facebook and Tik Tok