Kyle Mortensen

Executive-producer & manager. Guitarist and songwriter. Kyle spent the first 18 years of his life focusing on music and art, and planned to attend the Art Center College of Design after graduation. Funny thing was, he had some friends in a really cool band in high school, and began promoting them to other kids around campus. That band was called Incubus, and they ended up getting a record deal, which landed Kyle an internship at their label Immortal before he turned 18. That opportunity was the initial spark that led to a 20+ year career in marketing and advertising. After the internship at Immortal, Kyle's first “paying” industry gig (at age 19) was working for Björk’s manager. After a couple of years there he spread his wings and joined the team at URB Magazine, which was LA’s legendary underground music publication at the forefront of “future music culture”, where he produced high-profile events in Miami (Winter Music Conference), New York (CMJ), and even had a hand in the first few years of Coachella. During this time at URB, Raymond Roker (publisher), Josh Levine, and Kyle launched a URB-marketing division called Rebel, which was responsible for the launch of Toyota’s Scion brand in the US. He eventually moved on to work with David Benveniste (manager for System Of A Down, Deftones, Alice In Chains, Korn, etc.) and became the VP of Marketing at his digital agency, StreetWise. After a solid 8 year run he branched out to focus on his own artist management career, handling the band A.i., legendary rapper Slimkid3 (who had just reunited with his group The Pharcyde), the band Kidneythieves, and rapper Ivan Ives. Fast forward to 2010, when Kyle moved out of management and back into advertising by launching his own agency called NEWSCIENCE, working with blue chip entertainment brands such as Live Nation Entertainment, Ubisoft, 21st Century Fox, Square Enix, and BSE Global (Brooklyn Nets, Barclays Center, etc.). And in 2019, he designed the new logo for Oakland Arena (formerly Oracle Arena), and produced a couple of websites for Live Nation Entertainment and Live Nation Media & Sponsorships. But after years of sitting behind a desk and orchestrating pitch meetings in company board rooms, Kyle got the itch to bring music back into his life again, in a big way. Now with best friend Dirk Lance (formerly of Incubus) and friend and singer, Emily Rath, they've started a new band called East of June.