Meet Jordan Puhek | Bass Player | Manager

We had the good fortune of connecting with Jordan Puhek and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Jordan, can you walk us through the thought-process of starting your business?
First of all, I think none of us ever thought we would be paid musicians in a touring band. The whole thing got started for fun and snowballed into what it is today. Going to college in Hawai’i, we all studied different subjects that had nothing to do with music. We used to just get our guitars and microphones out during house parties and jam out because it was a good time and everybody always enjoyed live music. After a while of playing together, Ben and I (Jordan), began to write our own songs and mix them in with cover songs and eventually we had enough of our own music to play an entire show just original Shore Break songs. After shows, we were getting a lot of positive feedback about our original songs and the demand for live shows began to grow bigger and bigger. I think that’s when we really started to feel like we had something here. We recorded an album, and continued to grind playing live shows around the island of Oahu and a deep connection to our songs and our bandmates formed. Eventually we even began to tour the mainland doing shows in California, Washington, and Arizona with bands from our genre. Our band The Shore Break was making splashes in the rapidly growing “reggae-rock” scene and that’s when we began to take ourselves seriously and we decided to go all in as musicians.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
The Shore Break is a 5 piece Reggae / Rock / Hip Hop band formed in Honolulu, Hawai’i. The eclectic style is what sets our music apart from a lot of other bands. When we do shows we mostly get paired up with reggae bands but also punk rock bands and rappers… it doesn’t matter because we blend our style and fit in with any of those groups. In Hawai’i there is a lot of lovers rock, island style reggae, but we are definitely not that, we bring a much heavier vibe with our sound so I think we catch a lot of first timers by surprise when they come to a live show expecting super chill reggae music.
The most exciting thing as a musician is to see the growth of your art. We know that when we started out we were pretty bad, but we also knew we had potential and we were just figuring it out. When you see you band go from playing for free for nobody at house parties to selling out big venues its definitely a “pat yourself on the back” moment. Sounds really fun, and it is, but it is definitely NOT EASY work. Being in a band is hard, there is a lot of moving parts, lots of late nights, lots of pressure, a lot of the “other side” of the industry trying to screw you over. Im very proud of our bands effort to stick to our process and navigate our way through all that despite all the rough patches we go through. When the challenges come, its important to know that we have each other’s back and we are in this together. At the end of the day we are all friends and we love each other and that is more important than the business aspect of it. Not only have we grown as a business, but I think we have all grown as individuals and as artists learning about ourselves and learning the ways of the music industry. Our trajectory is pointed up, we have new music coming out, we have big shows planned, and nothing is more exiting than that.

The Shore Break’s legacy will be that it all started from a bunch of friends having some fun and turned into something that we all never thought was possible. Everybody wishes that their passion could be their job, because then you never work a day in your life. Don’t get me wrong, it is the hardest work we have ever done, but it is also the most fun and the most rewarding. If I had a message for someone out there who wants to chase their passion, but is scared, my advice would be go do it, take the risk, life too short and. you will be surprised by your results once you pour your love into it.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
This is an easy question for us, because we live in Hawai’i. Here’s how it would play out. I would scoop you up from Daniel Inouye Airport Honolulu, my dog Sancho riding shotgun. Hope you got board shorts or a bikini on you because we are going straight to my favorite beach on the island, Makapu’u. “Maks” as we call it, is one of the most beautiful beaches in the world scenery wise, outlooking on rabbit island and also providing some of the most fun shore break waves you will ever ride in crystal clear blue water. On the way home we would stop at Beastside Kitchen in Aina Haina. Beastside Kitchen was started by my friends Kiko and Sam (shoutout!) who I used to work with at Kona Brewing Co. Kiko was also the very first person to book my band for a live show! They are famous for there local style plate lunch, better come hungry because the portions are huge. I can taste the smoked pork belly & guava fried chicken with mac salad as I type this. JT (drummer), Clare (violin, vocals), Eric (guitar) and I all work at a brewery called Beer Lab as our day jobs, which also is the best craft brewery on the island (shoutout!). So that is a no brainer for me, I would take you there to meet the band and also enjoy some delicious beverages, they are know for their experimental style, especially sour beers and hazy IPAS. Next I would take you to a local venue for a show, and no not in WAIKIKI, do yourself a favor and don’t go there if you come to O’ahu. If you go there you might as well have stayed in LA, its like the Santa Monica strip on steroids. We would either go to Anna Obrien’s who is known for their Indie and punk rock scene, or to Nextdoor in the historic China Town district of Honolulu. That’s where we would see some real local live music, and who knows maybe The Shore Break would have a show that night. Hawai’i is obviously know for its beautiful beaches, which you cannot quite find on the south shore of Oahu and in Honolulu. The best are on the North Shore of the island which also provide the best stretch of surf and waves in the world: The Seven Mile Miracle. If your skills are up to it we can surf my favorite breaks which I will not mention here (sorry), and if the waves are too big we can go down to Pipeline and watch the best in the world get crazy barreled. Besides that, go hiking, go see some waterfalls, maybe skydive (ill just watch), there’s endless fun out here and we are very blessed to live in Hawai’i.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
For me personally I would like to give my shout out to everybody and anybody who has been there and supported us from the beginning. A band is something that does not exist without the support of “fans”. I hate calling them “fans” because I don’t like to think of our supporters like that. These people who support us by: coming to a show, sharing our music with others, buying a t-shirt, letting us crash on the couch while we are on the road – they are a lot more than fans to us, they become dear friends and family and we literally would not be successful without them. Even though we are a band, a band is also a business, and like any business we want to grow and prosper so we can do this for a long time. So shout out to all of you who have helped us from the get go, and to all the wonderful people we have met along the way, much love.

Website: https://linktr.ee/Theshorebreak420

Instagram: @the_shore_break

Facebook: https://m.facebook.com/people/The-Shore-Break/100028131319418/

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-VR9UHdZvLb2kNLmdXX–Q

Image Credits
Quienton Peteres Steve ( Calitrippin )