These songs feature my work as an executive producer, A&R and general collaborator with writer and producer Marco Bosco. We’ve worked with some of the most talented mix engineers in music such as Phil Tan, Joe Zook and Brian Maloof as well as having the legendary Brian Gardner do all of our mastering.
Angel
We did this song to feature multiple artists we signed and managed under the Dream Loud label. Recorded in Henson Studios in the same room as “We are the World” when the studio was owned by A&M records. In addition to writing and producing the track, Marco Bosco played all the instruments which we sourced specifically for the song, carefully choosing the snare drum, bass, bass amp and keyboard.
My Moment
Soon after we signed Moses to a management deal, we had the opportunity to have him audition for the second season of The Voice. We worked extensively with him on artist development, especially his singing which is what got him through all the audition rounds. For the Blind Auditions, we worked it out with NBC to have him perform Black Eyed Peas, Let’s Get it Started, a song that wasn’t made available to any other contestant. So we had the first and only ever rapping audition of the Voice, Christina Aguilera turned her chair and through a lot of collaborative work between us and the producers of the show, we got Moses to the first round of the finals.
My Moment, is a song we wrote and produced especially for him to release while he was on the show, also a first in The Voice history, as no other contestant has been able to release new material while being on the show.
Another Night
We charted this song on Top 40 radio, peaking at #28 which was the highest charting song for an indie label at the time. Sonically, this song is an achievement because it features over 100 individual tracks including reverse strings and a whole lot of guitars. When it came to mixing, we went to Joe Zook (Katy Perry, One Republic) who not only mixed the track but also did something he rarely does which was pick up a guitar and add parts to it because he felt the song demanded it (the chugging guitar on the chorus is his). Brian Gardner, who mastered the track did seven revisions which is unheard of in order to get this up to his standards since working with that many tracks makes it challenging to master.
Senseless (Chasing Sunshine) feat. Mims
When Shawn Mims became the first artist to go Billboard #1 for Capitol Records since the Beatles with his song “This is Why I’m Hot”, his sophmore record “Guilt” became priority number 1 for Capitol as it would be the first album he would release under their label. Needless to say, there were A LOT of writers and producers vying for one of the 15 or so spots on the album. When Mims heard Marco Bosco’s original song “If I Don’t Have You”, he knew he had to have it on his album. Smartly, we were able to produce this track which was called Chasing Sunshine on his album (which we later released under the Senseless moniker) and cleared Marco’s track as a “sample” rather than giving Capitol all the rights to the song. It just so happened that the “sample” is the entire backing track of the song. This is easily one of the most unique songs in hip hop because it features Mims rapping like no one thought he could over just a symphony orchestra in the bridge.
Aggressive- Madeline Lauer
We did this song for another of our discoveries, Madeline Lauer who honestly has one of the best vocal tones I’ve ever heard. She co-wrote this song with Marco Bosco and myself (I came up with the idea and arrangement of the bridge) I’m including this song because we wanted to achieve something really powerful using layered vocals like Kelly Clarkson in “Since You’ve Been Gone” and I think we nailed it.
This is How I Feel
Although I recorded a ton of great material with Marco Bosco, I’m posting this song as one more example of our work because it’s such a feel good timeless track, and also you can hear the outstanding drumming of Tom Knight who was the drummer for TLC as well as the bass of Dre Bowman who’s currently Lady Gaga’s bassist. When we put together the personnel to record the album in which this song appears, my idea was to find a hip hop drummer to support Marco’s unique style of music which was based in rock but too rhythmic to feature a rock drummer. We tried, it dragged all the songs and clashed with the guitars, also causing us to forever hate crash cymbals and change the way we would produce music. Marco thought about Lenny Kravitz, whose drum beats stay consistent throughout the chorus and don’t have fills or crashes like typical rock music although the music makes you think that it does. However, it does take a very unique production style to be able to pull that off so that the track doesn’t feel empty. Long story short, one phone call led to another which led me to Tom, and I think his playing combined with this music is one of the greatest combos I’ve ever heard throughout this song and the album.