Episode 020 – Sean Martin | MAKE // BREAK
Sean Martin is the vocalist, guitarist, and executive producer behind The Quarantined, a grunge/punk/metal project rooted in socially critical songwriting and real lived experience. A U.S. Army Airborne Infantry veteran who deployed to Iraq with the 3/509th, Sean channeled his post-service recovery into music, graduating from Musicians Institute in Hollywood and building The Quarantined from the ground up across LA, Florida, Boston, and Nashville. The band's latest album, Aversion to Normalcy, was recorded at Blackbird Studios with producer Nathan Yarborough (Halestorm, Alice in Chains, Evanescence) and has surpassed 900,000 Spotify streams and 40 million TikTok views.
In this episode, Sean gets into what it really takes to make uncompromising art as an independent artist — from surviving the DIY grind to turning trauma into something that resonates worldwide.
Building a rock career without label support like Sean? THE V1LLAG3 is the room where the work gets shown. ↓ link at the bottom.
👀 What you'll hear
- Hear how Sean turned an Iraq deployment and a Musicians Institute degree into a fully independent grunge project
- Unpack how Aversion to Normalcy got cut at Blackbird Studios with producer Nathan Yarborough on a DIY budget
- Break down the TikTok and Spotify run that pushed The Quarantined past 40M views and 900K streams
- Trace the move across LA, Florida, Boston, and Nashville and what that grind actually costs an artist
- Talk veteran mental health, PTSD, and writing songs that double as survival tools instead of branding
- Get tactical on what professionalism, content discipline, and audience-building look like with no label in the room
🕰️ Chapters
00:00 Cold open and intro
01:30 Iraq deployment to Musicians Institute
06:45 Starting The Quarantined in LA
13:10 Moving the project to Nashville
19:20 Tracking Aversion to Normalcy at Blackbird Studios
25:40 Working with producer Nathan Yarborough
32:15 The 40 million TikTok view run
38:50 Hitting 900K Spotify streams independently
45:30 Veteran mental health and PTSD songwriting
52:00 DIY systems for music business survival
58:25 What it costs to keep going
01:04:10 Recalibration and what's next
🔗 Guest Links
https://www.thequarantined.com
https://www.instagram.com/thequarantined
https://www.tiktok.com/@thequarantined
https://www.youtube.com/@thequarantined
🔗 MAKE // BREAK & Host Links
https://open.spotify.com/show/5GDOUd909p7ir2W74M9teg?si=cbc7e01e13ba4a20
https://instagram.com/lowkeyhellish
https://tiktok.com/@lowkeyhellish
🏡 THE V1LLAG3
You put the work out. It got crickets.
Every Wednesday at 2PM EST, get 90 mins live with people who do this for a living — a publicist, a content strategist, a music-business operator, a publishing pro. The same people private clients pay $1,500–$3,000 a month to work with.
Bring one thing you're stuck on. Leave that same call with a straight answer you can act on. Not someday → this Wednesday.
Right now it's free. No card, no catch. It's free because we're in our founding chapter, building it with the first members — and the day pricing turns on, founding members keep the founding rate for life.
Worst case? You spend 90 minutes and walk out with more insights and professional feedback than you had going in.
TAKE YOUR SEAT, FREE (for now…)→
🔗 V13 Media Links
https://v13.net
Subscribe for new MAKE // BREAK episodes. And if you're wrestling with building a fanbase without label support like Sean did — bring it to THE V1LLAG3. That's where these conversations actually go somewhere.
[Contains explicit language and discussion of combat experience and mental health.]
#MakeBreak #Martin #TheQuarantined
