TOMMASO Interview

0:00 TOMMASO you know everything is just muscle memory so it's like to a kid it sounds like a lot of times i'm like okay now go home and play this like a hundred times but like a hundred times is really like nothing you know Yeah. like you can do that in like 20 minutes and like you'll never have a problem with it ever again

0:13 Luke F. Walton What's good, everybody? Just had a great conversation with Tommaso, incredible producer, songwriter, artist, drummer, mix engineer, guitarist, all of the things, and most importantly, a great friend collaborator. I really love his music. I'd recommend actually take a little listen to his music before we hop into this conversation so you can catch the vibes at Tommaso, T-O-M-M-A-S-O.

0:35 Luke F. Walton Before we get into the podcast, I also want to introduce our title sponsor, DistroKid. DistroKid makes music distribution fun and easy with unlimited uploads and artists get to keep 100% of their royalties and earnings. A million plus artists rely on DistroKid to get their music onto Spotify.

0:50 Luke F. Walton On the Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube, TikTok, Tidal, Instagram, and all of the major streaming services, you can sign up today with our code for 30% off if you go to DistroKid.com slash VIP slash love music more, all one word, to get started today. Hope you enjoy the episode. What's good, everybody? Welcome back to Love Music More. I am Scoobert Doobert and I am joined with my good friend Tommaso. What's up, man?

1:25 TOMMASO How's it going?

1:27 Luke F. Walton So,

1:27 TOMMASO Happy

1:27 Luke F. Walton dude,

1:27 TOMMASO to be

1:27 Luke F. Walton we've

1:27 TOMMASO here at

1:28 Luke F. Walton been, how long have we known each other? It's been at least three or four years, right?

1:32 TOMMASO least 2022 maybe something

1:35 Luke F. Walton Yeah, yeah, yeah, that sounds about right.

1:36 TOMMASO like that maybe before

1:38 Luke F. Walton Yeah. So Tommaso makes incredible music, very much in the same genre as the music that I make. And we've worked together on collaborations, mixing things, just been buddies hung out in Chicago. And so I'm so excited to have you on the pod and talk about your production, your drumming, your music career, your solo project.

1:59 TOMMASO Thanks so much. Thanks for the kind words, man. I'm a big fan of your work as well. So no,

2:05 Luke F. Walton So let's dive into it. So I'm super curious about how your journey informs your productions. So as a drummer and then moving into the production world and moving into the mixing world, do you feel like all of this is kind of connected or do you feel like they're different hats?

2:24 TOMMASO they're definitely informed. greatly and they're they're all very related I think the reason why I like producing is because for the longest time as a drummer I didn't get a say into like what the music was you know

2:40 Luke F. Walton Yeah

2:40 TOMMASO like i got i got a say in like the energy maybe just knew like oh i like this song but i don't like this song as much during like my gigs or my bands you know and like and so with producing and now that i've learned other instruments as well because this was like way back when in like high school and like early college days

2:56 TOMMASO uh when i pretty much only knew how to play drums and i knew very little like music theory but i think that i come from it from like a yeah kind of from like an energy standpoint and i think about like how is the song moving forward yeah i don't know if that answers the question so it's drumming production and mixing yeah too all all kind of mixing and production are kind of like a blurred line for me at this point i would say that coming from a drumming background background

3:20 TOMMASO definitely influences my production and I'm grateful for it.

3:25 Luke F. Walton Yeah, yeah, I'm really interested by that because there have been a lot of great drummers turned producers, and I have a few theories, so that's one of them.

3:36 TOMMASO Yeah.

3:36 Luke F. Walton is that I think the drummers are great at understanding like energy and the movement and the groove of the song and like everything like a compressor like the way that the you know audio is is hitting something and the dynamics are pulsing feels like a drummer can have a really good intuition about like how to make that work but I also think that there's something about drums just being such a wide frequency instrument

4:02 TOMMASO Hmm.

4:03 Luke F. Walton you're like you're the whole spectrum and so i feel like i feel like that's a special thing when you know guitarists were kind of like in our own little space but to get a great drum

4:12 TOMMASO Sure.

4:12 Luke F. Walton sound you got to really think top to bottom

4:14 TOMMASO Yeah, I remember in high school, I was the drummer of like my band, which was just me and my friends basically, because I remember specifically feeling like I know how the snare drum needed to be hit.

4:28 Luke F. Walton Okay.

4:29 TOMMASO and I didn't trust anyone else to hit it in that way you know and I think I like identified that like the snare is so important and just like the feeling and like the nuance was so important that I just didn't trust anyone else to like to do it you know I've had these moments so many times even like more recently where even in recent shows I'm just like I have these moments where I'm like I am such a drummer like this is totally my instrument even though I love producing and like I can fake guitar pretty well or

4:55 TOMMASO you know in the at least a little bit and like uh producing but when it comes to like shows and stuff I just love I understand I feel like the what I'm what I'm doing you know I don't think I could do any other instrument as well as I can that one if that makes sense

5:11 Luke F. Walton yeah totally makes sense it totally makes sense and it's a funny thing too like yeah The details of drums, like yeah swapping out a snare drum the way you hit the snare drum the heads the mic placement There's just so many decisions that yeah go in to make that sound good

5:28 TOMMASO yeah and i'm really big into like kick pattern you know so like yeah it comes down to like what is the most obvious thing sometimes you know and this is kind of drumming but also it's the same brain for me it's like what's the most obvious

5:42 TOMMASO obvious part to make it kind of like the most pop and I say that in like quotations because it's not like Ariana Grande pop but like kind of just like for the masses you know like what is the best sort of like not showy and like for the song kind of part yeah but no for sure I I love I love Thinking about the kick pattern and like how the the snare how to hit the snare and yeah all that kind of stuff

6:07 Luke F. Walton Yeah. Well, I think it's really interesting, too. And I don't know how many people know the ways that drum parts get written in terms of all the things that you're listening to. Like, I know a lot of drummers will.

6:19 Luke F. Walton plan a lot of their kick pattern based on like the melody and then the bass will fit in there too how do you

6:24 TOMMASO go okay

6:24 Luke F. Walton about that or do you like kind of like thinking of a groove and you write to the groove

6:27 TOMMASO no i don't usually write to the groove necessarily but so i do like a fair amount of drum sessions too and what i do if i do it at home session i feel comfortable i can like take my time what my strategy is is i just play the song like

6:43 TOMMASO too many times like a ton of times like 20 times record all of them but then I comp between the last like two or three takes you know because like

6:51 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

6:52 TOMMASO every time I understand the song just like a little bit more and in the first couple takes I might not even know like what the structure is exactly I just like

7:00 TOMMASO and then maybe I'll stop and like listen back to like a certain fill or something but I really just like every take it's more and more like calculated and precise for better for worse you know like sometimes it's nice to just kind of wing it and there's some magic in there but

7:12 Luke F. Walton Mm-hmm.

7:13 TOMMASO yeah I think usually my approach is like I guess depends on the genre but usually it's kind of like indie or like singer-songwriter-y or like rock stuff sort of like some pop sensibilities to them and so like it's usually pretty

7:25 TOMMASO pretty calculated even the fill like it'll be the it'll end up being the simplest fill in the world but like I'm always like there is like the best fill you know that could do in this moment and it's usually some kind of like Ringo-y like thing

7:37 Luke F. Walton Ha

7:37 TOMMASO but uh you know what I mean that's kind of how I approach like drum sessions and kind of writing drum parts yeah I don't have much else to say about about that I kind of just wing it you know I don't really like have a specific Thing that I do all the time,

7:51 Luke F. Walton yeah well i think that what you're saying there is actually really cool about the recording as you learn the song i think that that's one of the like sneaky unlocks of digital recording and not caring too much about hard drive space and all that kind of stuff anymore is that you can and you can do that across a whole bunch of songs and then you can capture on the fly swampier just kind of figuring out the edges and then the very

8:16 Luke F. Walton very precise you can count between them but the other thing that I think is really cool is it also kind of forces you to be under the microscope like I always play my best when I'm recording but like have settled in a little bit or if I'm playing live and like you have to kind of raise your game and you are more focused than aware of it rather than kind of going through the motions and like kind of figuring it out pressing record having the red light I think can help you yeah

8:40 TOMMASO Yeah, right, right. yeah i think it also ties into like arranging you

8:45 Luke F. Walton Okay.

8:45 TOMMASO know like a lot of the times when i'm producing for someone i uh we spend a lot of time on just like arrangement so like instead of like adding a bunch of layers for like the chorus for example just having everything

8:57 TOMMASO change maybe like the guitar we add just like one string like before it was just like the bottom three strings or the top three strings and now we're just kind of having a more full sound or like a right and a left maybe they're doing something kind of more unison in the verse and then they kind of like open up in the chorus but

9:12 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

9:12 TOMMASO i always try to get away with as few elements or as few layers as possible

9:16 Luke F. Walton Cool.

9:17 TOMMASO i think that's where this whole kind of like um under a microscope arrangement sort of and that i think is informed performed by my drumming um

9:24 Luke F. Walton cool yeah

9:25 TOMMASO i

9:25 Luke F. Walton yeah

9:26 TOMMASO don't know why or how exactly but i think it is yeah

9:29 Luke F. Walton yeah i mean even just like the idea of like panning and stuff i mean drums are a wide instrument like there's just so

9:36 TOMMASO yeah

9:36 Luke F. Walton much about drums that make it it's the focal point it's like the hardest and best thing of mixing anything is just getting the drum sound dialed and pushing

9:43 TOMMASO i'll spend

9:44 Luke F. Walton the

9:44 TOMMASO yeah

9:45 Luke F. Walton limiter yeah

9:45 TOMMASO i'll spend so much time on just the drums like when i'm producing or mixing you know and

9:49 Luke F. Walton have to

9:50 TOMMASO then like and like the rest of the song i just like unmute and

9:52 Luke F. Walton uh

9:52 TOMMASO then just

9:52 Luke F. Walton totally

9:52 TOMMASO like level it and it's like pretty good you know yeah

9:55 Luke F. Walton well i

9:56 TOMMASO yeah

9:56 Luke F. Walton mean like i don't know i have a theory of pop songs that if you can't just listen to the vocal and the drums and feel like pretty satisfied it's not done

10:05 TOMMASO totally uh i have a friend a mixing engineer friend caleb harris who shout out caleb um he

10:13 TOMMASO he told me something so long ago that was just like all the Drake fans or whatever what are they listening to they're listening to like how his vocals were and if the drums were slapping or not you know

10:22 Luke F. Walton that's Yeah,

10:22 TOMMASO like all people

10:23 Luke F. Walton yeah.

10:23 TOMMASO like care about if they don't know like they're not nerdy like us or whatever they don't know like what goes into making a song they're just like are the drums sick and like what was he saying and like how did he say it you know that's all that really Those are the most like primal things in

10:40 Luke F. Walton yeah

10:40 TOMMASO like in

10:40 Luke F. Walton for sure totally

10:41 TOMMASO music I feel like you know

10:42 Luke F. Walton no and it's like it's no no shame it is it is what it is we're humans like we like cool grooves and we like the human voice and everything else is either like window dressing or taking the role of the human voice for a little bit like a guitar solo

10:57 TOMMASO right right yeah usually if i make the i have this theory also where i'm like

11:01 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

11:01 TOMMASO if the snare drum is a little bit brighter a little bit darker like it kind of changes the record whereas

11:06 Luke F. Walton Ooh.

11:06 TOMMASO like if the guitar is a little brighter or darker it

11:10 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

11:10 TOMMASO doesn't change very much you

11:12 Luke F. Walton Right.

11:12 TOMMASO know or

11:13 Luke F. Walton Yep.

11:13 TOMMASO it's like a yeah it's such a small piece of it

11:16 Luke F. Walton yeah

11:16 TOMMASO uh

11:16 Luke F. Walton i

11:16 TOMMASO yeah

11:16 Luke F. Walton agree i agree yes

11:17 TOMMASO so i think that's kind of like and i've i've felt that my whole life or whatever and so i'm just like as a musician we're uh you know focusing on the drums like even as a kid like that's what i was just drawn to going back to like why i wanted to hit a drum a certain way or like tune in a certain way you know i was just like this really matters a lot guys i'm telling you

11:35 Luke F. Walton yes so i'm embarrassed because i don't actually know how to say their name um i've just always read it uh krungabin kron do

11:42 TOMMASO like

11:43 Luke F. Walton you

11:43 TOMMASO crongbin

11:43 Luke F. Walton know how crunk

11:43 TOMMASO or something crongbin

11:44 Luke F. Walton yeah

11:45 TOMMASO yeah

11:45 Luke F. Walton i'm embarrassed i've only read

11:47 TOMMASO airplane

11:47 Luke F. Walton it but like the

11:47 TOMMASO i think that's

11:48 Luke F. Walton magic oh

11:49 TOMMASO what it means i

11:50 Luke F. Walton is that what it means what language

11:51 TOMMASO think it means airplane i

11:52 Luke F. Walton in a language

11:52 TOMMASO in a language yeah

11:55 Luke F. Walton listeners comment what the hell how you say it and what i mean um but anyway i've listened to a bunch of that music but like it's the drums it's the drums like you change the drums you change

12:06 Luke F. Walton range it would not be a modern thing anymore it's like wolf pack it's the drums like you don't i don't know you can you could basically leave everything else that's going on and put in like a cheesy drum completely shifts it to like elevator music and not hip have the drums that they have everybody locked into it and it's modern and it slaps and it's exciting not to hate on the other things i'm a guitarist

12:31 TOMMASO No, of course not. No, you... you right they you need both um

12:34 Luke F. Walton yeah but

12:35 TOMMASO but

12:36 Luke F. Walton one

12:36 TOMMASO um

12:36 Luke F. Walton has more power what i'm saying is one has more power like

12:38 TOMMASO yeah yeah

12:39 Luke F. Walton that the snare drum of the airplane is uh yeah it shifts the decade like completely from what i'm listening to

12:47 TOMMASO yeah

12:48 Luke F. Walton it

12:49 TOMMASO man

12:49 Luke F. Walton between the whole thing

12:51 TOMMASO that's interesting then also you know there's like the whole like james brown thing where like everyone is a drum you

12:55 Luke F. Walton Yeah, yeah,

12:56 TOMMASO know so

12:56 Luke F. Walton yeah, yeah, totally.

12:56 TOMMASO you know yeah you'd go to like his like saxophone players like what do you play he's like a saxophone it's like no you play a drum or whatever and then same with the bass player and everyone he was like in that one movie or whatever he's getting like super mad and throwing chairs around because yeah

13:12 TOMMASO and then the trumpet player who was scared he was just like i play the drums and he's just like exactly i'm really particular with like touch too so

13:18 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

13:18 TOMMASO like if a guitar player does a really good take or you know does a fine take sometimes i'll like be i'll kind of like weigh in and be like hey can you you know touch it a little bit more like you know more percussive or just more like laid back or it's too spiky or it's you

13:33 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

13:33 TOMMASO know i think that's all kind of like in alignment with being a drummer and well not just me but just you know instruments in general yeah

13:42 Luke F. Walton yeah totally thinking about that articulation yeah and like one of the things that i thought unlocked my guitar playing was learning hand percussion because like what is strumming but egg shaker and tambourine and stuff so it's like

13:53 TOMMASO totally

13:55 Luke F. Walton and then it then it unlocks your left hand because then you realize hey if your right hand is funky enough you don't really need to play anything you could play one note you get the whole thing could be muted and it still is fun to listen to so then now you don't need to play as much yeah

14:07 TOMMASO right yeah i still do that because uh i was saying i like fake guitar or whatever but uh sometimes when i'm playing something a little too like intricate i'll like mute certain strings with like i don't know a piece of fabric or something that i have like around

14:20 Luke F. Walton yeah

14:20 TOMMASO so i can just like really like funk it up and like not have to worry about my left hand kind of like muting the right strings exactly the right way they're just like dead they just don't exist you know um

14:31 Luke F. Walton totally i do that on bass sometimes like the yeah

14:33 TOMMASO oh really you like

14:35 Luke F. Walton yeah

14:35 TOMMASO mute some of the strings with with

14:37 Luke F. Walton like i have a it's like it's like a little um so i'll do two things you can put a bit of um like foam near the bridge

14:46 TOMMASO or Right.

14:46 Luke F. Walton you could the carol k thing or you can grab uh I have like it's like a felt almost like a capo but it's like a felt capo you can wrap around kind of the

14:56 TOMMASO Oh, yeah, yeah.

14:57 Luke F. Walton neck of the bass

14:59 TOMMASO But does that mute the strings fully or does it

15:01 Luke F. Walton it

15:01 TOMMASO just

15:02 Luke F. Walton doesn't meet a full doesn't

15:02 TOMMASO kind of right

15:03 Luke F. Walton meet a full you can still play an open string but it just right doesn't have as much sustain and like frankly on bass like i don't play open strings that much so i'm just because i don't think they sound as good so it's like i i've been working on my technique to be able to do all of the muting stuff with my right hand but it's not great it's not a lot great at it so having a crutch could be nice it can be part of the sound

15:23 TOMMASO no i'll just take a i'll take like a piece of um like i made my my own like acoustic panels and

15:28 Luke F. Walton Yeah,

15:28 TOMMASO i have

15:28 Luke F. Walton okay.

15:28 TOMMASO still like these like this like this what is it just fabric that

15:32 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

15:32 TOMMASO i wrapped it around

15:33 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

15:33 TOMMASO and i just have extra so i'll take some of those and like sometimes tie it around like the strings so

15:37 Luke F. Walton Cool. Yeah.

15:38 TOMMASO they're just like completely muted

15:40 Luke F. Walton Sweet.

15:40 TOMMASO entirely

15:40 Luke F. Walton Yes.

15:41 TOMMASO it's

15:41 Luke F. Walton That's

15:42 TOMMASO only like

15:42 Luke F. Walton cool.

15:42 TOMMASO the three middle strings of the guitar work or whatever

15:45 Luke F. Walton Oh,

15:45 TOMMASO and

15:45 Luke F. Walton cool.

15:45 TOMMASO uh and

15:46 Luke F. Walton That's cool.

15:46 TOMMASO that's how i'll play it yeah

15:48 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

15:48 TOMMASO So I can like really dig in and again just because I didn't grow up. I don't have like the

15:53 TOMMASO the fingers or like especially the left hand that can like really do it for some songs you

15:58 Luke F. Walton yeah

15:58 TOMMASO know it's

15:58 Luke F. Walton yeah

15:58 TOMMASO a it's

15:58 Luke F. Walton for sure totally

15:59 TOMMASO an occasional thing but it makes me sound way better for sure yeah

16:02 Luke F. Walton yeah and that's like the studio magic right like it

16:05 TOMMASO it's totally cheating but it is what it is it

16:08 Luke F. Walton is what it is

16:08 TOMMASO sounds good if it sounds better than it is better you know

16:12 Luke F. Walton 100 100 and like some of those things are very like they have to You have to have so much muscle memory.

16:19 Luke F. Walton built up like you almost don't want you don't want to be thinking about what you're doing you just want to be able to do it for something like that and those are really hard things to learn really hard things to teach because it's kind of like yeah just like do it for 10 more years and then you'll get yeah

16:32 TOMMASO yeah right right do it yeah exactly that's exactly it everything is muscle memory i i teach on the side especially drums or not even on the side i've been teaching for a long time i've always kind of enjoyed teaching the drums you know everything is just muscle memory so it's like

16:46 TOMMASO you know to a kid it sounds like a lot of times i'm like okay now go home and play this like a hundred times but like a hundred times is really like nothing you know

16:53 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

16:53 TOMMASO like you can do that in like 20 minutes and like you'll never have a problem with it ever again so like yeah if i have to learn something new that's really complicated um or just difficult for me i'll just repeat it at like half speed for like 15 minutes and then it's like not an issue you know ever again just because it's It's all muscle memory.

17:13 TOMMASO It's like your brain is like a hundred times smarter than your body, you know or like your body just like it needs to be explained slowly a hundred times like what to do and then it's like oh okay now i get it and i can do it you

17:25 Luke F. Walton totally

17:26 TOMMASO know

17:26 Luke F. Walton totally and drums is like the most extreme version of that where you can like feel your neurons like fighting you and then you could go take a nap or wake up the next morning you're like oh i'm way better at that now i just needed

17:38 TOMMASO yeah

17:38 Luke F. Walton to you sleep

17:38 TOMMASO think that's a i've always wondered that just because you know i like i do teach drums and like that's obviously the instrument sort of practice the most by a mile do you find that it's like it is the most sort of like intense version of that way where

17:50 Luke F. Walton more than like guitar a guitar that exists too where like i you know really complicated passage or whatever go literally i'll do a heavy practice like say say i'm cramming i got you know 10 songs to learn there's a rehearsal next week just got or i'm subbing for somebody or whatever and i'll practice something i'll go take a nap i'll come back I'm not going to be a lot better at it and

18:12 TOMMASO right

18:12 Luke F. Walton that's just on guitar for drums I feel like I need a whole night's sleep like my brain

18:17 TOMMASO just

18:17 Luke F. Walton needs

18:17 TOMMASO all

18:17 Luke F. Walton to reverse

18:17 TOMMASO the neurons yeah working overtime

18:20 Luke F. Walton exactly and it's almost like practice is me telling my brain like hey when next time I sleep like really shed this cute yeah do this in my dreams haunt me with this drum beat

18:30 TOMMASO yeah yeah yeah i don't really i don't really practice that much anymore i feel like i practice things that i need need to know like

18:37 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

18:37 TOMMASO next week or

18:38 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

18:39 TOMMASO like tomorrow and

18:39 Luke F. Walton Uh-huh.

18:40 TOMMASO that's it which is usually like learning a song or like writing a song part or a drum part or whatever um sometimes a lot of the times i'm practicing in the studio if

18:48 Luke F. Walton Same.

18:49 TOMMASO again if i'm in my own studio and we have like time and stuff like that if i'm getting hired at somebody else's studio then i'll practice the song beforehand and stuff but yeah Some point I'm just like I'm not just gonna learn random rudiments, even

19:01 Luke F. Walton I

19:01 TOMMASO though

19:01 Luke F. Walton know.

19:01 TOMMASO I want to but

19:03 Luke F. Walton Right.

19:03 TOMMASO there's only so many things you can do in one day

19:06 Luke F. Walton Yeah. And also what I feel like at the professional level, the practice should be more like what's holding me back or what can't I do or what does the gig need me to do when you're practicing.

19:17 Luke F. Walton when you're just kind of a student or something like that that's the time to just be like all right what's interesting to me yeah because i also think that there's no better practice than actually being under the microscope and being in the studio so like i always think after i do an album i have grown so much more than if i went and just practiced for a year just because it's so much more intense and like i'm evaluating myself over a long period of time punching things in redoing something

19:44 Luke F. Walton thing um thinking holistically just like all of

19:47 TOMMASO Right.

19:47 Luke F. Walton the musical stuff not just like shedding not just like technical ability choice

19:53 TOMMASO Yeah, it's more like choice and like,

19:55 Luke F. Walton yeah

19:55 TOMMASO yeah,

19:56 Luke F. Walton yeah

19:56 TOMMASO practicing choice essentially is what that

19:58 Luke F. Walton right

19:59 TOMMASO is almost,

19:59 Luke F. Walton right

19:59 TOMMASO you know? Yeah.

20:00 Luke F. Walton totally

20:01 TOMMASO And it's funny because I do in so many of the sessions that I do I have these like go-to go-to uh fills or maybe like patterns that

20:11 Luke F. Walton Mmm.

20:11 TOMMASO just like I'm not kidding like work a hundred percent almost a hundred percent of the time

20:17 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

20:17 TOMMASO I did one like on this this past week I was at my buddy's studio for like his his client or whatever

20:24 TOMMASO and they're like oh that fill you did at the end of the song was like so perfect and it's just like I've done it on every song I've ever done in the studio um

20:33 Luke F. Walton Yes.

20:33 TOMMASO yeah there's just some patterns that just sound good you know and I'm never I've never been so much of like a

20:40 TOMMASO like a flashy drummer like sure like i love like maybe if i play a show like i love having like my one moment with like you know just ripping like some bottom licks or whatever but

20:48 Luke F. Walton Uh-huh, uh-huh.

20:48 TOMMASO other than that like you know as long as the fills are tasteful like um yeah like here's a hot take i think meg white it's a sick drummer i

21:01 Luke F. Walton Yes.

21:02 TOMMASO think the way she her feel and like her choices being so like childlike and so like obvious going back to being like doing what's the most obvious thing to do just made that like the white stripes specifically like so legendary right because you know you have like jack white who's obviously like

21:24 TOMMASO a savant and can do anything and then meg white who's almost like the opposite but in such a like because it's the drums maybe it's uh it's kind of like the ringo thing you know where he can barely play like a double stroke roll like at you know whatever 100 beats per minute or whatever but he's like yeah i can't go any faster than this or whatever on this like drum drum thing that i saw

21:46 TOMMASO And, but if you never need to, then whatever. He also played 300 like perfect drum parts, you know.

21:53 Luke F. Walton yeah i feel like that like that's kind of the best example ringo of what we were just talking about of like yeah you can practice rudiments you can do all these things forever but also you can just be one of the greatest drummers of all time and just be the song

22:08 TOMMASO Yeah.

22:08 Luke F. Walton do it in

22:08 TOMMASO Just show

22:09 Luke F. Walton a studio yeah

22:10 TOMMASO up and be sick and just be good.

22:11 Luke F. Walton right

22:12 TOMMASO Right.

22:12 Luke F. Walton i wonder if there's and like this i like practice so don't get me wrong but um and i miss i miss it i want to practice more but there's like a weird feeling of when you practice something flashy like you kind of want to do it in a song it's

22:23 TOMMASO Yeah.

22:24 Luke F. Walton like i'm practicing 360 tomahawk dunks here like i want to drop one on the court

22:29 TOMMASO Yeah, yeah. It's so funny because I have like these like go-to drum beats that

22:34 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

22:34 TOMMASO just when I say to the kids like it's like anything like any instrument, you know I'm sure you have like when you pick up a guitar there's

22:39 Luke F. Walton Yeah,

22:39 TOMMASO like one

22:40 Luke F. Walton for

22:40 TOMMASO thing

22:40 Luke F. Walton sure.

22:40 TOMMASO that you're going through right now that you like

22:41 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

22:42 TOMMASO always play like the first thing you do I have these like these grooves or these beats that i play that i like that i think are so sick because they're so musical like on their own to

22:51 Luke F. Walton Uh-huh.

22:51 TOMMASO just playing by myself and

22:52 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

22:53 TOMMASO i've been playing some of them i've been playing for years and i just like have never made a song out of them but yeah i don't know i should i've thought about it tons of times i just never never never happened

23:05 Luke F. Walton I'm curious about your solo music inspiration kind of where you draw from how frequently are you writing? for your

23:12 TOMMASO Sure.

23:12 Luke F. Walton own stuff versus other

23:12 TOMMASO I

23:12 Luke F. Walton people.

23:13 TOMMASO love my solo stuff. And I say that it's like, yeah, obviously, but I say that because I don't like, it's not like my main priority in life. but

23:25 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

23:26 TOMMASO um it's like secretly my favorite thing to work on like of all time you know because i'm just like i don't know it's it's different when it's you and like you're putting yourself out there and like it's you're gonna sing on it and stuff like that it's gonna you make all the decisions

23:40 TOMMASO uh which is why i made the project in the first place was like i've always been in bands and i really wanted to have like a no compromise situation where

23:48 Luke F. Walton Mmm.

23:48 TOMMASO i don't have to like be

23:49 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

23:49 TOMMASO like all right i like six out of the eight songs on this album like whatever you know like it is in a band but

23:56 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

23:57 TOMMASO I think I don't know I don't really know that's kind of like a weird one with the solo stuff just because I really have this like fire or I had this fire in me to like really.

24:07 TOMMASO um write music that I wanted to like show the world but I didn't necessarily want to like perform it and I'm not sure what even though I love performing and I have performed it I just have I just again it's just not a priority to like go out there and like play

24:22 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

24:22 TOMMASO live it really is just like a studio thing for me more so than anything and when I first started it was basically like during the pandemic or like right before the pandemic

24:33 TOMMASO i like started my like first song and i remember that was right after i was in this band for like a long time like five-ish years and we were like touring and we were like doing all this stuff and i was really cutting my teeth like getting good at playing and stuff like that for the first time and then once that ended

24:53 TOMMASO uh i wanted to produce again because before the band i would make like beats and like i was like the soundcloud era and like stuff like that i was like really into production and like hip-hop and stuff like that so i remember kind of

25:06 TOMMASO being inspired by music and wanting to be or wanting to make a song like this or like like like I had a vision in mind and so I ended up just making it and then I'm like well I guess I'm just gonna like sing on it you know and that's kind of how it started uh and then the pandemic happened right as that was all happening so I kind of like doubled down and made like two or three or four of them Yeah.

25:28 TOMMASO and uh and then I just I just loved it you know kind of goes back to like if i were to let me just rewind for a second i was so i started playing the drums when i was like 11 12 years old before that i played the piano and when i started playing the drums i was like obsessed with drums i like practice all day like three hours a day i would just sweat in my room and just like play them all day like all middle school uh

25:50 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

25:51 TOMMASO and then in like high school and stuff i got more i got ableton i got really into like hip-hop and like boom bap specifically and like i

26:00 TOMMASO it was really into like the like sampling stuff like that and like I was just really interested in all that so uh start producing and like again this was like those were like the SoundCloud days I was like selling beats to rappers and stuff like that and that was just like my thing it was drummer and like beats guy and then in college I like formed a band and then when I the band got kind of busy and so like I stopped producing and I was also in school so like I didn't have time to like just

26:25 TOMMASO do everything and then again that was like my first time playing like theaters and stuff like that was with this band in college you know having that experience of like touring and playing like bigger shows and we weren't like headlining theaters by the way we were just like opening for we weren't like huge or anything uh

26:41 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

26:41 TOMMASO but we got some really good opportunities and you know we were just like musicians we were cats i was playing like almost every weekend actually probably every weekend sometimes

26:51 TOMMASO two or three or four times a weekend for like years at a time and then after that when I moved back to Chicago that's when I started producing again and then I kind of had this new sort of like

27:03 TOMMASO life into it because I had this sort of like songwriting aspect of it and that's kind of where it was just kind of like a marriage of my entire like musical history I was making beats in my mind I would always refer to like the instrumentals as like the beats even though they were like

27:20 TOMMASO songs with like 145s or whatever i was producing songs with that sort of background and yeah and then i recorded i was like recording guitars and like all that all that all that kind of stuff sorry

27:30 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

27:30 TOMMASO i went on a tangent there

27:32 Luke F. Walton No,

27:32 TOMMASO for a second

27:32 Luke F. Walton it's fine.

27:32 TOMMASO but

27:33 Luke F. Walton It was fun.

27:33 TOMMASO yeah yeah yeah

27:34 Luke F. Walton I'm really curious about kind of Chicago music scene as somebody that's been a part of it for so long. I don't know a ton about it. I've played a few shows, but like, what's it like? How do you meet people? What are what's the scene like? What are some of your favorite venues? use

27:47 TOMMASO Sure.

27:47 Luke F. Walton okay

27:48 TOMMASO The scene is good, I think. I think right now there's kind of more of like a shoegazy and kind

27:56 Luke F. Walton yeah

27:56 TOMMASO of like slightly more of like a punk thing going on

27:59 Luke F. Walton yeah

28:00 TOMMASO a little bit and I could be wrong because I'm not like, I just know my scene and like my friends and my people, but I see that that's kind of like what's going on.

28:11 TOMMASO I think when I was like when maybe like pre-pandemic there was a little bit more of like a

28:19 TOMMASO sort of diy like i don't know how to explain it was a little different like it was kind of like more like twin peaks like you know the band twin peaks they were kind of like the godfathers of this whole like diy scene uh

28:29 Luke F. Walton Yeah, yeah, yeah.

28:29 TOMMASO and i think that's like the the scene and like the music that all of our all of us were kind of like playing at the time uh that kind of style like that like stonesy like kind of like uh sexy slacker rock sort of thing whereas

28:47 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

28:47 TOMMASO i feel like now it's a little bit more heavy there's like a little bit more like it's a little bit yeah maybe just like heavier edgier and like less like kind of like classic rock influenced i guess

28:59 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

28:59 TOMMASO or so to speak so my favorite venues shubas has to be one of the top ones you can't not mention shubas obviously the salt shed is like

29:10 TOMMASO the coolest venue in town that's like a big bucket list I haven't played there yet hopefully get too soon someday what else there's Lincoln Hall of course the shoebas in Lincoln Hall are kind of like a sister venue so Lincoln Hall is just like a little bit bigger but what's cool about shoebas is that like it's like the perfect sort of like 200 ish cap room that sold out is just like the best time ever

29:35 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

29:35 TOMMASO and the sound is really good and i love doing like those size shows just like

29:39 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

29:39 TOMMASO uh yeah just like 200 250 like all packed in this i'd rather do that like three days in a row than like solid shed i actually i don't know solid shed would be awesome because it's just like it's huge and it's like they're like the new the new like hot venue but maybe like I'd rather do that than like maybe a Lincoln Hall show which is like maybe two or three times as big you know chance

29:59 Luke F. Walton Sure.

29:59 TOMMASO like maybe two or three times as big you know

30:01 Luke F. Walton I'm curious, how did you start working with Chan?

30:03 TOMMASO Chan's just like my my boy he's just like my my best friend and we met through a friend i had like a high school friend that i had right when i moved back to chicago and from colorado i went to college in colorado

30:17 TOMMASO you know when i came back no one was here anymore so i hit my friend up her name is valentina she uh she's italian like i'm italian so like we're both like from italy italians like our parents both have like thick accents and like they're like

30:32 TOMMASO actually we're not like New York Brooklyn Italians they're like actually Italian people so like I've known her like most of my life and so she was one of the only people in town so I was like hey like what's up I just moved back here are you still here like what's going on

30:45 TOMMASO she's like yeah i'm at this bar and like um so i went over there and chan was there and that's how we met and they're actually engaged now fun fact

30:53 Luke F. Walton Awesome.

30:53 TOMMASO so that's uh that's how that ended up

30:57 Luke F. Walton All right, I'm going to interrupt this very important broadcast. What I'm asking for is for you to rate it five stars, share it with your friends. This is like the most important thing for this podcast to grow. So if you want to do this, you go into the podcast screen, right? You click on the dot dot dot on Spotify.

31:10 Luke F. Walton under there it says rate show and you go and you click it five stars if you could do that for me that's the best way for the algorithms all this stuff to share it out with the world i know that it's a lot to ask but if you could please please please just please just hit those three dots and a five star it would really help us out and helps us you know get the get the word out and spread the love of music so thank you if you're listening on youtube you know what to do like subscribe all that good stuff thank you so much and here's the rest of the episode

31:36 TOMMASO yeah we kind of hit it off he was uh he was doing his own thing at the time he was kind of like doing this like r&b sort of like prince thing uh

31:45 Luke F. Walton Yeah, okay.

31:45 TOMMASO he was he was on the voice also like

31:48 Luke F. Walton Oh,

31:49 TOMMASO around

31:49 Luke F. Walton really?

31:49 TOMMASO that time yeah

31:50 Luke F. Walton Nice.

31:50 TOMMASO he was like that was like still like that like he was just kind of getting started with music and uh i mean he can sing his ass off so

31:56 Luke F. Walton Yeah,

31:56 TOMMASO he was

31:56 Luke F. Walton yeah.

31:56 TOMMASO got on the voice so that was that whole kind of and it took us like a couple years to work together somehow

32:02 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

32:02 TOMMASO like maybe we all may i can't even remember but we like maybe talked about it casually but then it's just like hey man you should come well actually we should work on music together and we're like oh yeah like why didn't we think about that before i don't know why it took like two years to do it but uh we made this one song called can i see you later that song

32:22 TOMMASO is like still to this day like it's so representative of like this whole project of his his whole project and what's now kind of like our project that's kind of like a a

32:31 Luke F. Walton Yes.

32:31 TOMMASO duo sort of thing yeah it was kind of like the catalyst for everything and that EP that we did together that I like produced in

32:38 Luke F. Walton Yep.

32:39 TOMMASO my studio and stuff did fairly well um you mixed on it actually you mixed like two songs on it yeah yeah yeah because this was right around the time we did our collab too this was all sort of like the same time which is a banger by the way i still

32:53 Luke F. Walton Yes.

32:53 TOMMASO listen to it every once

32:54 Luke F. Walton I

32:54 TOMMASO in a while

32:54 Luke F. Walton do

32:54 TOMMASO i'm just like ah these these drums speaking of the drums i love the drums on that song

32:58 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

32:58 TOMMASO okay anyway yeah so we just met through like mutual friends i love that project because it's like you know my stuff is like really chill and kind of like is beachy and like i don't know why that's just kind of like if i'm gonna write a song and do everything that's just what what it is

33:14 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

33:14 TOMMASO uh he is kind of like allowing me to be in a project where there's a little bit more energy and

33:23 Luke F. Walton Yes.

33:23 TOMMASO a little bit more kind of like rock to it which is kind of what I grew up playing I just like

33:28 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

33:28 TOMMASO I just can't be the front man for something like that I just like it's it's not it's not in me to do it that's been great because I feel like some of my favorite music that I would never be able to have made I can like now make he's like my voice in a way you know like I can't sing like this but he can and then we wrote this song together so

33:46 Luke F. Walton yes

33:46 TOMMASO well here it is you know so

33:48 Luke F. Walton isn't

33:48 TOMMASO it's a good it's very cathartic to be in a project like that and um

33:52 Luke F. Walton it crazy how you can do different melodies too like they're in your head they just like when like at least this is my experience when i'm working with a vocalist who has a different range or different access to different things than i do it's easier for me to think of a melody that they can sing even if i can't necessarily sing it and it feels so cool it's like i'm a real songwriter right now i'm not just

34:12 TOMMASO yeah totally totally and i love like sometimes you'll be recording his vocals or something and

34:17 Luke F. Walton Yep.

34:18 TOMMASO i'll be giving him be giving him tips or like you know constructive criticism like oh saying like this whatever and uh he's just like oh sorry dude like blah blah and i'm like dude i could never in a thousand years do what you're doing for me to even critique it in the first place it's kind of ironic but you know it's really fun to be in a project where with like an actual like

34:37 TOMMASO good singer that's like seasoned and trained i think he has like a musical theater background so he

34:42 Luke F. Walton Cool,

34:42 TOMMASO can just like I belt

34:42 Luke F. Walton didn't know that.

34:43 TOMMASO and like yeah i'm like scared to belt i'm like scared of what's gonna happen you know i'm like yeah so that's how we met and you know um that's partially why maybe my project has been taking slightly a back seat in the last like just like few months really um just because we've been working on his stuff a lot

35:02 Luke F. Walton Cool.

35:03 TOMMASO and it's it feels good it's like the itch is uh is scratched if you will of

35:08 Luke F. Walton Yes.

35:09 TOMMASO like of like putting out your own music you know that being said i do have an ep that's like written that i am so happy about i just like have had no time to to do it i've been producing for and engineering for more people as well which has been sort of a focus

35:27 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

35:27 TOMMASO um so you know now i'm just kind of like doing that i'm sure when things settle down or like everything happens for a reason so

35:34 Luke F. Walton Yep.

35:34 TOMMASO when when eventually i'll do this this ep and it's gonna be great so not i'm not too worried about it i'm not as like a pressed or as like in a rush to put it out immediately as

35:45 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

35:46 TOMMASO i used to be you know when

35:47 Luke F. Walton Yeah. I get it.

35:48 TOMMASO when when we met you were putting out so much music

35:51 Luke F. Walton Yes.

35:51 TOMMASO you were doing like a song every two weeks or something yeah

35:54 Luke F. Walton Yeah. Sometimes every. Yeah.

35:55 TOMMASO i still i still can't i believe you because you would also mix it and everything right

36:01 Luke F. Walton yeah yeah it's doing the whole thing i really liked it it was it was a really really fun time i'd love to get back to it again but yeah i guess you know things happen for a reason as you say uh ebbs and flows looking forward to another flow

36:13 TOMMASO yeah also like as i've gotten older i just i don't even know what i'm trying to say but i just kind of do things that i want to do when i want to like if i don't want to do something i'm just not gonna gonna do it

36:23 Luke F. Walton Hmm.

36:24 TOMMASO especially

36:24 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

36:24 TOMMASO when it comes to like music like right now I don't want to like go downstairs and like sorry downstairs is my studio and

36:30 Luke F. Walton Okay.

36:30 TOMMASO like work on my song for like the next 12 hours whereas like some days that's like all I can

36:37 Luke F. Walton do Right.

36:37 TOMMASO and I can't do anything else until I do that you know so it's like today I want to like prepare for this podcast and like you know I did a little mixing for someone this morning and I'm like that's good I'm good that

36:47 Luke F. Walton That's good.

36:47 TOMMASO was a good day

36:47 Luke F. Walton Yeah. That's awesome. No, I hear you. I don't know. I think I think it is it's an interesting thing. Sometimes it feels like you have to negotiate with life and figure out like, okay, like these are the things that life wants me to do or I need to do and these are the things that I want to do and you kind of have to go in between them. But there's a season for each, I suppose. But yeah, it is what

37:06 TOMMASO yeah

37:06 Luke F. Walton it is.

37:06 TOMMASO i think i've always worn so many hats i don't know how you feel about this but i've always been like

37:12 TOMMASO I think even like a few years ago, now I feel like a little bit more grounded, but

37:17 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

37:17 TOMMASO even like a few years ago, I'm like, who am I? Am I like a singer? Am I a drummer? Am I a songwriter?

37:24 TOMMASO am I like a producer and it was almost confusing for me like when people would literally ask me like oh like who are you like

37:30 Luke F. Walton Yeah,

37:30 TOMMASO nice to meet you

37:31 Luke F. Walton yeah.

37:31 TOMMASO like what what's up and like other musicians I would I would barely even know like what to say whereas now I'm just like I'm a producer and a musician and I feel like happy with that but I think when I was like starting the project like my solo stuff I like you know I was like should I identify as like an artist and like that's like my main thing or Or not, you know, yeah,

37:51 Luke F. Walton Yeah, I really like producer because I produce things like I create stuff. I yeah like like

37:56 TOMMASO right

37:58 Luke F. Walton songwriter is like yeah i can songwrite all day and then no one would ever hear it because it's just in my phone or whatever like producing is like it's tangible go stream it now it's

38:08 TOMMASO yes

38:08 Luke F. Walton out yes yeah

38:08 TOMMASO produced it it's a product yeah

38:11 Luke F. Walton exactly right

38:12 TOMMASO it's like follow me on spotify or whatever but yeah no i think i've always been a producer like now that like in hindsight it's just like i've always just like that's what i am and that's who what that's really what it's been And I think I just kind of confused myself with like.

38:27 Luke F. Walton Uh-huh.

38:28 TOMMASO just like maybe what i was doing that day it's like well i worked on music i worked on my ep all day so if i go to a social thing i'm like oh i'm an artist i

38:35 Luke F. Walton yes

38:36 TOMMASO don't know

38:36 Luke F. Walton i

38:36 TOMMASO i

38:36 Luke F. Walton know what you're saying

38:37 TOMMASO also

38:37 Luke F. Walton i know what you're saying

38:38 TOMMASO don't

38:38 Luke F. Walton well

38:38 TOMMASO know um

38:39 Luke F. Walton because it's easy when you're in the mud or whatever to like be like this is what i am right now like this is what i've done for the last month but it's like yeah but like what have you done over the last five years it's like okay well yeah then that's actually a different definition

38:50 TOMMASO yeah it's also i'm learning it's okay to like just be a bunch of I feel

38:54 Luke F. Walton It

38:54 TOMMASO like everyone is,

38:55 Luke F. Walton is. It

38:55 TOMMASO not me

38:55 Luke F. Walton is a life

38:56 TOMMASO yet.

38:56 Luke F. Walton essential.

38:56 TOMMASO So yeah, I don't have to pick.

38:58 Luke F. Walton No, and I'm hoping that we get to a point, I don't know if this will ever be the case, but where that'll be really celebrated because like what the reason why we're interesting is not any individual thing that we do. It's the combination of all the things that we do and learn and the music that we decide to consume and make and participate in. It can never be as small as...

39:19 Luke F. Walton a single genre or a single like keyword yeah

39:21 TOMMASO no for sure i feel like so like as a producer i didn't know like i know i wanted i had like opinions and i felt like confidence like in my opinions or whatever like like oh like i think it should be this but i didn't know what that sounded like until like i made at least like 15 songs

39:42 Luke F. Walton Yes,

39:42 TOMMASO you know

39:42 Luke F. Walton yes,

39:43 TOMMASO then you kind of like you like take a step back and you're like oh like this is what my like production ear sounds like you

39:49 Luke F. Walton know yeah,

39:49 TOMMASO even

39:49 Luke F. Walton yes.

39:50 TOMMASO beyond just my project but just like other people that i like have produced for like engineered for yeah it's like my playlist or like my like you know my produced by Tommaso playlist there is definitely like a through line whereas like when there was only like six songs that existed it's like okay maybe but also oh you know there's not enough like data to

40:08 Luke F. Walton Yeah,

40:09 TOMMASO like know

40:09 Luke F. Walton right.

40:09 TOMMASO what

40:10 Luke F. Walton Right.

40:10 TOMMASO you actually sound like I feel like now I know what I sound like and it's interesting to see the patterns like I'm attracted to like this sort of snare sound or like this amount of this sort of kick sound or like this amount of low end or whatever yeah so that's been kind of like interesting to kind of like in retrospect like learn about your own production and like have an imagination of like what it could be but until you make you know

40:32 TOMMASO 20 songs you don't really know like what you what your sound is yeah

40:34 Luke F. Walton For sure. And also the way that like success happens is it's all it's all power laws and power laws require a bunch of data points. So it's like you might end up falling on one end or the other of the distribution, but it's typically is like your biggest song is by far your biggest song. And then the next biggest song is like half the size of that half the size of that half the size of that all the way down.

40:57 Luke F. Walton down and when you make like six songs you might have just picked the six that are like way down on the like your what is meant to be your 500 through 506

41:05 TOMMASO Right.

41:05 Luke F. Walton song and that's part of the reason why i make a lot of music is i really believe in that kind of stuff and like creative act unless you're paul mccartney or something you kind of just got to do a bunch of stuff and then things are going to come out the other end and some people really like some stuff some people won't really like the other stuff and doesn't even necessarily mean that one or the other is

41:23 Luke F. Walton is good or worse it just is the way that it kind of comes out the machine yeah

41:27 TOMMASO no it's a good point i think i've always been like early on i think maybe everyone does this i don't want to say everyone but i think a lot of people maybe fall into this but i was so like perfectionist about each

41:38 Luke F. Walton for sure for sure me

41:38 TOMMASO song

41:39 Luke F. Walton too yeah

41:39 TOMMASO like i would take so long to just do one song because i'm like i made a

41:43 Luke F. Walton song yeah

41:43 TOMMASO and like i like

41:44 Luke F. Walton yeah

41:44 TOMMASO it and so

41:45 Luke F. Walton exactly

41:45 TOMMASO like so

41:45 Luke F. Walton you want to

41:46 TOMMASO like

41:46 Luke F. Walton stay behind

41:46 TOMMASO just make it as good as as good as it could possibly be you know even if it takes like an absurd amount of time Yeah, i also was learning how to like use logic or whatever at

41:54 Luke F. Walton for

41:55 TOMMASO the time but

41:55 Luke F. Walton sure.

41:55 TOMMASO yeah now i'm just like okay we made we recorded three songs today and then like by next week they're all going to be like done and

42:03 Luke F. Walton Yeah,

42:03 TOMMASO like sent out to mastering or mixing or whatever we're doing with it i think you know this but like my personally most streamed song there's like a label deadline where they're like hey it's great that you're going on vacation just make sure to send us a song before you leave if and this was like three days before so i just like literally stayed up all night like maybe twice or something and

42:23 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

42:23 TOMMASO was just like exhausted on the plane and was just like in full just like living in the song for two days and

42:29 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

42:29 TOMMASO it turned out great you know so yes

42:33 Luke F. Walton Yep. Can be like that.

42:33 TOMMASO there's merit to that for

42:35 Luke F. Walton For

42:35 TOMMASO sure

42:35 Luke F. Walton sure. For sure. And all of those things, they kind of compound like understanding how logic works. It's like just that alone takes so much time. of

42:43 TOMMASO Yeah.

42:44 Luke F. Walton just being able to make it so you have an idea it happens on the computer it happens in whatever you're working on hardware even too that that and then like taste and believing in your taste and being confident and confident enough to speak up and stick to your guns and and also know when to not and compromise and then also like the technical facility and the confidence to like leave some mistakes or some humanity some weirdness like that that could be hard to

43:09 Luke F. Walton swallow especially when you have the ability to perfect it you know yeah

43:12 TOMMASO yeah well that's yeah i used to be such a perfectionist with

43:17 Luke F. Walton of

43:17 TOMMASO like drums and stuff like

43:18 Luke F. Walton course drum because

43:18 TOMMASO comping

43:19 Luke F. Walton you can you can you can move every single transient to perfectly

43:22 TOMMASO every single

43:22 Luke F. Walton on grid

43:23 TOMMASO thing you

43:23 Luke F. Walton or

43:24 TOMMASO can make anything sound like anything and then and then uh but as soon as ai started being part of

43:29 Luke F. Walton the i

43:29 TOMMASO conversation

43:29 Luke F. Walton know right

43:30 TOMMASO i'm just like this is one take i don't care like this is fine it's

43:34 Luke F. Walton agreed

43:35 TOMMASO great and

43:35 Luke F. Walton agreed that's

43:36 TOMMASO also the it only

43:37 Luke F. Walton thing

43:37 TOMMASO just doesn't

43:37 Luke F. Walton i think that's matter come out of ai honestly

43:38 TOMMASO yeah

43:39 Luke F. Walton is

43:39 TOMMASO yeah

43:39 Luke F. Walton like

43:40 TOMMASO that's

43:40 Luke F. Walton like yeah

43:40 TOMMASO interesting yeah i never thought of it that way but i completely agree it's the best thing that came out of ai is that no one wants to use it and they're doubling down and making things more human

43:51 Luke F. Walton more human and also like i do in my normal life i am leaving more typos when i type and stuff it's like proof proof

43:58 TOMMASO huh right right yeah

44:00 Luke F. Walton of life

44:00 TOMMASO i think when I think when chat came out like I was using it for emails and stuff

44:04 Luke F. Walton For

44:04 TOMMASO and then

44:04 Luke F. Walton sure.

44:04 TOMMASO I was just like no more

44:05 Luke F. Walton Yeah,

44:05 TOMMASO no

44:06 Luke F. Walton totally.

44:06 TOMMASO just send it you know yeah

44:08 Luke F. Walton Yep.

44:08 TOMMASO it's so funny leaving the typos in I completely know what you mean it's just like this yeah it like grosses me out to see like a chat a perfectly chat email

44:17 Luke F. Walton I know.

44:18 TOMMASO and

44:18 Luke F. Walton I know.

44:19 TOMMASO it's made me faster also so it's like I was able to double down and like and now that i don't like listen to every single take i did on

44:28 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

44:28 TOMMASO this one measure of the song yeah

44:30 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

44:30 TOMMASO and then i also had this other friend who i was co-producing with i was just like oh should we listen to we did like four guitar takes and he looked at me so like nonchalant he's like it doesn't matter like it's fine and he's like he's like a pro you know he's like trust me like they're all doesn't matter just the song sounds fine so like let's just do the next thing and

44:49 Luke F. Walton Yes, yes, exactly.

44:50 TOMMASO for some reason the way he like his look on his face or like the way it was communicated stuck with me and i'm just like yeah move on it sounds good nothing like takes you out

44:50 TOMMASO for some reason the way he like his look on his face or like the way it was communicated stuck with me and i'm just like

45:02 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

45:02 TOMMASO That's the thing if nothing takes Nothing you out then

45:03 Luke F. Walton takes you

45:04 TOMMASO there's

45:04 Luke F. Walton out.

45:04 TOMMASO really no reason to even

45:05 Luke F. Walton Really well said. Exactly. Same thing with mixing. It's like the moments that you go, woo. it's like okay

45:09 TOMMASO right

45:09 Luke F. Walton fix that

45:10 TOMMASO right

45:10 Luke F. Walton but like if you can get all the way through the song and never have the moment like you can be doing something else reading a book listen to the song in the background and nothing pokes at you it's like yeah maybe the mix is done just

45:21 TOMMASO yeah yeah

45:22 Luke F. Walton harder to get to it seems

45:24 TOMMASO it's kind of like mixing is like cleaning like a really messy house where you're just like ah like i don't even know where to start like do i start like with the

45:35 TOMMASO with the kitchen or do i pick up these socks or whatever and then like you do all of it and then but eventually you're you clean the whole thing and eventually it's done you know what i mean it's kind of what it's like or yeah like sometimes i do like my studio no i don't need to do another analogy but sometimes i'm going to anyway but sometimes i uh move my studio to this house my family's like house in indiana and um

46:00 TOMMASO we do sessions there sometimes if it's like a nice like three to four day session it's nice to go there because everyone can like sleep there

46:06 Luke F. Walton Yeah,

46:06 TOMMASO and like you

46:06 Luke F. Walton for

46:07 TOMMASO know just

46:07 Luke F. Walton sure. It's nice.

46:07 TOMMASO be away from the city and all that and moving the studio takes so long because it's like there's so many there's so much cableage there's like the computer the mouse the every single thing the drums like we have a drum set now they're tearing everything down

46:24 TOMMASO driving all the way over there then unloading and setting it all back up it's like eventually you're done you know it's

46:31 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

46:31 TOMMASO like it's gonna take like eight hours but eventually it's finished and you're there that's kind of what mixing is like it's like it might take eight hours and like you fix one thing at a time it's so much work to mix it's really what it is it's like you need to like be ready to just work

46:47 Luke F. Walton oh i know i know i know it's so funny too because like like your analogy of cleaning the house um the first thing is like i gotta get all of my tracks and i don't do this for my own music because i know where everything is it's like in my own house like i know that's in that like weird dusty cabinet like i got you that's from my cowbell

47:04 TOMMASO Organized

47:04 Luke F. Walton drawer yeah

47:04 TOMMASO mess, yeah.

47:05 Luke F. Walton but like if when i'm mixing somebody else's stuff first thing is like i group everything color everything send everything label things rename things things and now i can start like i really really just have to be like okay how many tracks did i miss anything where are my inputs and okay now we can begin like before i even hear anything yeah

47:25 TOMMASO before you even hear anything yeah

47:26 Luke F. Walton it's just i i just

47:27 TOMMASO need

47:27 Luke F. Walton yeah

47:27 TOMMASO i need to start doing that do you start do if you don't mind me asking do you kind of just like level everything pretty perfectly first or do

47:36 Luke F. Walton you no

47:36 TOMMASO just sort of not perfectly sorry but

47:37 Luke F. Walton i don't

47:37 TOMMASO like uh

47:38 Luke F. Walton level i do not i don't level at all what i like to do is so i like to get like all my drums and percussion bass like everything all colored and routed the way that i typically like to and i'll change it later but like and then the next thing is i like to get kind of a loose master bus like two bus um going for you know like limiting some compression and stuff like that so then i can kind of

47:59 Luke F. Walton kind of open stuff up and have it be too loud or kind of crazy and start to kind of just get the gist of sections and like i was saying drums and vocals are what matters most so that's where i'll start is i will get like okay what are the decisions that they made about the drum kit like generally like solo all of the drums not just the kick and snare and like okay kind of get the gist maybe level in the drums a little bit and then bring in the vocals and then okay how do the drums and the vocals kind of

48:26 Luke F. Walton kind of play together or don't do i need to do something more aggressive with like the panning like chai and mana and kana like they often have frequencies that kind of clash with like a hi-hat it's

48:37 TOMMASO Okay.

48:37 Luke F. Walton like i really try to like carve out with panning and the interaction between those two things like really really early on to like have some clarity and then start to layer in like okay what's the most important guitar like kind of sample of it be like okay now

48:53 Luke F. Walton welcome in you know like let's bring in the base like now i kind of like start inviting more people to the party but i try to get like the the guests of honor the heads of the table like feeling pretty good before i start welcoming more people to the table yeah

49:05 TOMMASO yeah interesting approach because i'm still kind of like i'm not still learning it's just i'm always going to be learning but

49:11 Luke F. Walton me

49:11 TOMMASO because

49:11 Luke F. Walton too yeah for sure yeah

49:12 TOMMASO the reason why i ask you about if you like just level everything with like no plugins say maybe besides like your like mix bus or whatever

49:18 Luke F. Walton because yeah

49:19 TOMMASO sometimes like it's like i'm tempted to do that but then i'm like but i gotta get these drums to start just

49:23 Luke F. Walton Uh

49:23 TOMMASO to hit

49:23 Luke F. Walton -huh.

49:24 TOMMASO you

49:24 Luke F. Walton Uh

49:24 TOMMASO know so

49:24 Luke F. Walton -huh. Yeah,

49:24 TOMMASO like and

49:25 Luke F. Walton yeah, yeah.

49:25 TOMMASO then that's just gonna take plugins like

49:27 Luke F. Walton Right.

49:27 TOMMASO off the

49:27 Luke F. Walton Oh,

49:27 TOMMASO bat

49:28 Luke F. Walton yeah,

49:28 TOMMASO because

49:28 Luke F. Walton for sure, for sure, for sure.

49:28 TOMMASO like a dry drum even if i get get it perfectly it could sound so different if i like you know just start doing stuff to the kick drum and like maybe

49:37 Luke F. Walton Oh, no, totally.

49:38 TOMMASO even adding like trigger or whatever um

49:40 Luke F. Walton Right.

49:40 TOMMASO so there's and then i'm just kind of like already kind of down a rabbit hole just by the time i'm done with

49:46 Luke F. Walton Uh

49:46 TOMMASO the drums

49:46 Luke F. Walton -huh.

49:46 TOMMASO but

49:46 Luke F. Walton Uh

49:47 TOMMASO i try

49:47 Luke F. Walton -huh.

49:47 TOMMASO to make the drums sound if the drums sound good there's so many songs where like if the drums are good then it's like automatically going to be a good song like if the song is good it's it needs to be like solid you know but the drums are good then it's like automatically this is going to be a sick song people are going to add it to the playlist so i try to get the drums to just feel like a song and sometimes if like the bass and the drums

50:07 TOMMASO drums

50:07 Luke F. Walton Mm

50:07 TOMMASO like feel

50:07 Luke F. Walton -hmm.

50:07 TOMMASO like a whole song like you could just walk away with that then

50:11 Luke F. Walton Yep.

50:12 TOMMASO it's like then you're in a good spot sometimes

50:13 Luke F. Walton I totally agree.

50:14 TOMMASO yeah i guess that's a there's a practice for me like now i try to use as few plugins for that as possible you know

50:21 Luke F. Walton Yeah. For

50:22 TOMMASO um

50:22 Luke F. Walton sure.

50:23 TOMMASO like i did a mix recently where i'm like there's nothing on the drum bus somehow

50:25 Luke F. Walton Cool.

50:26 TOMMASO i

50:26 Luke F. Walton Wow.

50:27 TOMMASO made it work i

50:28 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

50:28 TOMMASO don't know or maybe i added one thing at the end like

50:31 Luke F. Walton Yeah,

50:32 TOMMASO uh like by the by the final mix there was like a compressor on or something like that but yeah yeah sometimes i'll impress myself

50:38 Luke F. Walton with I've

50:39 TOMMASO i

50:39 Luke F. Walton definitely love used a

50:39 TOMMASO eqing

50:40 Luke F. Walton plugin to kick drum throughout for sure.

50:41 TOMMASO i

50:41 Luke F. Walton Yeah, yeah.

50:42 TOMMASO don't

50:42 Luke F. Walton Totally.

50:42 TOMMASO know what it is about that i could just do that for

50:44 Luke F. Walton Yes.

50:45 TOMMASO like hours and i gotta be like i gotta stop doing this kick Okay, just love it. It's the first only unmuted thing in the whole song

50:53 Luke F. Walton i hear you yeah i think i think it's like i do i do the plug-in thing but not nearly as aggressively until i start to welcome everybody to the party and then i start being pretty aggressive but like yeah i want i want the drums and the bass to be able to carry a whole song like you're saying just on their own um want the drums and the vocal to be able to do that it's it depends on the genre but usually like

51:12 Luke F. Walton like synths and guitars and all that kind of stuff those are those come in to backfill for like our genre i feel like if i was doing acdc kind of rock music it's totally different vibe

51:21 TOMMASO just on mute everything yeah

51:23 Luke F. Walton yeah exactly because like and it also would probably be like all recorded really well and there wouldn't be that many tracks and be like all right old

51:30 TOMMASO yeah so

51:30 Luke F. Walton school early

51:31 TOMMASO you add vocals in early you're

51:33 Luke F. Walton yeah

51:33 TOMMASO saying yeah i

51:34 Luke F. Walton not necessarily

51:35 TOMMASO need to start doing

51:35 Luke F. Walton not

51:35 TOMMASO that i think

51:36 Luke F. Walton necessarily like constant you know i'll mute them sometimes still but like i like to get the sense of like okay what are we doing here like it's sometimes sometimes like the drums will indicate like hey i want to be big i want to be stadium i want to like really and then you pull and the vocals are all whispery and we're like whoa wait Wait, I

51:53 TOMMASO Mm,

51:54 Luke F. Walton can't

51:54 TOMMASO right,

51:54 Luke F. Walton tricking.

51:54 TOMMASO right. Yeah. because i try to get the like i was saying earlier like i think of it as like a instrumental like if i were to mute the vocals i want the instrumental to

52:02 Luke F. Walton yeah yo

52:03 TOMMASO be like

52:03 Luke F. Walton 100 i totally agree with that for

52:05 TOMMASO a beat or whatever quote unquote a but beat

52:07 Luke F. Walton then again sometimes sometimes sometimes uh that

52:10 TOMMASO yeah

52:10 Luke F. Walton can be a trap because like you want to have enough room for the vocal and you want the vocal to be the star you

52:14 TOMMASO of

52:14 Luke F. Walton know but i agree course with you like yeah so if i'm gonna trade off i would definitely trade off a worse instrumental to make the vocal the star like if the if the instrumental felt a little like

52:23 Luke F. Walton like little sad um that actually might be sometimes a good sign uh not always but sometimes depends on the vibe but it is funny like talking about mixing is really funny because it is so different every single song because they all want different things broad strokes that's usually how i approach it at least

52:36 TOMMASO yeah i feel like i'm just now getting to the point well not just now but in the last year or two getting to the point where i can kind of like recreate like there's consistency like i'm not just like going through a bunch of like like presets for

52:49 Luke F. Walton right

52:49 TOMMASO like on like on like ozone or something

52:51 Luke F. Walton totally

52:52 TOMMASO to like see if the song like finally feels good or whatever oh yeah that's like 5k-ish or this is like 600 hertz or like whatever like it used to be such a like a guessing game um

53:02 Luke F. Walton totally yeah right and

53:03 TOMMASO yeah so it just

53:04 Luke F. Walton then it's

53:04 TOMMASO really

53:04 Luke F. Walton so easy

53:05 TOMMASO just takes yeah now it's just like right

53:07 Luke F. Walton you get that intuition you're like you get the feeling in your gut you're like too much weight right here pull it down nailed it like before you had to be like on pro q broke you and you're like kind of like doing the solo thing and dragging it around like sweeping it around like oh it's

53:19 TOMMASO i

53:19 Luke F. Walton over here

53:19 TOMMASO never do that yeah i never do that anymore

53:21 Luke F. Walton when i was early on early on

53:23 TOMMASO yeah

53:23 Luke F. Walton i was all

53:23 TOMMASO yeah

53:23 Luke F. Walton i had

53:23 TOMMASO yeah to and

53:24 Luke F. Walton i had to yeah

53:24 TOMMASO then i'm just like oh my god there's so many there's so many gross frequencies like i gotta get rid of all of them

53:29 Luke F. Walton exactly

53:29 TOMMASO you know and

53:30 Luke F. Walton exactly

53:30 TOMMASO then the whole thing is just like deflated yeah

53:33 Luke F. Walton totally and one of the things that uh set my mind right for that was live mixing it's Mm. like people do some of that for live mixing for like the toms sound good you know it's

53:44 TOMMASO Yeah.

53:44 Luke F. Walton live that are just kind of loud and sounds good like in recording it's like okay i gotta like clean up all of these and roll that off and you know get that tom really tight and whatever and it's like you need to do all that work for it

53:59 TOMMASO yeah

53:59 Luke F. Walton especially

53:59 TOMMASO yeah

53:59 Luke F. Walton with

53:59 TOMMASO right

53:59 Luke F. Walton recorded okay if it's recorded poorly then yes unfortunately you have to do all the work yeah

54:04 TOMMASO right right yeah sometimes i had a mix where the lore tom was

54:09 Luke F. Walton yeah

54:09 TOMMASO resonating of course uh but

54:11 Luke F. Walton totally exactly

54:12 TOMMASO it sounded so sick that

54:14 Luke F. Walton yes

54:14 TOMMASO i like basically put it in like the center and it was

54:18 Luke F. Walton yes

54:18 TOMMASO like it was just i can't even explain it was just dope it just sounded Sick and so I basically added like a floor tom sample for

54:29 Luke F. Walton cool

54:29 TOMMASO there to be like the real floor tom on like the right ear uh like with trigger or whatever because i'm like i need this to be in the center because it's just sick played so well with maybe like the key of the song or something

54:41 Luke F. Walton yeah yeah yeah yeah that's

54:42 TOMMASO it really felt filled in this sort of like foundation really filled out the landscape of the drums

54:47 Luke F. Walton well said it also points to like don't just do the thing always like like the easiest thing to do is just strip silence off it goes it's like but you never listened to it you did something without listening to it like how dare you like

55:00 TOMMASO Right, right, right.

55:00 Luke F. Walton low end scooping out low end can be the best can be a total trap it's

55:05 TOMMASO Yeah, low end is just a beast of a

55:08 Luke F. Walton a beast we do whole podcasts on that all

55:11 TOMMASO tan.

55:11 Luke F. Walton right so Tommaso this show is called love music more and this segment is called love music why i'm excited to ask you this question Why do you love music?

55:20 TOMMASO man that's such a difficult question i sometimes ask myself and i knew this was coming too and i didn't really prepare for it but and

55:30 Luke F. Walton I want to sneak it on you.

55:31 TOMMASO sometimes i just i genuinely ask myself sometimes i'm like do i love music because like

55:36 TOMMASO I don't I don't necessarily like listen to a ton of music if I've been working on music a lot and

55:42 Luke F. Walton Yep.

55:42 TOMMASO I work on a lot of music all the time so like it's like I don't know if I chose music it's almost like it feels like music chose me and I know that sounds so cliche but it's like it's just always been part of my like consciousness like I can't even remember a time where like I wasn't into music my aunt said that when I was like a baby I had this like little

56:03 TOMMASO xylophone toy and like i would hear these melodies like on the tv or whatever and i would try to like recreate them on the the xylophone and i could do it apparently i mean i don't know if there's probably like five notes on the thing but apparently uh she says that i could do it so i feel like i just always gravitated towards it and like it was just part such a part of my identity when i was a kid yeah it really shaped my upbringing in a way

56:28 TOMMASO um i don't know who i am without music even though i it's almost like do i love music or is it just kind of like part of like my everyday sort of like i just live and breathe it i think and i'm very blessed and to be in a position to have my life kind of taken me down this this road i get to do what i love it's almost like i am music i don't know if that answers the question but that's

56:49 Luke F. Walton It does. I've actually been waiting

56:50 TOMMASO what

56:50 Luke F. Walton for somebody to give this answer because it's like the question of like, do you love air? Do

56:54 TOMMASO yeah right it's

56:55 Luke F. Walton you love light?

56:56 TOMMASO and then it's just like everyone loves music it's like no no shit it's like my uh sometimes I think that like what I do is so like selfish

57:08 Luke F. Walton yeah

57:08 TOMMASO because all i do is just like hey guys check out what i made you know and everyone's like cool uh or as like my mom is like a doctor and she like actually saved lives today or whatever um but you know art you know art i'm not obviously art is important it's necessary for like the human experience and like we can't

57:30 TOMMASO escape it but yeah I don't know what else to say I could talk about we could have started with this question and probably

57:35 Luke F. Walton yeah

57:35 TOMMASO still be talking

57:36 Luke F. Walton exactly

57:36 TOMMASO about it so yeah

57:37 Luke F. Walton and so that's a little much like you can't can't come on that strong you know hey why do you love music i also wonder about like music used to be a very apprenticeship based like a different kind like would beethoven say that he loved music it's like he was music but

57:55 TOMMASO Yeah.

57:55 Luke F. Walton like do we i don't know i i find

57:58 TOMMASO Yeah,

57:58 Luke F. Walton this that's very interesting

57:58 TOMMASO a good question.

57:59 Luke F. Walton it's like a vocation certainly but

58:00 TOMMASO Yeah.

58:00 Luke F. Walton is it yeah

58:01 TOMMASO or like martial arts maybe it's

58:03 Luke F. Walton Uh

58:03 TOMMASO like do you love jiu-jitsu or whatever or like is this just like your way of i don't know if you're like really hardcore about it you know i genuinely think music chose me that i've been lucky enough to do it like essentially full-time if you include like the teaching stuff that

58:20 Luke F. Walton Yeah,

58:21 TOMMASO i

58:21 Luke F. Walton of course.

58:21 TOMMASO i'm just lucky enough to do it every day and so just part of my everyday experience and it's my job I do feel like it chose me. I would have chosen it back.

58:30 TOMMASO But yeah, I do ask myself if I love music sometimes or not, because I don't listen to sometimes I'm like, I need new music to listen to. And like, there's so many albums that, you know, take me out sometimes that I'm just like, do I even like music? Like what's going on?

58:45 Luke F. Walton Ha, ha, ha, ha. Well,

58:50 TOMMASO Um,

58:50 Luke F. Walton but then again, exactly. this is love, right? It's got to, it's got seasons.

58:53 TOMMASO Right.

58:54 Luke F. Walton I'll ask you that again in like 10 years. Yes, We'll see if you yes, were like,

58:57 TOMMASO I'll be back in 10 years. Maybe I'll have a more definitive answer. I'll have just a one liner.

59:03 Luke F. Walton Exactly. I'll have more gray in my chin. So where can people listen to your music? Where can they connect with you?

59:08 TOMMASO Sure. So my solo project is called Tommaso, T-O-M-M-A-S-O, all caps. That's my first name.

59:15 TOMMASO I am Chan Fuze is my other project that's a C-H-A-N space Fuze F-U-Z-E and I have a playlist on Spotify called produced by Tommaso which is just pretty much all of it everything I've done in the last few years and probably the best place to connect is Instagram just send me a DM if you want to work together or just say hello and yeah it's probably the best that's that's it awesome

59:43 Luke F. Walton Hell yeah, man. Well, thank you so much for hopping on the pod. This is a super fun combo.

59:47 TOMMASO yeah thank you so much this is great