We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Bobby Titolo & David Williams a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Bobby & David, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. It’s always helpful to hear about times when someone’s had to take a risk – how did they think through the decision, why did they take the risk, and what ended up happening. We’d love to hear about a risk you’ve taken.
August 2020- we’d been stuck inside since March, but Bobby and I (David) had decided to jam a few times at his house. Bobby had a great range of recording gear, so we decided to record some of the things we’d played. We even threw around the idea of starting a new band project with a singer we knew. I personally was involved in three bands at the time, so I wasn’t super “stoked” on the idea of starting a new group from scratch. I remember just looking around at all the great recording gear Bobby had; Bobby was sitting at his mixing desk, and I was just like, “Hey, why don’t we start our own studio project? I know artists and players who are dying to play music again, so how about we invite some people over for a live-in-studio kind of session?” Bobby agreed that could be a fun idea, and for our first session, Hannah Zale of The Pussywillows came down and sang a really badass cover of Blondie’s “Call Me”. Bobby did the arranging, guitar playing and producing while I played drums… That became our template for almost everything we’ve done since. Bobby and I worked from home, we would always mask up when we did sessions and take proper COVID safety measures, but we could all tell everyone who came in to work with us were all just excited to make music again. From working with friends and colleagues, 3, 4 more sessions go by, everyone is doing a cover or original tune with us, things start to snowball. We were making videos of each performance- that was a huge advantage for us, because by the time we started getting clients hitting us up to record for them, almost all of them would want to budget for a live music video, since that was the thing people were finding us by. Alot of clients that recorded singles, or even full albums almost always asked to do a live video recording as well. Bobby and I noticed that alot of the session players we asked to join us on bass, keys, guitar or brass instruments, were usually the same people. So, one of the coolest things to happen in reaction to starting a studio and production team, is that Bobby and I still ended up finding our dream jazz-funk band. Bobby wrote and plays guitar, I hold down the drums, Dustin Williams on bass guitar, Noah Sills on saxophone, and Ian Klin plays keyboards. We all then collaborate and kind of take Bobby’s initial idea(s) and make the arrangements from there. It’s a really special, natural way of making music, and we are so grateful to have these musicians, not only in our band, but also as the chief musicians at our studio. One day we could be writing a funk tune as a band, then the next week we are often accompanying an rock, pop or country artist on their own original music. It’s a creative team that always puts the music, and artist’s desires first, which, to Bobby and I, is paramount in this industry. We started making music in the middle of a pandemic, and to witness what it’s turned into now is something so incredibly amazing.
Bobby & David, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
(David) My dad was the biggest influence on my life, especially when it came to music. He played so many instruments, really well- classical and electric guitar, bass, mandolin, etc. At age 12, I started playing along to Beatles records on the drums, and never looked back. I graduated from Atlanta Institute of Music and Media in 2018, and that was around the time I first connected with Bobby. Fast-forward to 2020, I’d moved to Marietta, and found that we lived really close to eachother. We started to hang out alot more, and kept in touch when the pandemic turned everything upside down. I really believe that’s a huge part of why our partnership has been really successful so far- we were already great pals and had worked musically before, so when we started doing this as a creative team, it always felt fun, and natural to collaborate. I honestly couldn’t imagine doing this with anyone else!
(Bobby): I got into the guitar mainly because of my uncle Mario, he was a huge inspiration for me. I self taught myself engineering and just learned over time by researching and doing other projects on how to really get the best quality of sound, even in less-than ideal circumstances. I’ve written and produced my band Groove Moose’ 3 studio albums, here at the studio, and in 2018, a friend recommended David to play drums on the third album. That’s how we originally got connected. My band Groove Moose has played at Aisle 5, Smith’s Old Bar, and a few other iconic Atlanta venues, so I’ve always enjoyed putting on a great show, that’s fun and energetic, and I try to make recording sessions as fun as possible too. Even when technical issues manifest, or musically when you hit a wall, I’m always trying to stay upbeat and make the whole experience for everyone as fun as it can be.
(Both) South Shadow Studios, for us, is our launchpad, for anything musically we want to tackle. We truly enjoy the creative process, from demo to finished song. Being able to help an artist’s musical vision come to fruition is always an incredible experience. Atlanta is overflowing with amazing artistic talent, and we are most proud to have worked with alot of artists from different genres already- country, indie rock, hip-hop/soul, just to name a few.
In your view, what can society to do to best support artists, creatives and a thriving creative ecosystem?
(SS/Both): Local articles like this really help! Real, in person word of mouth too. We produced an album for a client in January 2021, and many of our session musicians have filled in on drums for him a few live gigs after the album. Other artists and musicians would then hear about us from doing these gigs in person, and that feeds back into the studio work. In today’s age of hyper social media advertising, likes and comments- we’ve noticed a real benefit from having clients or other musicians sharing their own experiences with us to other artists in more personal situations. And even in 2022, we think that still carries a legitimacy to someone hearing about us for the first time from someone in person.
We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?
(Both)/Southshadow: One of the biggest things that helped us get off the ground was people sharing and commenting on all of our videos. Our first one got over 10,000 hits in less than a day, so that was an awesome surprise. Of course the music itself was great- but anyone who does work on social media knows that the best thing (after good quality content) that can happen to your video is people reacting and sharing it with others. As we continued to upload more live videos, our “style” of video became more known, people gave feedback, which then gave us ideas to improve the videos even more with better camera angles, effects and other things to better compliment the bands/music. So, really, if you’re a viewer at home, please know that YOU hold alot of the power. If you, the audience, or friend share our content with other friends of yours, being pro acticve about what you like musically, that goes a LONG way for a Studio collective like us.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.southshadowstudios.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/south_shadow_studios/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/southshadowstudios
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_IShS35xkeoyAibrQgmVhg
- Other: Here’s a direct link to all of our videos, as that’s the best way to really catch our vibe! https://www.facebook.com/southshadowstudios/videos/?ref=page_internal
Image Credits
Bobby Titolo, Kelly Harris