Modern day, making beats and doing urban music, Dre. Dre is a common answer. But he’s really into instrumentation. He brings the bass, the guitars. I like drama in my music. I like my music to tell a story minus the words. So I could put it to a movie and it sets the tone. The way old school music use to be. The great thing about the 80’s was you had entire soundtracks written for movies, you don’t have that anymore. You have music directors picking the popular songs and putting them on a cd and calling it a movie soundtrack. That’s not what they did with the Breakfast Club or 16 Candles. Those movies are iconic because the music was written for them.
As for Artists, that’s a tough one. There are artists that I like for detailed reasons. I can’t say there’s one artist I like as a whole. Phil Collins as a drummer. He’s the man. The fact that he transition from drummer to singer / songwriter and did it well. Mick Fleetwood – the man makes it look effortless. If you ever watch him drum, it’s if he’s tapping the drum, it’s so natural for him. Keith Urban as a guitar player. The man is ridiculous on his guitar.
Every song of his has so much energy. There’s something that he puts into those songs, I don’t know if it’s him or his producers or the way that he writes but every song that he writes has this amazing energy. He can play the bar chords, solo, he can do it all.
As for singers, I’m not really inspired by any lately. I’m not seeing or hearing anything magical or awesome. Everything has seemed to plateau and the talent bar has been set and it’s just staying at one spot. I don’t see anyone pushing the bar. If you’re looking for real talent these days, country still demands that you still have a certain level of it. It’s not like pop, urban and hip hop where it’s not talent dependent, it more about image, where in country, you don’t really need to have a great image. If you can sing, people are going to love you.
tHE RIZE: How have you built your clients and contacts?
aLLON: Contacts have come from my years in the industry, mostly state side. Here in the Maritimes, it’s been a bit harder just for the fact that there really isn’t any industry here in Moncton. That’s my opinion, I could be wrong. The arts and entertainment scene here is a bit weak, especially when you have Halifax and Charlottetown with a better music, art and entertainment scene than Moncton.
The WE. Music Productions Inc.