Welcome - My Story

Hello and welcome to the CDS Campaign for Musician Health! 

My name is Nick Magliochetti. I am a 35-year-old business owner, producer, engineer, and musician who has been working in the music industry since I was 18. For nearly twenty years, I built a career and made my living running sound, working in studios, playing guitar, and injecting myself into as many musical scenarios as I possibly could. Touring and recording were a huge part of my life, and I got to do so many incredible things while being in bands with some of my oldest and closest friends. Even so, my heart was always set on becoming a mix engineer and a producer. 

In the years leading up to the COVID-19 pandemic, I slowly began to pivot my career to production, writing, and mixing after years of touring and making records. During the pandemic, when COVID-19 brought the music industry to a screeching halt, I launched a drum sample company called Cult Drum Sounds, which offers premium drum samples, loops, and digital tools to help musicians and producers create the music they love without needing a full drum setup. Creating Cult Drum Sounds was partially a necessity to keep my dream of being a musician alive during the pandemic. But I was also excited about creating a platform that would build my brand, bring in new clients and opportunities, and let me share the skills I’d honed for years with even more people while maintaining my business at a time when many studio owners found themselves struggling to get by. Cult Drum Sounds did that and more, and I’m forever thankful for that—and for the fact that it may have brought you here to read this message. 

And now, after 17 years in the music industry, my life has changed completely. I am now pursuing a new career path and dedicating my life to medicine and healthcare. I know this isn’t the typical path to medicine. Most people go through high school, graduate, and get into a great college. Then, they earn their science-based bachelor’s degree and apply for medical school. After 4 years of medical school, they apply for residency to complete their training as a doctor. 

That…is not the case for me. I’ve always loved school and excelled in my classes. I even considered pursuing medicine when I was in high school, but, at that time, I was already getting once-in-a-lifetime opportunities in music. My life was dedicated to musicianship; I ended up going to art school and getting a degree in music production, which helped me hone my skills and increased my confidence in what I could do as a musician, producer, and engineer. Then, as I learned more about the realities of and the “business” behind the music business, I knew I needed to be able to run a business effectively. I went back to school and graduated with a bachelor’s in Small Business Management from SNHU, and I still apply the lessons learned to the businesses I run today. I’m thankful for the opportunity to pursue my education while touring and making music. That degree gave me the confidence to run a business and taught me how to grow something from nothing. I was able to start multiple businesses and grow them to varying degrees of success.

Still, I felt something missing from my life. As the years went by, my health started to fail, I had gained weight and weighed over 260 pounds. My blood pressure was high, my blood sugar was out of control, and a cascade of other health issues ensued. I felt terrible all the time and could barely summon the energy or motivation to work in my studio, on my business, or do much of anything, for that matter. My drive and passion for music began to fade. I underwent procedures and tests to find out what was going on with me, only to come up with more questions than answers. This eventually culminated in me having two surgeries in the same year—one of which was an emergency surgery.

These experiences changed my life drastically, and I knew I never wanted to be in that position again. So I made a plan. I changed my lifestyle, changed my diet, changed my attitude, and started down a new path. I began researching everything I could about health, the science behind diet, exercise, and weight loss, and overall mental and physical well-being. I’d had glancing encounters with all these things in my life before this point, but it was different this time. I was fully committed to regaining the one thing I couldn’t live without—my health—and improving it.

My life began to change, my health began to change, my mind began to change, and, in turn, my passion began to change. The spark from my deteriorating health and surgeries grew into a wildfire of passion for research and wellness-based non-negotiables. I found passion in the challenge. In my mind, the struggle formed personal growth that I had never experienced before. My interest in science, health, and well-being grew more. At the same time, I found myself spending less time feeling that same passion for music.

Fast forward a couple of years and I experienced another pivotal moment in my life. In May 2024, I lost my Dad unexpectedly after complications from what was supposed to be a fairly straightforward heart surgery. This shook me to my core. My family and I spent about three weeks straight in the hospital with my Dad after his heart surgery. For over 12 hours a day, I saw the teams of people who worked with him. I saw how they worked for others. Something in me flipped, like a switch. I was devastated by what my family was going through, but it was like I wanted to jump in to fight the fire after seeing how it all worked. 

That may not be everyone’s reaction, but I knew, in those awful moments, I wanted to be part of the team that was working to fix the worst imaginable problems for all these families in the ICU. I wanted to be part of the team that helped people—families—during the toughest moments on the worst days of their lives. I wanted to make a difference in the hopes that, maybe, someone else wouldn’t have to feel how I felt. Spending 12 hours a day in the hospital for weeks just made me realize that is what I wanted to do with my life. That is what had been missing.

I’m very blessed to have told my Dad about my career change before he passed. He’d seen the change in me over the years and watched as I’d fallen in love with wellness and health. But still, I am sure it was a bit of a shock to him, especially since he’d been so supportive of my career as a musician. If it was, he didn’t say; he only told me how proud he and my Mom were of me, then said “If anyone I know could do it, it would be you.”

Scrubbed in to observe surgery with my mentor, Dr. Clark

After losing my Dad, the pursuit of medicine became a way to help me move forward with my life. I enrolled in a university near my home to finish my science prerequisites before applying for med school in the 2026 cycle. I never took a science class while getting my Bachelor’s degree, so I had a few to complete to meet the medical school application requirements. Luckily, I’ve always been fascinated by the minutia and have always been curious about the details, always ready to learn something new. I’m grateful to say they’re going extremely well, and while I have a long path ahead, I’ve been making the most of my time. I’ve had the opportunity to join numerous extracurricular programs, shadow physicians —and continue running my businesses and protecting my own health. Cult Drum Sounds will carry on, and I’m excited to launch this campaign along with more content about my path to becoming a doctor.

This campaign is a love letter to my past life as a musician. I know how hard it can be to maintain your health as a musician—it certainly was for me. I hope that this campaign will bring more awareness to the importance of wellbeing even while touring and making music, and maybe even inspire and empower someone else to dig into the research and find ways to make minor changes that have a lasting impact on their lives—and lead to even more years making music, being inspired, and feeling creative and energized by the process.

Take a look around! My hope is you find something that inspires you to pause for a moment and ask yourself: Am I happy where I am? And if I’m not, what can I do to change that? 

Welcome to the journey. I look forward to connecting with you all.

- Nick