We were lucky to catch up with Xu Zhu recently and have shared our conversation below.
Alright, Xu thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Can you share a story about the kindest thing someone has done for you and why it mattered so much or was so meaningful to you?
As a sound engineer, I’ve been worked with a lot of music producers, singers, songwriters, record labels. I feel super appreciative and challengeable to work with them because they are really successful and talented people on their area. As an engineer, part of my job is handling everyone in the studio for that session and making them feel happy about their song eventually. So I have to use my knowledge about recording, mixing, editing to make their sound sounds awesome and everyone loves it, as well I have to find the best way to communicate with everyone for example, singers, producers, A&R to make sure we are all on the same page with this creative process. The kindest thing so far I would say is that pretty much everyone feel super happy and positive when they finish the session and want to work with me again. And I’ve been done lots of great music with lots of labels or artists, such as Roc Nation, Sony Music, Universal Music Group, Rihanna, JoJo, Ceraadi, Tydus. etc.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
Xu Zhu, as known as BooBoo. Recording and Mixing engineer at Blackwood Studios in Hollywood. I am originally from China and started study abroad in USA since I was 20 years old at Ohio University. My original major was Social Work. The first reason why I changed my major to Music Production is I didn’t really like Social Work and had really hard time to understand all I learned about American society , social wealth, etc. The another reason and the most important reason of why I changed my major was I always saw music major student passed by my classroom with carrying on different instruments. Also I like music since I was kid. I thought they are what I supposed to be look like. Also I really like Lionel Richie after I watched a video of how he working front of the console with many artists in recording studio. So I decided to learn Music Production and dreamed to become a music producer and engineer like him. The major transferring process and the whole studying process were really smooth when I was in collage. I even graduated earlier with good GPA. But since I moved to LA, where the best city for music industry in the world, after graduated, everything becomes tough. After I submitted tons of resume online with no response, I started to search and visit many music studios in person with printed resume. Some of studios opened door for me and received my resume but most of them didn’t even open the door for me. Until 4 months later, I got an interview opportunity from Blackwood Studios, where I am currently working at, I started my music career until now.
At the beginning after I started working at studio, all my job is cleaning, and helping client get stuff as a runner. I didn’t even walk into any recording room and touch any gears in my first 2 month at studio. This was definitely not what I expected when I was in collage and I wasn’t sure how long it gonna take for me to really getting into the music area. I was trying everything I can to attract my boss and client’s attention. So I just stay at studio all the time even though I finish my working shift, I still stay at studio and watching how other engineers working and try to find a good timing to ask questions. Except sleeping, I pretty much spent all my time at studio and either watching how other people work, or working on my own music stuff and ask for opinions from other people at studio. A year and half later, I started getting some sessions with clients.
The most struggle part of work is communication. Since I am not native English speaker, it’s really hard for me to communicate with my clients, especially I didn’t understand those slangs. Besides how good and fast I can run a session on music technique wise, I also have to learn how to communicate with my client. At the beginning I just guess from the way how they talk and even from their body language to catch the meaning what they talk about even though I don’t get the meaning from their speech. Bit by bit I can deal with pretty much everything client’s request and I can even make joke with people around me. I can run my session way smoother and start to become the one who can gather everyone in my session.
In your view, what can society to do to best support artists, creatives and a thriving creative ecosystem?
What we are trying to do is making more good music based on our flavor or taste, even thought sometimes the music we released doesn’t really fix what most audiences’ taste but as long as it’s what we actually want to express. So for audience, I would love to let them to pick up whatever they like. Of course we would target the market as well so try to make that balance about “what we want to do” and “what we should do”. I’ll like the who society give us more freedom to be creative. Show their likeness or show their comments in a positive way or just pass if they don’t like. Doesn’t have to relate music, art, or any creatives to some other area or social topic too much, like politics, business, or religion.
Looking back, are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?
I wish I can watch more successful engineer or producers working in the actual session when I first got into this music world at school.
Image Credits
Ceraadi, Dave Pensado