Rick Beato on his career as a producer at 37

At a time when headlines are dominated by young prodigies and award-winning musicians who appear seemingly fully formed out of nowhere, it’s easy to forget that success doesn’t always come quickly.

Enter Rick Beato, the multi-talented music producer and YouTube host who says he only started producing at the age of 37 and had no prior experience.

“At 35 I started my first band, at 36 we signed a contract and at 37 we got kicked out. That was the year I started producing,” Beato says in a new video titled “I Can Only Blame Myself.”

The producer cites himself as an example of a late bloomer who was able to not only catch up but also succeed in an industry where youth often counts more than experience. He says: “The idea that you have to do things when you’re young is not true.”

“I knew nothing about how this equipment worked… I learned everything by reading magazines at Barnes & Noble and asking questions of people who knew more than I did,” explains Beato.

He points out that he received his first platinum record as a producer at the age of 41, and that as a songwriter he landed his first number one hit in 2013 at the age of 51 – hardly the age you would associate with a budding career in the music industry.

“I rethought my premise that you have to do things before you’re 30 because that’s when you can really learn. Because when I was 54, I started on YouTube. YouTube didn’t even exist until 2006, but there weren’t even music channels on YouTube until about 2010,” he says.

“What I am doing now has never existed before!”

“So the idea that you have to do things when you’re young is not true,” Beato continues. “I could start this channel from scratch now at 62 and I still believe I would be successful.”

Although it is “more difficult because it takes a lot of energy, and I’m glad I did it at 54,” says the producer, “it is doable, and you could do it too if you are willing to work hard enough.”

Rick Beato currently has 4.4 million subscribers on YouTube. Visit his channel now to subscribe.