Please fill out the following information, and RRFC Admissions will contact you to discuss our program offerings:
Issue #161
by L. Swift and Jeff McQ
When we last talked with Recording Connection grad Chris Locke, he was working as an engineer at 5th Street Studios in Austin, TX, the studio where he’d first done his apprenticeship with mentor Nick Joswick. Since then, he’s taken another step in his career by opening his own niche hip-hop studio!
“I had a storage unit that my pops owned,” Chris explains, “and they always told me that my sister gets the house and I get the storage unit. And when I was 24, about 2 years ago, I told my pops, ‘Hey, I really want to take the storage unit and turn it to a studio.’ Like it’s a big, big storage unit. It’s the size of a house. So we completely dedicated the whole building to the studio. A third of it is to the music studio. I have another part of it dedicated to a lobby lounge area for my clients to relax at when they in with a group. And then the last third of it is my photography section that I’m actually finishing right now…I opened this two years ago, and I’ve been doing great.”
Chris’ success is a classic example of hustle-meets-opportunity. When he first enrolled in the Recording Connection in his late teens, he says he knew almost nothing—he just had a desire to learn.
“I actually started as a rapper,” he says. “I totally went in with the mindset that I was going to learn how to record myself, and just meet people in town. And I just wanted to get better at recording…I didn’t even know that there was an engineer. I thought there was just like a producer and the artist. I was really like unaware of how music was done.”
Despite his lack of knowledge and experience, Nick Joswick of 5th Street agreed to mentor him, and Chris jumped in with both feet.
“I took the book that Nick had given me for the class for him as my mentor, and I read the whole thing,” he says. “And the next time I saw Nick, I was like, ‘Test me.’ And he started asking me questions about microphones, and I knew what it was, and how this worked, and how this worked, and I knew like how some of it worked, you know?…He could see I was dedicated, so he started inviting me more and more and more.”
Before long, the studio owner took note of Chris’ dedication as well. “I worked with [Nick] for a while,” says Chris, “and the owner starts noticing that like this dude is cleaning all the time….The owner of 5th Street had a week where he booked up the studio for him and his band, and I just happened to be the dude that was there taking care of everything because that’s where I was all the time. And he saw that I was super dedicated…So at the end of that week, he came up to me and goes, ‘Call your job at Pizza Hut and tell them that you got another job at the studio.’”
From that point, Chris just kept hustling. “They gave me three clients and I had to go from there,” he says. “And at that point, I started going downtown to all the shows, and talking to everybody, and trying to get my name out there.”
The rest, as they say, is history. Chris stayed with 5th Street Studios for four years, earning a reputation in town as a solid hip-hop engineer. However, since 5th Street wasn’t really geared for hip-hop, he eventually began to see the need to branch out. The answer came while he was remodeling one of the rooms at 5th Street with another staff engineer.
“He gave me a few books about acoustics, and he and I remodeled the B room at 5th Street Studio, he says. “He was like, ‘Man, just take what I’ve given you, and take that information, and build your own studio from it.’ Six months later, I had my room working.”
Today, Chris’ studio continues to make waves, recently even winning recognition at the Austin Hip Hop Awards. He’s particularly excited about two of his clients who show lots of promise: a Nigerian artist Morachi, and an up-and-coming rapper, Kenny Gee (not the sax player). Even so, Chris maintains a good working relationship with his former studio, especially when he sees a band that would be a good fit for them.
“I’m a niche engineer,” he says, “like I work really well with hip hop, rap music, R&B…I’ve done singer/songwriter stuff; it’s just my ear is really niched towards hip-hop and rap…So I don’t even advertise to bands. Like as soon as a band hits me up, I’ll hit up my old friends at 5th Street Studios, and I’ll ask them if they want the work because, you know, I keep a good relationship with my other friends that I made throughout the times.”
As for his former mentor, Chris remains grateful that Nick gave him the opportunity despite his early lack of experience.
“Me and Nick are good friends,” he says. “We’ll be friends for the rest of our lives.”
RRFC: So can you start by telling us a little bit about how you got started in acting?
Cloie Wyatt Taylor: When I was about 3, my parents got me the Annie tape, and I watched it once and could not turn it off. I learned all of the lines, all of the songs, all of the dances, and I would reenact it on a daily basis just from the perspective of different characters. So one day I was Rooster, one day I was Lilly St. Regis and one day I was Annie… [My parents] put me in dance and it stuck. When I was about 11, I got to work with the Dance Theatre of Harlem and that’s when I started training hours and hours a week to be a professional dancer. Then when I was about nine I saw a friend of mine in a play at the Folger Theatre, it’s this really historic theatre in D.C., and I was like, “Oh that’s what I really want to do.”
RRFC: Were your parents supportive of you?
Cloie: I have parents that were more about “Go after, chase it, whatever, make it happen. Do whatever that is that sets your soul on fire.”…I’m very blessed in the fact that they have always said, “Whatever you’re going to do, just go and do it, but be in love with it.”
RRFC: What kind of training did you have? Any formal education?
Cloie: I did go to college—I went to NYU—but before I went to school, I was already acting and stuff as a teenager. I’d done shows with Debbie Allen and I’d done some TV stuff, and I’d done a movie when I was still a kid, a teenager, and so I’d had my school of hard knocks before I did any sort of organized school situation.
RRFC: So what brought you to Los Angeles?
Cloie: I got an opportunity to work with the Atlantic Theatre Company. They had a conservatory out here…They’re amazing, out of New York, it’s started by David Mamet and William H. Macy, like legit stuff. So that brought me from New York to L.A….I left my entire life in New York and I re-rooted myself. I moved here with two suitcases and started from scratch.
RRFC: What was your first acting role?
Cloie: Actually, my very first acting gig was All My Children, and I got to do a couple episodes of that. And that was fun because I’d be at school during the day, and I’d come home, and there’d be like a script on my porch or something, and my Mom would be like, ‘Well we know what we’re doing tomorrow.”…And we’d go up to New York, and I would shoot, and we’d come home.
RRFC: It can be a tough business. What do you do for yourself to stay positive and keep hustling?
Cloie: Growing up by myself, I was not a stranger to talking to myself, so as an adult that’s a habit that I’ve carried with me. I talk to myself all the time…and it sounds crazy and I don’t care…I talk to myself a lot, specifically when I’m afraid of something, because I need to voice out loud the thing that it is I’m afraid of. What is the worst possible thing that could happen? And the thing is, it’s never that I will die. It’s always that I will be embarrassed or something, and that’s ego-based, and so I talk that out so that I can move past it.
I’m a big believer in accountability, and so I feel like one of the best things that I can do for myself to combat the fear and stay positive is to show up and do my work. So if I have a huge audition and I’m terrified of it for whatever reason…then it’s like, “Great, that’s going to make me want to work even harder on that audition.” So that in the moment when I am scared, or if perhaps I’m scared because I don’t want to create it if it doesn’t exist, it is just so ingrained in me, the choices that I’ve made, the character development that I’ve done, any homework I have applied, any hard work and hustle that I have done, it will show up in the room and nothing else will matter. So that’s one way that I can combat and stay positive is just being over prepared.
RRFC: What do you do in order to stay grounded personally?
Cloie: As an artist, our egos can be real….And the thing about ego is it can go either way: It can go to that overblown arrogant sort of thing, that’s an overblown ego that way, but then it can also go the other way into this totally self-deprecating sort of thing. They’re both ego, just opposite sides of the same spectrum…The way I have found to help me stay grounded is I have a very strong support unit and that’s both family and friends…who do keep me in check cause I am very passionate…I have people in my life that are not afraid to stop and check me and I am so grateful for that.
What I am finding is that rooting myself in what I know to be true about me, helps to keep me grounded. I know and am finding out on a daily basis who I am, and I’m so grateful for that awareness. I know what I’m good at. I know what I can be better at. Clearly identifying what my strengths and weaknesses are, and knowing when I’m doing my best to strengthen my weaknesses and when I’m not.
RRFC: How do you forgive yourself if you feel you have failed at something?
Cloie: I fail all the time. As a human being I feel like we fail all the time… It’s just another opportunity to try it differently…There’s no stronger lesson than failure…
Not getting a job is not going to kill you. What’s the worst thing that could happen? Someone says no, and no just really means “not right now”… Sometimes that’s hard to hear, but I also believe in acknowledging the dark feelings, to acknowledge what I’m feeling, and if I’m a little blue, to track it and to give myself some time to feel it, give myself this day to feel this feeling, and then tomorrow we’re going to take this feeling and repurpose it and use it as fuel for the fire.
RRFC: So how does “Connected” tie in with your larger or deeper purpose or journey? What is it that you personally take away from hosting “Connected?”
Cloie: “Connected” helps me to remember that we’re all on the same journey, and everyone’s journey looks a little different, so it’s helpful to me in the discussion of perspective. And I love that… So talking and connecting with all the people who watch the show and call in, it reminds me constantly of what I’m working towards in my drive, and it’s inspiring. So I’m glad to know that I’m offering advice and inspiration, but I feel like I’m only able to give what I’m receiving. I feel inspired working with “Connected” and so I’m able to give inspiration too, and I’m just grateful for that opportunity.
We’re happy to announce, Radio Connection grad Ian P. Schebel (Las Vegas, NV) has his own radio show on alternative station X107.5 from 7pm-12am Saturday night where he’s also working the super popular morning show Dave and Mahoney! He credits his mentor, Ransom Garcia with helping him refine his talent and grow his confidence: “You’re on air and once that mic is cracked, you have people hearing you. It takes a minute to get over… Ransom really helped ease that anxiousness in me. He’s a pro in his craft and watching him do it gave me the confidence to go out there and do it myself.” More on Ian’s success in an upcoming newsletter!
Coke Youngblood, Recording Connection advanced program grad who recently apprenticed with Warren Huart at Spitfire Studios (Los Angeles, CA) just released an EP and started his own business, Write Me A Song. Coke uses his songwriting and production skills to compose unique, on-demand, recordings for life’s special occasions.
RRFC is education upgraded for the 21st century.
Get the latest career advice, insider production tips, and more!
Please fill out the following information, and RRFC Admissions will contact you to discuss our program offerings:
Stay in the Loop: Subscribe for RRFC news & updates!
© 2024 Recording Radio Film Connection & CASA Schools. All Rights Reserved.
