We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Alex Bajos. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Alex below.

Hi Alex, thanks for joining us today. How did you learn to do what you do? Knowing what you know now, what could you have done to speed up your learning process? What skills do you think were most essential? What obstacles stood in the way of learning more?

Hi, it’s been a long process, going to different schools and private teachers, learning through experience on the job and being friends with good musicians always helps. The main thing I would have done differently to speed up the process is changing my practice routine, knowing that 15 min everyday help way more than a 3 hour practice session once a week, to develop muscle memory you have to play your instrument every day, at least 15 min. The most essential skill needed I would say is discipline, you can be very talented but without discipline you are not gonna get very far, second skill would be a good ear, spend time training your ear because no matter what you do in music, you are only gonna get as far as your ear can take you. If you can’t hear you are doing it wrong, you are never gonna fix it. I’m always learning new stuff but the biggest obstacle is time, you can’t be studying all day, you also have to work, play with other musicians, get involved in different projects, etc. part of being good is putting yourself out there.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

My name is Alex Bajos, I’m a musician/producer born in Acapulco, Mexico. I got into music when I was 8 years old because one of my mom’s friends was a piano teacher and my mom decided to take to lessons with her, I ended liking playing piano but remember getting mad because all she was teaching me was reading and if I didn’t have a book in front of me I couldn’t play anything. After a few months I quit the piano lessons but ended up trying to play guitar and also joined the marching band at school but it wasn’t until I was 12 years old that I managed to convince my mom to buy me a bass and finally found the instrument that I really wanted to play. I got lessons and formed a band with some friends. We used to play at school events and parties but at 17 years old we managed to become the house band for the hard rock cafe. That was my first experience as a working musician.

After graduating from high school I moved to Los Angeles to attend the bass program at Musicians Institute. I met a lot of people and started doing gigs as a session musician but also joined a band as a guitar player which later on helped me a lot because it made me have to learn to play guitar at a professional level. In 2011 I decided it was time to step it up and went back to Mexico to take lessons at “Master Pro” which is a boutique school in Mexico City based on the Dick Grove School of Music. I went there for a three month course but ended up staying there for a year and a half. I did harmony, Improvisation, composing and arranging, sight-reading and orchestration. Later I ended up taking some piano lessons too cause I knew it would help my production skills.

I went back to LA with all that knowledge and wanting to transition form a session musician to a producer. I knew I needed to learn to record so I got a job as an assistant at a studio in Santa Monica and learned all about recording and engineering. When I left that job, I started producing local artist at my place and also started my own band, writing all the songs with the singer which gave me the opportunity to work on my writing skills and later producing and arranging the album. Once we started playing live, we rented a rehearsal space that we turned into a recording room and I took all my gear from home so we could record ourselves. The band broke up but the studio remained so I went full on and turned it into a recording studio called “Stereo-Type Recordings”.

After a few years, using that same album, I was lucky enough to be one of the 15 people selected to go to a seminar in France with Emile Haynie, producer for Lana del Rey, Kid Cudi, Florence and the machine, Bruno Mars and more. The seminar was organized by Mix With The Masters and we had the chance to sit in the studio with Emile while he worked on a song from scratch and later had a guest artist come and work the song with him. He also opened up sessions he worked on for us like “summer time sadness” and “locked out of heaven”. We were able to ask him anything and also opened some of our sessions for him to give us advice. It was truly a life changing experience. I also met a lot of great people who are amazing producers.

Today I run the recording studio, produce, mix, write and I’m back being a session musician because I really missed playing live. With the studio, I tried to create a space to experiment and feel comfortable during long hours of work. I also wanted to get rid of the “studio vibe” and make it feel more like you are at a friends living room but there are a lot of instruments around you, including drums and an acoustic piano, to play with. Most of the construction I did with a friend and we decided to go all the way into actually cutting the wall to open a window cause I feel working with day light makes a huge difference, you get to the studio and immediately feel like getting to work.

My goal as a producer is to help the song transmit the core feeling that you get when you do the demo or write the song. Sometimes you lose that feeling when you start working on producing the song so I really like to experiment and not limit myself. A simple way to think of it is once we hit the right vibe, I keep fixing it until there is nothing more to fix, also I don’t really Impose myself on the song, I let the song tell me what it needs. I like to create a unique sound for each artist I work with, using all the skills I acquired during all these years as a professional musician, including sound design, arranging parts with all the members in the band or if I’m working with a solo artist and I’m playing a lot of the instruments, I like to create personas for each imaginary band member, like “the guitar player is more on the clean side with a lot of delays and little details that are more of a background part than a lead”. I take that same philosophy into mixing, more on the creative side than the clean side, I like to try things until it feels good.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

The more rewarding aspect is being able to constantly make different styles of music and help others complete their ideas and reach their goals, be it in the studio or playing live. Is always fun to have to adapt myself to whatever the situation requires, forcing me to get out of my comfort zone and keep Improving.

I just went on tour with a band called “Wonderfox” and we had to make the show work as a power trio. The drummer and I had to change the parts to fill out all the space and the response we got from the audience was incredible, we were opening for Cafe Tacvba which is one of the biggest band in Mexico so it was a great experience, the singer even decided to make a new version of one of her songs with just bass, drums and vocals, grabbing the guitar just for the solo and last verse and people loved but it was a challenge being the only instrument playing harmony, I ended up playing chords during the chorus which I haven’t done before on a rock band.

What can society do to ensure an environment that’s helpful to artists and creatives?

I think doing little changes to help artists goes a long way. Things like buying mech when you go to shows or buying music from the artists pages instead of other online stores. And maybe even considering what streaming platform are you using, Tidal pays more that Spotify and have’s a program that pays more to your top five artists of the month so you are directly helping your favorite artists.

Also look for new music constantly, don’t just listen to the big bands and artist that you’ve known for ages. There is a lot of great music being released every day and those up and coming artist need your help to get their careers going. Try to go to small show too and if you like an artist or band, share it on social media and tag the band, new artists really appreciate that cause it helps them a lot to get followers.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.alexbajos.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/alexbajos
• Youtube: www.youtube.com/@Stereotyperecordings
• Other: www.instagram.com/stereotyperecordings

Image Credits
The Memory Pear Juan Salvador AmP Gustavo Escalona Mix With The Masters