Anthony Mendez, “Hispanic-American Urban Cool”, Voiceover Artist, New York, NY
By Jerry Vigil
Times are a-changing out there. Not long ago, Spanish stations could only be found on the AM dial. Now, it’s quite common to see Hispanic targeted stations in the top 5, beating out some of radio’s historically unbeatable stations and formats. How has this affected the voice-over business? For one, it has created a fast-growing market for people like Anthony Mendez, who only decided to jump into the VO biz three years ago. His timing could not have been more perfect. In this month’s RAP Interview, Anthony gives us some insights into this growing market, how it has changed and what’s to come. Check out this month’s RAP CD for a sample of Anthony’s VO work.
JV: When and how did you get started in the business?
Anthony: I actually started, believe it or not, in March of 2004, and it’s just skyrocketed since then. I think I just entered the business at the right time in terms of what my brand is, being Hispanic and having an urban flavor. It wouldn’t have been – I don’t want to say easy because it hasn’t been easy; it’s still been hard work — but it just wouldn’t have been as accepted, let’s say, even five years ago for me to be able to do the things that I’ve been able to do.
Prior to that, I had left my daytime job in October of 2002 in order to try to get into the music business. I always had the idea that I wanted to be in the music business as a singer, as an engineer, as a producer, mostly for hip-hop stuff. But that business wasn’t conducive for a family. I set up my studio right where I still have it here in Jersey City, and the artists used to come in at 9:00 or 10:00 at night. The guy that was singing brought along like eight or ten of his boys. It was just crazy. I used to get out of here at 4:00 or 5:00 in the morning, mixing stuff, doing demos. I even did some presentations of some possible tracks for Daddy Yankee here before he went MTV. But again, the hours were crazy. I used to get home at 4:00 or 5:00 or 6:00 in the morning. At that time my wife was getting up to go to work, so that wasn’t really working out.
Then in March of 2004 I read a book called The 80/20 Principle that said 80 percent of your income comes from 20 percent of your work. At that time I was producing some local radio commercials here for Spanish radio. They were broadcasting on WSKQ here in New York. I realized that most of the direct money – because in the music business you get your money in the backend if you get any at all – most of the money I was making was coming from radio production and not the music business.
So I said, let me just cut the music engineering part out. I don’t have to work the late hours. The guy that used to do the voiceovers for WSKQ used to come into my studio, drop the vocals, and I’d produce it. I only had to deal with one person instead of dealing with an entourage of artists, and the hours were a lot better. So that’s basically how I took the first step into just doing voiceovers, but it was only production at the time.
Then one day he took a couple of weeks off, and my client had me do the voice work. They were happy with the work, and they kept me onboard for another station they were advertising on. That’s how it all started. So I kind of fell in love with it because I substituted for somebody else. It was pretty interesting, and that was in 2004.
JV: That’s quite a step, going from engineer to voice-over artist in New York in one quick step. Have you had any formal voice training?
Anthony: Well, as you know, here in New York and across the country, the trend has been to have reads that are more from an actor’s point of view, a realistic conversational read versus the heavy announcer read. So I started taking some scene study classes. I did a couple of shows in theater and stuff like that. I think that helped me. I took some improv classes as well. But my voice has a bottom range, so as much as acting is concerned, I was always going to be aiming for promos and imaging and stuff like that anyway.
JV: It’s remarkable that you’ve been able to transition into voiceover so quickly and with good success. Are you staying busy?
Anthony: Day and night. The good thing is, I’ve been blessed to have a wife that supports me in everything that I do. She’s been very patient in order for us to get to where we are now. I’ve been lucky enough because of that support that I haven’t had the distraction of a day job. So every waking hour, if I’m not auditioning and doing voiceover sessions, then I’m thinking of my next marketing move, whether it be sending out postcards, sending out emails or making phone calls.
Business has been good, but this year’s been a little tougher, I think. But at the same time, I have accomplished certain milestones in terms of getting my representation on both coasts, New York and Los Angeles. Now that I’m union, it’s obviously more competitive, and I’m doing higher-end work. In my non-union days, it was a quantity game for me. I used to do a lot of stuff, small tidbits here and there. But once you go union, obviously, I decided to just strictly do union work. So it’s a little different game for me now.
JV: How’s life with the agents?
Anthony: My agents have been great. I’m represented by Atlas Talent here in New York and Vox out in Los Angeles. And they understand that although I speak Spanish and that I have an urban flavor, I do more than just Spanish reads. They send me other general market work as well. And that’s something that with my prior agent, which will remain nameless, I wasn’t getting. I was getting between 85 to 90 percent just Spanish work and Spanish auditions. Here in New York it seems like once they know you speak Spanish – although there’s less competition in Spanish — that’s all they tend to send you on. But I was born and raised in the good old USA, so my language of affinity is English. Granted, it’s injected with an urban flavor and my Hispanic background, but it’s still English. I think my new agents have seen that and understand that, and they can also understand that I can straighten it out for certain reads and general market reads. So they have been giving me more opportunities for a broader market than just Spanish.
JV: You’re still doing both Spanish and English reads though, right?
Anthony: Yes, I’m doing both Spanish and English, but the growing aspect of my career is the acculturated reads, in other words, the English read or the urban English read or even the Spanish-English read. But the growing part of my career is English, and I’m doing more English than Spanish now. Which is great because I think it’s a misconception that the public has of what Hispanic really is. If you look at the United States for example, most people don’t know this but the majority of Latinos in the US are English-speaking, US-born Latinos. The problem is that the term Hispanic reflects language spoken. So, for example, when Nielsen takes their ratings for Hispanic TV, their ratings are based on language spoken, but it’s not really a reflection of what programs Latinos really watch. For example, I don’t watch Spanish television. The only time I watch Spanish television is when either my in-laws are over or my parents are over at our house, and they’re watching their news or their telenovelas. That’s the only time I watch it. In the US, English-born or US-born Latinos see Spanish TV as the channel for our parents and our grandparents. We watch English.
It applies to radio as well. For example, here in New York the majority of my Latino friends listen to Power 105, Hot 97 and even Z100 and ‘KTU. Of course, there’s the occasional tuning into WSKQ 97.9, but in my age range and younger, if they are going to tune to a Spanish station they prefer WCAA over 97.9. The overwhelming reason is because WCAA has more of an urban influence in its programming. They play more hip-hop influenced music, and on Friday and Saturday nights they play more hip-hop and reggaeton, which has become a big thing now, sort of a Spanish reggae with a hip-hop influence in it.
JV: Are we talking Spanish-speaking hip-hop or the same stuff you’d hear on a typical English speaking hip-hop station?
Anthony: Both. If a Jay-Z or a 50 Cent track is really hot right now they’ll play it. And that appeals to US-born Latinos because it is still American music. If you look at the radio formats and the Hispanic demos, anything above 35 – let’s say 35 to 44 — their main preference is news and talk radio. Where if you look at anywhere between 18 to 24 and 25 to 34, their main preference is the urban and contemporary hits radio. I think that comes as a shock to most people because they only think of things in terms of Spanish radio.
It’s also happening with advertising agencies. The biggest advertisers in Spanish radio are English companies like GE, McDonalds, Verizon, AT&T, Toyota and companies like that. But if you really want to reach the majority of the Hispanics or the Latinos in the US, you should deliver your message in English, obviously with a voiceover or a person who is informed of the culture. And I think that’s where I come in, and that’s why I think it was a good time for me to get into the business because I’m kind of reflective of where the culture is moving to now or where the culture is now, even though it’s mostly English.
JV: Have you ventured into the radio imaging side of things?
Anthony: Everybody keeps telling me I should do more imaging, but the radio arena has been a tough nut to crack. I think it’s because of relationships. It seems all the work you get in imaging or in voiceover in general is a result of some sort of relationship, whether it’s your direct relationships or your relationships with two or three degrees of separation. I’ve been mostly in the commercial arena and have done some promos now, but the radio imaging has been on the backburner for me. I think it’s because they don’t know where to put me yet. It’s either they don’t know where to put me yet or I haven’t really established those relationships yet.
If I do Spanish imaging, strictly Spanish radio stations would most likely go with a person whose first language is Spanish. I learned Spanish at home first, but because I was educated and born and raised here in the English system, English became my stronger vocabulary, but I also have an urban flavor. I realized that while I was trying to market to some of the Spanish stations, that I overlooked trying to advertise to some of the urban stations.
It’s not so much an influence because I think Latinos and Blacks have already become the dominant cultural influence in the US in terms of music and fashion. It’s more of a homogenization of the cultures of both the urban African-American and the Latino cultures, and that is what I keep referring to with regards to perfect timing for me because it’s basically where my background is.
JV: You mentioned there being less competition in the Spanish VO market. Elaborate a bit more on that.
Anthony: Well, it’s just a numbers game because the majority of the people in the US speak English. And there’s going to be less Spanish voiceover talent than there is English talent. Also, a lot of the Spanish talent– what is traditionally known as Spanish voiceover — a lot of guys have been doing the old school announcer reads, although all that’s changing now. A lot of Spanish talent here in New York supplement their income by also doing theater and TV commercials, on-camera stuff, because while there is less competition in Spanish, there is also less work in Spanish than there is in English. Also, it pays less. For example, I think it was either last October or November I became the voice of the US Army. They have a new campaign called “Army Strong,” which is McCann Erickson’s account now. I did the commercial for the “Army Strong” campaign in Spanish. I’m sure you’ve seen it on English television. There’s a bunch of different variations for the English one, but there was only one for the Spanish. Doing union work you would obviously get paid for your session plus the networks and how long it runs. Mine can only run on limited channels because it would only run on Telemundo or Univision. So my pay would be based on that. So yeah, I would get paid for network, cable and Spanish language, and my session fee; but for the guy who did it in English, there’s a bunch of different variations plus he’s on a lot more networks, he’s on a lot of different cable. They play it on MTV; they play it on FX and things like that. That is a major reason why I also wanted to make the crossover to English as well.
JV: What percentage of the work that you’re now doing is Spanish versus English?
Anthony: Now it is maybe 5 to 10 percent Spanish. It was up to 50 percent at the beginning of the year, and then last year the Spanish was 80 to 90 percent and 10 percent English. That’s changing now, and I think it’s because of the vision of my agents. They understand the more flavorful version of Anthony Mendez is the English one because of my urban flavor and my upbringing, where I was born and raised. They know that that is basically where I am going to make the larger leap, and where I can basically interpret the copy, possibly up to two times better than I can interpret Spanish copy.
JV: Are your agents the ones that came up with your slogan, “Hispanic American Urban Cool”?
Anthony: No, I had that already. That’s very descriptive for a VO talent, and I think a lot of voiceover talent are afraid of pigeonholing themselves like that. I’m not. I think to a certain degree you have to brand yourself and help people know what you do. I always say when somebody either reads your business card, reads your ad or goes to your website, they should already have an idea of what your flavor or brand is before they even click “play” on your demos. That’s very important. I think there’s a fear of doing just one type of work. Just like how last year I was afraid that I was always only going to do Spanish. Nothing wrong with Spanish; I mean, it helps pay the bills. But I didn’t want to do just that.
One of the first casting directors I met over the phone asked me, “Are you Black? Are you African-American?” I was, like, “No.” It was the first time I ever heard somebody refer to my voice as that. You grow up speaking the way you speak, and you never realize what kind of dialect or speech pattern you have. And that’s when I realized, “Yeah. That’s basically the environment that I grew up in, and we’re all a product of our environment.” So that’s when I started running with it, and I knew that my step into the English crossover was going to be in the urban market.
But I think what many voiceovers neglect is that by branding yourself and being specific about what your voice is, because your voice is your product, you are not pigeonholing yourself. What you’re doing is you’re basically finding a hole to get into that market. It’s like breaking down a wall. You can’t just ram the entire wall down. You’re going to punch a hole in it, and then you start breaking it apart. Once you’re in the room you can move wherever you want, and that’s what I have been able to do with the assistance of my agents. I have been able to say, okay, I’m Hispanic, but I’m Hispanic-American and Hispanic-American in this case is very important because yes, I speak Spanish, but I am American, which means I can speak to African-Americans, I can speak to Hispanics, and I can speak to the White population or the general market population.
The “urban cool” basically solidifies the fact that I am American, because as much as urban is seen in some circles as African-American or Black, it is just that: it’s urban. I mean, I’m urban but my last name is Mendez, and I think that’s the whole idea. I’m making it easier for people to understand where I fit in the marketing puzzle by doing that for them.
And then later on, as we establish relationships and they understand who I am as a person and understand what I can do through auditions and through other sessions, then that will lead to general market work as well. Look at some of the general market stuff now. The general market stuff, in terms of that word itself, was understood as a non-regional, maybe Midwestern type of delivery; a standard American. But even now that’s changing. There are several spokespeople for major campaigns. Look at Verizon Wireless, which I believe is voiced by Rod Houston; an African-American voice. The Chevy campaign on TV — if you listen closely there’s a certain turn of phrase, a certain rhythm in that speech pattern that says this is not a standard American, but it is definitely general market. Take the Canon Rebel TV campaign, the Canon Rebel EOS I think is the camera. Listen to that closely. It sounds like a grandfather maybe from the south, maybe a little bit north. And even Oscar Meyer has a similar campaign.
So these are campaigns that aren’t necessarily for Hispanic or African-American products, but are just simply products, because in the end we use whatever American products there are. So that’s what I think I find most interesting about branding myself, and I don’t understand why more voiceover talent don’t do that.
JV: What’s a typical day like for you?
Anthony: I’m staying pretty busy. This month has been mostly auditions. It’s weird. It’s up and down. Everyday is different for me, but typically, my day consists of getting up at 5:30 in the morning. I’ve never been an artist that sleeps in late because I always grew up with the idea that I want to wake up when the money starts moving in New York to try to capture some of that energy. So I get up at 5:30 in the morning. I help my wife get our two daughters ready for daycare. I drive down the FDR, which anybody who drives down the FDR in Manhattan knows it’s like driving into a full parking lot, and your average speed is 10 to 15 miles per hour. So I have a drive of an hour to take my daughters to daycare. I park the car there. I check my email to see what’s up for the day. Vox, my agent in Los Angeles, usually sends me my auditions at night or any work at night or any bookings two days before. New York is obviously a faster moving environment so Atlas sends me stuff that’s more last minute, or they send me stuff in the evenings that’s due first thing in the morning. So it really varies.
It’s weird right now because of the fact that I’m the new kid on the block playing with the big boys. My days can go from being swamped with auditions and maybe a couple of bookings to sitting here for a couple of hours working on my next mailing list. So it really varies, and I can’t complain about the fact that it’s so different everyday, and the fact that I get to commute and see people.
JV: Tell us about your studio.
Anthony: I’m in the New York market, but my studio is actually in downtown Jersey City, which if anybody knows, after 9/11, Jersey City is becoming the new financial center. A lot of companies moved out from there and are moving here to Jersey City. Even Donald Trump has invested in establishing some office buildings and condos here. It’s really an area that’s going through some changes, but it still maintains its urban flavor. Just last week a guy was selling jewelry on a table across the street from my studio, which I took a picture of. I like the idea of coming to this environment because I think it informs people of not only what my brand is, but it informs me of what’s going on and what’s relevant in this particular culture that I’m aiming to make a living off of.
The studio is basically a room that is maybe 10 feet by 20 feet. I have Pro Tools in here, but I’m still running OS 9, believe it or not. I’m the kind of person that says if it ain’t broke don’t fix it. I have a Control 24 unit here, which is really overkill for what I do now. I used it because I used to produce the radio spots, so I needed all these automated faders when a radio spot or a demo or a music production was 10, 12, 15, 24 tracks. Now, I’m just doing one or two dry tracks, so I’m thinking of getting rid of it.
The studio is on the second floor above a storefront, and I share space with a company called NuLife Entertainment, which initially established themselves as promoters of clubs here in New York. Now they are running a record label, and they have several Spanish artists that they have on board and a couple of different urban artists. So it’s good being on this floor because I get to hear a lot of the music that’s going on right now too. They keep me informed. I’ve got my ears to the streets through them. I’m definitely in the right place. Where I live, all you hear is crickets. I live a few blocks from where Eddie Murphy used to live, and it’s an area where I can’t see myself working from with a home studio. I’m afraid of losing my flavor… or flava.
I have two different mics. I use a U87, transformer one, and a Sennheiser 416. The U87 I use for most of the stuff because I think it really grabs some of my lower resonance a lot better. I have a voice that some engineers have said has low frequencies to it, but there’s also a midrange peak, and I think the U87 represents that low end more. For promo and hard-hitting stuff, and sometimes for Los Angeles because they’re more used to the sound, I switch it up to the 416, but very rarely. I run that through an Avalon, the VT737. I don’t use the compressors or anything on it. I don’t use the filters on it. I just use it as a straight pre-amp.
And believe it or not – and this is a secret I’m giving away — I use the Behringer Composer Pro, which I believe is the MDX2200. In certain cases, as isolated as I’ve made the studio, I am still in an urban environment, and there are some low frequencies that make it through from people in the store downstairs that’s like a record shop. I’ve had this Behringer since I was working from home when I first started because to me it’s the magic expander/gate of all time. I have it set where it doesn’t really cut out, it doesn’t really sound like a gate or an expander, but there’s something magical about it that just drops whatever’s in the background. I’m still using my vocal booth, and I have a 4 by 4 vocal booth, but I don’t tell anybody that I run it through the Behringer. I don’t use the Behringer for compression or anything; it’s just for the slight, slight expander on it.
And then there are my monitors. Because of the fact that I come from a music background, I use the NS10s because every other hip-hop studio that I used to go to used to have them, and it translated well on my mixes, and I understood what they did. They’re not the best in terms of responding to all the frequencies, but I understand what they do. And then, for the bottom I have Event 2020s.
JV: Because you’re right there in the heart of New York, are you physically going to a lot of local auditions, or do you find that you’re doing a lot of auditions via MP3 and email?
Anthony: With my agents now, Atlas and Vox, yes. I would say that 99 percent of the auditions are all emailed MP3. As for the sessions, I just did a video game for Activision, which is coming out in September, and that we phone patched ISDN. I think most of the stuff I’m doing now is ISDN phone patch, and then FTP and the MP3 or the WAV or whatever they need.
It’s weird, last year when I was doing mostly Spanish, I was running around all over the place in New York to different casting directors, riding the subway because you can’t drive in Manhattan. It would be suicide to try to get to somewhere on time. I’m coming off the subway, the R Train, the E Train, the A Train, the V Train, the F Train. Sweating in the middle of summer, going from casting director to casting director; freezing my ass off in the middle of winter, going from casting director to casting director. And it was great because it shows faith, and still, as much as technology has become prevalent, by human nature, we establish relationships, I think, faster and better through personal and face-to-face contact. That’s why I’m a strong believer in the idea that your best bet really is to be in a large market. I’ve been blessed that I was born and raised in this market in New York, and yes, there is a lot of ISDN and there are some people doing great work that are not in New York or Los Angeles. But I still firmly believe, and I’ll probably get flamed for this, that it is easier – and I hate to use that word – but relatively easier to establish relationships and yourself when you are in the actual market.
But yeah, to answer your question, it is mostly MP3s, and maybe once every two or three months I’ll go out on an audition out of the studio.
JV: What do you think is going to happen in the Spanish-speaking radio and voiceover markets in the next five to ten years?
Anthony: Well, I obviously intend to establish myself as the go-to guy for that [laughs], but aside from that, what’s going to happen is really a homogenization of everything. Everything is going to have an urban flavor to it, informed by Spanish culture, but it will predominantly be in English. It’s going to be more about multicultural ad agencies than strictly fullservice Hispanic agencies, and that’s really where the trend is going to be. As you saw even with Clear Channel when they were testing their Hispanic urban thing – I think they coined the phrase Hurban – where they started adding more hip-hop and more English-speaking to the Spanish radio. I think that might happen with TV as well.
There’s a fear, I think, in the general market or people from the Midwest or some people that want to push for English only policies, there’s a fear of losing English to Spanish in some areas. That’s not going to happen. That’s not going to happen because once people understand that if the majority of the Spanish or Latinos in this country speak English and are US born, they’re really going to sit back and say, “Okay, so it’s the older generation that speaks mostly Spanish.” The 30s and below, we speak all English. As a matter of fact, it’s the first language that I speak to my daughters, to my children. It’s the first language that my children speak. They’re still Latino by culture and nativity, but that is going to influence really where the Hispanic market is going to go.
I’ll give you something that gave me a sign of where it’s going to go. Late last year I auditioned for a spot for Hennessey, and it was a bilingual spot. I never saw it run, but the fact that somebody was opening auditions for something like that really goes to show that it really will be mostly English. As much as the Hispanic industry has grown, it’s going to be more about the acculturated read, the English, acculturated read. You might be Hispanic or Latino and can speak the language, but where it’s going to head in 5 to 10 years is kinda like what Richard Wayner wrote in an article in AdAge. He referred to the hip-hopification of the English language. It might be the Spanishification of the English language, but it still will be English. It will just be different flavors of English.
JV: Is this “Spanishification” basically English with a Spanish or Hispanic accent?
Anthony: I don’t think so. I think it’s English with a Spanish “flavor.” If you listen to some of my demos, especially narrations, if I’m doing a bio on a Spanish talent, I have a Spanish flavor. So it’s more English with a Spanish flavor or English with a hip-hop flavor, which already exists. Look at some of the words that are used now that come from the hip-hop circles. The same thing can happen with Spanish. But as fast and as big as the Spanish industry is growing, it still will be English. It’s all going to mix up. So there’ll be hip-hop, there’ll be general market English and there will be Spanish-English as well. It’s all just different flavors, but it’s still going to be English.
It’s not going to be so obvious as simply English with a Spanish or Hispanic accent. Good advertising is good advertising. Good voiceover is good voiceover. What people are going to grasp onto first will be the product or the message that’s being sent. That’s the responsibility of a good voiceover actor. What people may understand on second listening or as an afterthought is the culture of that person. That’s going to indicate that there’s a wider acceptance of diversity in the general market of different voices. That’s what’s going to happen.
So again, pointing back to the Verizon Wireless or even the Chevy campaign, most people may not even say what it is. They just know it’s a Verizon Wireless or a Chevy campaign. They won’t go back and say, “Oh yeah, the African-American voiceover for that,” unless you listen to it closely because it has a certain flavor. I wouldn’t be surprised if that is not a mistake, that it’s intentional.
JV: You’ve obviously done your homework on marketing. What advice would you give to any voiceover talent on marketing themselves?
Anthony: It’s funny. I was talking to somebody the other day. The first advice I explain to anybody not only in marketing but in order to establish themselves is to stop entertaining doubt. Just stop it. I grew up in a culture where they say get a good education, have something to fall back on. I don’t believe in having something to fall back on because the term falling back means that at one point or another I expect to fall. So I just don’t entertain doubt.
Some people might say that’s not being realistic, but what is realistic? We create our own realities. Since the very first moment that I submitted my resignation letter in 2002 to my employer, I had no idea how I was going to survive. But here we are in 2007 and I’m still not out in the streets. That’s because I had no doubt that I was going to succeed in the entertainment industry. And in 2004, I had no doubt that I was going to succeed in the voiceover industry. I just don’t.
It’s funny because by nature, in this culture – and I mean the culture of the United States of America – we are raised to have a backup plan. It might come from the technological industry. It might come from the industrial industry. But in all honesty, if you know 100 percent that you cannot be as confident as I say you should be, then what you need to do is start practicing that.
Just last week I sent out 1,000 postcards. To be quite honest with you, I didn’t expect a return on that. All I’m doing is sending 1,000 postcards because I want to keep my name out there. But at one point I said, “Should I put this money into this?” Because at the time I said maybe I don’t want to put the money into it. But the money shows up for that; I don’t know how it happens. But when people ask me what they should do about marketing, I always say the first thing you need to do is stop doubting. Don’t entertain doubt. That’s my bottom line. And then start getting your name out there. Do your monthly newsletters, your email newsletters. Send out your postcards. Make some phone calls here and there; just understand you’re making phone calls for the basis of research, not to try to get an interview because people are busy. They don’t want to entertain voiceover talent over the phone. And then you can move on to the nitty-gritty.
And there are hundreds of books on marketing and branding yourself, but if you cannot get beyond entertaining doubt, all that stuff is just not going to work for you.