GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — "It's like all the dominoes were set up to fall this way. All the pieces were there to sort of end up here."
For Dave Bisson, 'here' is his dream job as a voice actor.
"Even as a little kid, I always enjoyed acting, pretending," he said. "My friend, Dave, had a microphone. We would write radio plays. It was just a fantastic time. I absolutely fell in love with it. (I was doing) plays and musicals in high school, taking theater classes in college and then taking theater and voiceover classes after college. It just sort of kept snowballing and going and now here I am. 20 plus years later, doing this full time for almost a decade.”
It's been quite a journey for Bisson. He began with a makeshift studio surrounded by quilts and blankets, and now has a state-of-the-art sound booth in his Chicago home.
All it took was a simple step behind the mic. He was hooked.
“In 2004, I'm at school, I'm up at Ferris State University in Big Rapids," he said. "I record my first paid voiceover gig. It was for one of their career pathways, DVDs, way back in the past. I got paid $50 for that.”
When Bisson graduated, he took a production job at a local Grand Rapids news station. The voice-over bug never quite went away.
He kept recording on the side. Then in 2014, he made a decision — one of the best decisions he's ever made in his life, he said.
"I'm getting enough work to where it's just about to eclipse my day job," said Bisson. "It's like, okay, this is the time. It's going to be scary, and it was. It was absolutely terrifying to leave the day job to pursue the passion full time, but I have not looked back."