Citrus College’s student band Night Shift could become the house band for the music streaming platform Spotify.
Audio engineer graduate from Citrus and audio engineer for Spotify Chris Heck said in an email the music service is developing a platform similar to YouTube, where one may search an artist or a song, and watch a video of that artist performing live.
“The project is a live performance video,” Heck said in an email. “The idea is for the band to perform not only in the studio, but in other interesting locations as well.”
Performing Arts instructor Alan Waddington said Citrus has the opportunity to become the house band for this new video platform Spotify is developing.
“Some artist doesn’t have a band and they’re going to film and record them performing and we are like the house band and it’s a live version of it,” Waddington said. “Which means we have some artistic freedom to change things up a bit, as long as the artists likes it. I like that because they can say, ‘Hey, I love it’ or ‘I hate it’ and we can run with it.”
Heck immediately thought of Citrus when the idea spread at Spotify.
“We were doing a project for Lele Pons, and they had an acoustic guitarist with her and I realized that we should be putting something together bigger,” Heck said. “And I went to school here and I remember all the assets we have here, and there is just so much that can be utilized here under one roof.”
Because Heck went through the recording program, he was aware of the resources Citrus had to offer.
Heck met with Dean of Performing Arts John Vaughn, music professor Gino Munoz, director of the Haugh Tiina Mittler and Waddington to figure out logistics.
“I approached Citrus staff about it,” Heck said. “They were on board; musicians were all on board. They all liked the opportunity to get involved, so we put it together.”
Both Citrus staff and Heck recorded and shot video for a three song set in the recording arts studio.
Citrus made rough demos to show what student bands were capable of performing.
Then, Heck and a film team came to campus to record and film demonstrations for Spotify on Oct. 17 .
Heck said the team will showcase their work to Spotify executives.
“We’ll show it to them and then the next step is bringing in an A-list musician to record with the band,” Heck said.
A list of 20 songs was sent to Waddington and Munoz. They decided on three genres to demonstrate for Spotify: hip-hop, modern-pop and a Spanish pop song.
Waddington said having students with varied demographic backgrounds was attractive, as was their song selection for the demo video.
“The students that are singing the leads are kind of like stunt doubles,” Waddington said. “… But it showed that we could do stuff in Spanish and that we have that demographic reasonably portrayed here.”
The selection of songs also provided the bands with the ability to change the setting in which they performed for recording in.
“We had a group do something in a smaller intimate setting, and then I wanted to showcase what we have so we did a big group so that they could see that we could go small and big so that’s what we sent them,” Waddington said.
Heck also used the recording arts students to record for the shoot. Heck said Citrus “put him on” so he reciprocated the help to students and the college.
“There’s students ready to play and they want to play,” Heck said. “They want the opportunity to work with a major artist, to get experience in the studio, and we brought in some of the recording program students as well. Because we want to get them in the chair and get them experience working in a professional recording environment.”
Waddington said the Spotify deal is an achievement he has always wanted for Citrus.
“Oh, it would be huge,” Waddington said. “This is like right up my dream of what I want to do before I leave here.”
Heck said it is an opportunity for student musicians and recording arts students to get professional experience alongside superstar clientele.
Waddington said he had this idea throughout the semester, and Heck reached out to Citrus at the right time..
He said working with a company like Spotify, could advance Citrus students further than many of their peers.
“When I was going to school here, it’s difficult to understand what the pressures are of being really in the studio with a professional client until you do it,” Heck said. “The more experience you can get there that makes a huge difference when you go on your first job interview.
Heck said professional experience can be limited in a classroom.
“That is what’s difficult to teach kids,” Heck said.
Waddington said the agreement with Spotify could take anywhere from weeks to months.
“If this works, it’s going to just open that door really wide,” Waddington said. “I was going to propose to do special concerts at Coachella where maybe there is an artist that will do a concert for just a single event and we could back this artist. I would have footage to show that we can do this and it would make it easier.”
Heck said the performances shot at Citrus College on Oct. 17 are going through edits and color corrections that could take up to two weeks. Afterward the presentation will be shown to Spotify executives and other video platform providers.
