Music major records solo album ‘dramatic cinematic’

Students may hear they are young and have all the time in the world to find a career or find themselves.

Citrus College music major Shane Malins has heard this saying his whole life, but has a different perspective on the saying.

“People always tell me you’re a kid you have all the time in the world,” Malins said. “But I always think no, I have no time and that is drive to push me on every day.”

After the fall out of Malins first band Fortune Boy, he wasted no time recording a full 10 song album by himself in the sanctuary of his room. Malins new solo project is called Amour Glamour, and his album titled “Dramatic Cinematic” came out on Feb. 14.

The album has been out for a little over two months and has already reached over 6,000 streams on Spotify and related artist on Spotify.

On Spotify an artist must reach over 100 monthly plays for related artists to appear on their page. Amour Glamour has 326 monthly listeners, the more monthly listeners the more coverage an artist gets.

Malins plays guitar, bass, piano, synthesizers, omnichord, drum machine and vocals for the album. He also mixed and edited the whole album himself, with no prior experience of what it takes to produce an album on his own.

“The hardest part was learning Pro Tools,” Malins said. He learned by watching Youtube tutorials.

He wanted to use the program because it is the most professional software in producing music.

Malins already knew guitar, bass, synths and piano, but omnichord and drum machine was learned during the process of the album. All instruments were learned by watching YouTube, and knowledge of playing music since he was 11 years old.

The album took a little over a year to produce. At the start of the process, Malins’ former band, Fortune Boy, had a falling out.

When Fortune Boy first came together they were playing concerts at places like The Glasshouse in Pomona.

“After two months all of Claremont knew us and I saw our potential,” Malins said. “But they (the other band members) just wanted to party and play shows.”

Malins made the decision to start Amour Glamour toward the end of Fortune Boy when his bandmates were not taking the band as serious as him.

“They weren’t taking it serious so I made a contract for a new band,” Malins said.

The contract had rules such as no coming to band practice under the influence to make the new band more professional. But, when Fortune Boy members saw the contract through a mutual friend, this is when the falling out happened.

“They took it the wrong way, like ‘he’s  ranting against us’,” Malins said.

However, with his time with Fortune Boy he gained a lot of experience and success. By playing live shows and recording one albums “Chris” and one self titled EP.

Over the next year Malins put his full focus in this new project, making it a priority. Everything else in his life came second.

“I wasn’t doing laundry, going out, I had no friends because I was so obsessed with making the album,” Malins said.

For a while Malins said he had become a manic artist. He had trash everywhere in his room. Lyrical notes and millions of chord patterns covered his floor.

There were times when Malins became frustrated and was not sure if he wanted to record a full album, or just come out with an EP.

“Each song realistically honestly takes about 100 hours of putting full focus in and editing alone took about 24 hours, so it gets frustrating,” Malins said. “After the first two songs it’s hard to want to do another eight songs.”

Since the album has dropped Malins has put full focus on marketing for the album. He put together a list of 150 marketing techniques he learned from Fortune Boy’s trial and error.

Malins is toward the bottom of his list, but some examples of what he has completed are putting his music on every possible database even including libraries and government databases, sending his album to over 180 college radio stations, blogs, podcasts, giving out free merch and simply creating an account on ever social media platform.

Through the success of his marketing techniques, Amour Glamour has over 6,000 followers on Instagram and has reached an audience outside the state.

Ricardo Garcia Jr., liberal arts major at Pima Community College in Tucson, Arizona became a fan of Amour Glamour by stumbling across the band on Instagram. He took a break from his studying and clicked the link to listen to “Dramatic Cinematic” for the first time.

“Track 1 came on and I couldn’t help but smile,” Garcia wrote in a email. “I just sat there and felt that familiar sensation I get when I know I’ve fallen in love with something.”

“Dramatic Cinematic” is a unique album, and it is hard to say what type of music the band is.

“I also could not put my finger on the exact genre of some of it, which I think is good because that just means it’s unique,” Garcia wrote.

Armour Glamour has only been out for a little over two months and the popularity of the album is growing with hundreds of monthly listeners to fans out of state, just from a student living Claremont who recorded this in the setting of his room.

“FYI, this album is in my top 3 for 2018 so far and I play it at least five times every week. It will always hold a special place in me,” Garcia wrote.

Malins is still attending Citrus college, but he said he would drop everything if there was the slightest chance of making a profession in music.

“If I got the tiniest chance I’d drop Citrus in a second for a slim chance of making it,” Malins said. “I rather go for the chance than living the rest of my life regretting not doing it, even if it’s super slim.”

Merch and music for Amour Glamour can be found on bandcamp at https://amourglamour.bandcamp.com/ and on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/amourglamour.band/.