Nothing’s overnight…well maybe except for our overnight shipping

Lately Far East Movement’s songs have been everywhere. For some, it may seem like they were an overnight success. Not so. In fact, Far East Movement has been around for eight years…during which one of its members went to law school. Yeap, law school.

I’ve known James [Prohgress] since I took piano lessons from his mother in elementary school. My parents let me quit once they realized I had no musical bone in my body. I thought that James might have suffered from the same musical disability since I never once saw him play piano or do anything musical until we were at UCLA and he was performing. But really, I should have known better – his parents are both in music. Some things are just in your blood...

James explains his path from law to music in the Q&A below. 

Esther: How long did you practice as an attorney, in what field of law?

James/Prohgress: I actually never practiced law professionally. I was finishing up my last units of law school during the summer when people were studying for the bar in the library. The image of the stress on their faces is my daily motivation to work harder on music haha But I still use the knowledge from school on a daily basis when overseeing and getting into new FM business.

Esther: Was there a catalyzing event or a tipping point that led to your decision to leave your legal practice? [or why did you pursue law & music at the same time]

James/Prohgress: I’ve always had interest in law, social work, and entertainment. I tried to feed all of them at once but I realized half way through my 2nd year at law school that I was spreading myself too thin. My grades were plummeting because I did not have time to study, I was missing shows because of school commitments, and I was making promises to volunteer at places and had to pull out last minute for music or school. So I actually took a break from school for a year to really focus on music. I figured if I could give my all in one field, I could come back and do more for the others later.

I was close to graduating though, so I went back to finish my degree and just packed on as many units as I could so I could finish in a year. It was a struggle, I was averaging about twelve hours on campus daily 6 days a week, but I got through it. The day I graduated, I actually had to ask to be the first to get my degree because we got booked to a show at the Cannes Film Festival that same day and I needed to catch a flight to make it on time.. As I hurried on stage to grab my degree and dashed to the airport I realized that it would be a while before I would consider law as a professional option for me again.

Esther: How long did it take to develop, launch and transition full-time to your new career or venture? [How long has FM been around...]

James/Prohgress: We’ve actually been working on FM for around 8 years, so it mirrored my college and grad school career. It started off as a hobby and slowly started taking up more and more of my life until it became a career. We weren’t making enough off the music at first to survive, so we branched into other revenue sources to support the music like event production and promotion, music publishing, merchandising, and marketing. It wasn’t until our song “Girls on the Dance Floor” started getting radio airplay (which in turn brought us a lot more shows along with music and merchandise sales and eventually got us our record deal with Cherrytree/Interscope Records) that we were able to focus completely on the music. However, because of the foundation we built over the years before, we’re still able to grow our other businesses simultaneously.

Esther: Have you ever thought of going back or starting to practice law full time....?

James: Every once in a while it crosses my mind, but then I remember the looks on my friends faces while they were studying for the bar and I think otherwise.. My focus outside of our own music and businesses is to support the arts in our public schools. Currently, we work with a non-profit organization called 4C the Power that allows artists to come into high schools and hold workshops for the students. So we bring in a lot of our friends in the industry to teach children about music, film, photography, dance, etc. It’s really rewarding to see the kids eyes light up as they get their creative juices flowing and when we get messages from kids who say that our workshops helped them get reinvigorated about learning in school.

Esther: Any words of wisdom for those who may be thinking of considering the same path?

James/Prohgress: Not really…I’m still kind of figuring things out as I go along…haha

If James is still figuring it out, maybe there’s some hope out there for me. =). He’s truly a great guy and a big source of inspiration for me. While he may keep the images of stress on law school friend’s faces as a visual motivational reference to keep him working harder in music, watching FM perform and achieving what their hard work and dedication has earned them has often been my source of motivation when times get tough for me. Congrats to you James, you’re freaking awesome.

So awesome, that he took the time to write out this Q&A so show him some love by leaving comments!