Joel Nicholas ’23


Bryce Vine Music, Los Angeles, CA

This summer was filled with so many exciting experiences. I had the pleasure of working as an intern for Bryce Vine, a pop artist in Los Angeles. Bryce has been on tour since the country reopened after the pandemic, but this summer was the first time he was able to get back into the studio. Part of my job was to assist Bryce at studio sessions with songwriting and creative input, including providing lyrical and melodic ideas for his demo tracks. My music background at Williams really prepared me for this. My Williams education also helped me because I used my knowledge of music theory to guide my creative ideas. My involvement within the jazz program especially helped me, because jazz theory is easily applicable to the construction of pop music.

Joel Nicholas at the BET Awards.Another one of my jobs this summer was to renovate Bryce’s home studio. This included setting up acoustic panels and consulting Bryce on the right equipment to purchase. When you hear “home studio” you might think that these studios consisted of a simple and inexpensive setup, however the home studios that Bryce recorded at included up to four different studios, each filled with hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of top-of-the-line sound equipment. These studios had equipment that I had wanted to work with for a long time—the type of equipment I would work with if I went to a recording school such as Full Sail University.

Outside of work hours, I was able to tag along with Bryce to meetings and events to connect with other people in the music industry. I met everyone on Bryce’s team, including his manager, publicist, producers, social media manager and many engineers. We went to events together such as “Old School” at Public School, an event where up-and-coming artists in LA perform their original music. This was the same place that Bryce performed early in his career. We also went to an event that his record label, Warner Records, organized for the BET awards. I met artists that were signed to Warner, social media influencers, photographers and models. These events were perhaps the most important part of the internship, because I was able to connect with a tremendous amount of people within the entertainment industry.

This was exactly what I needed. At Williams, I am one of very few people who want to become a producer. So I mainly focus on perfecting my craft and produce a lot of music for myself. Thanks to the ASIP program, I am now in a transition period where I am going to start branching out and sending my music to the right people so that I can find work. I can already tell that this internship was a very important step within my career.