We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Doug DeAngelis a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Doug, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Do you wish you had started sooner?

I started my professional career at age 18 while I was in my first year at Berklee College of Music. I got an internship at a recording studio that quickly turned into a paid position working around the clock on local and signed artists. That job gave me the opportunity to use my skills in electronic music and audio production, which were much stronger gifts for me than performance. It was “home” and the owners pushed me to thrive and be my best. Among the many great artists and records I worked on at SyncroSound, one standout was Pretty Hate Machine by Nine Inch Nails.

That time in Boston led straight into 24/7 studio life in New York City, Detroit and Los Angeles. The experiences and work opportunities were a dream come true. Over time, I earned credit on 31 #1 Singles on the Billboard Dance Charts.

I look back now, I have very mixed emotions about it. In one respect, I was so fortunate to work in the production industry before the home-studio era when big studios were exclusive and exciting and the world’s greatest producers and engineers came together and taught each other their craft.

Club music and alternative production was new and experimental back then. We didn’t have computers with incredible sounding plug ins and presets that deliver the effects you want. We had to experiment and make all of those sounds organically, while the studio clock ticking and the mix needed to be completed in hours.

At the same time, I wish I could have had the years to mature more before those experiences, so I could have learned more from every amazing person I worked with throughout those years. I learned as much as I could, but my capacity to learn was limited by inexperience and limited perspective.

In hindsight, I would also have loved to finish school first before my career started. I think it’s a very difficult decision for anyone who is young and presented with a rare opportunity in their teens. It’s impossible to know if those opportunities would have been there later, or what path life would have taken if they weren’t. But I can say for sure, that later in life it is much harder to go back to get that foundation. So I would just advise young artists to seek and trust the guidance of mentors that have been through it. It’s not a ‘one-size fits all’ debate.

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 career took a major shift from the recording industry to the film and TV industry when I moved from New York to Los Angeles. At the time there was no “sync” business and independent music was not on anyone’s radar. Music in TV was mainly composed for the show, or licensed from major labels and major publishers. I was fortunate to enter the business as a new type of resource that created custom songs for scenes that sounded like major label artists. Together with my production partner Kevin Haskins, and my writing partner Melissa Ritter, we placed dozens of songs in many of the top shows on television. At the same time, we were writing the scores and themes for network and cable series, music directing, and music supervising shows. The goal was to handle all-things music for Hollywood production companies.

Over a 10 year period, independent music gradually became a major resource for film and TV, but I am most proud of those early years where we were among the first to be writing and producing the music that has now become a major part of the mainstream music industry referred to as “sync”, a term that is short for ‘synchronized to picture’.

The combination of playing all different musical roles on different productions lead to a broad understanding of how filmmakers see, hear, and use music. It’s a fascinating art that I am now teaching to recording artists and songwriters in Nashville and online who want to focus on film and television. If you want to learn more about it, you can visit www.SoundtrackProduction.com

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

After 17 years of working in Hollywood, I moved to Nashville. My goal was to shift my focus to developing new methods of monetizing music for artists and writers. I was fortunate enough to meet my current business partner, Randy Younger, and share a business plan I had been working on to apply the principles of monetization in video games to music. He is a brilliant developer and musician, and he immediately grasped the concepts and began bringing the ideas to life. Over several years of work, we launched BlackSleeve Media, and it evolved into a great startup that gamifies tradition entertainment like music, television, and sports. We have now applied the technology and the gamification platform to Live Nation music festivals, artists, and the sport of competitive cheerleading.

Stepping out of music production and into the gaming and mobile app space was a major shift in my life. But the most challenging part of that shift was the pandemic, which hit just as we began deploying the BlackSleeve platform at major music festivals. It was a major setback, but we used the time to evolve the technology and evolve the business model, and ultimately it helped us find better ways to execute the concepts.

Have any books or other resources had a big impact on you?

My favorite growth experience as an entrepreneur was joining a cohort at the Nashville Entrepreneur Center. I highly suggest finding an accelerator program to all creatives. I ran my music to diction business successfully for 25 years, but that was a creative service. It didn’t require any of the critical business or financial practices that you deal with in a start up. In fact, coming from a creative service company is almost the opposite. As a creative, you are expected to walk in to a production meeting and just “have” the answer. You need to be 100% confident in your ideas and execute them quickly. Launching a business is completely different. You need to research the market, ask questions, seek guidance, and explore every possible outcome before you take on investment capital and execute a plan. It was a major learning curve, and one of the most valuable experiences of my life.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.SoundtrackProduction.com
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/doug-deangelis-9980817

Image Credits
None