Daily Inspiration: Meet Brian Hagman

Today we’d like to introduce you to Brian Hagman

Hi Brian, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
Well my path is a pretty convoluted one. I began as nerdy kid who one day had just an obsessive affinity for reptiles & adventures, I’d wander with my brother through the hills behind our home & end up miles away with a handful of garter snakes… I wasn’t the most popular kid, but, my teachers encouraged my curiosity. I started being able to speak like a little grown up & would save my money to order pets from zoo suppliers to my parent’s dismay. In 9th grade that obsessive lean moved to skateboards, I traced the transition of a half-pipe my cousin bought at a yard sale on butcher paper, and talked some builders into selling us the wood for cost so our folks wouldn’t notice as we built it on the side of our house next to my window. Soon our yard was full of helpers from word of mouth and we’d skate until my folks got home, they were cool and made us promise to have an adult there so we’d wait with a pile of kids daily. That went thru boards quick, so, I got the idea to pool our money to buy skateboards wholesale with the retail license mom had framed on our wall,( she was an entrepreneur that made awards for local youth sports). I called vision skateboards after Powell peralta denied me, and they only had a manageable $150 min order. Got my first order , and then everybody wanted one so I charged a small fee, then discount retail, and had pop up skate shops in my mom’’s space until it was permanent and went on several years after I retired . Skateboards introduced me to punk & heavy music so I bought a drum kit w/ my earnings, I sucked gave it to a neighbor, & went through the instruments until vocals was all that was left. We wrote music after much practice and made some ripples in Denver’s punk scene… that ended and I was hit by a driver trying to injure a crowd at a diy party, I was the only one hit , with my life savings & a small settlement from the insurance, I opened up a reptile store . That experience was the most bittersweet of my life. I thought I was helping these species in their shrinking habitats, & helping the poor ppl that collected them, but, as any animal industry it is brutal, mean business , and it broke my heart. It was before 9/11 so I actually spoke to ppl in all these conflict zones, Yemen, Jakarta, Congo, Transvaal, Nicaragua, Madagascar, Syria,& things were good for a brief time, but , the pressures of the world soon had these ppl exploiting the resources just to survive. Luckily a credit card fraud stateside froze my accounts and basically put me out of business before it got any more sad. I returned to playing music and did that from 1997 til 2017 in 4 different projects, 3 of them overlapped. As age and wear slowed us down and a tragedy claimed one of my band mates ,( and almost claimed another) I thought about what I could do adjacent to performing?. A sign came in the form of a Yamaha PSR 300m in the trash behind Hi-Dive ( a Denver live music staple) after a gig… I took it home , and it didn’t work, so, I went to guitar center to inquire about repair, the kid laughed and told me to bring it back to the trash and tried to sell me a new midi sequencer … I went home and remembered what little knowledge I had collected performing, and scoured (then infant) YouTube for guidance . A guy repairing a cable box had my solution, I fixed the keyboard that way. The 300 m was for “ midi” a primitive language used to make all digital music , so I learned about what that kid was trying to sell me, on a vintage instrument , because it has changed very little in 30 years… I got obsessed again and just practiced working on vintage electronics and understanding how they can be used to make music today. Then I registered the name “ Meta.Lithic.Era in 2019… I decided not to offer repairs because I have no schooling and it’s unfair for me to charge ppl if I screw up.. So instead I’ll try to fix it for free , and if I can’t I’ll offer a fair price for the condition it came in . In that case if I do fix it, you have first dibs on buying it back, or I offer it on the resellers market online. It’s allowed me to touch and see so many cool pieces of music’s recent past history. In December of 2022 I had a heart attack, renal failure , was in a coma 5 days, have since lost eyesight and am recovering from it all, but I still practice, and hopefully can get back to all my obsessions for 2025. L

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Maybe I should have read through all the questions before I left Tolstoy on number one… ha., But as I said the near death experiences in my personal life, the loss and grief of losing good friends, and the exotic animal biz really made me cognizant of waste, and gratitude for my life. ( I also do what I can averting predetermined obsolescence in todays electronics, and try to keep all of them out the landfill )

Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I’m kind of a hack… I’m known for being me, ppl yell out “ Hags” since I was a kid, and it’s because I just kind of roll with it ( like when I got hit by the van) and in all things. I’m proud of some of the music I’ve put out… all of it really … but, it’s not mind blowing , it’s authentic raucous hard rock, punk rock, stoner metal, sludge,, post-hardcore, whatever… I’m proud that we’ve been acknowledged before social media took all the mystique out of the process . I’d much rather have Jim Morrison worries than Jake Paul. What sets me apart is nothing , I’m tenacious, but, not always good, … and , sometimes that’s better.

The crisis has affected us all in different ways. How has it affected you and any important lessons or epiphanies you can share with us?
Yes just that brick and mortar stores are only useful if you also sell the experience of your product or service.. If you just d-around tinkering on things, do not waste your money to guarantee endless customer distractions…

Pricing:

• Varies/ negotiable

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @box.pine.hobbyist
• Facebook: @brianpatrickhagman

Image Credits
Nora Hagman, Brian Hagman,