We recently connected with Terrell Sass and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Terrell, thanks for joining us today. Are you able to earn a full-time living from your creative work? If so, can you walk us through your journey and how you made it happen?

A major factor that allowed me to make a living full-time from my passion was the fact that I diversified what I do within my passion. I don’t just play drums or piano. I also produce music and I’ve been blessed to be on three different Grammy nominated projects. Some as a musician and some as a producer. When I initially moved to Atlanta, my main focus was getting out there as a musician so I was putting in the hours necessary to become well-versed in all genres. Once my networks started to grow and I began to be more exposed to the sessions side of playing music. I began to notice and see that the only thing that the producers would say to me when we worked is “that’s dope“ or “man it’s exactly what I wanted”. That told me that I had the mind of a producer in didn’t just think like a drummer or a pianist in the studio and that led to me focusing on learning the other skills that make you a great producer such as learning sonics, texture, format and other important elements of the craft. One thing that could’ve sped up my path to success was understanding that the music business is 20% music and 80% business. So sometimes your network could do more for you than your music, I spent a lot of years having an amazing catalog but just wasn’t getting in front of the right people at the right time to present it. Once I learned that, I started focusing more on expanding my network and connections on the executive side of the music industry and that has definitely done way more for me than sitting in the studio all day trying to outdo my last composition.

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?

I was born into a military family. My mother and my father were both musically inclined (Mom played the Clarinet and dad played the saxophone). Since my dad was a successful Marine we ended up moving every 2 to 3 years, it ended up helping me in the long run by allowing me to be exposed to many different cultures and geographical areas of the United States. The Memphis area is definitely different from South Carolina which is definitely different from North Carolina which is definitely different from Virginia which is definitely different from Georgia. (Musically AND Culturally). That really benefited me as far as being able to adapt to different situations and people I may come across in that industry. I was always gifted naturally in music and athletics. My first dream was to make it to the NBA, but of course I didn’t grow to be 6 feet so music ended up being it. I went to college for two years at Columbus State but didn’t do as well as I could have because I was skipping class to go to Atlanta to attend jam sessions all the time so I finally decided to move to Atlanta and ended up attending The Atlanta Institute of Music & Media. I was always practicing or networking…… literally. A good friend of mine Bernard Harvey who is actually Justin Bieber his musical Director now called me for a session with a gentleman who ended up being TI’s head producer at the time name Kevin “KHAO” Cates. I learned a lot from him about the industry the ins and outs and that definitely got me jumpstarted on my path. The first three records I worked on with him ended up going to T.I. Ludacris and Pharrell. At that point I knew that I was doing exactly what I should be doing. When clients come to me they normally have a vision for a sound that they want for a particular project or song, my job is to grab the picture out of thin air and turn it into something that they can hear, I like to build my music versus just making it and telling them this is what it is right the song to it. I like to go step-by-step so they were getting exactly what we’re looking for and I’m big on the Processes that go on after the art is created also. Like mixing mastering and marketing. The latter three elements in my opinion are the most important part these days. I believe I am different from a lot of people who do what I do because of my supreme understanding of the live element of music performance and the production, so there are certain things that I don’t do on certain songs with certain artists because I’ve studied what they do live even as simple as what key the song should be in. I would rather do a song in a key that I know the artist could sing in live: that way they don’t have to lower the song and change the way it sounds to the listener.

Is there a mission driving your creative journey?

I definitely have a mission driving my creative journey. My mission statement is actually something I read every morning and have on my wall in giant letters. My mission is to “teach the world not to judge a book by its cover thru the creation, dissemination and performance of musical compositions songs and albums of the absolute highest quality known to mankind”. I came up with that during my journey because of certain events that would happen when I would play certain music during meetings. When I took meetings, it was obvious that everyone would expect me to play trap or snap music (which I love and can make). But I have music that is fit for movies also, that I recorded with the orchestra in Nashville that sounds straight out of a Disney movie, the look that I would get would be funny and puzzling. I would get asked questions like “who really did this for you?”, “Who helped you with this music?” When I would tell them that I made on my own the looks on their faces would say “wow OK .. wasn’t expecting that..” So that made me want to be as diverse as I can as a producer so I could show and prove that I can achieve any sound that any client is looking for!

Are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?

A resource that I wish I had access to earlier in my creative journey is definitely YouTube. Of course YouTube didn’t exist when I was younger, but the resources that these kids have are amazing they could see anything anybody in learn from it all day while they’re just in their basement. We had to wait to either see someone live or just listen to them on CD. That’s why you are seeing so many phenomenal prodigy kids because they are literally being exposed to much more at a younger age that I was. But I’m definitely not jealous or anything but I do wish I had access to that growing up. There’s no telling where I would be as a musician if I could see what the rest of the world was doing by just clicking on a video!!!

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @TerrellSass

Image Credits
Courtly Reed