There Was Always Music

For my entire life I have felt that music is a spirit that surrounds me. I was born in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina, and in some ways I feel like the city provided a soundtrack to my life. There was always music. Whether it was my father’s friend’s bands playing new school funk at my birthday parties, Cajun music at backyard crawfish boils, brass bands accompanying Krewes marching down St. Charles Avenue on Mardi Gras day, Jazz and Blues on WWOZ Radio, or hip-hop blasting from cars cruising up Tchoupitoulas Street. I believe there are key events or moments in life that shape a person, and make them who they are; these things can be the places we go, the people we meet, or the unique experiences we have. The things that have made me who I am as a person, and as an artist, have always involved music. To me, music is one piece of the puzzle, one clue into the mystery of who I am as a person and how I connect to the world around me. 

One of my earliest childhood memories is being allowed to walk across Valence Street to my next door neighbor, Papa Funk. I remember clearly that my father really admired this man. To me he was a nice old gentleman who patiently taught me to play notes and chords on his piano. One year during Mardi Gras, we had a party at our house and Papa Funk came over and played keyboard with my Dad’s musician friends. He let me sit beside him, striking some keys as we sang. I remember people being really impressed that he was there. I found out that he wasn’t just our neighbor, he was music legend, Art Neville, founding member of The Meters, and the Neville Brothers, and writer of some of the most beloved New Orleans songs, such as; Mardis Gras Mambo, They All Ask’d For You, and Fire On The Bayou. This was the first person I knew who actually had a career making music. Not only that, he was a Grammy award winning musician who played with people like Paul McCartney, The Rolling Stones, The Red Hot Chilli Peppers and others. I wondered if this was something I could ever do. 

Shortly before middle school started, my parents separated and I moved with my mom from New Orleans to Los Angeles. Moving to LA was a complete culture shock, the city looked so different, everything was spread out, it was hard to find the ‘character’ of the city, and my place in it. The people were different too, everyone seemed to be involved in the entertainment industry in some way. My aunt and uncle were directors and cinematographers, and my classmate's parents worked at studios and on TV shows. I considered myself somewhat of a cinephile and watched countless behind-the-scenes and making-of documentaries of my favorite movies. I was always fascinated by the film’s score. How music compositions could really set the mood of a scene and even subliminally impact the audience’s emotions with a note or tone. My musical taste changed at this time too, and added another building block to my influences and infatuation with music. Away from the Southern funk and soul roots of New Orleans I started listening to more modern, popular music. Rap and Pop music were a big part of my middle school years, but I was also drawn to the more cinematic styles of artists like Tyler The Creator, MF DOOM, and more grand alternative rock artists like Car Seat Headrest and Mac DeMarco. I still felt like a fish out of water, but my taste in music was helping me define who I was.

I always heard that Freshman year in High School would be tough, well, add a global Pandemic on top of that and then see what happens. My first year of high school was surreal to say the least. All California schools were fully remote, with every class meeting online. Spending the entire day staring at small square images of my classmates sitting in their bedrooms and at their kitchen tables, each one looking more bored than the next one, it was hard not to feel isolated and disconnected. I was yearning to find a distraction from the monotony of online classes and so I would search on-line looking for new music. One day when I was scrolling through my Apple Music library I saw that I had added Radiohead's ‘In Rainbows’. I didn’t even remember downloading it, it kind of just appeared. Pulled in by the album's colorful and inviting cover art, I gave it a listen and everything changed from there on out. From the bright and warped opener ‘15 Step’, to the dreary, funeral march-like drums and pianos on the closer ‘Videotape’, this album is a master craft in songwriting and album flow. Every track reaches an immaculate moment of bliss by the end, a grand crescendo of warmth. At a dark time in the world, this album really felt like a comforting fire on the coldest day. I really believe that discovering this album saved me and changed my life for the better. I thought, “If I was ever going to make music I would want to make music like this.”.

Sophomore year brought me back on campus and I was excited to enroll in the Academy of Visual and Performing Arts program at Culver City High School, and to take a class called Intro To Music Tech. I hoped the class would give me deep insight into music production and songwriting. In that first year I learned so much about music production, the little intricacies of DAWs, and learning about how close my mouth should be to the microphone while recording, and how to record piano. At home, I used this knowledge to make covers of my favorite Radiohead songs. I wouldn’t play them for anyone but I was starting to understand and appreciate the process, the magic of making music. Did the music I was making sound exactly the way I wanted it to? Not yet. But my thirst for learning how to make music was growing. 

The next year as a Junior I joined the Advanced Music Tech class, and my music taste expanded, and broadened by listening to artists like The Strokes, Sufjan Stevens, Portishead, and one of my favorite artists of all time; Bjork. These artists made a serious impact on my musical influences and more importantly inspired me to have the courage to make music of my own. I learned a lot more about analog instruments, like piano, guitar, and cello. At this time I also got closer with my music teacher Mr. Jack Aron. He saw something in me and encouraged me to push my experimental side. He inspired me to make great music. I really set up the emotional core of my songwriting during that year. It made me realize that I didn’t want to make the music that was popular at the time, or focus on music that other people might want to hear, but to make music for myself and myself alone, which may sound selfish, but in order to make the music you want to hear, I think you have to be a bit selfish. Later that year, a guy I kind of knew from school was asking people about forming a band. Feeling more confident in my songwriting, I said, "Why not?". That's how Arms Race, a trio with me on guitar and vocals, a drummer, and a bassist, was born. Our practices at my bandmate's house were electrifying. After about five months, we clicked, it felt like we were in harmony, in sync.  Just then, another school band invited us to perform at a house party's backyard show, featuring five other local bands. It was thrilling but nerve-wracking, we questioned if we were ready for this. The stakes rose since we were set to play right after the opening act. I thought about it and decided, "It has to be our first show sometime, so why not this one?". The night of the party, I gathered the courage to step onto the stage. When the music started, a deep sense of satisfaction washed over me. I saw the audience enjoying the songs we had been practicing for months, songs that I wrote. A huge, unstoppable smile appeared on my face, making me realize I had found my calling — this was what I was meant to do.

Some of the most profound memories throughout my life so far have been underscored by music, whether it was early childhood memories of listening to music with my mother who is deaf, with her inability to hear every note or make out the lyrics, but truly “feeling” the music physically and emotionally; or the time I sang Creep with my halfway decent Thom Yorke impression for the first time in front of my friends into an FM Radio on a boat, feeling sort of accomplished; or a drive home from Mammoth in awe of the jagged, snow capped peaks of the mountains, with my earbuds in listening to the soundtrack for The Last of Us while comprehending that California was really my new home now; or laying in bed listening to It’s The End Of The World By Skeeter Davis, realizing I had fallen in love with a girl I was seeing. The parts from those memories that I think about the most were the emotions I felt in the moment of it all, and how the music deepened those feelings and intertwined with those emotions I felt. These moments made me realize that I want to make music, to  be able to make people feel those deep emotions; that maybe I could make something that could be a part of the soundtrack to someone else’s life. I want my music to provide for them one of those transcendent or insightful moments like the ones I’ve experienced from music throughout my life so far. This is why I want to study music in college, so I can master my craft and learn as much about making music as I can.  Music to me is a piece of the mystery into figuring out who you are as a person and how we as people connect to the world around us. To me music is emotion, music is a tool to dig deep into yourself, a conduit that connects us through pure feeling. It’s the thing that has overtaken my life and made me see through other people’s eyes and into myself to learn who I truly am. There have been ups and downs, successes and failures, love and heartbreak, change of all kinds, but there has always been music.