ABOUT BAD PIRATE MEDIA
IT STARTED WITH SOUND. THE VISION FOLLOWED.
Bad Pirate Media is an independent creative production company based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, built around a simple belief:
Technology matters. Story matters more.
But the story of Bad Pirate Media didn't begin as a business.
It began with an artist who wanted his music to sound better.
BEFORE THE STUDIO
Long before Bad Pirate Media, founder Eric Majetich Jr. was a rapper, DJ and musician immersed in Pittsburgh's music scene.
During the late 1990s and early 2000s, Eric performed and DJed across hip-hop shows and the city's rave scene, working particularly within hip-hop, jungle and drum & bass. He also competed as a DJ, developing the turntable skills that would unexpectedly resurface years later on one of the biggest records he ever touched.
After becoming a Christian in 2001, Eric helped re-form a Christian hip-hop group Generation Blessed, which eventually evolved into Special Ops in 2004. The group would perform together for more than a decade.
And it was Special Ops that indirectly led to building a studio.
IF IT DOESN'T SOUND RIGHT, LEARN WHY.
Like countless independent artists, Eric spent money recording music only to walk away frustrated with the finished product. The recordings simply weren't being mixed and mastered to the standard Eric wanted to hear.
So he decided to learn how to do it himself.
He acquired Pro Tools and began studying recording, mixing and production—not initially with the intention of opening a studio, but because he wanted his own records to sound better.
Other artists began hearing the results.
Word spread.
And what started as solving his own problem gradually became something other musicians were asking him to do for them.
Word of Mouf' Recordings was born in 2009.
LEARNING THE CRAFT
As the studio grew, Eric continued developing his craft within Pittsburgh's professional recording community.
In 2011, he interned at Audible Images in Pittsburgh's North Hills, learning under lead engineer Jay Dudt. From 2013–2014, he continued that development at Treelady Studios in East Pittsburgh, where well known mastering engineer and contributor to Tape-Op Magazine Garrett Haines became a mentor, further shaping his understanding of recording, mixing, production and the craft behind making records.
Although Eric's foundation was primarily hip-hop and electronic music—and much of his early studio work centered on hip-hop and EDM—his work gradually expanded into other genres.
One of those opportunities took him somewhere unexpected.
An Unexpected Record.
In 2014, Producer Zach Crowell, with Warner/Chappell Music, brought Eric in to contribute DJ record scratching to the hook of a pop country song which would later become Sam Hunt's “House Party.” The song appeared on Hunt's debut album, Montevallo, which would become a major commercial success and received a Grammy nomination for Best Country Album.
For a DJ whose roots were in hip-hop, jungle and drum & bass, contributing turntablism to a country record was an unlikely intersection of worlds.
It also reflected something that would eventually become central to Bad Pirate Media:
Creative disciplines don't have to stay in their lanes.
FROM SOUND TO VISION
Over time, that same curiosity moved beyond sound.
Photography became cinematography. Cinematography became commercial, documentary and artistic filmmaking. Editing brought sound and picture together. Aerial production eventually introduced an entirely new perspective.
And Word of Mouf' Recordings grew into something broader:
Bad Pirate Media.
Today, BPM works across sound and vision—recording, production, mixing and mastering; filmmaking and cinematography; photography; post-production; and FAA Part 107-certified aerial production and commercial UAS services.
What looks like a diverse collection of capabilities actually comes from the same place.
We like making things—and learning what it takes to make them well.
THE TOOLS AREN'T THE STORY.
A microphone doesn't make a record.
A cinema camera doesn't make a film.
A drone doesn't make an image worth remembering.
People do.
That's why every Bad Pirate Media project begins with understanding what we're actually trying to communicate.
The equipment matters. Technique matters. Experience matters.
But all of it exists in service of the story.
SOUND + VISION.
More than fifteen years after Word of Mouf' Recordings opened its doors—and decades after a young DJ first started manipulating records on a pair of turntables—the philosophy is remarkably similar:
Listen.
Experiment.
Learn the craft.
And make something worth experiencing.
Make something worth hearing.
Make something worth seeing.
Make something worth remembering.