Capturing the Spectrum of Indie Music

Wendy Rosales’ photography career began at 15 years old. In a last-minute favor for her friend, she covered an artist’s show in West Hollywood and photographed them playing. She had initial anxieties, but the experience helped her find a love for music and photography. Four years later, Rosales grew into her craft and founded an online music magazine, Bad Wreck Media, with four of her friends joining the team shortly afterward.

Before her publication, Rosales posted her work on her personal Instagram page and watched YouTube videos to learn more about photography.

“Nobody really taught me how to do it. I had to learn along the way… I feel like people expect me to know the technical [terms]. I'm just going with what I like,” Rosales said.

As she continued covering shows and interviewing bands, Rosales kept her vision of an online music magazine in mind. She opened an Instagram account under the same name to reserve the handle and put money aside to create a website for it.

“I was kind of on my own when I started it, and I didn't even know if I was going to do it or not,” she recalls. “I talked to my other friends, and they're all creatives, I was like, ‘I want to start my own publication. I think we can all do it.’” 

The Marias, photo by Wendy Rosales.

The magazine was founded in 2020, in the midst of the pandemic; however, the restrictions that were in place at the time made it difficult to cover shows.

“The reason I started it came from a place of love for music and I think COVID made me realize how much it means to me.” 

Bad Wreck Media covers culture, music, and art within the indie music world. The magazine includes interviews and Q&As with featured artists and bands, photo galleries, album reviews, and weekly playlists. The all-encompassing content of the magazine is designed especially for indie music fans.

“It stems from my immigrant roots of wanting to create something or have something of my own,” says Rosales. “Getting to talk to people is just really fun for me. Getting to see someone talk about their passion is very exciting. If you’re a fan of music, you know what questions their fans want to hear.”

boyish, photo by Wendy Rosales.

In the beginning stages of the magazine, there was difficulty reaching out to an audience.

“There’s so many publications and it's hard to make yours stand out,” says Rosales. “But so far from what I've heard, people really like what we do because of the design. Publicists really like the fact that we're still creative and not taking it so seriously.”

Once Rosales and her team started publishing content, they saw great interest in the magazine’s Instagram page.

“We promoted it on our social media and a lot of our friends supported us,” says Rosales. “We were the first to start reaching out to publicists and get press releases, but then after a while, they would recommend us to other publicists…so like out of nowhere, the emails kept rolling. They were looking for us and then they were inviting us to things.”

Their work captured the attention of publicists from big record labels. Rosales and her team were able to secure working relationships with Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group, and Interscope Records, among many others.

Binki, photo by Wendy Rosales.

The path of music journalism for Rosales has been a little difficult to navigate. “As a woman in music, it's very hard for people to take you seriously... They're like, ‘Oh, why are you here?’ ‘You're just here to be a groupie,’” says Rosales. “There aren’t many women [represented].”

Nevetheless, the efforts of Rosales and her team have led them to see progress in building an audience and spreading brand awareness. The consistent work they have created has led them to cover artists with a big following in the indie music world such as The Marias, Vacations, and Glass Animals. The team also interviewed the band, STRFKR, at the music festival, Just Like Heaven, this past summer.

Currently, Rosales has been placing emphasis on covering indie music from Mexican artists, “I feel like there's a lot of Mexican indie music that sounds great…people might not speak Spanish, but they still might resonate with it. I feel like that could break language barriers. If it sounds good, someone will like it.”

The inclusion of Mexican artists has led Rosales and her team to write some of their articles in Spanish, in order to keep fans in the loop. 

Wendy Rosales, courtesy of @y.d.n.e.w on Instagram.

Rosales and her team are working towards building a self-sustaining model for the magazine.

“I hope we end up monetizing [the magazine] in a way where it's going to benefit itself, not really for us. Just in a way so it can keep growing and continue to showcase more and just continue to work with more people,” Rosales says.

With long nights and early mornings, Rosales is persistent in her work as a music journalist and a student. At 22 years old, Rosales is currently majoring in journalism and is expected to graduate from Cal State Long Beach next year. She is still very much involved in creating content and the magazine has recently taken on extra volunteers to help write articles and cover shows.

To see more of Rosales’s work, check out her Instagram @y.d.n.e.w.