We recently connected with Matt Mcdavid and have shared our conversation below.

Matt , appreciate you joining us today. Do you take vacations? Why or why not?

I love this question as I am doing this interview on vacation in Thailand. I think vacations are so important. As a creative entrepreneur, I find that my creative energy gets supercharged when traveling. There is something about the adventure, the unknown territories, and the people you meet that spark new ideas and give your brain the space it needs to create. You start to realize that all of the mundane yet necessary tasks of day-to-day business operations have a major impact on your creative energy. I wish I could say I take more vacations than I do. This current vacation has been a long time coming as I recently closed my recording studio. Over the last 4 years since I opened my studio, it has been very difficult to vacation. I am sure many can relate to the constant need to keep the machine running. And when you work for yourself there is no vacation pay. I know we can get stuck in the mindset that we can’t take time off or everything will crumble, but if you can give yourself a week out of every quarter to go somewhere new, it will pay dividends in your creative power and I think that is worth its weight in gold.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

Becoming a professional music producer/recording engineer has been such a rewarding and challenging experience. I started playing in bands as a lead guitar player starting at age 15. I’ve always had an incredible amount of drive to succeed in the music industry and for the first 15 years of my career, I strived to be a professional guitar player. I played in many bands and recorded several albums during that time and fell in love with the studio. I can remember from a young age, being in the studio and feeling such a rush of creativity and ideas. It used to drive my bandmates crazy because we were always on a tight budget and studio time wasn’t cheap, but I wanted to try it all. I distinctly remember the day that I wanted to become a producer. I was making a record with my band Roman Alexander and the Robbery. We had booked a 3-day block at the record plant in L.A. and they double booked so we ended up at Steve Vai’s studio thanks to our producer pulling some strings. It was a beautiful studio in the Hollywood hills and it just had a vibe. We were struggling with creative decisions and how we wanted the record to sound and I had so many ideas that were being shut down. To this day I listen to that record and cringe at certain sections, knowing that it could have been better. It was at this moment when I thought to myself, I just need to be the producer and that will grant me the authority to use this gift that is my creativity to its fullest potential.

Eventually, I moved to Nashville Tenessee to continue my pursuit of rock stardom and when I arrived I was shocked at the level of musicianship that I was surrounded by. I felt like I couldn’t compete and that was what pushed me to go to recording school and learn the craft. Something incredible happened during this time. I have always dealt with ADHD and as a child, I had a very hard time in school because of it. I always suffered terrible grades and just wasn’t interested in most of the topics. During my time at recording school, I discovered that my ADHD was a superpower, as I was so interested in what I was learning that my focus was laser sharp and I walked out of there as the Valedictorian of my graduating class. This laser-sharp focus has continued to serve me in my career as the art of recording is so fascinating to me that my brain can’t seem to get enough. In this profession, 10-12 hour days are the norm, and while I don’t agree that it is healthy to spend that much time in a chair on a screen, it is because of my hyper-focus that I can work these long hours and not even feel phased by it. To me, it goes by so quickly as I am fully engaged with what I am creating.

Mainly I work with singer-songwriters and bands. Singer-songwriters come to me with a song or sometimes just an idea and I turn it into a fully arranged production. Oftentimes when I hear the artist play the song for the first time I am already starting to hear the arrangement in my head and the vibe of the production. Usually, we track some scratch vocals over a guitar or piano part and then we just start painting with other instruments and melodies. I think the catalog of music in my head is so eclectic that it creates a broad pallet for us to choose from. Once we get into our flow state the song starts to manifest it is incredible how quickly the song comes together. I would say 99% of the time we are all high on our creative juices by the end of the day. I learned early on to only take on artists that I resonate with musically because that other 1% were the songs I just wasn’t feeling. The feeling is everything in this business. Creating an environment where vulnerability is held in a good way is key to capturing a great performance because artistry at its core is vulnerability. The way we express ourselves needs to feel free of any judgment or criticism. I think what makes me good at my job is my ability to hold space for the artist’s vulnerability while simultaneously crafting and engineering the song. I feel like laughter is the best medicine so I try and keep the jokes flowing throughout the session, this keeps the vibe light and fun. I work with artists of all experience levels so over the years this has taught me a great deal about editing. I pride myself in what many of my artists refer to as wizardry, lol. Meaning, that I can pretty much fix anything. This can help keep the good vibe in the studio as it takes a lot of pressure off the artist to get a perfect performance.

I recently closed my studio called Sanctuary Sound located in Sebastopol CA. It was unfortunate but the owners of the land wanted to sell so I had no choice but to close up shop. Luckily there are many incredible studios in the area that I am working out of now. I love making records, and I also love to teach. Something that I am going to start focusing on more now that I won’t be running my own studio is coaching aspiring engineers. I started coaching online during COVID-19 and it was a lot of fun and very successful. Once the world opened up I got so busy with recording sessions that I put it on the backburner. I am always open to students of any skill level.

I think what sets me apart from other producers is my taste. I think this is what sets apart all producers. When any artist is looking for a producer I think what it comes down to is, do you share the same taste in music? If we both love the same artists then our creative decisions will flow out of us with ease as we understand each other’s taste. This compatibility is so important, it’s almost like we are making love, and in many ways we are.

Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can provide some insight – you never know who might benefit from the enlightenment.

Being a creative entrepreneur for me has been challenging mainly because of the constant juggling of the right and left brain. I live mostly in my right brain, the creative side. I thrive in this place. To many people, creation is a struggle but to me, it comes very naturally. I’ve always been a dreamer and a storyteller and when I learned music it was all I wanted to do and I learned quickly how to do it well. Left brain tasks, such as just about everything it takes to run a successful business do not come easy to me. I’ve had to struggle and learn a lot along the way about how to manage finances, market myself, and keep up with the constant stream of correspondence that this business requires. As I mentioned my ADHD is a superpower in music creation, but can also make these tasks incredibly hard.

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

The most rewarding aspect of my profession is the satisfaction of completing a project. In some cases making a record can take years, and sometimes only months, but the feeling of completing a piece of art that you are proud of drives me. Not to mention I am sharing this feeling with the artist and what comes naturally from this experience is a beautiful friendship. The relationships that have formed through my studio and the intimate act of creating art synergistically have created so much joy in my life. Some of my closest friends started as clients and there are so many more records/friendships to be made.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.mattmcdavidaudio.com/
• Instagram: @matty_mc_d
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthew-mcdavid-35654494
• Other: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6w5XNOIN6IcsBS8rf6hMnW