Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Steve Vito. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Steve, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Can you talk to us about how you learned to do what you do?
Steve, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Can you talk to us about how you learned to do what you do?
Before music production, I had been in and out of rock bands for years as a singer / songwriter / guitarist and when the last one broke up, I was at a crossroads and decided I was going to write songs anyway, so why not try to do something with those songs.
When I started my journey in music production, I had a totally different idea of how it would go. I thought I would just start writing songs for artists to “cut” on their albums and see where that takes me. I really didn’t know a ton about music production, so I started where most people start to learn, YouTube. Now, I will say I learned a LOT online, but it was a mixed bag of information a lot of times. I started to find some things applied to me and others didn’t, and navigating through those, especially as someone who was very “green” in the process, was a challenge. What I have found is that some videos had 1 or 2 nuggets that just clicked with me, and other things didn’t work for me after I tried to apply them. A lot of pursuing anything is hacking your brain and figuring out what strategies and techniques work for the way your thought patterns and habits work.
The other thing I did was “trim the fat” with my free time. I took a long hard look at how I was spending my free time and realized I was using a lot of that to browse social media or watch tv for a few hours, so I decided to use that time for something I wanted to achieve, learn music production.
When I started, coming from a vocal background, I thought I could just sing on everything since I was a singer, but realized pretty quickly that just because I could sing doesn’t mean my voice was a fit for the song. I was writing pop music and trying to sing that with a rock voice and it didn’t translate. So I thought, what if I hire singers, then I could pitch my stuff with a vocal that fits what I’m writing. That also didn’t end up being a good strategy because I realized quickly that it wasn’t cost effective to hire a singer for EVERY SONG with the amount of output I was doing. I was writing about a song a day with full production.
So I started thinking, what if I go to conferences and try to meet people in the industry and also singers I can collaborate with so then we can share the song and both pitch it to our networks. So, I attended my first conference in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, The Millennium Music Conference. I didn’t really have the money to spend several hundred dollars on a ticket to a conference, nor the cost to drive there and lodging, but I told myself that if I keep making excuses, I’ll never achieve the things I want to achieve. So, I added the conference tickets to my cart, entered my credit card information and hovered around the “Purchase” button for a minute really deliberating on if this was a good idea or if I was wasting my time and money. I finally closed my eyes and clicked it because I knew if I didn’t bet on me, no one else would either. I went to the conference very green and as an introvert that has always really wanted to be an extrovert.
I made one connection that got me connected with a writing session in LA. I had never been to LA and was hesitant to say no, so I did the same thing, let’s see where this takes me. Added the flight to my cart and clicked “Purchase”. Next thing I know I’m in LA attending the ASCAP Expo for another conference I didn’t have the money for, meeting more people and having frequent writing sessions. Then I’d get back to my studio at home and start contacting those people I met that I wanted to keep working with.
At this time, I was contacting a LOT of artist managers to build relationships and ask for sessions. I got lots of crickets and tons of no’s. Finally, I got an opportunity to get on the phone with someone. We hit it off and next thing you know I have a touring Sony artist coming to my house to have session with me over the course of 2 days. Little did I know I wasn’t really ready for that sort of jump. The sessions went pretty poorly I admit and I was very discouraged.
Now, I’ll be honest, my productions weren’t at the level they needed to be yet, so I was working hard, but my ideas, creativity and taste were way more ambitious than my skills were developed. So, I decided, it must be my software, my plugins, I must’ve have good enough plugins, that’ll make me better. So, I threw more money I didn’t have at buying better plugins, and the sounds were better, but my skills were still not where they needed to be. The element I didn’t realize I was missing was TIME. I always tell people, based on my experience, there is no substitute for time. You can throw as much money at it as you want and maybe you’ll get slightly better results, but you need to invest the time and enjoy the process and you’ll get there, but put in the time.
Another thing I didn’t do in my journey was fight where it was taking me. Yes, I had set out to write songs for artists to “cut”, but I ended up writing and producing music for film and tv. A couple years into my journey, I met one of my frequent collaborators to this day, Lauren Light. A mutual friend put together a Facebook group called 12 in 12 where he would pair a singer with a producer to write for an expired brief for film and tv, just to help people meet other writers and to work the writing and producing muscle. I took the same approach I did with the conferences, just click “join” without second guessing myself and see what happens. The first month I was paired with Lauren and we wrote a song called “Show You What I’m Made Of” which she later released under her artist project. I don’t even remember what the brief was, but the important thing is Lauren and I hit it off. You meet the right people at the right time. I feel like my skills were getting to a better point at that time and both of our personalities lined up. We became super close friends and frequent collaborators.
From then she geared more towards sync before I did and I started hearing more about this “sync” word through a lot of friends and collaborators. Her and I started writing some more stuff for sync and then finally got the opportunity to do a custom brief for a children’s dental ad. Wouldn’t ya know, our song got picked out of all the ones submitted and I got my first sync placement. I still remember getting the call from Lauren. From there I started writing more frequently for sync and the more I wrote there, the more I placed. T
he more I placed there, the more people I met. The more people I met, the more opportunities I got. I feel like all of this was because I didn’t fight the process and because I just said “yes” to just about all of the opportunities I had gotten, even if I wasn’t ready for them, I just enjoyed the journey and tried to learn as I go.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
Just the trajectory of my journey has taken me to some incredible places. I’ve gotten to write songs for such humongous brands like Xbox, GoPro, Wendy’s, Nike, it’s wild really. I’ve also gotten to make some really amazing friendships along the way with collaborators and industry people alike, building incredible friendships.
Whereas my main focus is music production and songwriting for film and tv, I still actively pursue artist projects and also do work for hire production and writing as well.
I think what really helped set me apart is my focus combined with the songwriting and arrangement background I had honed from being in rock bands. In those bands I was either the main writer or one of the main writers for the arrangements, lyrics and melodies. So I learned a lot about all that stuff from there.
A moment I’m super proud of is when I got the call that my Xbox placement went through. It was super surreal as that was a really pivotal placement in my career.
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.
I feel like people who aren’t creatively inclined might not understand the need to create. I put a lot of effort into making sure I am creating on a schedule and actively working, but it’s all because I have a physical NEED to create. It’s a calling. I went through a period in between a couple bands where I took a full year off from music and it was honestly one of the most depressing years of my life. I believe that a lot of that stemmed from me not filling my brain’s need to create. I’m the type of person that has trouble sitting still and not doing something, which comes with it’s own set of problems and things to navigate of course, but I wouldn’t trade it for anything.
What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?
To stop trying to control what I can’t. I would get very discouraged early off with the “why isn’t anyone getting back to me?” and “why won’t they give me a chance” and “what else do I have to do to prove myself?”. Honestly, it could have been any number of reasons. Maybe the stuff I was sending wasn’t ready and I wasn’t being honest with myself. Maybe they didn’t have an opportunity for the stuff I had sent. Maybe they just didn’t have time to look at music from someone they didn’t know when they have resources they actively use and trust. Nowadays I think of it more in a “control what I can control” mindset. I can’t control what song someone picks for an opportunity, but what I CAN control is making sure I have great quality songs over a wide range of styles and topics so I have a better chance of having the right song at the right time. Things like that.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.stevevito.com
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/stevevitomusic
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/stevevitomusic